by Terah Edun
Ember looked at Mae and Mae looked at Ember.
“They tried to kill us,” Mae said horrified.
“Let’s go,” Ember said with a grim look that promised she would get even.
“Go? Go where?” Mae said as she scrambled up and followed behind.
Yanking on the double-door of the balcony they stood on, Ember got it open and they walked from the outside balcony into a long-shuttered room. There were blankets and sheep’s wool stacked high end-to-end.
“The carding room?” Mae guessed.
“Yeah,” Ember said. “We need to hurry. They’ll quickly realize where we are and it won’t take much time for them to change floors.”
Mae nodded.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Then she heard a noise.
“Whoever’s out there,” Ember called out nervously. “I’ve got a good explanation.”
“What?” whispered Mae.
“Just in case it’s just a normal family member,” Ember hissed out of the side of her mouth.
Then Mae saw a form slip from behind a huge stack of cleaned wool into the darker shadows of the room. She knew that family wouldn’t sneak about unless they were part of that secretive cult she and Ember had just discovered.
Mae, for one, didn’t want to die. Alone and scared in a forgotten room.
“We didn’t see anything we promise!” Mae shouted out in a desperate panic.
Ember elbowed her in the gut hastily.
“Shut up,” Ember hissed.
Who died and made her queen? Mae thought in a sulk.
Then the form darted forward. But not towards them, the person was heading to the door.
It might have been adrenaline from being pursued and yelled at. Or it might have been her anger bubbling to the surface at all she had endured in the past day, but Mae couldn’t just stand around. She didn’t want to. She leapt up in pursuit—hoping to catch them before they wrapped her in a world of more trouble.
Mae, however, didn’t catch up to them so much as stumble in their way.
She was running behind them and then she tripped over a loose floorboard which catapulted her into her prey and sent them both tumbling to floor in a mess of hands and feet. The person had faster reflexes than her and quickly clambered to their feet while Ember came up behind Mae and yanked her to hers. And that’s when Mae realized her mistake. It might have been a ploy to get her and Ember out in the open or the person had genuinely not wanted to be caught, but Mae had managed to snatch their badge off by accident and she knew it wasn’t from her clan. Even in the dusty gloom of the attic she knew right away that this wasn’t a member of her family. This was a foreign badge and the man’s face…was no one she recognized. He didn’t have the look or appearance of someone from the greater holding either. Aside from which she was sure none of her family had the burn marks of a firecat clawed into their face.
As Mae took a uncertain step back to ask ‘Who are you?” the stranger lashed out at her with a closed fist. One she couldn’t duck and certainly didn’t miss. He clocked her straight in the face and she fell down into unconsciousness on the floor with bruising swiftness.
* * *
Groaning, Mae twitched her limbs and spread her hands out beneath her.
She was on the ground…again.
Soft soil dipped beneath her hands as she pushed up into a sitting position. The first thing she thought of when her head ceased pounding long enough for her to put two thoughts together was, Where’s Ember?
Through a swollen eye she looked around and tried to feel for her sister’s hand.
Nothing appeared though it was still daylight out and she could see that she was somehow prostrate in a forest clearing. Not swampy like Old Man Bergin’s which meant she was in the Lesser Forest of the greater holding on the west side of the commune…if she was still anywhere near home.
“Where am I? Where’s Ember?” Mae asked in a voice that she struggled to keep steady.
She felt fear but she didn’t want them to know that.
She remembered a man hitting her but she wasn’t sure who he was or what he wanted.
Maybe the cloaked group sent him after us, Mae wondered silently.
But that didn’t make any sense. Those people had been her relatives and this man wasn’t. If there was one thing Mae knew, it was that the Darnes family took care of their internal problems on their own. Usually that meant they closed ranks against outsiders, but if that was what happened here—who was that man?
Determined to figure that out later, Mae blinked and stood up fully on shaky legs.
She was still looking around for Ember and as she turned in a circle to explore the empty clearing, she saw a slumped form against a tree.
“Ember,” Mae called out—immediately recognizing her clothes and face although it appeared she was still unconscious with a bruise to match Mae’s on the right side of her face.
Mae rushed over and just before she got close enough to kneel and tend to her sister, there appeared a woman in the shadows of the tree Ember was sat up against.
Frowning Mae pulled back her hand from the rope that bound Ember about her waist and stepped protectively in front of her sister’s body—cutting off any access from the outside.
“Who are you?” asked Mae bluntly.
She was rather tired of asking that question but she was beginning to see that she didn’t really know anyone, not even the people she’d grown up around her whole life.
The woman came forward out of the shadows and Mae could see her more clearly then. She recognized this person; it was the same woman from the paddock. The foreigner named Donna Marie.
“I apologize for my associate’s brutality,” the woman said in a voice as brittle as the wind. “You startled him.”
“I startled him?” Mae said with a gasp. “He came at me.”
Donna Marie smiled. “Call it a hazard of his training. Take the enemy by surprise before they can take you down.”
Mae shifted uneasily.
