by Hazel Hunter
“Of course, assuming we’re not still together and don’t make the trip in the same boat. Liona, it may be a myth. It may be a skilled con artist selling me a goose and telling me its a phoenix. It changes very little.”
He thought for a moment, and then he smiled, so sunny that Liona was momentarily shocked by how handsome he really was.
“What?” she asked when she finally recovered herself.
“A hundred years with you, and then a hundred and another hundred after that. I just like the sound of it.”
• • • • •
Hailey’s eyes widened, as she pushed back from Liona.
“You didn’t know?” Hailey sat up. “You didn’t know that if you slept with another Wiccan that it would make you immortal?”
Liona’s laugh was dry.
“Who was there to tell me? Augusta was younger than I was. My mother never spoke of it at all. I had seen a few others with magic, but then it was just me. There was much that I didn’t know, so much that could have hurt me. I relied on my luck, as most of us did at that time.”
Luck? When it came to magic? If it had been left to luck, Hailey could imagine where she’d be––especially with the particular power she possessed.
“The covens prevent that now,” Hailey said slowly. “Without them, I would have gone on as just another girl, without understanding that I had any power at all.”
Liona nodded and drew her back down to the bed. As Hailey settled on her back, their heads shared the pillow, and Liona draped her arm across Hailey’s waist.
“You’re a little like me,” Liona whispered in her ear. Her warm, moist breath made Hailey sigh. “You have a knack for getting into trouble, but you also have a knack for getting out of it as well. It is a fortunate thing.”
“I hope so,” Hailey mumbled.
“The role of the covens has always been to protect people. Your Piers has made the Castle into a place of learning as well as peace. If I have a legacy, I hope it is this. There is power in being able to protect people and to guide them.”
Liona lay quietly for a moment. Hailey wondered if she had gone to sleep, but then she started speaking again.
“The idea of a life that never ended. It terrified me at that point, but it wasn’t like my fear for Augusta, or my fear of our ship being boarded by pirates. I couldn’t imagine what the next few weeks were going to hold. How could I imagine what the next few centuries would bring? I put it out of my mind. A long life, well, it’s mostly a good thing. You haven’t made the choice yourself, yet.”
Hailey shook her head.
“It is not a decision to make lightly, but I will tell you this. The longer you live, for the most part, the longer you want to live. That’s how it was with me. Of course that was far from my mind when our journey finally came to an end. We hadn’t chosen Gaul by accident. Lucius hoped to find some of his friends there, ones who had retired from service but never wearied of the frontier. They had gone native, so to speak, and they certainly bore Rome no love. We hoped to find them, but when the captain put to shore, our luck ran out. They had moved on, and we were left in that port town with nothing.”
Hailey, who had been a foster child even before she became someone that most covens wouldn’t touch, shivered. It was all too real to her, the idea of being shunted far away from home with no one to care if she lived or died. Her hands clung to Liona’s arm, but she was careful not to hold too tight. As if sensing her need, Liona hugged her close, the curves of their bodies matching.
“Finally,” Liona said quietly, “in desperation, I heard word of the Altanii, a tribe that lived north of the wall. They were untamed by Rome, uncivilized, but they were friendly enough in these times. Once there had been war, but now there was a kind of peace. It was a peace very much like the one that had allowed my father to bring my mother to Rome. They were her people, my kinsmen. We were out of options, so we went to find them.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE COLD WAS unlike anything that Liona had ever known. Rome cooled in the winter, but there was never this soul-killing cold. She wrapped herself in the thick wool cloak, and Lucius showed her how to stuff her boots with duck feathers to keep in the warmth. The tiny, hide tent that they used was frigid at night, but when they rose in the morning, they could feel how much colder it was outside.
Lucius had awakened from his gray depression, but there was something dark and driven about him now. They spoke infrequently, and at night, they clung to each other. Sometimes they made love, and sometimes they were silent.
To Liona, Rome was like a distant memory, something far away and dreamlike. She had never felt further from Augusta. Sometimes, she imagined a silvery gray and tenuous cord between the two of them. Some days, it felt strong enough that she could follow it to her sister, but other days, it felt like it was so frail that it must break.
They were exhausted, running out of food, and high in the northern parts of Gaul when the eagle appeared. Liona spotted it first. It lofted high above them, its wingspan enormous.
“Is it a seabird?” she asked uncertainly. “I’ve not seen its like before.”
Lucius squinted up at it.
“No, it’s a raptor of some sort. I’ve never seen one so large.”
It circled above them, and Liona got the uncomfortable idea it was watching them. She tried to take it as a good omen. Night was falling. They had a fire built up, small, secretive and smokeless. Lucius sighed.
“I should hunt,” he said reluctantly.
He didn’t like leaving her for the hours it took him to track prey in his wolf form. But it was the fastest and most efficient way to make sure that they both stayed fed. She had reassured him countless times that she would be fine.
Despite her weariness and the cold, she never got tired of watching his form change to that of a wolf’s. It was less like a transformation than a revelation. It was as if a part of him was always the wolf. When he changed shapes, it was simply an easier thing to see.
