Witch's Reign

by Shannon Mayer

  The satyr settled into a tight trot beside me as I strode away, following Balder’s hoof prints. Scrub brush grew here and there, and smaller stunted trees, but I couldn’t see my horse anywhere. No doubt he was pissed that I’d smacked him.

  I grimaced. He wasn’t like a normal horse—but to be fair, most animals on this side of the wall were not normal. They’d been around the supernatural creatures here for generations, locked in with us, and with that, had learned some tricks of their own, making them smarter than their domesticated cousins, and better survivors all the way around. At least, that’s what my father had always said. I sighed. I would be paying for this for weeks if I didn’t treat Balder right, if I didn’t apologize. Oats, carrots, a nice warm mash at the very least would be the start of my apologizing.

  “You can slow down. They won’t climb up here,” the satyr said. I glanced at him.

  “Thanks . . .”

  “Name is Marcel.” He smiled and I felt the flush in my belly spread upward. Satyrs had sex magic and that could make it very hard to keep your clothes on. I gritted my teeth and closed myself to his magic.

  “Knock that shit off,” I growled as the shiver ran through me right to my middle and then lower, curling across parts of me that hadn’t been touched in a long time.

  “Oh, come on. From that story, if even half of it is true, you could use a good flouncing.” He got in front of me and jogged backward, showing off, contracting his pecs and even going so far as to flex his arms.

  Flouncing . . . that was a new one to me. “Yeah, no flouncing for me. That shit gets old fast.”

  “Not if it’s done right. In fact, I bet if you had a really good flouncing, you’d enjoy it for weeks on end. At least.” He winked at me. “I didn’t catch your name, pretty lady.”

  “Zam.” I looked past him, seeing Balder under a couple of trees, his head low and his back leg cocked, favoring it.

  “Well, Zam, you escaped the queen of the giants, which in and of itself is impressive. But I have to ask, did you know they would stop and listen to your story?” Marcel did a little half-step, a hop and kick as if a bug had landed on him. I raised an eyebrow.

  “No. I’d forgotten that part of the information pack I read until the last minute.”

  “Information pack?” He let out a noise that I suppose was a laugh, but to be honest, it sounded like a goat being strangled. Which made my lips twitch upward.

  “Dude, you cannot laugh like that.” I shook my head.

  “Can’t help it.” He did that same braying, strangling goat scream and I had to stop walking.

  “Sweet baby goddess, stop it!” I took a half-hearted swing at him. “Every predator within a ten-mile radius will hear that and think you’re being tortured and then come looking for what’s left of you!”

  He slowed his horrifying laugh to a low-end chuckle that was at least not so friggin’ loud. I shook my head. “Go on, get out of here.”

  “You don’t want my help?” His face fell as if we were best friends and I’d just told him I hated his goaty little guts.

  I tried to push past him but he moved with me. “What are you going to help me with exactly? I already turned down the flouncing.”

  “I could help your horse over there, stitch him up, make him good as new.”

  I sighed and tried again to go around him to get to Balder, but Marcel kept himself between us. I flicked an ascending eyebrow and held up the kukri blade I’d not yet put away. “Seriously, get the fuck out of my way.”

  He held up both hands as if surrendering. “I also saw your buddy, the big blond dude on the black horse. I can tell you what direction he went.” Marcel waggled his eyebrows and fingers at me at the same time. “And for all that, just a quick flouncing. Twenty minutes, tops.”

  I stared hard at him, his words slowly sinking in. “You saw Steve? When?”

  “Oh, right about as your horse crested the hill. He took one look at you coming over the top and the queen’s hand coming for you, and took off fast as he could go. Not real brave, is he?”

  Any gratefulness for keeping Steve alive, saving his ass—again—fled in a flurry of anger so hot, I thought my clothes would burst into flames. Not that I had that kind of magic, but in that moment, I could almost feel it under my skin, like a phoenix rising with a fury as scorching as any blaze.

  Marcel’s eyes widened. “You okay?”

