Blood Witch (10 page)

"I do suppose I am
a handsome rogue. Full of mystery. Charm…"

"Hog dung."

He quirked his
brow and pulled her close. She could feel the heat of his chest,
burning against her own. If only she could stop the questions
nibbling at her spirit, she could enjoy the feel of him. Drink in
the honey of his eyes.

She pressed her
palms against his chest and felt the thudding of his heart. She
told herself to push him away.

"Yenic."

He leaned in,
thinking obviously that her plea was meant to encourage him. His
lips were on hers even as she was trying to twist away, and instead
of being gentle, they turned aggressive, hungry. He pulled on her
lower lip and captured it between his teeth.

"I'm burning,
Alaysha. I can't stop thinking of you."

She thought she
heard herself sigh into his mouth.

Someone whistled
shrilly and it was enough to bring her back to reality. She managed
to pull away, and though the heat in her face was creeping down her
throat, she worked to stammer out a few words. Accusations all, but
words that had crept into her mind and refused to leave just the
same.

"You brought your
mother."

He looked like he
wanted to shake his head clear. "Yes. Three days ago."

Her mind worked as
she turned away. "I've yet to see her."

"You'd been hurt.
I brought her to Yuri. He told her you were injured and
mending."

It was true. She
had been injured and mending. But something didn't seem right.
"Yuri has kept her away from everyone."

"Or away from
you."

Which point was
right, she wondered, but she nodded at his guess anyway, and had to
dodge a sprinting hound with a scorched and shrivelled apple in its
mouth. While she wasn't ready to trust Yenic again, neither could
she trust her father. It was entirely possible Yuri had plans for
the witch that didn't include his younger, more volatile and
unpredictable water witch learning to harness her power.

"How went the hunt
for Edulph?"

He kicked the
apple that lay in his path. "No trace of him. Even Aedus couldn't
find his tracks."

Alaysha looked
sidelong at him, and noticed that he wouldn't look her way. "She's
a tracker?"

He shrugged.
"She's pretty capable in the woods. It's almost as though they
speak to her or something. Like she owns them."

"I suppose her
people were used to living wild." She didn't know it for sure, but
she imagined Aedus's people were more savage than civilian. "And
she lived alone when she escaped Drahl. Scavenged for her own
food." It struck Alaysha that as little as she knew about Aedus,
she knew equally little about her own people. She'd thought Yenic
had those answers. No she doubted that.

They were nearly
back at Saxa's cottage, where she presumed Gael had brought
Aedus.

"So we have no
lead on Edulph and we don't know who shot Gael."

"And you are no
closer to controlling your power than when I left you."

She sighed. "And I
must make a decision about Corrin."

"That mound of dog
shit? I should've killed him myself. What's to decide?"

Alaysha ran her
hand along the bushes in front of Saxa's door and let the smell of
lavender creep to the air. "I will have to take his life with my
hands. Purposefully. Without a fight. Just step up and kill
him."

Yenic shrugged as
though it was a foregone conclusion and therefore
inconsequential.

Alaysha reflected
on the circumstances that had brought them here. Each time her
father wanted her to learn her lessons that involved emotions,
after her nohma had died, he took her to the cavern. Under Corrin's
tutelage she learned to feel nothing. Sometimes for days, she was
strung up in the bathhouse where she couldn't drink the water dry
enough to drain even the lesser water from the walls, let alone the
fluid from a man.

She wondered if a
fire witch could set anything to light in such a cavern, with so
much ready water the dampness in the very air coated the lungs with
fluid.

"You would have
had to kill him by hand," she said.

He shrugged. "How
else?"

"I thought…"

He looked for a
moment as though he was putting together pieces of the mosaic, and
then suddenly discovered a missing piece. "You think I can bring
the fire?"

She nodded. "The
apples. The bread." She paused for heartbeat. "Those times when we
were away from Sarum, from all this, Yuri, Edulph. You made the
ashes leap to flame, you made the young fire blaze like old
flames." She looked at her bare toes. "You kept me warm."

