“Rather than seize the throne through underhanded means? Yes, I think I would.”
For an instant, he thought she understood too much. “I am marrying it; there’s nothing underhanded in that. It is the greatest moment our people have ever reached. My mother thought she could influence the court as the queen’s companion, a tutor to princes. Instead, they put her to flames.” A jolt of anger shot through their contact. With it came the terrible vision, a woman the very image of Brigit bound to a stake while fire sprang up all around her. She grew magical wings, only to be struck full of arrows. Elisha turned the image away and stepped back from her, breaking the touch.
“You see, Elisha! You know what they’ll do to us!” Her hand became a fist, trembling in the air between them. “Join us, Elisha, join your people. If you are with us, we cannot lose.”
“You speak as if there’s a war at hand—I’m no warrior.”
“You need only stand at our side and show your strength. Who will dare defy us, with your power at our command?”
Yet Morag wielded so much more. Elisha shivered. “I will not kill for you.”
“For all of us! You talk as if there’s only yourself at risk here. I thought you worked for others, to help anyone who has need of you. We need you. Every witch that walks the earth, every witch unborn. You have an awful power, Elisha. So does every man who wields a blade. Will you run from it? Will you cower behind it? Or will you claim it and make it your own?” Her hand snatched strength from the air. “Will you wield it to defend your people?”
Her words rang inside of him, speaking to everything he thought that he believed. And yet, there was one thing he could not believe: Brigit herself. It wasn’t Thomas who sought to kill his father and claim the throne. Yet somebody had. Somebody hired a physician as poisoner, somebody gave away the king’s secrets, maneuvering the king into place for an assassination that Elisha himself unwittingly carried out. Did Brigit know? Or did she really believe that Thomas was the traitor?
Elisha spread his senses, carefully, lightly. Deliberately, he made contact, touching her face, smoothing back her hair, softening the words that he must speak, and searching for the truth. “Even if he regrets trying to kill me, Brigit, I can serve no king I cannot trust.”
“Alaric will be swayed by me, given time.” Then her face hardened. “It’s not Alaric,” she snapped, “It’s me. You despise me, and so you turn your back upon our people. You would burn every witch in the kingdom if it meant they’d kill me, too!” Tears shimmered at her eyes and fell upon his thumb. Her lips trembled. “How many times must I apologize? How many times must I crawl to you, Elisha, before you relent?” Her tears touched him with anguish, her skin quivered with righteous pain, her muscles tensed, just a little, with the truth she tried to hide, deflecting his attention from Alaric back to her. He could not tell if she loved Alaric, but she knew her prince, knew what he was capable of and what he’d done. And Elisha could feel his horses drawing nearer. If Alaric caught him here, with her, there’d be one execution, that was certain. A swift death, a gravedigger, a mancer’s blade. Elisha’s skin shivered.
“I can never be what you want.”
“Every witch who dies now dies for you.”
He walked away, trying not to hurry, her words stinging him, burning in the place where her mother’s wing had touched him long ago.
“Brigit!” called a voice that echoed in the night, and Elisha heard her gasp. She had been so focused on him that she hadn’t looked for any other. Elisha seized the moment, certain she would turn toward that familiar voice, and ran, sprinting for the nearest broken house and ducking behind the leaning door, his heart racing. Insensitive Brigit had missed her own betrothed’s approach, surely she would overlook Elisha’s presence? He wished he could let his awareness spread to feel as well as hear what they would say—but she would know if he did, and he dared not draw back her eye. He hid behind the door, trembling with each shallow breath. As he mastered himself, he practiced the skill of deflection, drawing upon the law of opposites: his presence implied the chance of his absence. He seized now upon this idea, suggesting that he had gone, erasing any trace of himself that might be felt by another.
Through the narrow gap, he saw Brigit turn about, scanning around her, searching for him, her face furrowed with shadows. She whirled back as hoof beats echoed into the square. “Alaric!” she squeaked as the prince dropped down from his mount, a few guards stamping their horses to a halt behind, lanterns casting bands of light that swung as they moved, making Elisha vaguely ill.