  I put a hand out to him, palm against his chest, and shoved him out of my way. I didn’t think I could handle speaking right then for fear of what would come flooding out of my mouth. As it was, my mind raced, dancing forward with just what Steve was up to.

  He’d take the jewel back to Ish, show her that he’d gotten it all on his own, hoping I was killed by the giants. Thinking I was dead, he could take all the glory. Again.

  “Satyr-flouncing face-sprayer, I’m going to kick his ass all the way to the desert and back.”

  Marcel laughed behind me. “I’m going to steal that one. If you don’t mind.”

  I reached Balder and he gave me a dirty look, his ears pinned to his head. I held up both hands. “I’m sorry, my friend. But you had to get up that hill or end up inside a giant’s belly.”

  He snorted and one ear flicked forward. I reached out and touched his uninjured hip and he leaned into my hand. I had to let my anger with Steve go while I worked on Balder. The horse was far too sensitive to my emotions to give him that anger when he didn’t deserve it. I stroked a hand over his side and pulled my medic bag from the back of the saddle. In a matter of minutes, I stitched the wound closed, making tight, neat wraps of the thread so the sutures would hold and heal while he walked.

  “Half a flouncing to make him whole? Ten minutes. I can’t go less than ten minutes if we’re both going to enjoy it,” Marcel said behind me, so close that if I so much as took a big breath, I’d have pushed my back into his front and I could only imagine what was there. He blew a soft breath against my ear and I swatted backward at him like I would a fly.

  “Nope.” I pulled out a jar of red sparkling paste and Marcel grunted. “That’s right, I have my own magic.”

  “That’s not really yours,” he pointed out. “There is no way you made that hacka paste.”

  I shrugged. “Does it matter? It’ll work, and Balder here and I will be leaving in a matter of minutes.”

  “Where did you get it?” Marcel came around to my side to peer at me while I smeared the healing paste onto Balder’s stitched-up wound.

  “A friend.” I capped the jar and tucked it into the bag. I wasn’t about to tell him that Ish made it for me. Ish didn’t like other supernaturals knowing she was capable of certain things. Like healing paste.

  “You aren’t going to light it on fire?” Marcel leaned on Balder and the horse stepped away so Marcel stumbled. I wiped my hands on my cloak.

  “Nope. It’ll work, just slower without the flame.” I walked up to Balder’s head and took his reins.

  “Wait, just like that you’re leaving?” Marcel called after me. “Seriously, you’re like the first flounceable woman I’ve seen in ages—”

  “You’d flounce a piece of rotten twenty-day-old cheese if given the chance,” I shot back.

  “Ahh, you wound me. I would never flounce cheese without consent.” He laughed. “Come on, just ten minutes. Pretty please?”

  With my back to him, I let the smile slide over my lips. Satyrs were, if nothing else, funny as hell. As long as there was no flouncing involved, they could be good, light company. Totally untrustworthy, but fun.

  Balder bumped me with his nose and gave a low snort.

  “Yeah, he’s a fool. But he’s not a bad guy. Just a guy like all the other ones out there.”

  Maybe I was bitter. Shit, scratch that, I knew I was. But I was trying not to let it rule my life. Hard when the one person you thought you could trust with everything turned out to be the person you should have trusted the least.

  My family hadn’t helped in that department, and
even my best friend . . . I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going there. Not today.

  From behind us came that awful goat-strangling laughter. “I heard that! And I take offense. I’m worth twice any of the other men you know! I’ve got the manhood to prove it. Twice as big!”

  I turned as I walked, a laugh trickling through me, the lightness of the moment a balm to the anger, stealing me away from the dark place my head was going before it got too bad. “Good luck flouncing whatever woman comes through next. Or consenting cheese, as the case may be.” I gave him a floppy salute and he returned the gesture.

  “I’ll see you again, Zam! I know it! Just you wait. We will have a great time together!” he shouted after me.

  I had a feeling he was right and I’d meet him again, which was strange. I hadn’t gotten that sensation in years. Not since I met Ish, I suppose, and she’d taken us from the Oasis, broken, injured, and without anyone to look after what was left of our family.

