by Knox, Kim
He blinked. She was being sensible now? “Witch, just call me witch,” he muttered.
“Witch…” The drawled word flushed his face and he held down the surge of fear. Vara’s red mouth twitched upward and the wicked spark returned to her gaze. She stood back from him and her chin lifted. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m a woman again?”
Kaede bit back a curse. They weren’t going to live to see the night.
Chapter Two
“Are you feeling well?”
Tarou lifted his leather-clad arm and eyes darker than thick shadow pierced her. Vara nodded, her face frozen, and slid her hand over the cold leather. “Quite well, lord.”
“Witch, light our way.”
Kaede closed his eyes. He spoke a single word and pain flickered across his face. The air stank with the acrid burn of smoke. Sparks flickered and, with a sharp crack, a streak of white flame surged before them. Kaede had greyed and his shoulders sagged. Magic, he’d performed magic right in front of her.
Her hand tightened into a fist and, for a moment, the loss of her sword hollowed her stomach. She wanted its comforting weight. Her sword brought with it the knowledge that when she held it she had a purpose. She willed down the hot surge of panic tearing up through her chest. She had more control than this. She was a captain in the—
Blackness. She met a wall of blackness where she should be.
She cursed and forced herself to focus. Who she’d been wasn’t vital, staying alert and aware was.
Kaede’s flame cast bitter white light over the iron doors and the twist of the stone steps leading upwards. Two guards stood before them, Kaede, Tarou’s aide and two more guards followed behind them.
Tarou’s slow, measured pace had her unnerved. She risked a glance at him. Light edged his sculpted profile. He had a soldier’s face, hard, implacable. A thin scar, pale and old, ran from his ear and along his jaw. “Are you ready for tonight?” The words were a whisper and his mouth barely moved. His dark gaze spiked her. “After yesterday’s failure.”
“I believe I know where I went wrong, lord.” It was the best answer she could give. What had his wife promised him? Vara broke away from his penetrating stare and made the pretence of lifting her robe to take the next slippery step. Whatever it was, it had killed her. And that woman had known what she was doing.
“Good.” A harsh smile lifted his mouth. “I don’t think my witch can bring you back a second time.” He laughed and the sound echoed over the hand-carved walls. “He’s not strong enough, are you, Kaede? I’d have to hunt for a new witch.”
“Yes, lord.”
Kaede’s quiet, placid voice irked her. He had power, could burn Tarou with the fire he called up with a single word.
A guard thumping his fist against another iron door cut into her thoughts. There was an exchange of passwords and then a key scraped and turned in the lock. The hinges grated and squealed as the door swung back.
The sudden sharp tang of copper in the air sliced through the damp smell of mould and old stone. She knew that smell. It stabbed at her memory as an odour she’d known all of her life. It was the scent of blood.
“After you, Annaliese,” Tarou said.
She walked into a curved chamber. The thick odour of dried blood stuck in her throat. A large oak table took up most of the small room and cabinets lined the walls, holding glass jars, pots, copper pans and books. She followed the guards, aware that Tarou was behind her, his hand at her spine. Her steps were as measured as his, slow, calm. Vara winced as she passed too close to another thick, iron door, one of three in the room. The sweet stench seeped through the crack between the solid door and the stone flags. Something dead and rotten lay behind there.
“I will stay in my laboratory, if I may, lord.” Kaede dropped his bag onto the oak table. His hand gripped its edge, the knuckles white. The man was exhausted. “It has been a long night.”
Tarou’s hard jaw twisted. “For us all, witch. Stay with my wife. Service to me comes before rest.”
Kaede nodded and straightened. He picked up his bag again. “Yes, lord.”
Vara stopped herself from cursing. This was Kaede’s room and he was her best chance of finding out what task Tarou had set his wife. She walked on through the door that a guard opened for her. The smell of wet stone was a relief after the sickening air of Kaede’s laboratory. She waited politely for Tarou. More guards surrounded them; Tarou offered his arm and their little procession moved forward.
