Bloodleaf

by Crystal Smith

  Don’t go, my child, to the Ebonwilde,

  for there a witch resides.

  Little boys she bakes into pretty cakes,

  Little girls into handsome pies.

  You’ll know her by her teeth so white,

  Eyes so red and heart so black,

  But if you see her, child, in the Ebonwilde,

  You won’t be coming back.

  He was about to launch into the second verse, about a cursed and headless horseman, when I could take it no longer and snapped, “Please. No more.”

  He flashed his teeth in an irreverent smile, but the singing stopped. The whistling, however, did not. It continued for the duration.

  That night we camped just outside the tree line, not far from the bank of the River Sentis, and made our first fire in days. Kellan had caught a collection of perch with a long thread from the frayed hem of Lisette’s dress and a hook fashioned from one of her earrings. She protested mightily about being deprived of them until the fish were off the fire—​after that she made no more noise. It was our first decent meal since Syric.

  Conrad ate quickly and fell asleep with his head on Lisette’s lap. He’d barely said two words to me the entire journey, and he cried often—​big, round tears that slipped quietly down his cheeks only to be hastily wiped away before anyone could notice. But he never complained, despite the wearying travel and the sting of being deprived of his mother and home for the first time in his young life. I burst with the urge to reach out and comfort him, but I never did; he had Lisette for that. I watched her carefully move him from her lap to his bedroll, tucking a blanket tightly under his chin before lying down herself. They fell asleep swiftly.

  Toris took first watch that night and left for a better vantage point not long afterward.

  Kellan and I were alone. He settled a fur blanket around my shoulders. “Toris will watch the first half of the night, and then I’ll relieve him.”

  I gave a halfhearted nod, my thoughts far away.

  “Aurelia,” he said, sitting next to me, “stop thinking about it.”

  “Emilie died because of me. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  He took my hands. “It wasn’t your fault, Aurelia. None of this was your fault.”

  I looked intently at his hands on mine, then at his face. “After everything, you can’t really believe that.”

  “Of course I do. I know you.”

  He knew the version of me I wanted him to see, because I was too afraid that revealing my real self would change his opinion of me. There was a hard knot in my stomach. I’d never wanted to have this conversation with him, but my mind was punishing me with never-ending images of a girl in a green dress burning to death on a witch’s pyre. I was tired of maintaining the illusion of innocence, even for Kellan. “You think you do, but you don’t.”

  “I know you better than anyone. You’re stubborn and . . . and maddening and amazing. You’re brave but reckless; you have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.” He smiled at the ground. “You care about people. You hurt when others hurt, even if you try not to show it.”

  He gave me a look of composed determination. “I wish you knew,” he began. Then he checked himself, faltering, and started again. “I wish you understood what you mean to me.” He placed a tentative hand on my cheek.

  I wasn’t distracted. “You saw what I did at the castle. In Syric.”

  “Aurelia, I don’t—​”

  “Tell me what you saw,” I ordered.

  He was shaking his head. “Simon was dying and you said some things and . . . what else do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to look me in the eyes and explain to me how you can believe that I am innocent. You were there. You witnessed it firsthand.”

  “You’d been through some extreme events, the pressure got to be too much, and . . . you’ve been conditioned your whole life to believe the lies told to you and about you—​”

  “They aren’t lies!” I shouted, standing. “None of it has been a lie. You want the truth? I am exactly what they say I am.” I took several long breaths. “A witch.”

  His face was blank, utterly unreadable. I waited for some sign that he understood, that he believed me, but none came.

  “I see ghosts, Kellan. I see them everywhere. How do you think I knew what was going to happen to Simon? It was because a spirit showed it to me. These visions are not superstition. They are real and terrifying and I’ve lived with them every day of my pathetic life.” I gulped as guilt and shame snaked around my throat and tightened. “And yes, I did cast a spell to try to save Simon, and it wasn’t the first time. It was a mistake to do it in front of all those people who already loathed me, but you know what? I might be glad I did it. I hate what happened to Emilie, but I’m glad about what has happened to me. Because I don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t have to wonder anymore what you’ll think of me when you finally realize the truth—​”

  Kellan took me by each shoulder, stopping to hold me in his brash gaze for an instant before bending his head down to kiss me. He kissed me. And in spite of everything, I squeezed my eyes closed and fell into it. Kellan’s arms were around me and his lips were pressed hard against mine, and for a moment nothing else in the universe mattered.

