Sorceress (34 page)

“And if you don’t?”

“Then I doubt, lady, that you are truly the new sorceress of Tarth.”

Bryanna didn’t know what to hope for.

Either her entire life had been a lie and she was the daughter of a witch or she was, indeed, mad, listening to dead women and old crones who wove legends with truth. She rubbed her arms. “If you would like a rest, I’ll dig for a while.”

“I think not.” Gavyn drove the shovel deep.

And hit something hard, which made a loud, clunking sound.

Bryanna’s head snapped up.

Her heart turned stone-cold.

“Got something,” Gavyn said, and gone was any trace of cockiness, his smile fading.

As Bryanna walked closer to the deep hole in the earth, he leaned into his task, digging the shovelfuls faster, his blade striking something solid time and time again. Each time she heard that thunk, Bryanna stiffened.

She peered into the dark hole, where Gavyn scraped away the remaining dirt with the side of the shovel. “ ’ Tis a box, all right,” he said.

He was right. In the pale moonlight she saw the outline of a long wooden box, probably a rotting pine coffin. Out of habit, she sketched the sign of the cross over her bosom, while quivering to her very soul.

“Dear God,” Bryanna whispered as she stared at the casket. The wind rushed around her as a solitary cloud, gauzy and fine, drifted across the moon.

“Looks like Gleda was right,” Gavyn said, and without waiting for any word from Bryanna, he reached into the hole and swiped off the remaining dirt with a hand. “Do you want to do the honors?” he asked once the broken, rotting pine box was exposed.

She shook her head. “Go ahead. Open it.”

“All right then.” He positioned the blade of the shovel to lever off the lid of the coffin, and the soft decomposing wood gave way easily.

Bryanna, her mouth dry as sand, braced herself as she lay on the wet ground and leaned over the edge of the grave, her arms dangling into the wet hole. She wrapped her fingers around the soft wood, and as Gavyn leaned on the handle of the shovel, helped him pry the cover off the casket.

With a loud, unworldly groan, the wood gave way.

The lid fell to one side.

The casket and its contents were exposed.

What Bryanna saw caused her heart to stop and a scream to die on her lips.

Lying in the box, black eye sockets gaping, was a skeleton, the bones of Kambria of Tarth, the barest scraps of rotting cloth visible.

But the dead woman wasn’t alone.

Cradled in her fleshless arms was a tiny separate set of bones, the perfectly formed skeleton of a baby.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“’
T
is my sister,” Bryanna said, certain the baby cradled so carefully in the dead woman’s arms had to be Lenore’s missing child, the infant that had been switched.

“Lenore and Alwynn’s child.”

“Yes,” she whispered, a lump in her throat so large she could barely breathe.

“So the legacy, Gleda’s tale, is true. Or parts of it.”

“Mayhap all of it.” She sat back on her heels and looked up at the moon riding high in the sky, its watery illumination shining over the land.

“There is something more.”

“More?” she asked.

Gavyn was staring at the woman and child. “See there? Look.” The serious tone of his voice gave her pause. New trepidation assailed her as she eased over the rim of the hole again and peered into the darkness.

She saw the smallest glitter, like a bit of glass catching light, within the casket, about midway inside, between the dead woman’s hip bones.

The back of her scalp crinkled in revulsion. “What is it?” she asked, but in her heart she knew. It was a stone. One of the gems for the dagger. Shimmering pearlescent and bright.

Part of the legend ran through her mind.

“’Tis the opal, is it not?”

“Let’s see.”

Bryanna felt her legs go weak as he reached between the bones. She looked away, fearing she might be sick. “Someone hid it in the casket with her,” she said, as if that were a plausible excuse.

“I don’t think so.”

Oh, God! He was right. Why would someone hide it there rather than steal it? And its position . . .

Again bile climbed up her throat as she thought of what Kambria had endured, what she had done to save her child, to save Bryanna. Her voice was a whisper when she said, “Isa . . . Isa said that there were two items. . . . One would be the stone, and the other must be the child. . . .”

“We’ll see . . . ,” he said and reached farther into the casket, his fingers pushing aside the bones to retrieve the small stone.