“I’m no one’s enemy,” Mae said.
The woman laughed politely. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, you’ve been stirring up a lot of dust in this fascinating holding you have here.”
Mae wasn’t sure what to say to that. She didn’t know what this woman did and didn’t know and her every instinct was still to protect her clan. So Mae stuck with what was safe.
“How about you just let me take my sister and we go?” Mae asked warily.
“You really don’t have any idea, do you?” Donna Marie asked with an interesting cock of her head.
Mae truly didn’t and she didn’t want more ideas, more secrets, and more lies to hit over the head. She just wanted to go.
So Mae took a step back and grabbed at the rope that bound Ember to the massive tree, hoping that her sister would come out of her unconsciousness quickly enough that Mae wouldn’t be dragging her body through the woods too.
But then more shadows flickered under the tree canopy and shapes melted out of the forest.
Mae jumped up again and turned around and around as three individuals joined. One she recognized because he’d hit her, the other one was the foreign boy, and then a third person who looked her over with such animosity that she shivered.
27
“Who are these people?” Mae choked out not liking the looks of things at the moment.
The woman frowned as she glanced around. “How rude of me.”
Mae stared at her warily as Donna Marie snapped her fingers and said, “I want you to meet my associates.”
Obediently the two forms she’d automatically recognized came forward—the young foreigner boy from before and Mae was fairly sure the man who had just punched her.
“This is Rivan,” Donna Marie said. “And this is Dot.”
“Dot,” stammered Mae—thinking she’d misheard.
“Yes,” Donna Marie. “That will do nicely for now.”
Mae’s eyes flicked warily to the last p
erson present. This one had the most menacing aura out of all four strangers, which was strange since it was Dot who had hit her and she was pretty sure had also knocked out her sister.
“Oh that’s just our local guide,” Donna Marie said when she saw where Mae’s eyes had drifted. “No need to worry about him. Instead focus on us.”
“Us?” parroted Mae weakly as she wondered what in the seven gods was going on.
How had she and Ember ended up in the middle of a forest with these people?
Had any of the cloaked figures recognized her?
And what could she do now to get out of this situation.
“Yes,” Donna Marie said in a soothing tone as if she seemed to recognize that Mae was on the verge of panicking.
“Your group of foreigners you mean?” Mae clarified—hoping against hope that Donna Marie didn’t suddenly produce a bird mask from behind her back and make Mae’s worst nightmare come true.
She’d just gotten away from those lunatics. It would be a shame to fall back into their company because of a mistake.
“We are foreign it is true,” Donna Marie said with a tight smile. “We come from Algardis on a journey in the search for something, no someone, special with the help of our trusty local guide.”
“Oh?” Mae asked guilelessly. “And what would that special somebody be?”
Mae wasn’t dumb, she heard the change in the woman’s words. She just didn’t know what it meant. Was this woman a deranged fanatic? Or a madam looking for exotic flesh to peddle? Whatever she wanted with them, Mae wasn’t interested.
The only thing she could hope was that Dot had stumbled upon Mae and Ember by accident. But if that was the case why would they bring them both here? It was a riddle in the mystery and as she eyed Donna Marie warily, Mae got the feeling that she at least planned to let her in on her little secret—whatever that was.
Instead of answering her Donna Marie nodded the local guide forward.
The man with the heavy stare shuffled towards them on a limp.
He uttered out a low sound like a groan and Mae took that to be his version of ‘What’.
Donna Marie certainly treated it as such as she replied, “I want you to go up to the greater holding and scout the activity at the gate. See if they’re preparing search parties or are keeping the knowledge of two missing members of their family more close to the vest.”
The local guide nodded and loped off without a word.
Meanwhile Mae thought triumphantly, Ah, so we are still close by.
That bit of news was good. Because it meant when Ember woke up they could escape and get back to the commune to raise the alarm. Mae may have been on the outskirts with a few of her family members but they had no idea who she was, so at least she could go back home when this was over.
Trying to see if the woman would be willing to free them both, Mae asked, “I apologize for getting in your man’s…way. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Donna Marie didn’t say anything, just watched.
Mae inched on with her careful words.
“If you don’t mind then, I’d just like to wake my sister and go,” Mae said with a unsure look.
The clearing was still for a moment.
“Well, I thought we could do this another way seeing as we’re old pals,” Donna Marie said blithely. “But…”
We’re not old anything, Mae thought in disgust as the woman continued on while her two remaining compatriots—Dot and Rivan watched silently form the sidelines.
“I would think you’d be happy to see me Maeryn Darnes,” the leader of the foreign faction said. “From what I’ve heard you’ve had a very eventful time of late.”
Mae frowned. “What do you know about that?”
“A lot more than you’d suspect,” the woman said with a friendly smile. “I keep eyes everywhere you see.”
Mae didn’t but she didn’t see any point in making that known.
Mae sucked her teeth to try to give her time to think of a way out of this.
“I’m sure that whatever activities I’ve gotten up to lately, they’ll sort themselves out,” Mae said quickly.
