Water Witch (13 page)

"I'm sorry. That spot tickles, doesn't
it?"

His voice sounded as though it came from a
dark pit when he answered. "No. Not ticklish at all." He let his arm
fall and reached to touch the corner of her mouth, then his fingers trailed the
length of her tattau, stopping at her ear. He cupped the back of her head and
she thought for a second that the clump of air that had somehow lodged in her
chest would keep her from speaking.

"Why are mine on my chin?"

He smiled and leaned forward. The feel of
his lips against her forehead made her chest tight.

"Because yours is the burden of
swallowing our sins." His hand left her nape and traveled down her back.
She felt herself begin to mold against him almost as though she were made of
oil and was finding the curves of his body like she was meant to. When his palm
pulled her hips closer to his, she let herself step into the embrace and enjoy
the warmth of his body against hers.

"It's a difficult burden,
Alaysha," he said into her hair. "But you don't have to suffer it
alone."

She felt the tension leave at his words and
hadn't realized her muscles had been coiled and ready to run. If they'd ever
felt relaxed, she was sure it had been during childhood, before her first
battle, and it felt good to let them ease into each other, one fiber connecting
to the next without worry that they'd need to fight or run. Without thinking,
she put her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his bare chest.
She could hear his heart beating within like a happy fire sending flames
roaring over thick logs.

"I've been alone for so long,"
she said. "Ever since Nohma…" She didn't want to say it. She
couldn't.

He pulled away just enough that he could
peer down at her and searched her eyes with his own. "What about your
nohma?"

"I killed her."

He looked truly perplexed. "But you
couldn't."

She stepped back and leaned to pick up a
stick to poke the fire. She'd admitted it, finally, but she didn't think she
could take the admonishment. She hadn't meant to, after all. She stirred the
ashes and lifted a charred blocks to allow it air so the fire could catch
beneath it.

"Alaysha?"

She would answer, but she wouldn't look at
him. "I did. I killed her."

"You couldn't." He grasped her by
the shoulder and twisted her away from the fire. "Her tattaus, her blood,
would have protected her."

Now it was her turn to be confused.
"Her blood?"

"Yes. Alaysha. Didn't you know she was
your mother's sister? She was your blood witch."

Alaysha ran her memory back as many paths
as she could as she stood there. It didn't make sense. She'd killed her, she
knew it. She remembered it.

"I don't understand," she said.

"You are young," he said and took
the stick from her. In his hands the fire leapt to ready flame.

"How do you do that so easily?"

He grinned at her. "I can't tell you
all my secrets."

"It seems you are keeping a good
many." She held her hands out to the flame.

"I have a few, yes," he agreed.

There were so many questions already
roiling around in her head, she barely knew what to ask, how would she ever
find a way to sort them all out. Yet something was bothering her more than
anything else. Something he'd said kept trying to creep back into her
consciousness.

"Your sister had tattaus across her
chin."

He nodded but he wouldn't look into her
eyes. "She was being tattaued. We thought she had plenty of time to get
them finished."

"I got to her before she could have
the black filled in?"

"Yes."

"You said the symbols and their
placement were relevant."

Again he nodded.

"So your sister was a witch."

He sighed as though he'd been holding his
breath. "Yes. She would have been. But not nearly as powerful as
you."

He looked at her so strangely, she thought
she must have said something wrong. He reached for her and she went to him
without thinking and stepped into his embrace.

"You have more power than you can
know. I don't blame you, Alaysha."

She thought she heard herself sob but knew
it couldn't be true; she'd never once cried over all the lives she had taken.
Not once. A warrior did not feel. A warrior did not allow emotion to keep her
from her task.

She felt the warmth of his breath on her
cheek before she felt his touch. He kissed her just at the rise of each cheek,
where she knew tears had pooled, and then he brushed her eyes with his lips,
capturing the fluid as it leaked out.

"You're so beautiful," he
murmured.

His mouth claimed hers tentatively at
first, then took it with such force he could have been a man below the
waterline too long, thirsting for air, gulping it in as though his life
depended on it. She responded so similarly, she felt herself losing the will to
stand and even as she thought she would let go, she felt his arms beneath her
knees and around her waist and she was lain on down, against the fur. His hand
roamed her hips and legs, stroked her back. She couldn't stop herself from
pressing against him and feeling every inch of his body against hers, and yet
it wasn't close enough still.

Barruch made a sound somewhere between a
whinny and a snort, and it was enough to remind Alaysha that they were not
truly alone; the girl could have returned. She pulled away and scrabbled to her
feet, breathless and feeling as though she'd narrowly escaped some danger.
Yenic lay on his back with a short grin playing at the corners of his mouth. He
put his hands behind his head and for a second, she wanted to strike him for
his arrogance but remembered how badly she wanted to feel his mouth on hers
again, and ended up scurrying away to hide the blush she knew had taken her
cheeks.

Barruch stomped his front feet impatiently,
thankfully giving her time to recover and digest all she now knew.

She moved to put her palm on his nose where
a small spot of white showed, and he lowered it to avoid her touch. She went to
pat his chest and he huffed away.

"Come now, old man, you can't say
you're unhappy for me."

He merely blinked and swatted at her with
his tail.

Spending time and attention on her horse
gave Alaysha a few minutes to gather her thoughts. She'd never once questioned
Nohma about her past. True, it was odd, now she thought it that her nurse
treated her so familiarly. But she'd never once indicated they were related.
And if it were true that she was protected by blood from Alaysha's young
powers, then how was Alaysha able to take her life?

