“Blood magic changes things,” the witch said at last.
Laret shivered in victory.
The witch smiled. “Other magic restores or takes what’s already there and makes it bigger, maybe it can guide things along a slightly different path. Blood magic takes or changes or drains. You must be greedy or desperate.”
“Which were you?”
The witch arched an eyebrow as thin as reed paper. “The petitioner answers the questions.”
“Maybe I’m both greedy and desperate.”
“For power?”
“No.”
“Revenge?”
“No.”
The witch’s fingers twitched. “Love?”
If that had been the witch’s reasons, they either hadn’t worked or they’d driven her lover away, maybe to the grave. It was clear that no one else shared this hard, cold place. “You could say that, but only for myself.”
“No one ever sought blood magic because she loves herself.” She smirked, and her teeth were as sharp and hard as the rest of her. “Unless you’re saying you love yourself too much. You don’t need blood magic to remedy that.”
Laret kept her face still. She would only let this creature in as far as she needed. “How about not enough?”
“You seek to know yourself?” Her wide eyes said intrigued if not impressed.
It would do. Laret nodded.
The witch cackled as if she’d won something. She fetched a bowl and poured a cup of water inside. “Come along, then. Let’s see if we can find you.”
But blood magic couldn’t give anyone everything they wanted. The witch of Sanaan had made promises about the dark path, most of which were false, all of which were tainted. There had to be a way to make Maeve see that without actually setting her feet on the path.
Laret felt renewed when she finally dressed and emerged from the woods. Maeve was waiting near the small garden. With a laugh, she plucked a piece of moss from Laret’s hair.
“Were you rolling around in the forest?”
She chuckled and felt some heat in her cheeks. “Maybe.”
Maeve rocked back and forth on her toes, eagerness pouring from her. “Do you need to eat before we start?”
Laret walked past her and sat on the log next to the outdoor fire pit. She gestured to her eyes. “Is this what you want?”
“It seems a small price—”
“It marks you, Maeve. Most people aren’t curious about blood magic; they simply fear it. Do you know why?”
Maeve sat beside her. “Blood witches are known for cursing people, but you don’t have the lines in your cheeks.”
“The taint that comes from casting multiple curses. I don’t have it because I’m a curse breaker.”
“You fix what other blood witches cast?”
Laret nodded. “The bulk of people learn blood magic in order to curse others.”
“I’ve heard that it can be used to change things, to change people.”
“That is its nature,” Laret said slowly. “The change is usually bad.”
“There is a tale, the witch Aishlaugh. She used blood magic to force her wyrd, but the tale doesn’t say how.”
Laret stood and paced, resisting the urge to scowl. “It’s probably just a story. I don’t know if blood magic can give you a wyrd.” She tried to think of how it might happen but came up with little.
Maeve let her think for a few moments. “Maybe it’s just that, the more you learn of magic, the easier your wyrd can find you?”
Laret frowned harder. That sounded silly, but she resisted the urge to say so. She lurched to a stop when Maeve took her hands, forcing her to look down. “Please, Laret. I don’t know how to think of another future, but I know I can’t…”
Laret gave her a squeeze, hearing herself in that plea. “Tend goats forever?”
Maeve sighed a laugh, and Laret heard tears close to the surface. “I just want to know what’s out there. What if I promise I’ll never curse anyone?”
Another offer the witch of Sanaan had made. “No one can say that for certain.”
“Then just tell me of blood magic. Start there.”
Laret drew a knife from her belt. She pricked her finger, and when a small drop of blood rolled down, Maeve watched it with wide eyes. Laret fought the urge to sigh. She’d hoped Maeve would be put off by the sight of blood, even a little, that she wouldn’t have to walk this road.
“Can you feel the blood as it leaves me?”
Maeve’s gaze took on a glassy quality, and Laret felt part of her spirit slip loose. “Yes. I can fix the cut.”
“Don’t.” The last thing she needed was Maeve feeling over her with healing magic and discovering her secrets. “Can you feel the ebb of my life force?”
“Barely. You’re not badly hurt.”
