The Witch (6 page)

She was on the floor with the healer’s female Jade, and two other women, plus some babes he thought were half Lupoiux. Apparently they all knew each other well.

“As I figured.” The healer said from behind him. “Jade was quite worried. And until she realized Mara was already here that worry was worse. Now, perhaps, that worry will not be in my Rajni’s eyes so much.”

Jushua just shook his head.

He would never understand the females of any Kind.

How was he supposed to reconcile a woman with her obvious abilities with a mere girl fresh into adulthood?

Something was not honest about her.

There was more about her than she allowed to show.

The healer lifted his blonde female from the pile of women on the rug and sat her gently on the seat near him. The rest followed.

The witchie’s mother was silent, but she seemed well when she sat next to the redheaded woman he vaguely recognized as a relation of the Healer’s female. But it was the Druid who held the attention of all in the room.

Jushua was no exception. Something about her would draw the eyes of any male.

He took a moment to catalog the rest of the sitting room’s occupants. Mostly relations of Nalik’s female. She was cousin to Barlaam’s and a few others who were present. There were three young babes in the room as well. One was Nalik’s son, the other two he did not recognize, though from the way one of the women was holding one, he assumed it was hers. And the Taniss who had accompanied them to the other world had immediately picked up another babe. A relation of his, then. It was hard to keep those Taniss cousins—especially the females—straight.

Nalik sat next to his female, who was watching the proceedings with interest. Jushua liked the quiet young Cass a great deal, and he knew it bothered the reborned brother when he teased Cass.

So Jushua made a point of teasing Cass, at the most inopportune times for her mate.

“Loren…” Barlaam spoke. Jushua watched the Druid with interest.

She respected the Healer. It was in how she looked at him, how she spoke to him. Why?

Jushua knew little of the other male, though they had met on many occasions.

Barlaam was of his sister’s tribe of Dardaptoans. They were quite different from Jushua’s. Evolution would do that, especially considering that his people had spent almost five thousand years in a separate world.

His twin had spent much of her time in the world she’d escaped to being cursed and cursing against a wolf god. That god had eventually become her mate, but while they were battling, they had caused irrevocable changes within the beings his sister had created. His twin had always been impulsive and overly dramatic. At least she had been five thousand years ago.

His Dardaptoans had been original to his family line, and still carried traces of his father and mother’s bloodlines.

The ones his sister had created a thousand years after the Dark Sorcerer’s attack had been weakened by her cursing game with the wolf god. And they contained the memories of their origins, not the blood.

In Jushua’s experience, his Dardaptoans were stronger and more powerful than anything his sister had created.

With the exception of Nalik Black, the male who possessed his brother Kilan’s reborn soul. Nobody screwed with Nalik.

Or with his House.

“You are powerful. But you are not fully Druid. Tell me, what are you?” Nalik asked. “You are among friends here, you can be honest.”

“I am always honest.” The witch raised her chin and threw her shoulders back. Did anyone else see the power that radiated off of her? Or was he the only one? “I am Loren Nellano. I was born on the third of November twenty-two years ago. I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in history. What more do you need to know?”

There was a glint in her eyes that had Jushua suspicious as all three hells. “Truth, girl. What are you?”

“Do not order me around, Jushua. I have never liked that.”

Why did she seem to know him? “Have we met before?”

Now she did smile. “Not in this lifetime.”

“Loren…what’s going on? For real,” the healer’s mate asked. “And how did you get here? Where have you been? We heard you left Levia, that you just disappeared.”

She looked around the room, at the servants coming in and out, at the children. “Not here. We’ll talk, Jade. I promise.”

She didn’t want to talk in front of her mother, but she knew that was inevitable. And wasn’t it better to prepare her mother for what was coming, rather than just letting her be shocked when something happened? Letting her be unprepared and defenseless?

After she’d requested privacy, Jade’s cousin had basically waved a hand and had a suite complete with sitting room ready for her and her mother to share. Jade led the way, and took a seat. Loren knew she was about to face some hard questions.

But at least Jushua wasn’t there staring at her.

He’d always been her least favorite of the Dardaptos brothers.

Dekimos and Rixne—they had been among her favorites, though she’d been very young when she had known them and hadn’t interacted with the centuries’ older males much at all.

But Jushua had always been around, from the moment he’d been formally betrothed to her sister. And he’d tormented everyone around them. She’d not cared for his ways, not at all. So she’d tried to avoid him whenever she could. Not hard, as she was just a girl back then.

But his brother Estacles…he had been her friend. He had been the one to take a teenage girl and teach her to protect herself with a sword.

He had been the second son of Eaudne and Cles, quiet and scholarly, but an extremely skilled warrior. But there had been a sadness about Estacles that had always drawn her to his side. He had been the first great prognosticator.

He’d told her she’d have a great destiny.

And then he’d offered her his sword and told her it would come back to her someday. When it was supposed to. And then he had started teaching her to use it.

She did not know what happened to that blade, but knew it was out there. Waiting. Calling for her and guiding her to the places she was supposed to be.

This was the only lifetime in which she had heard it.

The first time she’d felt the call of the blade was when she was sixteen, before it became clear what she was to face in this lifetime.

