Blood Witch

Thea
Atkinson

Elemental Magic
Book Two

Copyright 2012
Thea Atkinson

Published by
Thea Atkinson

Cover Photo by
Arlen Roche

Cover Design:
Thea Atkinson

License
Notes

This ebook is licensed
for your personal enjoyment and may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. Additional copies can be purchased. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

Prologue

The tears came easily enough, if Taetha pinched the
girl, which was fortunate because the babe hadn't cried once since
she'd been born. It was almost as though she understood what she
was and harboured each droplet of water for fear someone would use
it against her. Seven turns of the sun and still the infant hadn't
cried. Seven turns, and still she wouldn't suckle.

What kept the babe
alive, Taetha would never know, but the brown magics could be good
and the power, when it was harnessed as it was in this child, was
strong. No doubt the babe psyched from the very air what water she
needed to sustain her, but even that couldn't keep the tiny heart
beating for much longer. She needed to eat.

Taetha looked down
at the narrow vial she'd lain against the infant's cheek and
pinched the earlobe once more. The babe's squall leaked a few more
precious tears into the glass. They were indeed precious, and
precious little, barely covering the bottom, but perhaps, if The
Deities were kind, it would be enough.

She plugged the
vial with a knob of cork and poured beeswax around the neck to seal
it, rolling it in her palm to cool. There was so little of the
fluid, she couldn't take the chance of evaporation, or spilling, or
worse, any psyching from it if the girl grew thirsty. She grunted
in satisfaction and wrapped the tube, now cooled and hardened of
its seal, into a thick hide, tied that with hare intestines dried
and oiled to perfect suppleness, and then laid it in a basket lined
with moss. This she covered with yet another hide and tied that
with yet more hare thongs before settling the entire package near
the door.

He would be coming
soon.

Taetha had let the
fire pit purposely die down and she glanced at it to be sure the
coals were tamped. The iron poker lay where she left it beside the
pit, seemingly forgotten to the casual eye, but well within easy
reach should she need it.

Why she would be
afraid of a child--a boy--she couldn't say, but these last months
she'd learned not all was as it seemed. The brown magic could grow
black if left too long unused and mouldering. She'd not dared use
of it what she owned since she'd been taken, indeed, none of them
had dared: her brother, her sister. Alhanna: their mother. But she
couldn't think about them, not now. She had enough to concern her
with the boy's visit.

With magics
becoming a liability, and black magic rising from brown, she
worried the boy had been left too long with the darkness--or
worse--counselled in darkness and had been spoiled before his life
had ripened. The klans had warred too long to know if one witch or
more had gone to seed, the reason for their fighting long
forgotten. She only knew this babe needed her, and she no longer
cared for the old war. Truth be told, the old war mattered little
now that the Conqueror had come, mattered little in light of the
need to band together against this common enemy. Perhaps this child
would help heal the rift among the klans and bring them together
finally; this self-proclaimed conqueror making them forget the old
hatreds.

The infant
whimpered and Taetha eased her from the basket where she lay and
pulled her close against her chest, letting the scent of new flesh
envelope her and make her feel again the lingering magics of her
home and its tribe. It seemed she couldn't leave it all behind,
after all. Well, she could ignore the old war, but she could not
ignore the heritage.

"Shall I sing to
you of Etlantium, Little One," she said to the fuzz of hair. "Or
should your nohma tell you once again of your mother?"

She hummed,
letting the babe nestle into her neck. How warm the girl was. How
tiny to fit into such close places as a matron's neck, an arm's
crook, a heart that had seized up over the last days into a tiny
knot of flesh.

So small, but so,
so powerful. Would this boy guess the power he was being bonded to?
Would his mother?

She was still
humming when the fire pit leapt to flame. Taetha eyed the poker and
edged closer to it, turning even as she did so to the visitor she
knew was standing in the door.

He was small but
already had a few markings in the old language on his ribs. The
first one, the largest, was easy to decipher even from her distance
as it was still inflamed at its edges: that of fire.

"You are Yenic,"
she said.

The boy's eyes
glowed yellow, sparking in reflection of the flame.

"You are Taetha?"
His voice was querulous but strong. He would be a force, this one.
Taetha tried to believe the wriggling in her belly was from nervous
excitement, not anxiety. The two could so often be mistaken, being
as close as they were.

She drew to her
full height and nodded at the basket.

"I am Taetha," she
confirmed. "Blood witch to the newborn temptress." She gave him a
direct look. "You were not followed." She could have phrased it as
a question, but chose instead the command. Let him feel
nervous.

He shook his head,
unaffected, but peered over his shoulder into the garden. "I
thought I was, but he proved to be only a poor drunkard pissing in
the wrong spot."

Taetha said
nothing. She knew the man was dead. She'd have to bury him later.
This boy was indeed a child, but already his tattaus carried the
weight of his mother's power. He would have been instructed to take
no chances. She eyed the boy again and was relieved--even
emboldened--when she saw a look of regret on his features.

"How many seasons
have you, Yenic?"

"Seven."

"Seven is young to
be an Arm."

He toed the dirt.
"It's young to be bonded."

"You'd rather the
first but not the last?"

A grin pulled at
the corner of his mouth. "I'd rather it was neither."

"I understand." He
was so young, yet something in his eyes made him seem far older
than seven seasons. She couldn't concern herself with his woes. She
had a babe to think of. She glanced toward the door.

"The basket is
there." Taetha pulled the infant closer, putting her palm over the
tiny head of black fuzz. "Take care travelling it."

