Blood Witch (16 page)

Alaysha stepped
further into the shack and settled on the same wooden stool she'd
sat on all those seasons ago. It threatened to collapse under her
weight, but she didn't care. The memory had returned and with it
the tears.

That was the last
battle her nohma had been with her. The last battle Alaysha stood
next to her aunt and knew the happiness of being loved, or
believing she was loved.

She looked around
through a curtain of water that turned every shadow into a
dangerous shape. She wanted to retreat from the memory as she had
those years ago. She supposed she could thank Corrin for it now; it
had spared her in the end.

It also explained
why she'd been banished to the cavern and its bathhouses and the
unending butchery of the carrion.

She was weak from
the remembrance, but she felt no anger. Only determination. A sense
of justice left undone.

She forced herself
to stand and move to the fire pit where she dug, hunting with her
hands, peeling back a nail until she sat back with a sigh.

The leather pouch
was ratty and rotted, but it was still there. Some seeds had fallen
into the womb of earth and she fingered through them until she
found what she was looking for: two seeds that if she let her
memory, let her power, touch them, she'd suffer again the image of
their owner's death. And that death was too painful to relive
again.

It was enough to
know how the power had managed to take her blood witch's life. How
it grew past its limit to drain her where she stood.

And she knew it
was because of that memory she'd relived out on the field that day,
as she'd psyched the water from Yuri's last enemies, as she'd let
her mind wander, as she'd left herself as she always did because
even though she was a warrior, it bothered her to take the
lives.

It was that
bothersome memory of her mother's death that did it. That thing her
nohma wanted her to remember about her birth. That memory of seeing
her father taking a young mother's head even as the child she bore
squalled its first breath. That memory of seeing her own father
murdering the woman who gave her life.

Chapter 13

The shadows in the hut had deepened by the time
Alaysha collected herself. She stuffed the pouch into an old
hollowed gourd that rested beside the fire pit, and then she
covered that with a blanket of moss she pulled from trees that
surrounded the cottage. The gourd still had the remnants of a thong
of leather pulled through the pierced holes on either side. It made
a good enough satchel, she supposed, but at least she wouldn't lose
any of the seeds she'd collected and put back into the pouch.

She thought it
strange that any had survived at all left in the damp earth, but
she assumed they were so desiccated by the draining that there was
nothing left to help them rot.

She took a last
slow look around the small place she'd called home and turned
toward the maw of doorway.

Yenic stood there,
filling the space, blocking off what little moonlight tried to
steal him.

"Last time I saw
you here, you were a newborn babe," he whispered in a voice so
painful to hear she thought she'd not make it into his arms.

He held her
silently for long moments. She felt his heart thudding against
hers, the heat of his embrace making her realize how cold she was.
She said nothing as she linked her hands behind his neck and pulled
him close.

It was all a lie,
the things her father had told her. So much for his truths. For all
she knew, he planted the mistrust of Yenic in her purposely while
she was vulnerable and ready to hear nothing but how a man could
betray her.

Yenic offered no
resistance. The solid breadth of him against her pressed even
closer. He tasted of old ale and onions but she didn't care. She
could only think how she wanted to devour him, how close she wanted
him against her, and knowing it wasn't close enough.

She kissed him
with a hunger she didn't understand and when his teeth captured her
lip, she gasped in relief of the pain she needed to let go.

He spoke only
after both their hearts leapt the same rhythm; pulling away,
burying his face in her hair.

"Sweet deities,
you are so young," he murmured. "You've always been young."

"Too young for
you," she said, guessing where his mind had gone.

He tightened his
arms around her and lifted her off her feet, pulling her against
him so she felt herself curve against him. "You were a baby. I was
a boy. Young. I'd just got my first tattau but I thought I was a
man."

"The bond," she
guessed and he nodded, pressing his mouth into her neck.

"Your tears," he
said and ran his cheek over hers; only then did she realize her
face was wet. "Like these ones."

She could only
think of Saxa's words so she mumbled them aloud, surprising
herself. "Tears have magic."