“I told you not to leave the abbey, Brigit,” Alaric said, catching her arms, “not when the barber might get his accursed talisman.”
“He wouldn’t kill me, my prince.”
“What happened to Ian and Patric?”
Elisha could hear her smile. “They’re good men, your highness. They obey my orders, even if those orders are to remain behind. I can’t get anything done while I am tended so diligently. But you did not come here to argue with me.” Her shoulders softened, her body melting toward Alaric, as once she had melted toward Elisha. “Come, let us reconcile.”
“My love,” Alaric said, stroking back her hair, “you are not meant to accomplish anything. I am king—as good as, in any event. All you need do is show our people what an excellent queen you will be.” He kept stroking in spite of the way her posture drew up, her shoulders squaring again beneath his touch. “And take care with our baby.” His hand moved down her side, a gesture at once intimate and commanding. If Alaric thought Brigit would respond to any of this, he was a fool.
“Go on,” Alaric called out. “Establish a perimeter.”
“Aye, Highness!” Mortimer gestured sharply at the soldiers, directing them with his hands until each moved off in a different direction, one passing the corner of the house where Elisha was hiding.
“Do you know where the barber is or how he was taken? Was that your doing?”
Brigit gazed up at him. “I was as surprised as you—but his escape gives you a chance to reconsider. You cannot think you will be strong enough alone to take and keep this throne. Even Dunbury only supports you because he can’t be sure about Thomas. If Thomas gets to him—or to the other barons—”
“Thomas won’t be a problem much longer. I have other allies, allies your friends wouldn’t like. I had hoped your barber might provide a balance against them.” Alaric gave a shrug. “As it is, I must hope they don’t know that.”
“My friends already dislike most of your allies,” she pointed out. “But you and I agreed we need to build a strong core, of both magi and desolati, especially when we strike down the laws against sorcery and make this kingdom free.”
Alaric shook his head, bright hair lashing the rich velvet of his cloak. “Your ambition is one of the things I love about you, darling, but you still think too small.” He cradled her face in his hands, his eyes tracing her features, then lifting. “If my plans succeed, you could be queen of much more than this little island. You’re impatient for action, for your mother’s sake if nothing else, and I understand that. I knew her, too, remember?”
“What do you want of me, then?” She jerked away from him, her skirts swirling with a hint of power. “You want me to ride a carriage to London and sit there with my stitching? Why? When you won’t even tell me what you’re planning? I thought we were together in everything, and now I find you stalking about in the forest, speaking of allies you will not name—” This time, Brigit interrupted herself, her breath caught, her profile sharp with sudden interest. “Allies,” she breathed, turning back to him. “Let me stay, Your Majesty. Your allies might well wish to meet your queen.”
For a moment, Alaric’s soft, boyish features turned hard, his eyes with a glint of white. “No. Brigit, that I cannot do.” He wet his lips, spreading his hands. “Negotiations are complicated, and these are dangerous people. I had much rather you were a hundred miles away. I would not risk you, or the baby.” He came to her, his ha
nd spreading over her stomach, over Elisha’s child growing inside.
Elisha forced his fingers to relax, taking a deep and quiet breath.
She pressed her hands over his, entwining their fingers as she brought his hand up to her lips. “I have things to offer, my love. Things they might desire.”
His throat shivered, and Elisha did not need his extra senses to know the lust that must be firing through the prince’s loins. His jaw clenched as he watched, not daring to look away, but Alaric met her eyes over their clasped hands. “And they would not hesitate to hurt you to get what they want. Trust me, darling, and we shall have so much more.”
“Together,” she murmured, almost too low for Elisha’s ears, then she leaned forward, finding his lips with hers. Elisha did glance away now, suddenly fascinated by the dark recesses of the house around him, but he could not miss the man’s groan of desire. Or Brigit’s next words, “Let me stay. You will not regret it.”