“Watch.” She focused on the small wound, pushed her spirit through the blood, and made it flow from her finger in a red rivulet. Even that small calling made a shudder pass through her, and she had to resist the urge to bleed herself harder.
“Stop!” Maeve’s cry brought her out of herself, and her eyes flew open. Maeve glared at her. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“You wanted to learn—”
“I don’t care about hurting people, I told you.”
Laret scowled at the archness in her tone. “Then why do you want to get on a raiding boat in the first place? I thought all of this was in the hopes that you could hurt people if you wanted.”
Maeve leaned back, face growing red. Instead of answering, she marched into the house. Laret stuck her finger in her mouth and sank back down on the log. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to explain blood magic on such a bright and sunny morning. When she’d learned it, she remembered thinking that it should have been a dark night or at least a stormy day, but she had learned on a morning such as this. Maybe that was always the way.
*
Maeve tried to breathe deep, asking herself why she was even angry and then getting angry with herself for such a thought. No, she didn’t know everything about her life, her future. And even though all she wanted was a wyrd, everyone thought she had to want something else.
She’d never really thought about taking a life, but warriors guarded one another’s backs, all of them expected to share in that responsibility. But Laret’s tiny bit of blood magic felt like the reverse of what Maeve was meant to do: heal instead of harm. She’d never considered that someone could turn her power around.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to actually hurt anyone. Laret had used her power to drain herself. If Maeve could prove to the thrains that she could harm as well as heal, even if she didn’t have a wyrd, maybe they would accept her. No one said she actually had to use the power.
The thought still turned her stomach.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” Laret said from behind her.
Maeve pressed her palms to her hot cheeks, her forehead. “I upset myself.”
“I didn’t mean to question your motives.”
“You should. Everyone should have her motives questioned when it comes to this.”
Laret sank down beside her on the bench. “The woman who taught me blood magic said it was about changing things, but I think she meant that it changes the wielder. Is that what you want, truly?”
“I don’t know what I want. I just…don’t want to be nothing.”
“You’re far from nothing.”
“A witch without a wyrd is still a thrall. Unless you’re a jarl, if you can’t raid, you’re a thrall, and we’re supposed to be more than that.”
“Says who?”
“Says everyone!”
Laret clucked her tongue. “Says Aesa, you mean.”
“Her most of all.” She put out a little tendril of spirit and closed the cut on Laret’s finger.
Laret jerked back as if shocked. “Why did you do that?”
“Did I hurt you? No, I’d have felt it if I did.” When she reached out, Laret leapt from the bench. “What’s the matter?”
Maeve sat back and considered. There were secrets here, old wounds maybe, scars that she’d sense if she dug deep enough. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I won’t heal you again without your permission.”
Laret sighed heavily. “I didn’t mean, um, thank you.” She pointed toward the door. “I thought I might spend some time in your garden. My spirit magic tends plants as, um, yours tends people.” Her laugh had a breathy, embarrassed tinge.
“That’s very helpful. Thank you.”
After a nod, Laret rushed through the door, banging it behind her in her haste. Maeve blew out a breath. With both of them treading carefully around each other’s pain, it was going to be a long summer.
Chapter Five
Gilka ordered the crew farther into the woods, leaving the thralls behind. Velka the Rat found a dirt track between the trees, too wide to have been made by animals. They followed it for hours, through the forest until the trees thinned, and another meadow began, this one rolling into hills on their left and flattening into grassland far to their right.
When Velka dropped into a crouch ahead, everyone else followed suit. She craned her neck upward for a few moments before she waved them forward. Aesa bent low and hurried up with the rest, straining to follow Velka’s pointing finger.
Ahead, the meadow dipped into a gully, a small hill rising up beside it. A group of robed thralls followed the gully’s winding path, some carrying boxes or bags. Several ornate guards marched alongside them, nudging them to movement again whenever they lagged. Not a powerful push, just a prod, like a sheepdog’s nip.
“They’re sheep,” Aesa said. “A thrall would fight if you pushed her. Those are…livestock.” She thought her mother might disapprove of the comparison, but these people had to be herded just to walk.