They followed the twist of more stone stairwells up. The constriction of the heavy belt made breathing difficult. She bit at her lip and grimaced. The grease the maid had smeared over her mouth tasted of bacon fat. She stopped herself from spitting onto the smooth-flagged floor. That wasn’t her anymore, which she could hardly forget as Tarou’s dark, cold eyes watched her struggle up the steps.
The stairs ended in another solid door, that opening into a small room with yet more doors. The place was a warren. Light cut through the space from a high window, splashing over the faded rug and old wood panelling. Tarou pulled a key out from under his tunic and pushed the narrow door. Beyond was a private dining parlour. He stopped and stared at her. “You will go to your chamber and prepare. Witch,” that dark stare shifted to Kaede and she breathed a little easier, “you will escort her there. Then come to my rooms.”
Kaede nodded. “Yes, lord.”
Tarou, his aide and his guards streamed out of the door.
Vara flopped against the panelling. The gold in her hair clinked against the cold wood. She tugged at the belt and let her lungs expand. Damn it, the thing hurt.
“Lady, shall we go?”
“Why haven’t you burned him, Kaede? Just,” she snapped her fingers, “and he would be a blackened husk.”
Kaede stood by the door, his eyes fixed in the next room. “I’m owned by the House of Sang.” His words were little more than a mutter. “With Seven Words he can kill me.”
Vara let out a slow breath. This made no sense. “This is insane. Magic is a myth, tales that belong with dragons and two-headed monsters.”
His laugh was bitter. “I wish, lady. For a thousand years my family has served.”
“Bringing back the dead?”
“No, lady.” Kaede’s mouth twisted and his dark eyes lifted to hers. His beauty hit her again. Smooth, clean features untouched by disease and scars and a strength to him she could almost taste. Yes, she was locked in an irrational lust. “No one has that power, and to even suggest it means the death of the witch and the House that owns him.”
She blinked. “All right.” The words were a drawl. “So what else do you do or don’t do?” She gripped his arm, her long fingers pressing tight into the warm linen of his tunic. “I have to have some idea of what your world, her world, is like, Kaede.”
He stared straight ahead. “You have never spoken to me.”
She laughed. “Then I was blind.”
His mouth thinned. “Should we have that talk about inappropriateness again?”
Vara ignored him. “How did I die?”
Kaede winced. He did that a lot, she noticed. “I don’t know. Lord Tarou’s guard brought me to your chamber. You were on the bed, dressed, and with no obvious injuries.”
She couldn’t help it; she baited him. “And you did a thorough examination of my body?” A dark flush burned against his brown skin and the muscles bunched in his jaw. What was he fighting? Their attraction? She still had the memory of him on her tongue, spice and sweat and something that rushed a shiver to her toes.
“We must leave.”
He led the way out into the dining parlour, through the hall and towards the central staircase. Vara tried not to gawk. Servants scurried from room to room, carrying golden candlesticks, bolts of silk fabric, and two men hung an ornate tapestry against the long wall of the hall.
Vara squeezed Kaede’s arm. She leaned in close, her lips almost brushing his ear. He flinched and she bit back a smile. “What’s going on?”
“Lord Tarou is holding a banquet tonight.” His lips barely moved. “He is an influential man.”
A banquet? They didn’t have to go any farther, her lack of courtly manners would expose her completely. Vara climbed the last of the steps to the long gallery. Light sliced through the thick shadow and spilled over the paint-thick portraits. Tarou glared down at her and she held down a shudder. The man was terrifying even in paint.
Kaede walked her down the empty corridor, her leather slippers silent on the smooth stone. They passed a long line of closed wooden doors. Kaede finally stopped at double doors. He opened them onto a long sitting room. Sunlight streamed in through glass doors opening onto a small garden.
Kaede closed the doors with a soft thud and slid the bolts into the wall and floor. She moved through the other rooms and found a bedroom with the maid’s cot at the foot of the large bed. There was no maid, for which Vara was grateful. Next to the bedroom was a windowless box crammed with elaborate robes, shoes, underclothes. Vara pinched her nose at the cloying scent of lavender and closed the door again.