A slow smile
spread across his face.

"You
remember."

She couldn't look
at him. "It was a only fortnights ago; I can' t forget."

He reached for her
hand and dragged her to the side garden where the sage was tall and
the daisies leaned away from them, pointing to a spot that was
clear of herbs. A spot that was clear enough for them to sit, but
camouflaged enough they couldn't be seen.

He gave her
careful consideration as they sat together, his warm palm on her
thigh. Something in his eyes wanted more but she couldn't tell from
his face what it was. "What else do you remember?"

"Is there
more?"

He touched her
chin where the tattaus were. "We slept beneath the stars as you
nursed me."

"You were hot
then, too. Fevered. I thought you would die."

"You saved
me."

"And you kept me
from doing foolish things."

They sat quiet for
a few moments before he spoke again. "Alaysha do you remember
anything else?"

She got the quick
taste of goat's milk, felt the strange sensation of a heart beating
against her chest, of the feel of a quick kiss on her head. "A
witch's memory is too long," she said. "Best some things remain
unremembered."

He looked
disappointed.

She shifted
uneasily. "What will we do if we can't find Edulph? What if I can't
control myself?"

"Don't say that.
You will learn."

She noted he said
nothing about finding Edulph.

"And what of the
babe, the wind witch you called her? What if he's found her
already?"

"If he'd have
found her, we'd know by now."

"Is she truly
powerful?"

He stared at her
mouth. "As powerful as you, perhaps."

She reached out to
him, and for the second time in one day lay her palm on his
tattaus. They felt hot, hotter even than the rest of him. He
shuddered and she caught his eye. "Your tattaus are of fire."

"Yes," he said
carefully, but managed to sound almost despondent.

"You are her Arm."
She needed to say it, to have him admit it. She braced herself for
his answer.

His sigh came as
though it had travelled a great distance. "Yes."

She ignored the
churning of her stomach at his confession; there was something more
important she wanted to know.

"How is it done?
Does it need to be family?"

He didn't answer.
Instead, he took her chin in his fingers and pulled his thumb
across her tattaus. He cupped the back of her head and slipped his
mouth onto hers. The kiss was so soft, she thought she would ache
if he didn't show his hunger for her again. Then his lips moved to
her tattau just on the cleft of her chin, tracing, she thought,
each symbol there.

"Each symbol has
its own magic," he said. "And each comes from the witch's own
power. Until you can control it, you cannot offer it. Most witches
come to their power after their matron is gone, and so they have
been trained for many seasons already."

She could barely
hear him, so soft was his whisper, so intimate and mesmerizing. So
engrossed was she, so lost in his touch, all she could register
were his words from before, that he was on fire. All she could
think of was burning with him.

She closed her
eyes and let him take her lips again, and she believed the tingling
in her stomach truly was a fire igniting that would leap to flame
if he kept kissing her, not the worry that he could be simply
manipulating her.

His hands
travelled from her face to her neck and cupped the back of her
nape, pulling her even closer to him. Her stomach leapt as though
flames had caught within and had begun to devour any doubts that
wanted lodged there.

A nasty, guttural
cough was the equal of a bucket of water to the blaze.

"If I thought I'd
left you two young pups in heat, I'd have slung you over my back,
Witch." Gael strode forward through the weeds and flowers,
oblivious or uncaring of her unease or embarrassment. He nodded at
Yenic sourly, but spoke to her. "You trust this boy?"

Alaysha didn't
have an answer, but Yenic did. He stormed to his feet and squared
off against Gael. He looked like a pup indeed, next to a large
mastiff.

"I'm no boy."

Gael's smile was a
crisp and calculated one. "Good. Then I won't have to feel any
guilt at harming a child." He stepped forward almost innocently and
delivered a crushing blow to the side of Yenic's face that was so
quick, neither of them knew he'd lifted his fist. Two moments later
he reached down for Alaysha and hefted her into his arms.

Chapter 8

"Again?" It seemed this was all the man knew: pick
something up and carry it. "What are you doing?"