  I walked beside Balder, heading northwest toward home. I tried not to think about what Ish would say when Steve got there alone. Would she care that I was dead? He’d spin his story in such a way that would make him look a hero who tried to save me, and then be overjoyed to see me survive, as though he couldn’t believe that I’d made it out alive without him.

  I couldn’t help the anger that built with each step that took me closer to home.

  And what would it do to my brother? He was there waiting to see if I survived too . . . Would he care? Something like heartbreak, an emotion I didn’t want again, twisted through me and tried to set my eyes to flooding.

  “No, no crying behind the wall,” I whispered to myself. I refused to think that perhaps my brother would be relieved if I was dead, that he would no longer have to bear the shame of a sister who’d strayed so far from the way we were raised. I had to fight not to hunch my shoulders under the weight of those thoughts. Under the guilt of what I should have been but wasn’t.

  The only person who’d be happy to see me was Darcy, but that was a given. She’d been my best friend since we’d been rescued from the Oasis. My mind tried to take me back to the moment I realized she was not quite the friend I’d thought.

  “You’ll be glad to see Darcy and Pig, won’t you?” I ran a hand over Balder and he snorted. Pig was his horse girlfriend and he adored the scruffy little bay mare Darcy rode.

  I spoke to Balder to fill the space between us. “Darcy will have gotten the jewel from the Ice Witch, and then we’ll only have two left to get. Ish will be okay because she’ll have more of her magic back and maybe she can help Bryce then.” I frowned, thinking about how long it had been since we’d started this journey. I’d made Ish swear she wouldn’t tell my brother why I was so willing to be a thief. That every jewel I brought her gave us both hope she’d be able to help Bryce.

  “Bryce really hates me, I think,” I said softly. “He believes Father was right about everything, and he wasn’t. I know he wasn’t. The world is not as black and white as either of them believe.” Believed, I should have said, in the past tense for Father. I blew out a breath.

  Balder snorted and I sighed. “I know. I know. We’ve had this conversation a thousand times at least. But maybe this time, I’ll find a way to tell him Dad was wrong. That there is no black and white, that being a thief doesn’t make me a heretic or a stain on our family.”

  Balder flapped his lips, and I slipped him a mint I had in the front pocket of my cloak.

  Around us, the world had gone quiet. Most likely, it was our presence, and not anything else more sinister, but still I kept my ears perked. Surviving was something I was very good at, and I wasn’t about to let my guard down now.

  I checked Balder’s wound. Already it looked days old, maybe even a week. The hacka paste was good shit, as my brother would say.

  “How you feeling, my friend?” I tugged on Balder’s tail once and he swished it.

  I turned, the sensation of being watched heavy on me, but there was no one behind us. Just in case, though . . . I held up both hands and flipped up my middle finger. “Whoever you are, I don’t have time for whatever shit you want to throw at me.”

  Balder bobbed his head a couple times in agreement, then dropped to one knee on his front leg, inviting me to mount. I didn’t argue. If he was ready, I wasn’t going to question him. I leapt straight up and landed in the saddle as lightly as any cat, then picked up the reins and Balder stepped into a ground-covering trot. There was only the slightest hesitation in his stride, a mere whisper that he’d been injured.

  “We might not be able to beat Steve home, but we can show up right on his ass,” I murmured.

  I touched the ring hanging from the chain around my neck. The bump of it under my shirt was a comfort. Without it, my life would be a mess of epic proportions. With it, I could make my own choices without a curse dragging me down. With it, I had a chance at catching up to Steve—like a burr he didn’t notice stuck to him until it dug into his skin and drew blood. I grinned to myself.

  Home was the northernmost tip of the Caspian Sea in a town once known as Atyrau. Not that there were many people left in the town, humans or supes. Balder picked his way around the bubbling pits of waste that smelled of sulfur, cinnamon, and death. Weird combination, but I’d learned not to question why they smelled that way, just to avoid them. They burned, though not like the toxic waste that had been in the giants’ home. That shit would eat you whole, an acid that cut through bone and tissue like it was nothing. No, this waste was hot, cooked from somewhere under the ground and then pushed to the surface—it would burn, but you could wash it off and survive.