Bryanna cringed, feeling that Kambria and the infant were being violated all over again. She knew the disturbance was necessary. For the love of God, that was why she’d come here, to locate the first gem to place inside the dagger. And yet, it still seemed wrong.

The moon rose even higher, giving off more light, until the night seemed a blue, filmy day. Bryanna held her breath as Gavyn rose from the grave holding the shining opal and handed the gem to her. Oval-shaped, it looked perfect in the silvery light, a smaller, elongated version of the moon itself.

“There is something else,” he said, and again disappeared into the pit. Still feeling ill, Bryanna poised at the graveside and peered in with ever more trepidation.

She knew where his fingers were burrowing and gagged as he retrieved what looked like a dark twig.

“Morrigu, Mother Goddess,” she whispered as the truth was evident to them both. “The stone and this . . . These items were not intentionally buried with her,” she said. “No friend or ally left them with her.”

He looked up at her and shook his head.

“They were hidden within her. Deep in her body.” Bryanna shuddered as she realized that Kambria was so desperate to keep her secret that she had hidden the jewel and the twiggish thing inside her, pressing them deep within her womb.

“Aye,” he agreed solemnly. “She must have known she would die soon.”

“So what is that? What did you find with the stone?” She motioned to the item in his hand.

“It looks like a piece of rolled leather.”

“Another part of the map.” Bryanna met his eyes in the moonlight. “The two things Isa told me about. The opal and the map.”

She glanced down at the skeletal mother and the bones of a baby who’d been born by another woman. Buried together.
Forever bound.
She felt herself pale. This could not be the babe Isa had mentioned. “Isa never mentioned that we’d find the baby here.”

“Maybe she didn’t know. Let’s see if there is anything else.” As Bryanna fingered the stone and bit of rolled leather, he searched the rest of the coffin, carefully examining around and beneath and inside the bones. Finally, he shook his head and straightened, his eyes just inches below hers. “There is nothing more here.”

“Then we must bury her again, along with the child.” Bryanna whispered a quick prayer. “Now they can finally rest in peace.”

“I would hope.”

Together they replaced the lid on the coffin. As Gavyn shoveled earth over the casket, Bryanna said another prayer to any god or goddess that would listen.

The opal winked knowingly in the moonlight, while the brittle piece of leather was lifeless and drawn. She walked to the fire, opened her pouch, and removed some of the beeswax. She worked the wax into the old stiff leather, softening it, massaging it, making it more pliable. Bryanna didn’t want to think about Kambria’s despair or her fear. What would it take to force this piece of leather up inside the very essence of one’s womanhood, to hide it there with a valuable stone? And the baby. Gleda had said the poor child had died a natural death; mayhap Alwynn had hoped that Kambria could use her powers to save the little girl, even heal her. Perhaps Alwynn had been the one to bury the baby beside her.

“No power is strong enough for that,” she said aloud, stretching the deer hide slowly over a rock, smoothing it each time it began to roll up again.

“What?” Gavyn was tossing the final shovelfuls of dirt onto the grave, tamping down the soft earth.

“I was just thinking about Kambria,” she said, grimacing as she tried to force the leather to flatten.

“About why, if she was such a great sorceress, she couldn’t save herself?”

“Aye.”

“Some things can’t be explained,” he said. “Like talking to a dead woman or dreaming of someone you haven’t yet met.”

“You know of my dreams?” she asked, confused.

He sat on a rock next to her and watched as she worked the leather, her fingers stretching and moistening the deer hide. “Nay, Bryanna,” he admitted. “I only know of my own. So where is the dagger?” She looked up from her work. “Let me do this. You put the stone where it belongs.”

He took over for her, pressing his thumbs into the leather as she unwrapped the dagger. “An opal for the northern point,” she said and carefully rotated the stone over the top hole in the dagger. As the opal clicked into place, she felt a sensation ripple through her fingers and run up her arm, warming her from the inside out. A flash of light sizzled upon the hilt of the dagger and the stone was suddenly affixed firmly in its position.

“By the gods,” Gavyn whispered. “It’s set.”