He wouldn't look
at her, just spoke to the air. "You have work to do, and not this
kind of work."

"Put her down,"
Yenic demanded and Gael's glare could have set Yenic's blood to
ice.

"Stand down,
pup."

Alaysha squirmed
in Gael's arms. "I was getting answers."

"I see that."

"You're
ridiculous." Even still, her face flamed as Gael swept out of the
garden and past Saxa's cottage, leaving Yenic standing with his
cheek in his palm.

When Alaysha
noticed they were heading for the Main Keep, she got nervous. "I'm
not allowed there," she said simply because she couldn't think of
anything else to say. "And I can walk."

Without ceremony,
he dropped her to her feet. A stone bit into her heel and she
yelped. "You are pretty much a beast." She sat down to rub the pain
away.

"I thought you
could walk."

She peered up at
the handsome face, the eyes that reminded her of the water from the
broad river that no one could breech. His face had become a storm
of things, all of which Alaysha couldn't read. "I can walk."

"Then walk."

He headed again
toward the Keep and Alaysha hobbled to her feet to follow. She
noticed the increasing stares as she drew closer. Everyone would
know by her tattaus that she was Yuri's daughter and his weapon,
used to kill and bring victory of every sort to Sarum. They would
also know Yuri made her live outside the walls and left her to her
own devices when they weren't on campaign. A few women wore veils
in a variety of styles depending on their tribal heritage. Some
wore hoods. Some went nearly naked from head to toe. Sarum was such
a mix of cultures that Alaysha often wondered how Yuri kept them
all complacent in their accepted captivity.

The slaves were
easy to spot because they'd been branded on each cheek with their
owners' marks; the mere chattels and bonded wore undyed flax tunics
shapeless and thick. Alaysha thought of Aedus and her clear cheeks
and not for the first time wondered why Drahl had not marked her or
Edulph when he'd had the time to do so.

She caught the eye
of one man, whose cheeks were newly flamed from the branding iron,
and she knew she could see fear in them, and the hint of
hatred.

"I don't want to
go," she told Gael.

"You don't want to
train?" he said over his shoulder.

"With the witch?"
She could swear her heart skipped.

He didn't respond
and she stepped up her pace to walk beside him. She'd tired of the
heated looks and she'd tired of walking obligingly behind him as a
good slave would do. It was difficult to match his stride but she
managed, and wasn't sure if he slowed just a bit to let her keep
up.

"Gael, will I see
the witch today?"

"We will see."

Being Gael and the
tallest man, it seemed, in Yuri's army, being the brother of the
favored wife, Gael had no trouble getting let into the gate of the
Main Keep. Alaysha, even with her close kinship to Yuri, was
different.

Gael frowned at
the man who stepped into her path, barring her entrance.
Eventually, wordless, they were both allowed entry and they strode
unhindered to the outer audience chamber, where Alaysha knew Yuri
dispensed justice when he needed to, planned his campaigns
otherwise. What else he did inside, she would never know; in all
her years, she'd never seen anything but war and more war.

Bodiccia stood at
the door, a match for Gael in height, her feet planted widely apart
and her arms crossed over her chest. She had gained another
bracelet of men's teeth, Alaysha noticed. She also seemed to have
gained a new protégée.

Bronwyn stood at
her side in an exact imitation of Bodiccia's stance.

"They say the
witch forgets her sisters too easily."

Alaysha didn't
have time to rush forward before her half sister was in her arms,
wrapped so tightly against her that she could smell the roasted
boar in her hair.

"Where have you
been?"

Bronwyn peeked
sideways at Bodiccia. "You see it." She looked back at Alaysha
shyly. "I went to see you once, but no one could get near Saxa's
cottage. It was barricaded for days. Not even a hound was allowed
near."

Alaysha didn't
want to think how Yuri had managed that. "You are taking the
warrior's training?" She tried not to think about whether that
would include Corrin, but told herself if it was Bodiccia who was
her mentor, she might be spared.