  Then the kiss broke, and he murmured against my cheek, “You are not a witch, Aurelia. You’re just a girl who’s had the weight of the world on her shoulders for too long. We are not in Renalt anymore. You can let those fears and superstitions go. You can let all of it go. Renalt, Achleva . . . everything. You and I, we can go wherever we like, be whomever we like. Just say the word, and I can make it happen.”

  My heart thudded heavily. “You want me to run away?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Run away with me. We’ll put all of this behind us. Forever.”

  I was struggling to comprehend. Just . . . leave? “What about my mother, my brother? Renalt?”

  “With you gone, I’m sure everything will go back to normal for them. Conrad can go home, your mother can again secure the throne . . .”

  “And the Tribunal can carry on killing thousands more innocents with impunity. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s just the way things have always been, Aurelia. All I care about is what happens to you.”

  My fluttering heart became suddenly still. I was instantly and acutely aware of every point of contact between us: my hands on his chest. My cheek brushing his. His arms crossing my back. I began to pull away, untangling myself from him, until I had completely withdrawn and he stood agape, empty-handed and disarmed.

  “Aurelia. Look at me.”

  I wouldn’t look. I didn’t want him to see what was written on my face. It wasn’t just his hand-wave dismissal of my most intimate confession; it was his belief that things just were. That the Tribunal was a simple fact of life, like the tides or the changing of the seasons. That the continued murder of hundreds was an acceptable exchange for the safety of one. Me.

  That was one idea I would never be able to accept. Never. If that was the cost for a life with Kellan, it was a price I could not pay. And with that realization, my secret hopes were whipped away like autumn leaves on a winter wind. I stepped farther back, deepening the physical divide between us to mirror the one I felt in my heart.

  “Aurelia.”

  I kept my head turned away and gazed at the fire and the forest looming behind it, a black velvet shawl draped across the white, hard-angled shoulders of Achleva’s distant mountains. I said, “Everything you’ve seen, everything you and I have been through, and you still don’t understand.”

  “Have you been listening at all?” He came between me and my view of the forest and sky, his eyes narrowed and full of feeling. “I’m trying to tell you I love you, Aurelia.”

  “You can’t,” I said leadenly. “You don’t know how.”

  “What can that possibly mean?”

  “It means that when we get to Achleva and you have been assured
that I am safe and settled, I will dismiss you from your duties and you’ll be able to return to Renalt. Stay in the guard, or don’t. Marry, if you like.” I felt my composure slipping. “I hope you do.”

  He said nothing more; he just turned and walked away, down past where Lisette and Conrad were sleeping, and out into the tall, starlit grass of the border fields. It wasn’t long before I couldn’t see him anymore and I collapsed onto my bedroll, anguished and alone.

  Good, I thought. The only person I can hurt now is me.

   9

  The dream was vivid. I was standing at the edge of the forest, watching a pale light between the trees. I squinted to make out what it was, heading toward it without consciously moving my feet. I was a moth drawn to a flame; I knew nothing good could lie beyond, but I was pulled toward it anyway.

  The light was Toris’s lamp. He was several hundred feet inside the tree line, hunched over, face obscured by the shadows into something that barely resembled him. I shrank behind the trunk of a large tree and watched as he took the blood of the Founder from the cord around his neck, unstopped it, and let the liquid drip onto his face. One. Two. Three drops. Then he put the relic back inside his shirt.

