“You, child,” the injured one said, “should come with us.”
Pietre turned without thinking and ran. Behind him the gentle swish of footsteps began to follow him. He ran to the narrowest point of the creek and splashed through. He ran over roots as thick as his waist and past trees older and rounder than the red sun itself. He ran over barren rocky earth and into a dry and desolate stretch of land. His legs and back and shoulders ached in a way he had never known. He had brought no water and the sweat of the midday heat poured off his face and hair. His tongue felt thick and his stomach hurt. He did not know how much longer he could go. Then, all at once in the middle of the dry cracked land, the footsteps behind him stopped. Pietre ran a small length further and then paused, putting his hands to his knees and breathing steadily, trying to persuade any food that was left in his belly to stay there. He listened carefully and still did not hear them, his breath coming a little easier. He lifted his head to see if there was a stream anywhere near and there, only inches from his face, stood the cats. His vision blurred, the world spun; he stepped backwards, and fell.
Chapter 31
The white wolf Zinder watched from a distant hill as Gog set patches of meadow on fire—starting with the long brown grasses and then moving to several of the stubby dead oak trees that marked the end of the dogs’ territory and the beginning of a verdant, dark wood.
The wolf Gog was mad, sick. Perhaps the king was too—sending the crazed wolf out there with a torch in his mouth. Yet that was just what the king had done. Crespin wanted to destroy the wood that belonged to the traitor he had hunted. He wanted it and so it was done, regardless of the potential cost.
Of course Zinder would not stop the deranged wolf. That was not his place. His place, if he had one, had not been found. It was not here in the beautiful lands of the dogs, nor was it within the palace walls that offered him life, work, and protection in exchange for a word as simple as compromise. And it definitely wasn’t in the middle of a burning meadow trying to reason with a crazy wolf who held a log of fire hanging from his mouth like a deadly pipe.
The fire was rising now and spreading to things that were not dead—the short white meadow flowers, the crusty barks of ancient trees. It licked at the lush wood behind it, though it did not eat, preferring for now the easier stalks of the meadow and thin trees of the woodland’s edge.
The humans called fire hungry. They should know. It had often feasted on their thatched homes, their spindly villages. Yet to be hungry, Zinder thought, meant that you—at some point—could be filled. And fire never was. It swept through the earth leaving neither bone nor marrow, scraps nor ends—leaving only an ashy tailwind that would take centuries to settle and sprout.
Gog spit out the end tip of his torch and then he laughed, running wildly in circles before taking off to the south where the fire had not yet blown.
Zinder stood undetected and alone— watching until a slight movement at the edge of the dogs’ territory caught his eye. Two forms rustled against the grasses and small trees; they were blinded by smoke and running. A gust of wind caught the thick mass of flame and threw it into them, the closest dog falling into that fiery belly that could not be filled. He howled in pain and the scent of burning grass turned to something thick and sour. Dropping to the ground, his companion whimpered in grief and terror, crawling forward then back, unable to see where the fire would strike next, unable to see the one clear path Zinder could see from his hill—the one path that might lead the dog to safety.
Wittendon had been walking much of the afternoon. He was now very lost. The woods were full of shadows; they shuddered and changed faster than seemed possible. After a few hours of wandering, Wittendon said, “If whatever force that rules this wood wishes to speak to me, it can have the decency to show me the way.”
“It could not have been said better by my mistress herself,” a small voice spoke from a tree.
Wittendon looked up, but could see nothing.
“She is preparing a batch of her finest oatmeal cinnamon crispies as we speak. And of course there’s always the tea. It’s a favorite, even among the cats.” The voice paused and an animal stepped from the shadows and cocked her head at the shocked prince before her. “Of course, normally one of the biggers would have been sent for you, but they are quite busy right now.” The animal leapt from the tree. Wittendon had seen the giant black cat, Ellza, at the council, so the sight of a cat was not entirely shocking. This one, however, was small—no more than a few pounds. Her fur was sleek and gray and it looked as though she could easily fit in the lap of one of the humans.
“A house cat,” Wittendon said in awe. He had seen pictures in his history books—small cats the humans used to keep in their homes or barns to hunt mice and rabbits.
“Hardly,” the animal answered in a purr that sounded like a laugh. “I am a wild cat. There are but few of us left upon the land.”
“A wild cat?” Wittendon asked, almost laughing himself. “Are you not all wild now?”
“Some of us more than others.”
The cat wove itself between Wittendon’s legs as it spoke. “When first hunted by the wolves many of the biggers formed a great band, enlarging the tunnels of the rabbits and foxes on which they preyed, and then hiding themselves therein. By the time my mistress’s mother came to this land, the cats had been mostly forgotten and thus enjoyed a little part of this deepest wood. And then of course when my mistress grew and perfected her craft, they no longer needed to hide, though the tunnels have found good use. But the wilds, we did not settle and hide. We merely transferred from place to place when needed. We are movers, runners, messengers, nomads.”
This cat did not rhyme as Wittendon had heard the large, black cat do, but its voice and words were still like a song. Wittendon found himself shaking his head to keep from feeling entranced.