"I'm bound to you
by them." He took deliberate steps back into the hovel, carrying
her with him, then eased her onto the earth. "I'm bound and though
I didn't want it then, I want it now. So badly."

She knew how he
felt. Part of her wondered if this was all; if she loved him
because of a bond forged between them so many years ago, or if she
loved him because he was Yenic. Cocky. Handsome. Infuriating.

His hands moved
over her waist, finding the skin beneath her tunic and linens. She
felt herself letting go, letting him feel her response. What did a
bond matter when she wanted it just as badly.

She could hear her
own breath, feel his on her skin. Everywhere his lips touched.
Against her temple, her jaw, her ears.

She swore she saw
the dead ashes in the fire glow with renewed life and lend enough
light that she could make of the fine details of his jaw as he
moved over her. He looked at her once and his eyes glowed like
melting amber; then his mouth claimed hers again as though she
could somehow quench his fever.

She thought if she
never lived a moment after this one, she would at least finally
have found peace.

When they rose
together to face the full night, she gripped his hand with
hers.

"You can't keep
things from me," she told him. She couldn't explain it, but she
needed to know even more now that she could trust him right down to
the secrets he kept.

He wrapped his
free arm around her, pulling her to face him. "I've kept nothing
from you that you didn't already know.

"I told you when
we met that I knew your nohma. I came a few times to your home as
you grew. One day I came but no one was here."

"Perhaps we were
on campaign."

He shrugged.
"Perhaps. Never again did I see either of you. The cottage went to
ruin and we knew we had lost you."

She gave that
thought and realized it must have been the Corrin years. "I was…
Training," she said and moved so that his arms left her waist.

He gave her queer
study and reached for her hand to lead her away from the cottage
and into the woods. She followed readily. She wasn't certain she
was ready to talk about the carrion or the types of training he led
her through. To talk of the man was to remind herself of his
violent death at the hands of Yenic's mother, and although she felt
renewed trust in Yenic, she'd thought it best to leave him ignorant
of Aislin's part in it.

And his ignorance
could not condemn him of foreknowledge when Alaysha saw to it that
Yuri died a painful death.

Chapter 14

Gael was facing Saxa's cottage when they returned,
peering in at his sister, who stood next to the fire wringing her
hands in despair. The room smelled to Alaysha of new smoke and
peat, masking the sweet scent of usual herbs that always pervaded
the cottage.

Alaysha knew Saxon
hadn't been found.

"Does the Emir
know?" She asked Gael and his stormy look was answer enough.

Saxa was the one
to speak, even if it was tremulous and soft, an unusual tone for
the matter-of-fact woman she was. "Yuri came for his stew."

"Yuri asked where
the boy was?"

"And asked why we
hadn't told him."

Alaysha made for
the fire, more to stretch her hands and think than to warm herself.
The cottage needed no warmth; the air was as comfortable as that of
outside, but a small blaze for a stew's sake was necessary. She
lifted the pot from the hearth and hung it over a peg to warm, then
thought of how Saxa worked at keeping her husband healthy through
the food she cooked and wondered if it was way to Yuri's death.

Then she hated
herself for thinking it.

She dislodged the
thought as quickly as it came. It wouldn't serve to repay this kind
woman with wickedness and Alaysha couldn't do that to her. Besides,
she wanted to see Yuri as he realized his death was at the hands of
his own witch.

She sighed
heavily, thoughtfully, and turned to Saxa. "Where is he now?"

She shrugged. "He
left."

Gael edged
forward. "He's gone to gather the scouts."

"How do you know
that?"

He planted his
feet widely and folded his arms across his massive chest. "What
would you do?"

Just that, she
realized. The scouts had a knack for finding a trail and tracing
it. The only person she'd not known them to find that they'd looked
for was Aedus.

She sent a harried
glance around the cottage. "Where is Aedus?"

Saxa spread her
arms. "Still searching Sarum, I suppose, as you bid her."

"She should have
returned by now."