  Toris stood slowly, and for a minute his face looked all wrong, as if his bones had rearranged themselves in unnatural ways. He was muttering under his breath, words both foreign and frightening. I could feel the power in them. This was blood magic. He had used the Founder’s own blood to enact a spell. And judging from the heaviness in the air, an unpleasant one.

  The dream shifted suddenly, throwing me into a chaotic jumble of upsetting images: a flash of blue fabric. A hand on a knife. And Kellan’s visage, contorted in pain as Toris went to strike.

  I came out of the dream with a choked gasp, clamping my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. I saw the Harbinger for less than a moment, but the skin of my arm was marked a chill blue from her hand.

  Scrambling from my bedroll, I grabbed a leather satchel and began stuffing it with whatever I could get my hands on.

  Kellan was brooding by the fire with his back turned away from me, listlessly poking it with a long stick. I scuttled over to kneel at his side. “Kellan.” His name was sticky on my tongue. I tried again, shaking him. “Kellan!”

  He finally turned toward me. His sullenness was startled away by my distress.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his hurt and anger ousted by the keen sense of urgency he’d honed in his five years as my guard.

  “We have to go. Just us and Conrad. Now. It’s . . . it’s Toris. He’s doing magic. Blood magic. In the woods, he . . .” I trailed off, suddenly aware of how ridiculous it sounded accusing a devout Tribunal magistrate of witchcraft. But I knew the Harbinger had not misled me. I knew I’d seen true. How could I make him believe me, especially now?

  I took him by his shoulders. “I know how it sounds, but listen to me. I don’t care if you believe anything I’ve told you up to this point, but you must believe me now. We have to leave, immediately. Please, Kellan. I’m begging you. Trust me.”

  He searched my face and then said, “All right, Aurelia. I trust you.”

  We seized what we could, and Kellan secured the satchel to Falada’s saddle. I mounted my horse as Kellan grabbed the still-sleeping Conrad and held him tight as he swept onto Falada’s back.

  Lisette stirred when she heard Conrad’s frightened crying. “What’s going on? Aurelia? What are you doing? Aurelia! Let him go!”

  We broke for the forest with Lisette’s shouts echoing behind us. “Father! Father! They’ve got the prince! They’re getting away!”

  We bolted past Toris as he was running toward the campsite. A lantern swung from a chain in his hand, painting his face into an angry mask of light and shadow, not unlike his face in my dream. Over my shoulder, I watched him barrel toward the other horses and mount the first one he came to. Lisette had to jump out of the way or be run over.

  We urged our horses forward as the trail turned into sharp switchbacks, climbing higher and higher into the trees. Toris was on our heels, close enough that I could hear the sound of his taunting whistle to the rhythm of the horse’s hooves. Don’t go, my child, to the Ebonwilde, for there a witch resides . . . But our horses were sure and strong; we were gaining ground. I allowed myself some hope that we would make it out of this.

  The hope was short-lived.

  The path made a sharp turn to the right and ran along the sheer edge of a gorge, the powerful River Sentis rushing below. It was a treacherous road, rutted and narrow, with parts that had long ago given way to weather and time and collapsed into the river, leaving long, jagged scars along the remaining edge. On the other side of the road, the forest loomed. Somewhere within its incomprehensible darkness, a wolf howled. My horse jumped and skittishly stamped her feet at the sound. When it came again, she reared up with a frightened scream, hooves slashing wildly against the air.

  I couldn’t hold on, and I tumbled from my saddle as she surged forward and bolted into the cover of the trees.

  I rolled to my knees, dirt and tears stinging my eyes, every bone aching. Ahead on the trail, Kellan pulled Falada around.

  “Go!” I shouted. “Don’t wait! Go!” If the Harbinger’s vision was correct, Kellan needed to get as far away from Toris as possible. But to my dismay, he turned Falada around. They were riding back.

  Toris was now upon me. He swept down from his horse with balletic grace and advanced on me, twirling his knife with a grin. I put my hands up. Kellan reined Falada in.

  “Let me go!” Conrad shouted, twisting from Kellan’s grasp.