She’d thought she was going crazy, thought she was hearing voices. Loren had never told her mother what she had learned during her sixteenth year. How was she supposed to now?

Her mother had come this far with her on simple faith. She did not want to fill her mother with horrific fear now. “Mama, I don’t want you to be scared.”

“Honey, a mother always is.”

Jade was there, her husband, the guy Nalik and Jade’s cousin Cass. Becca, too.

Sometimes it was best to just get things started. “I was cursed almost five thousand years ago. Yes, I’m twenty-two now…but this is my eightieth lifetime. I’ve come to fight the Dark Sorcerer.”

She’d come to die. Again.

Because it was her destiny.

Jushua left Nalik’s hall and sought out his brother Dekimos and his mother, needing time to process what the girl had said. To decide if he believed her or not. They were all in Thrun City because his mother had decreed it. Said it was where they were supposed to be.

And he didn’t get much time with them now. And that was something he did not like.

The reborned ones weren’t quite the same as the originals. And how could they be? They had different families, different lives and experiences. Different futures.

Dekimos walked in the garden, where he spent much of his time. When in Thrun, and when in Galaosis. Jushua did not know much about Dekimos City, as he’d only been there once.

Travel to the healing city was deliberately kept limited, to protect the sanctuary of it all.

Dekimos City was the City of the Healers, and was to be protected at all costs. Jushua had sent two thousand of his best warriors to protect the city.

Dekimos was beneath a tree, on his knees, head thrown back. Jushua hesitated to interrupt whatever ritual his brother was engaged in.

So he waited.

“It was beneath a tree much like this that I breathed my last that day.” Dekimos looked at him a few moments later. “I find that going back to that day occasionally helps me stay balanced. To remember.”

“What exactly happened to you?”

Dekimos raised a hand to his neck. Jushua had seen the scars himself on a few occasions. “The sorcerer did not come alone that day. There were others, powerful others. And while I faced that sorcerer alone, he had those others behind me. Because of my failure, more died. Our youngest sister. I failed her, and I will not forget that, or the rest.”

“You were ambushed, then. And yet you blame yourself, still.”

“Don’t you? Tell me, where were you when the attacks came?”

“I was with my friends, Ri and Gaz.” Two men who had also survived the fires, and gone on to father thousands each through their lines. “We were making merry, celebrating. We came as quickly as we could. I know that now. I cannot blame myself anymore, Dekimos. To do so would drive me insane.”

“Yes; sometimes I wonder if I am sane.”

“How did you do it? Pull your soul back together?” His brother’s body was scarred and patched together. Jushua did not want to think about the marks that covered his beloved brother’s body.

Dardaptoans did not scar.

Unless it was horrendous.

“Blood.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The blood of our sister Pin, of the sister of your Nelciana, flowed close enough for me to quench my thirst. I live because they died. Tell me, now, brother, should I not feel the guilt? They were both but children.”

He did not understand. And he said as such, but Dekimos just shook his head. He would speak no more.

Sometimes Jushua also wondered about his brother’s head, and where it was. Maybe Deki was not sane.

Why had Deki not sought out their people in five thousand years? Surely he knew that the Evalanedeans still existed?

Had still needed him.

Three Hells, for all they knew Evalanedea itself still needed them. Jushua had never returned to their homeland, had Deki?

“A girl came back from Gaia with me. She seems to know me. Said we met in another lifetime. Druidic, and very powerful. She opened the barrier between this world and that one with a simple twitch of a finger. Know you anything about her? She could fight, too. Near on kicked my ass, as the Gaians put it.”

Dekimos looked at him. “She have a name?”

“Loren Nellano.” 

Dekimos stiffened, then stood. His hand went to the Sword of Estacles at his side. Jushua had recognized the blade as the one his second brother had carried. Dekimos had been found with it, and refused to ever be without it. Or to discuss it. Jushua hadn’t pushed, knowing how close Dekimos had been to Estacles.

“Where is she?”

“With the healer Barlaam and his female. They are friends. Why?”

Dekimos didn’t answer.

It was all Jushua could do to keep up with his brother, though Dekimos did not run. What was going on?

Did his brother know the witch? How?

**

Dekimos did not ask where she was again. He must have sensed where she was. Jushua wasn’t entirely certain his brother even knew Jushua was still at his side.

His brother had always been one of the quieter ones, he and Estacles had been the more scholarly of the brothers. Jushua hadn’t always appreciated the two’s gentler ways until they were gone.

No, he had been much more like Kilan and their father, fighting for what he considered his right. Dekimos, though, Deki considered all souls, and had possessed an empathy both Jushua and Kilan had once mocked.

Jushua had learned a lot in five thousand years.

They were outside the girl’s suite now, and it was right next to his mother’s. Had Cass ordered it done deliberately? Why?

Jushua could sense great power within the room. The girl? Or his mother? Sometimes his mother’s control would slip and her power would be released unknowingly. There was so much contained within his mother sometimes Jushua worried that it would consume her.

His brother didn’t knock, just shoved the door open with a force that shocked the three hells out of Jushua.

Dekimos pulled the sword.

**

Her mother screamed.

Barlaam and Nalik stood to block the door and protect, but Loren simply rose to her feet.

The call of the sword was all that held her attention for a great while.

The man holding it aloft, above her head, was just secondary.