Blood Witch (7 page)

The question was:
why had that flogging caused her enough pain to bury in the first
place?

"Do you remember
the last flogging in Sarum, Gael?"

From behind him
she saw his back stiffen, but he forged ahead of her without pause.
She took advantage of his seeming vulnerability. Oh, her father
would be proud, using a painful thing to control another
person.

"We will have to
stop it," she told him.

"Yuri commands
me," he said from over his shoulder.

"Yuri is angry.
He's not thinking clearly. You can't do this to Yenic."

"Yuri always
thinks clearly."

That was true, and
Alaysha knew it. The other, nestled truth was that Yuri was not
flogging Yenic in public. Insolence was a crime that could be used
as a teaching tool. So why was this happening away from the
courtyard?

Logic told her it
was about more than disobedience and anger.

"He can't flog him
where Yenic's mother will discover it, can he?"

Rather than
answer, Gael turned in the direction of the Keep and led her toward
the back curtain. The river was beyond that, and a few strides east
was the mountain Yuri had hewn a small castle into.

The sick liquidity
of memory started to move within her the closer she got. She
followed Gael through an iron door set into the rock face's natural
opening and then into the dank, dripping maw of what Yuri called
the witch's home.

It had been home,
once. Just after Nohmah died and Alaysha had gone mad with grief.
She knew how far in they would have to travel, how many steps it
would take to get to the bathhouse. How many drips of water would
fall in an inhale, and beyond that, how many drops would fall in a
turn, in a week, a fortnight. A season.

She shuddered, but
refused to let the memory take her. She was here for Yenic. He
might have used her, he might yet have to prove he wasn't trying to
manipulate her, but he didn't deserve pain. Not this pain,
anyway.

"You need come no
further with me," she told Gael. She knew where Yenic would be.

Gael halted and
turned. There was still enough light from the outside that she
could see his face and the torch on the wall sconce played with the
shadows that kept trying to alter his features. She tried to read
the strange expression she saw there.

She interpreted it
how she wanted even if he wasn't concerned for her. "I'll be fine."
She stepped closer and without thinking, reached for his forearm.
She felt him nearly snatch it away, but he did allow the touch.

"You don't fear
me," she said.

He stared into her
eyes. "I fear nothing."

She gave him a
questioning look.

"It's not fear?"
She echoed.

"Fear is for those
who don't know their own power."

He was talking
about her, whether he knew it or not, he was talking about her and
maybe she was reading more into it all than was there.

"Those that know
their own power," he went on, "know its limits and prepare for
them."

"What are your
limits, Gael?" She looked over the hair that shone even here in the
shadows, the broad jaw and the way he towered over her, over nearly
everything so that he was forever looking down at things. She
looked him over and thought his limits must have something to do
with feeling above it all.

"My limit is that
I know no fear." He pulled away from her at last, but let his
forearm linger just beneath her touch. "Go to your boy," he said.
"See if you can change what is about to happen to him."

Alaysha watched
him go back towards the entrance and stop just close enough to the
door that he couldn't be seen from the outside unless someone was
looking directly in. He put his back against the cave wall and slid
down to his haunches. He could have been an innocuous boulder near
the entrance, but Alaysha knew that if anyone came in, he would not
let them pass.

She took a deep
breath and move deeper into the cave, veered right automatically,
where outside light couldn't get in, and headed forward, lit only
by the torches and beeswax candles in the crevices made of natural
rock. A steady sweat of water ran down the stone, and into gunnels
carved into the floor after centuries of movement. She knew she was
climbing a slight slope because her wind came up, reminding her
that she wasn't quite fully healed. Her wind had risen those years
ago too, but only because she'd already used up most of her air
with the grief of tears.

Before she could
stop it, the memory was upon her. She could hear Yuri's voice
again, too if she tried, telling her to stop her whimpering. To
steel herself like any great warrior would. How could a soldier
kill if he cried like a baby over a simple death.