He nuzzled her hand, dog-like, with his cold nose, making her laugh. Then he leaped over the fire, bounding into the forest. If he was lucky, in a short time, he would have a brace of fat rabbits for the fire. Though some nights he came back with nothing at all.
Liona tended the fire, watching the stars come out slowly. To her curiosity, the eagle was still circling above. She knew that raptors hunted by sight. Soon it would be flying blind. Just as she was wondering if it was ill or maddened somehow, it fell to earth like a stone. At the very last minute, however, it flared its wings, opening them wide to display their real width. Liona stumbled back. The bird was enormous, but it still landed on the opposite side of the fire with an unnatural delicacy and grace.
Now that it was grounded, a shiver of apprehension ran up Liona’s spine. Standing on its enormous talons, the eagle’s head was even with her ribs. The curved beak clacked at her, making her imagine it rending through tender flesh. She held her ground, keeping the fire between them. There were no stones close to hand that she could throw. There were no weapons beyond Lucius’s spear and sword, things she did not know how to use.
Liona licked her dry lips.
“So what shall we do now, Master Eagle?” she murmured.
To her surprise, the eagle threw back its head, making a coughing sound that was a great deal like a human laugh. As she watched, the eagle mantled its wings, seeming to grow bigger. No, it wasn’t just that the eagle seemed larger. It grew taller and broader, twisting out of the eagle shape. At the end of the transformation, there was a man standing where the eagle had landed.
He was easily of a size with Lucius, broad shouldered, and if anything, even more muscular. Instead of Roman cotton and leather armor, however, he wore a plain wool tunic and leggings, most of which was covered by what looked like an entire bear pelt. She could see the shine of a golden torque around his neck. When he smiled, she could see the glint of white teeth through his close-cropped golden beard.
“You have been loo
king for the Altanii,” he said, his voice husky and amused. “Now you have found us.”
Liona nodded slowly.
“You’re a sorcerer,” she said softly. “Like my mother was. It runs in the blood, then.”
“It can,” he said, as easily as if they spoke every day of their lives. “May I come around the fire? May I come closer to my kinswoman?”
“Swear on your gods that you will do me and mine no harm, and I will allow it.”
Liona spoke with a dignity and confidence she did not really feel. It was all too obvious that this man was in his own home, in woods that he knew as well as he knew his own face. If she had dignity and confidence, it was because he had not chosen to take them away from her.
“By Brigandu, loved of war, and Cernunnos who hunts, I do so swear.”
He waited for her nod. Then he came around the fire for her, his frame dwarfing hers. He smelled of something wild, smoke and burning herbs. His hand, when it came to touch her face, was surprisingly gentle.
“You have the look of a Roman,” he said. “Did she claim descent from the Altanii?”
“My mother was Gaelic, and it was my sister who inherited her looks, not me. She…”
On an impulse that she could never later explain, she took his hand, making them both still. She hadn’t been looking for the future this time. This time, she had only been leaving herself as open as she could be, searching for kinship, searching for a scrap of anything that might help her.
“You were a boy,” she said slowly. “Just a young boy on the dock. Times were good, and you had a little sword from Rome to call your own.”
“When I was young, there was a lull between our warring with Rome. We have pockets of peace now and then.”
“You went down to the dock to see a woman off, one who was going to marry Rome.” Liona’s eyes were distant as the past unfolded in front of her like a ribbon. “There has been so much talk, because she is a woman of power, and yet she chooses to leave. Your father, the chief of the Altanii, does not wish it, but she is his foster sister, raised with him and loved as if she were blood. He can’t deny her, but he…he will be angry with her for the rest of his life for what she has decided to do. He will not see her off, but you will.” She smiled. “You wore a blue tunic and your sword. When your foster aunt turned, she smiled, and you’ve never forgotten it.” Liona’s eyes cleared, and she grinned at him. “That was my mother. I have never seen her so young or so happy before. Even if you turn me away now, thank you for that.”
The man in fur stared at her for a long moment, nodding slowly.
“Anawyn was a gifted woman in many ways. She commanded the waters, and it was said she could sing the fish to the nets sometimes. You are her daughter then, with the ability to read the past.”
“No, not usually,” Liona admitted. “I usually see the strands of fate. I look forward, not back. This was the first time that happened.”
The man’s grin grew sly. “Perhaps that is my doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“A sorceress’s powers may be enhanced by contact with the right sorcerer.”
“You think that I did that because you touched my face?” Liona scoffed. “That sounds unlikely.”
“We could experiment, if you like,” he offered generously. “We could find out for sure.”
Liona took a step back, laughing at him. Perhaps she should have felt nervous being propositioned by a strange man, but something in her gut told her that there was no harm in him, nothing that would threaten her.
“I’m sorry, I am spoken for.” There was a maddened growl from close by. “And there he is.”
Lucius in his wolf form bounded out of the forest, dropping a dead rabbit from his enormous jaws as he did so. He would have sprung straight for the man’s throat, but Liona caught him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Lucius, Lucius, no, this man does not mean us harm…”
The dark wolf’s eyes still glowed with a battle light. Though he stood still, he was still vibrating with tension.