She ran her hand down Barruch's neck,
letting her memory take her places she had never forgot, but chose to bury.
That night when she was just six, her name day, actually, she'd been allowed to
feed her new colt and was so excited she couldn't stop talking. She'd wanted to
run to her father and thank him, but Nohma held her back. He wouldn't be
interested in gratitude, Nohma told her. He was only interested in getting his
own mount back – and safely out of killing distance. She'd already destroyed
several of his horses.

That too, was true. Forced to ride in a
basket slung off the side of his mount for years, she'd killed plenty, not the
least the horse upon which she was saddled when she unleashed her thirst.

"He was tired of walking back to camp
with you on his back," Nohma told her. And so in the last battles, she'd
been pitched forward with Nohma in the saddle, armed scouts to the left and
right, a full armament in the back. Only Nohma, Alaysha, and the poor
sacrificial beast riding forward to greet the opposition.

In those days, her power was unpredictable,
yes, and far from the mature ability to kill at long distances. She was
deprived of food and water for days before battle and sent, afraid, into the
perimeter to let loose her primal fear of thirsting to death.

And men fell.

And the horse beneath her fell.

And usually Nohma was left standing to
carry her back to the camp while the warriors went in to gather the slaves. But
that last time, that last battle when they'd learned to leave the horse far behind
the battle lines, with Nohma standing beside her, confident in the history that
proved she was the only one capable of living in proximity with the witch, that
last battle Nohma fell. And no matter how long Alaysha stood in the rain in the
aftermath, the seeds of her eyes never took root and grew back into the woman
who loved her.

So the blood hadn't protected her. And the
symbols were not strong enough.

She turned to Yenic, wanting to tell him he
was wrong, but standing next to him was the girl; she'd come back from her
foraging, obviously.

But she was not alone.

"This is my brother," the girl
said. She looked up to the swarthy man at her side. He was tall, much taller
than Yenic and several inches thicker. His hair was matted in mud so that it
was all back off his face and temples. His eyes were as green as a wolf pup's
and looked to be about as predictable. His arm wasn't slung over the girl's
shoulder so much as it was clenching her bicep in a meaty hold.

Yenic looked as though he was about to hurl
himself across the few feet and use his own shoulder as a battering ram to the
solid wall of stomach that was the brother, and looking at the way the
interloper was holding onto the girl, Alaysha couldn't say she blamed him.

"Welcome," she said, not sure
what else she should say; after all, the man was this girl's kin.

Rather than act pleased over the
hospitality, he sneered at her and pushed the girl forward.

"Tell her," he said.

Alaysha noticed the skinny legs trembling,
the furtive way the girl kept looking into the trees. She suspected there was
more to the visitor's party than what the youth was letting on.

"Edulph wants to know what you
are."

Alaysha had to tear her gaze from the
girl's trembling shoulders. "If you've hurt her…"

The boy spat. "Aedus doesn't need pain
to be reminded where she comes from."

"Aedus?" So that was the girl's
name. Alaysha caught and held the girl's eye. Yes. It was true.

"Where'd you come from?" she
asked Aedus.

The girl started to speak, but got shoved
from behind. She stumbled forward and had to catch herself from falling. Edulph
spoke for her instead.

"Doesn't matter. What does matter is
how you're going to help us kill your father."

It would be laughable if he didn't seem so
earnest. Alaysha sensed Yenic taking subtle steps toward her and Barruch's
breathing had shifted. It was shallower, ready to bolt if need be.

"You want to kill Yuri." Even
speaking it didn't make it sound more sensible.

"I want to kill Yuri and enslave his
people like he did mine."

"You'll never manage it. Yuri's people
would never serve." She didn't think she'd have to add how difficult it
would be to assassinate the conqueror of the hordes. He'd not got that way
through being a docile man, and did not manage to lead for so long by being
accessible. Alaysha thought of Bodiccia and the men whose teeth circled her
forearms.

She decided to wait out this strangely
ambitious brother, reason with him somehow. She didn't care, in the end whether
he made war on Yuri or whether he went his own way and forgot about his
vengeance. It was no concern of hers. But for the girl. She couldn't stand the
way this brother acted as though Aedus was a possession to be used. She glared
at him. "I don't care what you do, but you will leave your sister to
decide if she wants a part in it or not."

Edulph grabbed Aedus's scrawny arm and
twisted her backwards, so she was pinioned next to him.

"Let her go." Heat flooded
Alaysha's neck, the anger boiling in her chest and needing out. She took an
angry stepped forward, intending to thrash the daylights from this insipid
bastard once and for all. She would have stormed the fire's perimeter when she
felt Yenic's hand on her shoulder. She gave him a questioning look.

He ignored it and addressed Edulph.
"What is it you really want? We have no quarrel with you."

Edulph snorted. "You have a quarrel
with Yuri, though."

Yenic nodded. "Maybe, but why do we
care that you do? Go your way. Make your war. We have no stake in it."

Edulph inclined his head at Alaysha.
"I've seen her. I've seen what she can do. Out there." He jerked his
head towards the arid land that was once Yenic's village. "I've been with
the scouts, with the warriors over the years. I've seen the desolation she's
left behind. Not a single arrow shot. Not a torch put to grass."

Alaysha's stomach began to squirm. She'd
been careful never to have anyone witness the things she'd done, but they had
certainly witnessed the aftermath. It would be easy for someone to think, to
believe, that the massacres were easy.