She'd had the
audacity to argue -- she was a girl, not a boy, and the simple
death she had dealt was her nohma's. Had he no heart?

He'd struck her,
of course. A quick backhand across the cheek, and she refused to
rub the pain out, instead facing him with tears running down her
cheeks the same way they ran down the walls of stone. Then, though,
as they didn't now, the fluid from the walls rose to a mist and
clouded the cavern. It rained too. Hard, aggressive, and piercing
rain that seemed to move straight from the gunnels, to the cloud,
to Yuri's face, and to the ground again.

"You can keep at
me all day, Witch," he'd told her. "There's enough water in this
mountain that you'll never psych it dry." Then he pulled her
mercilessly into what he called the bathhouse.

It was a cavernous
enclave with holes in the earth so wide a man could bath in them.
Some bubbled and frothed like wash water saturated with soap. Some
lay stagnant but hot, sending wafts of steam to the ceiling. Now,
as then, Yuri stood in the center of it all with his arms crossed,
feet planted authoritatively.

She wasn't
surprised to see him step from memory to reality. Nor was she
surprised to see the wooden table heaving with instruments of all
kinds, the setup of shackles and wood that stretched Yenic's broad
back out into one full length of arm. Fingertip to fingertip, the
shackles pulled at his wrist and the manacles, with their
Yuri-created finger holds pulled each muscle all the way from neck
to middle finger as taut as possible. Yenic didn't even need the
strength of his legs to stand so. The shackles kept him erect.

Next to Yuri stood
the carrion, as Alaysha called him. She'd probably been told his
name once, but didn't care to remember it. He held a long leather
whip in one hand and cradled the length of it in the other. She
knew she had arrived in time, but she also knew she didn't have
much to spare.

"Please don't,"
she said, and while her father didn't so much as move, the carrion
bobbed his head in her direction and gave her a lazy grin.

"Too many
memories, Witch?" he asked her.

She'd never been
flogged by the carrion; the only man who had been, she realized
just then, was Saxa's father, but she'd certainly been beaten by
the Carrion. Most times she told herself Yuri hadn't known about
the punches to the stomach, and in truth, it might have been true.
He never hit her where bruises could be seen – only in the ribs,
the shins, buttocks. He beat the whimpering nearly out of her
without worry of dying a witch-contrived death. Not that she hadn't
tried, but because her power psyched always the most readily
available fluid before it pulled at the liquid from a man. And the
cavern had such an abundance of water it couldn't create a cloud
large enough to hold the water before it came down again.

In the days when
her power was unpredictable, but weaker, she couldn't steal his
fluid no matter how much she tried.

Things could be
different now.

"I don't fear my
memories," she told him and heard her father chuckle.

"She's trained now
Corrin," he told the man. "Far more powerful than she was when you
first taught her."

"Is that what he
called it?" she asked. "Training?"

Yuri looked Corrin
over and new suspicion crept across his features so subtly and so
quickly, Alaysha doubted Corrin saw it. She thought it time he
discovered the truth of her childhood mysteries. Anything to keep
the lash from Yenic's back.

"What exactly was
he to be teaching me, Father?"

Yuri swung his
gaze back to her. His face was controlled and complacent, but his
eyes were sharp and bright even in the torch and candlelight.

"He was to teach
you what you learned – control over your weeping and
sentimentality."

"But not of her
power."

Yenic's voice. So
he was aware and listening. Thank The Deities.

"You would do well
to stay silent," Yuri told him and Alaysha watched the subtle
movements of Yenic's shoulders and wondered whether he was laughing
or trying to take a breath. She moved toward him and spoke just
loud enough for him to hear.

"How long?"

"A few moments, no
more."

She breathed
relief. At least he hadn't stood like that for too long. She'd
managed it herself for only long enough to receive a few staunch
blows before losing her leg strength and having to hang there by
her wrists. That didn't stop the beatings, though, no matter how
much her wrists hurt.