Yenic took the few
short steps to where the wicker sat, bundled in hides she'd tanned
and beaten with her own hand. He pulled fiercely at the thongs.

"No," she said,
taking an alarmed step; she couldn't have him breaking the vial
just to satisfy himself she'd given what she'd offered. "It's
there. I promise you. Safe and sound."

He glanced up
sharply, curious. "Oh, I know it is," he said matter-of-factly, and
bent again to the hide. He pulled the vial loose, scraped at the
wax and yanked the cork with his teeth. Peering at the liquid, he
made a face, then spat the cork to the earthen floor where it spun
twice before stopping.

"I'm not to take
chances," he said as though he were repeating solemn words that
he'd practiced, then upended the vial into his gaping mouth. He
swallowed. He grimaced. Sighed. With an odd quirk to his lips, he
looked up at Taetha. He looked far younger in the moment than the
seven he was.

"It's done, isn't
it?" he asked.

She felt for a
tell tale quickening in her chest, the echo of one fluttering
against her own, and when she knew it was there, she closed her
eyes in relief.

She didn't have to
look to know he was gone, but she opened her eyes anyway. The door
stood open and empty. The fire pit died again to its blackness.

The babe in her
arms began to suckle at her neck noisily.

"It's done,
Alaysha," she said to the room. "It's done, and I pray to The
Deities I've done the right thing."

Chapter 1

Yenic's hands traveled her skin in such delicious
ways that Alaysha thought she was little more than a large pheasant
being seasoned with dry herbs and honey. The scent of his flesh,
like so many spices drying on hot embers intoxicated her to the
point she felt drugged. She stretched to enjoy the softness of his
hands stroking her inner thighs, the place just beneath her navel
where her skin was the most sensitive. She arched against him,
taking his mouth with hers, teasing his tongue, worrying his lip
with her teeth.

She tasted his
moan even as she wondered if the sound came from her own lips. She
fell into the amber of his eyes. Yes. Honey. So much amber liquid a
girl could drown in it if she wasn't careful. She wanted to tell
him how much she wanted him, how badly she needed to feel him cover
her with his body, to obliterate the nakedness that made her feel
vulnerable and lonely. No words would form. Only mewling sounds and
heavy breaths that seemed to come from somewhere just short of her
chest, that seemed too rushed to have come from anywhere
deeper.

His gaze pinned
her where she lay, the most aching look of sadness she'd ever seen,
and she wanted to pull him down again to her, to tell him grief had
no place here. When her body went cold, she realized he was fading
from her, substance turned to smoke, and then smoke turned to air,
and air to fragrance that had nothing to do with the youth and
everything to do with a hunger far more primal.

She woke to the
smell of goat's milk, and she remembered. It was a foggy
remembrance, for certain, with echoes of images long buried and not
understood fully even then, but still, she remembered them. They
were sweeter than the dream of Yenic because as she came to
consciousness, she remembered her lover could not be trusted.

The other
memories, the ones that didn't carry the bittersweet bite of
Yenic's betrayal--his outright lies to her--were safer ones to
focus on. They felt like honey in her veins, so much so that she
didn't want to open her eyes and ruin the feeling of sinking down
in warm syrup.

"Are you
hungry?"

The voice, a
woman's, came from her right. Alaysha turned to it and opened one
eye.

"I must be," she
said in answer to Yuri's young wife who hovered near her elbow. The
woman gave her a queer look, and Alaysha licked her lips. "I can
taste goat's milk. My stomach must be sending my mouth some kind of
message."

The girl chuckled.
"That was me. I dribbled some of Kiki's milk onto your lips while
you slept."

"You couldn't wait for me to wake up to do
that?"

The woman lifted a thin shoulder. "You've been
asleep six turns of the sun." The mist colored eyes retreated from
view as the woman straightened to her full height. Alaysha felt
oddly small beneath it. She'd forgotten how tall Yuri's new wife
was. "Yuri told me to make sure you were nourished so you would
wake strong."

Six turns. Six turns was a long time to be
asleep especially when it felt like mere hours.

"Kiki is your goat?" she asked the woman.

"Yes. The only one nursing. She's a new mother
so her milk is sweet."

Alaysha let her tongue roam over her lips. "You
make sure she eats clover too."

"How did you know that?"

Alaysha would have smiled if the memory wasn't
so bittersweet.

"My nohma's goat ate clover."

She touched the corner of her mouth
thoughtfully. The spring feed was always clover. Fall left nothing
but bitter grass and the unending sourness of the goat's milk
always made Alaysha's stomach upset then. She hadn't thought of
that in years.

"There was honey in it too," she guessed, and
the young woman smiled.

"I warmed the milk with honey so it would make
your body too sweet for the green death." Her gaze fleeted over the
bed and rested where Alaysha's stomach was. "It was a bad place for
a wound. I fear even the balsam sap the shaman used won't be enough
to keep it clean."

"I had fever?"

The woman nodded.

Alaysha thought for a moment. "I called out for
milk."

"Yes." The wife lowered her gaze, letting her
silver hair hang in her face. "You suckled on the cloth as though
it were a nipple."

Alaysha felt her face suffuse with blood. She
remembered. She remembered much. Goat's milk and honey. Very much
like her first meal, served very much in the same manner. Her
mother's sister wasn't a wet nurse, only a blood witch, and no
other woman in the village would come near the infant powerhouse.
None that did dare, lived. That she remembered, if reluctantly.