“We’re alone,” she said, returning to the sitting room. Kaede stood at the open doorway, staring out into the small rectangular garden. Flowers and herbs grew in wild, thick tumbles, climbers clinging to the sharp rock face stretching up behind the lodge. The air was growing sluggishly warm. Slow-lapping water in the pond fell into a rhythm with chirruping and whirring creatures deep in the undergrowth. Every lungful of air seemed alien. “Kaede?”
He blinked and pulled his attention back. “Sorry. I don’t get to see the sun that often.”
Vara thought of this laboratory buried beneath where they stood, heavy with the stench of death. “What is your magic, Kaede?”
“To own a witch, your House must gain permission from the king. You must be powerful. Because owning a witch means you must have the power, the permission to secure our ingredients.” He paused and, for a moment, closed his eyes. “We render and grind down the dead so that the Words can consume them.”
Vara stepped back from him and swallowed bile. “That’s…”
His dark gaze slid to her and there was only weariness there. “Disgusting? Foul? I don’t have the luxury of walking away from my profession.”
She stepped into the garden and breathed in the heady scent from the profusion of flowers. The space was private, tranquil. She imagined the old Annaliese spent as much time as she could in the peaceful space. Breathing in the warming air, she leant against the outer wall and tried to stay calm as she asked, “What are we going to do?”
Kaede ran a hand through his dark hair and stared up at the sheer face of rock. “I don’t know. I need to get to my books. I need to understand what she was trying to do.”
The blue sky faded to white and an icy wind and flurries of snow cut through the slow heat.
She was running, running for her life. Howls echoed over the temple walls, followed by harsh laughter.
“Run, Captain. The brethren are dead. And you,” from the burst of snow, a long curved blade slashed down, “you are no longer needed.”
Vara released a slow, hot breath and the agony in her chest faded.
“Well, you can’t reverse it.” She laughed and heard the strain in her voice. “I’m…my body…is dead.” Her hand pressed hard against her breastbone and the vague shadow of pain burned beneath her fist. “That temple I was in. Someone hacked a knife into my chest up to the hilt.”
Kaede cursed. “I don’t understand any of this.”
She willed her hand away from her chest and pushed herself away from the wall. “You need to see Tarou. Perhaps he will let something slip.”
Kaede’s laugh was bitter. “The Lord Tarou?” He straightened and smoothed down the rumpled front of his linen tunic. “You still have a lot to learn, lady. A lot to learn.”
She watched him leave, followed him and slid the bolts back after he was gone. “Yes, witch, and no time in which to do it.”
Chapter Three
The guards watched him with cold, wary eyes. Kaede stopped before the doors to his lord’s rooms, standing beyond the lengths of their still sheathed swords. Both men had seen him resurrect the Lady Annaliese. Weaving on that scale tended to make soldiers very nervous.
“I must attend the Lord Tarou.”
The younger guard felt behind him and pushed at the door. His partner kept his hand hard on the hilt of his sword. “We’re watching you, witch,” he growled.
Kaede bit down a sour smile. They had no idea how powerless he was.
His palms started to sweat. He had to believe that Tarou hadn’t guessed the resurrection was a failure. He stepped toward the open door and the guards flinched. The older one slithered his sword halfway out of its leather scabbard. The blade gleamed. Kaede ignored him and entered the shadow-thick room beyond. The guard tugged the door shut behind him.
Tarou looked up from the papers littering his broad desk and his gaze narrowed on Kaede. The light from the fat wax candle sparked gold in his eyes, cast deep shadows over his lean face. He dropped his quill back into the ink well and sat back in his chair. The old leather creaked. “What is wrong with my wife, Kaede? Why is she not whole?”
“Lord?”
Tarou’s features shifted to stone. Kaede’s heart started to pound. Wrong thing to say. He braced his body for pain.
“Do not insult me, witch.” Tarou rose from his chair. He spoke the First Word and agony lanced through Kaede’s feet and calves. He fell to his knees with a cry of pain. “The Lady Annaliese is not herself.”
“Give her time, lord.” Kaede struggled up, the echo of pain still caught in his body. “She died. Her soul has to settle, to remember who it was again.”