With an ostentatious rattle of sword and armor that brought Elisha back to attention, Mortimer returned, another figure trailing after. “Highness. You asked to see Farus when he returned.” He gave a little bow before retreating to the perimeter, and the man he’d brought slipped back his hood. Parsley, the iron-mage, the assassin even his master did not understand. Was Alaric here to meet with the indivisi? Had they committed to his aid?
“Your Highness.” The iron-magus, too, bowed, but stiffly—as he did everything. He glanced at Brigit with dull eyes, then back to the prince. “I trust you found the place without trouble.”
“Thank you, Farus. I have a new task for you.”
Parsley remained bowed, his lips down-turned. “I thought you might allow me to join the … hunting party, Majesty.”
“Not now,” said the prince firmly. Alaric stepped away from Brigit, bringing her forward on his hand with the grace of a dancing master. “Our future queen requires an escort back to London. Will you accompany her?”
“You cannot make me go,” Brigit hissed, but Alaric offered a sad smile.
“My love, I’m afraid we can.” He leaned as if to kiss her, but she turned her face from him.
“I have ways—”
“Please,” said Alaric, and the magus stepped forward to wrap his hand around Brigit’s wrist.
“The great barrows you asked about are just a little farther, Majesty, past a field of smaller mounds.” Parsley gave a short bow, then nodded to Brigit. “Right this way, my lady. Let’s get you back to London, shall we?”
She jerked against him, but his arm was rigid no matter how she tugged or twisted. “What are you?” Then she did not speak again, but locked her eyes to his, and Elisha guessed they were speaking through the contact. Fighting.
“Sergeant? Take four of the men. The others shall stay here. Keep her safe.” Then to Brigit he said, “We’ll speak again when I return.” Alaric planted a kiss on her cheek though she writhed to escape him. But his body gave a sharp jerk, and he pulled away from her as if he’d been struck.
“Speak,” she snarled, “but when you touch me again, I’ll grant you no mercy.”
Alaric looked hurt as the iron-magus climbed onto a horse, hauling Brigit up before him, still locked in his grip. “One day, Brigit, you’ll understand.”
“One day, you’ll be sorry!” she flung over her shoulder as Farus galloped away with the soldiers.
Chapter 21
In the wake of their departure, Mortimer strolled back to Alaric’s side where he spent a long moment smoothing out his gloves, speaking as to no one. “The lady seems a bit … fiery.”
Alaric scowled. “Leave my betrothed to me, Mortimer. She’s safe, for now, and I have other business to attend to.”
Elisha turned and sank down, his back against the wall, his heart thundering. Alaric was here to meet his allies. He still didn’t know his brother was anywhere close by, and his arrival had prevented Brigit from locating the talisman, then removed her from the area, so Elisha had that to be grateful for, at least. But where was Thomas?
Elisha searched his memory for any clues about how Thomas thought and what he might do. It seemed a very long day. Had it been only that morning Elisha first felt Brigit’s approach? He sat up straighter as it dawned on him that her blood might serve his uses as well.
Now that the other magi were gone, so far as he knew, he risked expanding his awareness, reclaiming his attunement to this place. Thanks to his earlier efforts, it came easily, marking every house, the church, the soldiers, the prince, as vividly as day. Now, he sought Brigit. The fact that she had marked the talisman and tracked it this far showed it could be done. Elisha accepted this knowledge and stretched out. In other circumstances, he could search for the talisman itself, but if he activated it again, those earlier, eager minds, the ones who reached back when he used it against the bandits, could find them both.
The chill of death still hovered nearby—it had not gone with the retreating soldiers of the queen’s unwanted retinue. He found the brightness of her presence moving quickly into the distance with the mounted men, hot with a fury he could feel even from here. What he knew of Brigit layered over this sense of her presence, a high spirit, a seductive touch, a hint of laughter, a depth of desire, a suggestion of her movement and her beauty. But the sign he searched for would be more subtle, older. Not far away to his left-hand side, he caught the slightest echo that reminded him of her, like the glimmer of light from a distant stream. By focusing his awareness in that direction, he honed the echo, it was dull, slight, but clear—a little patch upon the cold blackness of the talisman. His stomach tightened, and there, at last, he could sense the warmth of the man who still carried it. Thank God.