It was good he did, because without another word, the cat was leaving. Wittendon knew if he wanted to meet the mistress of this animal, he should follow.
Wittendon noticed the faint smell of smoke as he and the cat entered the clearing. No one else seemed to notice or care. In front of him, the table was set for tea. Two cups rested on saucers and several cookies sat on a tray as though travelers stumbled to these haunted woods every day. Sprawled behind the table lay two large white cats. They sat up when the newcomers entered, but did not bother to look in their direction.
“Good afternoon, prince,” said a voice that came from a little hut to the right of a large garden. “The scones are a bit dry today; I do hope you will forgive that. Don’t worry, I’ve spread them with chocolate to make up for any lack.”
A girl entered the garden, stepping across the stone path as though every bump had been memorized a lifetime ago, though she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. In one hand, she held a tray that was piled so high with pastries he could not see her face; in the other she carried a vase with pale purplish-blue roses.
“Good afternoon,” Wittendon said, finding his voice and staring at the flowers.
“Well, then,” she said, putting the tray of scones next to the cookies and the roses next to Wittendon’s face. “Already I see that your manners improve upon those of your father. Very good. Perhaps we can talk.”
When she turned to him, he took a step back. Her hair was as gray as an ancient wolf, her figure as slight as a human girl, and her eyes were mismatched—one copper and common, though familiar somehow, the other green, wide, and spotted with gold in a way he had only seen in one other person, a person he had never expected to see again. He looked to the roses—sterling roses—and then to her green eye and said, “You are the gardener? My mother’s gardener?” He attempted to draw a weapon from his sheath only to find that both weapon and sheath were gone.
“Now, now, don’t bother with flattery, good prince; of course I am not that gardener,” she said. “Do come and have some tea.”
He stood still and she rolled her mismatched eyes. “Well, if we must speak of fami
ly resemblances, I can now see your father in your manners. Please,” she said, gesturing again to the table.
Still Wittendon did not move, but he felt as though the forest behind him grew thicker—pushing him forward. “You are not she?” he asked staring at the roses and again at her face.
“No more than you are the great King Crespin himself,” she responded.
He smiled and seemed to relax. “Well, that seems a safe enough comparison as most would say I am barely his blood at all.”
“You are half his blood, good prince,” she said, sitting down across from him and stacking a delicate plate high with confections, “and half that of your angel mother. It is sometimes easy, even desirable, to forget a bit of our parentage. But that, dear, is something we must not do.”
He paused, looking to the pastries. Sadora had warned him of the charmed stream and he wondered what else might alter his mind in this place.
“Eat,” she commanded. “I know you are hungry, and from the smell of the north wind, I begin to guess that our afternoon will be fuller than even I expected.” She popped a cookie in her mouth as though it was a tiny grape and then went in for more.
“Don’t neglect the tea, dear,” she said, pushing his cup towards him. “It is the best there is and will give you much strength for the day.”
He did not neglect the tea. He had had nothing to drink since that morning and the brew was every bit as good as she’d promised.
“Your eyes,” he said, his mouth full of chocolaty scone. “They do not match.”
“There are few things about me, my prince, that do.”
“And the one is the same as a woman I have known and cannot forget.”
“That is because half of that blood runs through my own,” she said, setting her cup down.
He choked on his cookie, spilling his tea. “Then perhaps we will not be quite the friends I was beginning to hope.”
“Perhaps we will be better,” she replied, eating again.
“Why?” he asked. “Is this the blood you wish to forget, but take care to remember?”
She laughed and the blossoms of her garden seemed to open their heads at the joke. “No, my prince, it is quite the other half,” she said. “I have taken great care to remember both my parents, though for entirely different reasons. You would do well to remember both of yours as well. It is for this reason that I have brought you here.”
Wittendon looked at her, puzzled. She poured him another cup of tea, but he did not drink it.
“You know I grow all the ingredients in these gardens,” she said through a mouthful. “Well, all but the chocolate. That is a little bit imported.” She winked at the wild cat and then she paused, surveying the garden like a lover. “A gift from my mother, these grounds.”
At last Wittendon pushed his cup away and stood. “I would prefer it if we did not speak of your mother,” he said.
“Well, what you would prefer is not always best for you,” she replied. “In your mind you have created a person you believe my mother to be. This image has been encouraged, perhaps even formed, by your father. But you did not know my mother.”
“Nor do I wish that I had,” Wittendon interrupted.
“My mother did not leave the palace on her own terms,” the young witch said, ignoring him. “She left the palace because in her womb she carried a child that your father did not wish to be known among his people.”
Wittendon was not highly experienced in these matters, but he understood talk of a half-breed when he heard it. “My father has no patience for half-breeds,” he said.
“Well, on that we can certainly agree. At least halfway. Won’t you have another oatmeal crispie?”
Wittendon shook his head, trying to clear it.
“Besides my right eye,” she said abruptly, “look at me and tell me what you see.” She paused as though posing for a portrait.