  “Enough of this,” Toris said. “Let the boy down, Lieutenant. Now.”

  Jaw tight, Kellan helped Conrad down first, then dismounted.

  “Be careful, Magistrate,” Kellan warned. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  Another rider emerged from the trees. Lisette’s hair had come unpinned and was flying around her face in a mad cloud. She climbed down from her horse. “Let Conrad go,” she said in a careful, cajoling manner. “You don’t need to hurt him, Aurelia.”

  “What? I’m not—​”

  With a frightened sob, my brother shook off Kellan’s grasp and hurtled into her arms. “He was right,” he said. “They tried to take me. Just like Toris said.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it either,” she murmured. “But I’ve got you now.”

  “No, Conrad!” I cried. “I would never hurt you. You have to know that! I would never—​”

  “Lies.” Toris was circling me now. “We know all about your treason. Your alliance with Simon Silvis and the plot to kill the heirs of two kingdoms: your brother. Your betrothed. Thank goodness we came along with you, or you might actually have gotten away with it.”

  Kellan came to my defense. “He’s lying, Conrad. Don’t—​”

  “The prince has seen enough,” Toris said. “Get him back to the campsite, daughter. I’ll take care of these two.”

  “Wait! Don’t take him. No—​” I felt the point of Toris’ knife between my shoulder blades.

  Lisette helped my brother onto her horse, casting a look of pitiful disappointment at me from over her shoulder before riding away with him, back the way we had come.

  “Now, then,” Toris said, knife raised. “I’ll be needing the documents, if you please.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” At that moment I didn’t.

  “Come now. Simon Silvis wouldn’t have sent you to Achleva without a way to cross the wall. The documents. Now.” His knife pressed a little harder into my back and marched me to my horse; the blade had breached the fabric of my dress. One wrong move and it would break the skin.

  I pulled the parchments from my satchel. “This is what you want? I’ll give them to you. But only if you bring Conrad back to me and let us all go in peace.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Kellan carefully advancing.

  “Conrad does not want to go with you,” Toris said. “He ha
tes you, in fact. You don’t have many friends, do you, my dear?” He tilted his head. “It hurts you greatly to lose even one, doesn’t it?”

  He moved fast, ducking underneath the swing of Kellan’s sword and grabbing him from behind before yanking his head back and laying the knife against his neck. Hands up, Kellan relinquished his hold on his sword.

  “I wish I didn’t need the invitations, but I do. Magic can be so irritating. That’s why the Tribunal’s work is so valuable; it keeps things orderly. Now. Give me the documents. I will not ask again.” A drop of blood left a thin trail down Kellan’s neck.

  I swallowed and considered . . . then held the parchments over the river chasm. “Put the knife down or they are gone for good.”

  “We’re not negotiating here.”

  “Put it down,” I stated, stronger.

  Displeased, he loosened the knife from against Kellan’s neck. I stepped slowly forward and laid the documents down on the ground by the cliff’s edge. The knot-stamped seal shone dull red in the moonlight. Toris dragged Kellan with him, and only released his hold on him to swipe up the invitations.

  I dashed into Kellan’s open arms. From over his shoulder, I could see Toris’s smirk return as he deposited the acquisitions into his jacket pocket.

  “There!” I cried. “You have what you want! Now let us go, like you promised!”

  “I never promised any such thing.”

  And with a quick flick of his wrist, Toris sank his knife into Kellan’s side.

  Kellan collapsed against me. I staggered beneath his sudden weight. “Kellan!”

  My knees buckled too close to the drop-off, and I clawed at his cloak to keep from losing my grip on him. I held on desperately as his eyes glazed over and he teetered at the brink.

  With one last guttural cry, I dug in my heels and wrenched the cloak with all my strength, but the clasp gave way and his body plummeted over the edge and disappeared.

  I gaped at my hands, wrapped up in the cobalt fabric that was now flapping empty in the wind. The only sound was the distant roar of the river far below and my own shallow breathing. The darkness had swallowed Kellan whole. He was gone.