“As if it had always been imbedded in the handle,” she said. The old dagger seemed to shine now, the opal glowing pink and pale blue, though she was certain it was a trick of moonlight.

Gavyn’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe in magick.”

She handed the knife to him and he tried to wiggle the gem from its place on the knife’s hilt, but it was solid. Gavyn shook his head slowly back and forth, then handed the knife to her.

“You might have to change your mind about your beliefs,” she said.

“Humph.” His brow still furrowed, he handed her the ragged piece of doeskin. “Mayhap we should look at this and try to understand it. Kambria went to great lengths to hide it.”

By the firelight they placed the three pieces on a long, flat rock, turning them and twisting them until their jagged edges meshed and the etchings made some kind of sense. “This is the way it goes,” Gavyn said, studying the symbols and weird hieroglyphics. He ran a finger from the spot that indicated Kambria’s grave to the edge of one portion, where, again, it looked as if the doe hide had been etched. “East,” he said, eyeing the surrounding hills. He glanced up at the sky, then nodded toward the steepest cliffs. “That way.”

Bryanna followed his gaze to the dark craggy hillsides covered in trees.

“An opal for the northern point, an emerald for the east . . . Tomorrow, I’ll head in that direction,” she said.

“And I’ll come with you.”

“Will you?” she asked, not certain that he should join her. As much as she missed him when he was gone, as much as she wanted his company, she was not sure he should be a part of her quest.

“Won’t you need a hunter, and a tracker, and a grave digger, and a bodyguard?”

She nearly laughed. “A bodyguard with a price upon his head, riding a stolen horse that belongs to a nobleman. Is that what I need?”

“Aye,” he said with a nod. “I think you do.”

“And what about the rest?” she asked, still sore enough to be reminded of their lovemaking.

“The rest?” His words sounded innocent, but his eyes glinted in the moonlight.

“Between us. You know.” The bastard! He was going to make her say it. “What happened last night . . . between us. What about that?”

“Since you think I was too rough with you, mayhap we should wait.”

“How long?”

“That, m’lady, is up to you. I am always ready.”

Cursed man! Was he laughing at her? His quicksilver eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

A retort was on her lips when, quick as a cat pouncing upon a mouse, he grabbed her and pulled her close to him. Byranna dropped the knife from her hands as he lowered his mouth to hers, his lips hot and hungry. She gasped as his tongue thrust between her teeth, toying and touching, flicking upon the roof of her mouth.

“Ooh,” she whispered, her arms wrapping around his neck. Her flesh was instantly fevered. “Gavyn . . .”

Holding her firmly to him, he pulled back his head. “What, lady?”

“I—I . . .”

“I know. Me, too. But I think it’s best if we wait”—his smile was wicked as the night as he let go of her—“until you’re bloody well ready.”

It had taken every bit of willpower to allow her to sleep alone, but he had done it. He’d stretched out on the ground, swaddled in his mantle, and watched as she, exhausted, had fallen asleep.

Sweet Jesus, he ached for her. The night before had been pure bliss, and then today, her odd accusations had left him cold. Had she not responded to him? Had she not kissed and loved him with warm hands, wet lips, and willing body?

He stared at the dying fire while she lay so close to him he could touch her if he but reached out his arms.

His jaw clenched at the thought, and he leaned over the log he was braced upon and spat. He didn’t believe in witches or sorcery or spells or magick or
any
damned thing he didn’t understand. Sometimes, when he witnessed incredible cruelty, even God was difficult to trust, though he did try to believe.

Dragging his gaze away from her, he stared up at the watery moon and finally dozed.

When he awoke, the sun was already rising, clouds starting to gather. He stoked the fire and waited until she roused to tell her that he would leave to hunt for an hour or so. By the time he’d returned with a duck and squirrel, she was just finishing stitching the map together with the heavy leather needle and thread she’d found in Gleda’s sewing supplies.

He skinned the squirrel, plucked the duck, and placed the carcasses on a spit that Bryanna had created with her knife and several sturdy sticks. Smoke billowed into the sky, where high clouds were collecting. As the scent of charred flesh wafted on the air, he noted that Bane was back, poised intently at the edge of the forest.