Wittendon looked at the girl. She was pale and wiry, muscled, but so thin you wouldn’t know it unless you stopped to really look. Her hair was an anomaly, but her cheekbones were familiar somehow as was something about the way she moved her forehead up and down. When she turned her head so only the copper eye shone, her face seemed to fall together and Wittendon gasped. He looked down to think, glancing at the girl’s hands when he did. The bones were thin, but with distinct bumps on the middle knuckles. The ring finger was nearly as long as the center finger and the smallest finger crooked in as though it had been broken, though looking at it, Wittendon knew it had not.
“Dreadful, aren’t they?” she said. “I daresay they’ll never ask me to model the latest diamonds.”
“A half-breed,” Wittendon murmured, holding up his own hand.
“It really was quite imperative that my mother leave,” the girl said, holding her own hand up so as to mirror Wittendon’s. They did not quite touch, but it was plain to see that one hand was a smaller, but perfect model of the other.
“They are just like his.”
“Oh, yes, our lord has distinct fingers now doesn’t he,” she said.
“And your eye. The brown one.” Wittendon’s head pulsed. The smells from the north seemed to cloud his judgment—acidic and smoking, but he couldn’t focus on them quite now. “You are a half-breed,” he said again.
“Yes,” she said, “I believe we have established that.”
“And the other half is from my father.” He felt drugged by the words. “Which means—”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “Come now, good brother, and out with it.”
“That you are my sister,” he finished.
“Quite,” she said. “Well, yes, not quite as in entirely, but quite as in, yes, you’ve figured it out. I am your half-sister to be exact. Our mothers were not shared. Not in body anyway. I believe in heart they were really quite similar.”
“And your mother grew the roses?”
“Only because your mother taught her how.”
“And your mother—she had to leave,” Wittendon said.
“Yes. And almost didn’t make it. The cats saved her,” the girl said briefly, passing an oatmeal crispie to the wild gray cat she called Emie. Looking to the north sky, the young witch then shooed the little cat inside and quickly cleared the table. “There is little time now for discussing business so let us be about it quickly, brother.” The vegetation thickened around them, forming a sort of wall on all sides. “Sadora has told you of the plan to get the spears?”
Wittendon nodded, then looked at her and said, “And if such a plan succeeds you will have twelve spears. Twelve symbols of power and rebellion. What more? It is a plan without hope.”
“Oh, there is much hope,” the girl responded. “Much hope that hangs from unlikely places.” Turning to Wittendon, she said, “Your mother—tell me what you remember of her.”
“First tell me your name,” Wittendon said suddenly.
She smiled, a deep wide smile that Wittendon couldn’t deny reminded him of Kaxon. “Zinnegael,” she said. “And now think please—and a teensy bit quickly—of your mother.”
This was not hard for Wittendon. He had thought of his mother much throughout his life and even more in the last several hours as he had walked the wood. “She was kind. She spoke to me every day and sang songs under the moon in the evening.”
“And her eyes? What color were they?”
“The same as my own,” Wittendon responded.
“And have you ever seen such eyes in the entire kingdom?”
“They are less usual than the browns and coppers, but common enough.”
“Are they?” Zinnegael asked. “Think. Think about when she sang to you under the fullest of moons.”
Wittendon did think. He had been so young—four or five at the oldest. He remembered her hair better than her eyes. It had brushed his cheeks as she sang. And her smell, which was of chocolate and—Wittendon paused, surprised—and of tea. The same tea which he just drunk—quite perfectly like it. Wittendon looked up at his half-sister.
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“Family recipe,” she said, though he hadn’t told her what he was thinking. “Now I hate to rush you,” she said, looking to the skies that were becoming hazy with smoke, “but try to remember your mother’s eyes, in full moonlight. She was always there with you on those nights, was she not?”
She had been, Wittendon remembered now. She had always come to the nursery to sleep on the nights when the moon was fullest. He closed his own eyes, heard her song, saw the lashes—longest in the land—as just before he fell into childish slumber they parted. “She glowed,” he said slowly, opening his own eyes. “Tiny flecks shot through the blue and they glowed like the star to the side of the moon.”
“I had hoped so,” the girl said calmly.
The small gray cat came over carrying a thin dagger in its teeth. It handed this to the witch and she thanked the cat. “Now go, Emie dear,” she said to the animal. “The winds smell ill—find cover in the cellar if you wish. I’ve some pretty dried fish there waiting for you.” The cat did not need to be invited twice.
“Lovely species,” the girl said. “And so neat.” She took the blade, held it firmly for a moment, and without warning cast it solidly at the right side of Wittendon’s chest. It sank into his flesh with a pop and he staggered back. One of the big white cats yawned.
“You have not forgotten my father’s blood then,” he said, staring down at the blade, which shimmered with the sheen of a metal he had come to know well in these last weeks before the Mal. “All this time, you have wished to isolate me in order to destroy me.”
Again she laughed, the herbs and blossoms by her feet swaying at her mirth. “Brother,” she said, stepping forward and pulling the blade from his chest with a sucking sound that made Wittendon feel sick. “Let me know when you are dead.”
For a moment the wood fell still, as though every insect paused in its motion. Wittendon put his hand to his wound. He had expected to feel warm blood, tender skin. Instead, he felt a small dent that grew shallower and narrower as the seconds passed.
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