  Balder and I had ridden through the night, not pushing hard but keeping up the steady pace because I knew Steve. He’d push his poor horse so hard, he’d be forced to walk the last ten miles before home. At the least, if not more. At the two-mile mark, we found his horse limping his way home, head hung low.

  “Batman . . .” I called to him and he lifted his dark head, his eyes fogged with pain and fatigue. I slowed Balder, slid from his back. Batman took a few stumbling steps toward me and I struggled once more to contain the anger.

  Save it for the bastard. Save it for Steve. Narcissistic camel’s-dung-covered asshole that he is.

  The need to help Batman allowed me to put the growing anger aside and focus on the horse in front of me. I grabbed my medic pack and pulled out my oat balls I’d made for the trip. Camel fat rolled up with oats and honey, then stuffed inside a leather pouch for storage. The horses didn’t take to them right away, but when they were at the end of the journey, they gulped them down like they were manna from heaven.

  “Eat up, boys.” I held one out to Batman and he took it with soft lips. Balder pushed on me from the other side. I gave him one ball, but saved the last two for Batman. He was not as fit for these runs as Balder; Steve didn’t put the time into him he needed. I put it on my mental to-do list that I would condition Batman with me and Balder from here on out. The horse didn’t deserve to suffer because of Steve’s asshole-ness.

  “You know that’s a stupid name he gave you. That’s what you get when you start hanging out with humans. Batman, who names a horse Batman? Ridiculous,” I muttered as I stroked the dark horse on the neck, then slid my hands over his body checking for wounds. His legs were swollen and a bit warm, but that would be expected with the headlong gallop through rough territory. I’d have to watch him for a fallout from this bullshit.

  I held up my water bottle and tipped it so Batman could drink. Once he was as fueled up as I could get him, I loosened his cinch so he could breathe deeper, and took his bridle off. He would follow us home; I wasn’t concerned about that. Balder leaned over and nipped at Batman’s cheek.

  The dark horse flinched, which wasn’t like him, and showed just how exhausted he was that he didn’t try to bite the gray back. Batman was a bit on the bossy side, so Balder taking the lead was unusual. I shook my head, mounted back up, and me and the two horses walked the last two m
iles home.

  The stables came into view first and we went straight there. What had been a stockade was now a dual-purpose sprawling living area with a stable we’d added on. I got the two boys settled into their stalls with water and food. I’d have to walk them later so they wouldn’t stiffen up, but for now, they deserved to just rest and eat. I checked the other stall for Pig, Darcy’s mare.

  While there were a few horses, none were the scruffy little mare. Which meant Darcy wasn’t back yet. My belly rolled with a sharp tang of fear. Darcy and her crew had headed out weeks before Steve and me. They were supposed to have been back by now. We’d planned it that way so we could celebrate with two jewels at once. Ish had planned it that way, really.

  “Where are you, Darcy?” I whispered. Balder pushed his nose against me, shoving me out of his stall. “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” I stripped off my cloak and hung it over the stall door, which left me in nothing but dark pants, tall black riding boots, and a plain white tank top. And my weapons—I was never without those. The twin kukri blades were strapped to my upper thighs, and the flail I kept in my right hand with the two spiked balls dangling just above the ground. If I was going to carry it as an actual weapon, I’d have to look at getting a strap for it. Maybe across my back.

  At the moment, though, I had only one thought outside of my concern for Darcy.

  “You are about to get your ass handed to you, Steve,” I muttered under my breath as I strode out of the stable toward the main hall. Darcy would love this. I only wished she was back already so she could see me finally put Steve in his place—I wasn’t the only one he’d hurt. That made me grin. Perhaps it would be more than a little fun to finally give him his comeuppance. And it would take my mind off Darcy not being there. She’d be back soon. I was sure of it. That’s what I told myself while my instincts screamed that something was wrong, off.

  My home was huge, far bigger than it needed to be for the small number of us that served Ish, but she liked us all to have room to ourselves. Especially considering how poorly we got along.