"You thought to
flog him father, and then what? Have him return to his mother? What
would happen then?"

Yuri shrugged his
indifference. "Perhaps you should tell me why a man would kill the
last person who could explain an attack on his people and then not
be disciplined."

The carrion
mumbled his agreement and Alaysha glared at him. "Careful, beast,"
she said. "Or I might enlighten Yuri of your training methods."

Again, Yuri looked
at Corrin, but this time there was no change in expression, even
subtly. It was pure examination, that look. Taking in each inch of
Corrin and assessing, processing, storing what he saw. That was
enough to satisfy her. She turned again to Yenic and reached for
his rib cage where she knew the tattaus were. She touched his skin
and felt it pimple under her fingers even though the flesh was
still hot to her touch. "I know. You're cold in here," she said and
Yenic grunted.

"Never cold," he
murmured.

The way his voice
sounded: intimate, warm, she had to remind herself he couldn't be
trusted. Not yet. No matter how badly she wanted to be able to
forgive him, she had to remind herself she just didn't want him to
be flogged. No more. She turned to Yuri, leaving her hand on Yenic,
thinking the connection could lend him some strength.

"You know it would
be foolish to harm him," she told Yuri.

"His mother
doesn't even know he's returned."

"And so when she
does she will find him abused, or is it that you plan to keep him
here until he's healed? Because that would be foolish. He'll grow
only weaker."

Yuri shrugged.
"Then he should tell me why he killed that boy."

She could feel
Yenic trying to twist around as he spoke and she reached for one of
the manacles. It had a special catch that if pressed, would snap
open.

"I told you,"
Yenic said. "I didn't know he was the last one." His arm hung loose
by his side, but it enabled him to swing to face them as he
spoke.

Yuri stepped
closer. "Who were they?" It was clear by his tone that he believed
Yenic knew.

Yenic shook his
head. "We saw them about a day ago and crept up to them. Listened
to them."

"We." Yuri didn't
move but it almost seemed as though his voice had taken several
steps forward. "Meaning you and the girl."

"Aedus," Alaysha
guessed. "Drahl's slave girl."

Yuri nodded,
inpatient. "Where is she?"

"She stayed behind
in the forest by the river."

That information
bothered Alaysha until she remembered how tenacious the twelve
seasons girl could be. Surely, she'd be fine near the river, where
she could drink if thirsty and forage for eggs or berries. That
didn't answer why she hadn't come with him, and Alaysha wanted to
know more than Yuri did.

"Why did she stay
behind?"

Yenic's
yellow-eyed gaze turned on Alaysha. "You told me to keep her
safe."

Yes, she had. Back
when she thought he was her Arm and not his mother's, when she
thought she was the only remaining witch with powers of her type,
the only surviving member of her tribe. She believed he would keep
the girl safe for her. She believed so much then.

"Safest to leave
her alone?"

"Safer then here,
I suppose." He might not have been able to shrug, but his voice
implied it.

Yuri seemed he'd
had enough. "It matters not. The girl is where the girl is. The
real question is who were they? Who attacked my people?"

Yenic swung his
gaze toward Yuri, whose feet were planted apart, his arms still
crossed. In the dim light he looked tired but determined. "I told
you. I don't know."

"I heard the
words." Yuri turned finally and studied Corrin. "Take him out of
the shackles."

Corrin scowled
miserably but did as he was told. When Yenic's arm let go, it was
accompanied by a low groan from its owner. Alaysha had a flash of
memory deep in her own cells that reminded her how painful and how
pleasurable that release was. She noticed Corrin's slow grin of
satisfaction and wanted to see him dead right then.

"Come, then," Yuri
said and started out of the bathhouse in purposeful strides that
gave Alaysha a short moment of panic that she would be left alone
inside again. It wasn't until she felt Yenic take her left side and
she could smell the sweat on him from the insult to his body that
she felt as though she could move. She wanted to reach out to him
and might have if Corrin hadn't pushed them both aside to catch up
to Yuri.