“Oh?” Donna Marie asked.
“Yes,” Mae said with a tense smile. “I may have had my…disagreements but I’d hardly think my opponents will even remember my tiny indiscretion after morning rises.”
She was lying but she was doing so in way that told the foreigner to mind her own business and let Mae mind hers. It wasn’t like the cloaked people knew who she was anyway.
Donna Marie must have read her obstinacy on her face because she changed tactics from one of weaving around the subject to a direct attack.
“Did you forget someone?” the woman said to her drily.
Mae frowned at her wondering what she was talking about.
Then Donna Marie continued, “A man about ‘so’ high.”
She referenced his height by holding her hand up about half a foot above her own head.
Horror went through Mae like lightning as she thought Richard!
She didn’t say his name out loud but she didn’t have to. The foreign woman read the panic in Mae’s eyes as she laughed.
“Yes, that’s right Maeryn Darnes,” she chided. “Whether you like it or not your secret escapades will soon be the knowledge of your foolish enemies.”
Made shifted uncomfortably, she didn’t like to think about it, much less discuss such private family matters with an outsider but then again, she’d never had family try to kill her before.
Donna Marie leaned forward and said softly, “And from what I heard, they will not be happy with you when you return.”
Mae felt a chill go down her back because as far as she could tell…what she was saying was true. Ember had been the one who had known exactly what it was that the cloaked figures had been trying to accomplish but Mae remembered the anger and fear in her voice when she had told her. Whatever it was couldn’t be good and they wouldn’t want Mae blabbing to the Council of Elders as a consequence.
Surprised Mae hesitated, but it was true, she needed this woman if it was going to work. No one else in the holding seemed to be on her side even if this woman seemed extraordinary sketchy. She still didn’t know what Donna Marie wanted from her after all.
“How did you know?” Mae stammered.
“That doesn’t matter,” Donna Marie replied to her serenely.
“Then what does?” Mae asked with a bit of anger leaching into her voice.
She was tired of being toyed around with.
The woman waved a hand and the foreigner boy came forward clutching the torn page containing the incantation she needed. Mae recognized it right away and she gaped in astonishment as the last time she’d seen it, it had been in the hands of her Great Aunt who did not look like she was the type to part with something now that she had it.
“Where did you…nevermind,” Mae said abruptly with a pale face.
She knew Donna Marie, Dot, and Rivan wouldn’t answer so she changed her question.
“What do you want for it?” Mae asked bluntly. She didn’t try to downplay the significance of the find. The woman obviously knew what it was worth if she’d had it stolen from a cohort of mages.
“Now that is the right question,” purred the foreigner from Algardis as she crossed her arms in front of her with a smile.
Eyeing the slip of paper dancing in between Rivan’s Mae started to plead, “Please you don’t know what that casting will mean to my holding, to my family. Be careful with it!”
“Ah ah,” Donna Marie said with a chastising wave of her finger. “Let’s not get soft now. You were doing so well.”
Mae rocked back on her heels and tried not to scream at the foreign woman. This was obviously all a game to her but this was a matter of life and death to Mae.
“Now,” Donna Marie said with a cool stare. “Let’s discuss my rate.”
“Your rate?” Mae said in complete confusion as she looked over at her.<
br />
Donna Marie laughed and said, “Yes, of course. I don’t work for free.”
Mae shifted. “Well, I don’t have much to offer you in regards to money but I’m sure my family will pay for the incantation once they realize its medical value.”
“Your services are all I will require,” Donna Marie said smoothly.
“What services?” Mae snarled.
“Access to your physical attributes in exchange for my…instruction,” Donna Marie said.
Mae froze and then lashed out at her verbally. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about the Darnes clan but we don’t sell our bodies to anyone for any reason.”
Donna Marie waved a dismissive hand.
“Not like that girl,” she said. “Your tattoos. I want to study them. You and your sister’s if she’d amenable.”
“Why?” Mae asked–flummoxed.
“Honestly?” Donna Marie said.
Mae nodded.
“Because you’re available and its frustratingly hard to catch the rest of your women by surprise,” Donna Marie said.
Mae almost laughed at that but she held it back.
“I suppose you want to do more than just sketch them?” Mae said drily.
“But of course,” Donna Marie stated simply.
“Then I’m going to need more than that incantation in exchange,” Mae said as a brilliant idea began to form.
If Ember was awake she was sure she’d approve.
“What else?” Donna Marie asked her with craftiness in her eyes.
Behind Donna Marie, the boy named Rivan shifted for a moment—uncomfortable. His eyes darkened and Mae wanted to ask if he had something to say but she daren’t take her eyes off his mistress.
Quickly Mae said, “I need you and your fellow mage to be second and third points in a mage triangle which will cast the incantation he holds there in his hands.”
“How about I do you one better?” Donna Marie asked. “I’ll instruct you on how to cast that incantation yourself.”
“Impossible,” Mae said quickly.
“No, its quite possible,” Donna Marie assured her. “The power is there. Your people have just locked it off… in every single female member of your clan.”