"Sarum has many
homes." Saxa put her hand to her forehead, and then seeming to
realize that doing so made her appear worried and week, busied
herself collecting trenchers of bread and filling them with stew
from the pots. She settled three goblets of ale on the table and
pointed at them. "Eat," she said. "You three of all must be
strong."

She didn't need to
say that if Saxon was found and needing rescue, then Yuri would
order his weapons to do so.

Alaysha stole a
glance at Yenic. She was starving, and she knew he was too. She'd
heard his stomach rumbling as they lay next to each other on the
packed earth of the cottage. She pulled a chair and yanked at the
top of the trencher so she could sop up the broth inside.

"Tastes
different," she said.

"I added fennel
seeds." Saxa hovered over them, pouring fresh ale that smelled
faintly of honey.

Alaysha stopped
chewing at mention of seeds. Seeds. She had left her gourd and the
seeds from the hovel beneath the stool and now she would have to go
back to get them.

Lost in the moment
with Yenic, she'd also lost the notion to bring them back with her.
Yenic seemed to notice her hesitation.

"Something
wrong?"

She caught Gael's
grey-eyed and suspicious stare from across the table and watched
the way his expression shifted to one of careful scrutiny.

"Not at all," she
told Yenic but made a mental note to return when she could retrieve
them. Ever since she'd seen Aislin collecting her own seeds from
the man she'd killed, Alaysha had the desire to make sure she knew
where each of hers were.

Gael chewed his
lamb slowly and sent a stream of ale pouring into his mouth. She
noticed as he lifted his head back that there was a broad circle of
scar beneath his chin that she'd not noticed before.

Alaysha touched
her throat right where Gael's scar was on his. "What's this?"

He dropped the
tankard to the table with a thunk. "Scar," he said.

"I can see
that."

"Then why did you
ask?" He grew surly again, which meant to Alaysha that she'd
touched on something tender.

Saxa refilled
Gael's tankard. "It's his training brand."

"Brand?" Yenic
sounded horrified and Gael's bland look went to him.

"This from a boy
with tattaus running down his side, ruining his skin."

Alaysha could feel
the heat rising to her face. So he thought the tattaus ugly. What
would that say about his feelings of the way hers ruined her
face?

Yenic stood,
obviously affronted at the words and she could have hugged him for
defending her.

"I'm not a boy,"
he said, ruining the moment.

Gael sucked at his
teeth. "How many seasons have you?"

"Nearly twenty
four."

"How many
battles?"

"Plenty."

"I have a number I
can count. Four for every season of my living."

Alaysha swung her
gaze toward Gael. Four for every season? Yet he was as unscarred
and beautiful as a man who worked with his mind. Saxa must have
been right about his natural ability, but to get through so many
battles with only a brand? Remarkable.

Yenic appeared to
think it less than so. "Your battles, though so many, old man, must
have been fought in your sleep to leave your skin so pretty."

Gael's eyes moved
to Alaysha's so fast she doubted he looked at her at all, but all
the while she was thinking/remembering the moment he spent plowing
through the assailants on the platform as though they were nothing
but new, soft earth to his blade. He been marked then with blood
and flesh, but he remained fairly untouched.

"Yenic," she
murmured in warning, but it was already too late. Gael had stood,
almost lazily, and squared off against him.

Neither of them
looked anxious. In truth, they appeared to be looking forward to
the inevitable.

The table soared
to the side, Alaysha wasn't sure who had set it to flight, but it
landed with a thud that seemed to coincide perfectly with Yenic's
head butting into Gael's stomach. The fact that the younger man was
able to get close enough to Gael to do so was testimony enough of
Yenic's skill that Alaysha understood what an Arm was capable of.
Gael plecked him out of his belly as though the youth was a bit of
lint offending a perfect suit. He hurled the boy toward the table,
then jumped for him so quickly she was amazed that such a lrge man
could carry such speed. Yenic was gone when he landed, and then he
was on Gael's back, only to be shrugged off. Punches sailed through
the air, some landing with hollow thuds, but no other sounds came
from the men. No yelps of pain, only the gruntings of effort.