“He is Altanii, one of my mother’s people,” she said urgently. “He can help us.” When that still didn’t make Lucius calm, she tried again. “He is a man of power. He is the eagle that has been watching over us.”
She could feel Lucius’s hesitation. Then with a barely audible sigh, he changed back into his man form, rising to offer the stranger his hand. The man grasped it in the Roman style, though his slight grin told them that he found their customs strange.
“Well then, kinswoman, I hope you will allow me to offer you a welcome suitable for the daughter of my father’s foster sister. You and your bondsman are welcome in our lands and at my own hearth.”
“I will feel your welcome more strongly if we know each other’s names,” Liona said pointedly.
The man’s smile was frankly sensual. By her side, she could feel Lucius tense again.
Liona shook her head sternly.
“Will you treat us like guests, or will you persist in treating me like a girl you can buy with a bouquet of flowers and a satisfied smile?” she demanded.
Her sternness made the man raise his hands in surrender.
“Forgive, kinswoman,” he said in repentance. “I am carried away by your presence and your beauty. I am Gaius, the first sorcerer of the Altanii, the speaker with the dead, and the brother of the Chieftain Artos. You are welcome among the Altanii, and you will walk without fear among us so long as I draw breath.”
Liona nodded at him with the cool aloofness that she had seen the Roman matrons display.
“I am Liona of Rome, daughter of Anawyn of the Altanii and her husband Octavian of the Forty-eighth Legion. This is–”
“Lucius. Liona’s husband and guardian.”
Liona blinked. Lucius held a military title. It was strange to hear him introduce himself as if his only worth was relevant to her.
If Gaius saw any confusion in it, he did not show it. He bowed to them, one hand fisted and the other wrapped over it in the Gallic style.
“It is not such a very long walk to the stronghold of the Altanii. Follow me, and we shall have you both warm and fed.”
He helped them pack their gear and put out the fire. When they were ready, he led them into the forest.
• • • • •
Hailey blinked, turning to Liona, their faces so close that their noses nearly touched.
“You read his past,” she said slowly. “I thought that you were only a fortuneteller.”
“Only a fortuneteller. Why not spare my ego a little, hmm?” Hailey blushed and started to apologize, but Liona laughed. “Only a fortuneteller indeed! It was an odd moment for me, and even years after, I can remember how strange it was. All I knew was that I had a need to prove myself to Gaius. I sought, and I found. It was as simple as that.”
“I always thought that witches and warlocks only had one power, one thing that they could do.”
“If that were true, you couldn’t do everything that you do, could you?”
It was as if someone had poured cold water over Hailey’s head. Her power had always made her the odd one. It allowed her to pull power from others, but when she did, she was not limited to what their power allowed them to do. She could do what she liked.
“Do you mean this is something that all witches and warlocks can do?”
Liona looked thoughtful.
“Perhaps. If you live as long as I have, you will find that you are reluctant to make sweeping statements about anyone. My own powers have grown every year. If you make the choice to embrace the years as I have, perhaps yours will as well.”
“That means…” Hailey swallowed hard. If her already potent magic could also grow year by year…
Liona nodded. “It would make you one of the most powerful witches history has ever seen.”
She said it as casually as she might comment on the pattern of the weather or on the flight of a bird. It was too much for Hailey. She couldn’t take it in. Ho
w could anyone comprehend being as Liona suggested she might be? Liona watched her, waiting, all traces of her soft laugh gone. But Hailey didn’t know what to think, let alone say.
“I would like to hear more about your time among the Altanii,” she murmured
CHAPTER NINE
THE ALTANII LIVED in an enormous earthwork, a fortress made of packed clay so strong that it had resisted Roman rule for generations. Gaius was greeted with a kind of fearful and loving respect that put Liona in mind of the high priests of Rome. When they were brought before the chieftain, she was startled to see the other man embrace Gaius like a brother.
“I have returned a kinswoman to our midst, brother,” Gaius said. “She who stands before us is the daughter of Anawyn, sister in all but blood to my father.”
The man who sat on the high seat in the main hall turned to greet them both with a broad smile on his face. He was large, though not so large as Gaius. A terrible scar crossed his face, but the impression that Liona received was of an enormous and friendly bear.
“Welcome, little kinswoman, and your man as well. You are home, and after our welcome feast, I will hear the reason for your journey.”
Liona was startled to realize that she was being addressed instead of Lucius, but he seemed unsurprised.
“The women of the northern clans enjoy more privileges than their sisters in Rome,” he told her softly. “They own property, they have equal standing in the government. Some of them even fight.”
That type of freedom was bewitching to Liona, and she watched in fascination as the feast halls filled up. There were an equal number of men and women at the high table. They were women like her mother and her sister. Her heart gave another pang for Augusta.
She should be here as well, she thought sadly.
The food was far different than what could be acquired in Rome, but it was still delicious. There was boar, chicken and something she thought might have been seal at the table. The enormous haunches of meat were roasted and dripping with fat. The only vegetables were pallid things, onions and leeks predominant among them. She was uncertain about the flavors, but Lucius tucked in with a will. She remembered that he had spent most of his life in the north.