“That is not good enough. A resurrection ceremony, when it’s a success, is obvious.”
Kaede prayed the surprise didn’t show on his face. If Tarou spoke the Second Word out loud so soon after the First, Kaede would be out cold. How did he know anything about the ceremony? Kaede’s gut clenched. Had his wife dabbled? Had she been trying to perform a spell and the Words turned on her? She was insane. A witch was born. Only a witch could control the spells, as Words had a ferocious power all of their own. The Lady Annaliese had discovered that the hard way. “This is the first time I have performed this rite, lord. I followed it to the letter. The Lady Annaliese has been returned to you. She remembers you, this lodge…”
Tarou pushed back his chair, the iron-shod legs scraping over the stone. Kaede held his breath, but his lord strode to the window. He stood before the narrow slit in the stone. “Push some sense back into her brain.” Stark sunlight etched his sharp features with gold. “Something about your weaving rattled her brain.” Cold eyes turned to Kaede. “Your position in my household depends on this, witch. I want you to prove that you’re as fine as your mother.” His jaw tightened. “Or her fate will also be yours.”
A muscle jumped in Kaede’s cheek. He pushed down dangerous emotions. He had to remind himself that Tarou was the lord and master of his household, with the ultimate right of life or death over everyone bound to him. It didn’t help. Tarou had lost face when another lord’s witch had out-spelled Kaede’s mother. He had spoken the Seven Words to her and she had burned to ash. Kaede could never forget that. “Yes, lord.”
“She must be ready for the banquet tonight. If she is not the woman I know,” his mouth quirked upwards, “then you and she are dead.”
“Perhaps the manner of her death is troubling her, lord.”
Tarou’s mouth flattened and he turned to face Kaede. His hand settled on the dagger fixed to his belt. Fingers tapped the hilt in a slow rhythm. “What do you know of it, witch?”
Kaede’s gut cramped, he was risking more Words, but if he could gain any clue from Tarou, he could keep them both alive. Time for him to lie. “There were signs on her body, signs of trauma.” He stepped back and fixed his gaze on Tarou’s ornate desk, thick with papers. The Second Word burned silently on Tarou’s lip
s, the pain of it slicing through Kaede’s thigh. “I can’t ask her, I know it’s none of my business. It may be that which has her rattled.” He paused, fighting the stabbing pain burning deep in his legs. “You…you, of course, have the right to do as you see fit…”
Tarou laughed and the Second Word died. Kaede fought to stay upright. “You think I killed her?”
“I don’t think anything, lord.”
“Just as you should. No, Kaede,” his boots struck against the smooth flags as he moved toward him, “I wouldn’t kill my wife needlessly. The king covets her, has since I brought her down from the north. I’ve had the pleasure of dangling her before him for years.” He stopped before Kaede. “I want my wife back. She’s useless to me without her full senses.”
Kaede stared at the golden torc around Tarou’s neck, a symbol of his power. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Annaliese hadn’t been performing a weaving. Perhaps it was whoever inhabited her body now. Kaede wanted to sit in a quiet corner and think. His head swirled from lack of sleep and the exhaustion of calling on his powers. “I will do all I can, lord.”
Tarou snorted. “I’ll know if the woman who enters the hall tonight is my wife. If you fail, Kaede, I’ll pour the Seven Words into you right there.”
“I won’t fail you, lord.”
Tarou swore under his breath and a muscle jumped in his cheek as he turned away. “Get out.”
“Yes, lord.” Kaede bowed low and backed away. He felt behind him for the door knob, twisted it and pulled the door open. The slither of swords greeted him. He straightened and twitched a smile at the two wary guards. “Goodbye.”
“Don’t get funny with us, witch,” the elder of the two growled. “Get back to your stinking hole.”
Kaede ignored them. He had all he needed in his bag. He turned and headed for the Lady Annaliese’s chamber. He had to be certain it wasn’t the new owner of Annaliese’s body who was causing all of his problems. He regripped his bag’s leather handle and a grimace pulled at his mouth. He had a spell to perform.