After such a brief acquaintance, he could not fully characterize Thomas from this distant sense of him, as he could Brigit, but it was him as surely as if Elisha beheld his lean form and vivid eyes and felt the weariness that overlaid the strength of his heart. Outside, the guards regrouped around their prince and moved back toward the trail they had come from. Elisha kept his awareness spread about him like tingling whiskers as he rose to a crouch and hurried across the darkened square to the woods on the other side. Chanterelle’s patient sharing had shown him the precision that his attunement could achieve, and he used that knowledge now. By the time his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he already knew where the trees parted and where the rocks rose up. Cold shadows flicked among these shapes, shades he could not quite make out that rose at his approach and shrank back again as he passed by. These mysteries must wait. To the right, Alaric and his men nearly paralleled his own course. Damn.
Elisha ran faster as the fringe of woods fell back leaving him knee-deep in heather, then he stopped short in the deeper black by the hulk of a ruined house. The shadows rose higher here, and he could nearly see them with his open eyes: shades of the dead, as if the earth remembered them. Chanterelle’s guidance had shown him how to look—and now he did not know how to filter what he found. He turned slowly, skin tingling. Thomas was nearby, his presence obscured by the leaping shades. The chill of Death hung heavily all around him. The rising moon showed brush-covered mounds before him. The village at the edge of the woods had given way to another of the ancient burial places that dotted the heather of the New Forest. Each mound echoed with the dull presence of the dead, but they rang as well with sharper notes, a taste of fear like blood upon the tongue, as if Death scattered the ground with scraps of dread.
Elisha’s legs felt rooted, his body heavy with the pull of these sensations. An owl clacked its beak nearby, then a crow startled from the trees and flew off, cawing. The crow-woman watched him still, waiting for him to lead her to the carrion her companions craved.
“Thomas,” he called, as loudly as he dared. Nearby, overhead it seemed, something stirred.
Elisha turned in the shadow of the broken house, then a man leapt down before him, sword drawn in a heartbeat, and its tip struck Elisha’s breast. Thomas held a duelist’s stance, the barest pressure needed to th
rust home his blade. “Why did my brother take you aside, Barber? Why clear a church to meet with you?”
Elisha held out his hands, once more at the mercy of his king, but the long day and the weight of all that he had seen and done settled upon his shoulders. He could not see Thomas’s face, only the hard determination of his form that shivered the sword’s point against Elisha’s heart. He stared down the long blade, recalling the tenuous trust that they had found, and he felt like weeping. “He’s afraid I’m working for the French. There was a man who came to see me back at Dunbury, a Frenchman. The man was killed in an attempt on my life, and the French are angry.”
“Why should I believe you? A barber, a witch, my father’s killer. You took communion second only to him.”
The depth of Thomas’s anger and his despair simmered along the sword, Elisha’s awareness making contact at the length of a blade, the span that separated him from his own death. His next words could end that separation, but they must be said. “Your Highness, he’s coming. Here. Now.”
Thomas’s eyes flared, his body tensed. “Judas,” Thomas hissed.
“No!” Elisha winced at the sound of his own voice. “No. I came to find you, to warn you. He doesn’t know you’re here.”
“How does he know where to come, if you’re not leading him to me?”
“The heathen burial grounds are used by witches—one of them works for your brother’s man, Mortimer. He guided your brother this far—please, Your Highness.” Framed by his wild hair and beard, etched by burdens too great for one man, Thomas looked more like a bandit than those Elisha had killed, but it was the pain in his eyes that showed the truth. Elisha’s heart pounded beneath his blade.
“Lady Rosalynn was scared for you,” Thomas said. “It took all I had to keep her away from the church, and by the time I went back, you’d both gone. She swore he meant to kill you, and now I find you alive. Is she part of your plan?” In a moment, with a snarl of frustration, he had answered his own question. “She must be—she sent me to the village. She said you would find me there if you could, but when I got there I wasn’t alone.”
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