Otama snickered. “Let’s have some fun.” She untied a white robe from around her waist, taken from one of the sheep thralls. “You’re the youngest, Aesa. You’d look the most convincing.”
Aesa scowled. “You wear it.”
Gilka lifted an eyebrow. “A good ruse.” She pointed behind them, where the gully cut into the forest. “Hide around that bend, and get the guards to come to you, bear cub. We’ll do the rest.”
Aesa took the robe, still scowling. She hid her bow underneath, knowing it made the disguise lumpy, but she wouldn’t go without it. They hurried back around a corner, heading for the gully, and the crew hid while Aesa waited by a tree.
She kept her head turned away, looking at the ground, listening for voices and the sounds of footsteps crunching dead leaves. The crew would try to take the guards by surprise, but some might get free. They might come for her. She gripped her bow.
One of the guards called out and marched toward her, two more behind him. He reached for her but paused, and she knew he’d glimpsed her dirty face, her shorn hair. She kicked to drive him back, then brought forth her bow. It tangled in the robe, and she cursed.
He drew his sword, but before he could lunge, Hilfey leapt past and countered his strike, and then Aesa’s crewmates were all around her. She ripped the robe off, righting her bow. Gilka and the others raced to fight the other two guards, but another blew a horn.
Three strange beasts, some cross between horse and lizard, thundered down the gully behind the column. They walked on a lizard’s bent legs, but their heads were long and lean, mouths filled with sharp teeth. Their eyes swiveled in their sockets, and their riders leveled long spears as the lizard horses charged.
Gilka shoved the sheep people out of the way as one of the lizard horses snapped at her. She slammed its mouth with her hammer, crushing part of its jaw. Aesa shot at a guard bearing down on Hilfey, taking him through the neck, her first kill, but she didn’t have time to think on it. She moved along the edge of the combat, taking shots at riders or mounts, cursing whenever one of the sheep got in her way. Why wouldn’t they move, even to save themselves? They just peered about, bewildered and stupid.
One of the lizard horses shied, its rider dangling with one foot in the stirrup. Aesa shot it in the side, but arrows barely penetrated its thick, mottled hide. It knocked one of the sheep to the ground and stepped on him, making him call out at last. Another of them ran to help him. They wouldn’t save their own lives, but they’d run to the aid of another?
Aesa fired into the press and watched the sheep woman try to drag her fellow away from the fight. They wouldn’t make it. Any moment, either or both would be trampled or wounded. As the lizard horse turned toward them, mouth open, Aesa lunged forward.
The sheep woman stared into the lizard horse’s teeth, her mouth a little O of surprise. Aesa hit her hard enough to make both of them grunt, carrying the two of them off the road and into the gully.
Aesa landed on top of the sheep woman, and though her face creased in pain, she still smiled, her look of welcome so sincere that Aesa nearly burst out laughing. Her eyes were the color of warm honey with just a hint of green around the pupil. Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing shining in the sun.
Aesa pushed away and climbed from the gully. She shot the berserk lizard horse in the back, and when it craned around, Otama stabbed it in the eye. It fell, shrieking its death throes, but there was still one more, and a handful of guards. The lizard horses took blow after blow, and these guards put up more of a fight than their fellows at the huts.
Runa darted out of the press. One guard charged her, but she flung a hand toward him, her eyes taking on that glazed look that Maeve’s had when healing. The man staggered, dropping his weapon and clutching his head. He spun around and waved his arms at invisible foes, his mind broken. Aesa shot him in the face.
“Watch over me a moment, Aesa,” Runa said.
Aesa stepped close, watching the battlefield as Runa began to chant. She thought of Runa’s words to Maeve about people who needed to be guarded on the battlefield, but even if Runa’s chant was spoiled, she could still defend herself. Heat billowed from her body until sweat stood out on Aesa’s forehead. She recognized the feeling, though she’d never been so close to someone using a wyrd. Even with all her power, Maeve would never be able to heal everyone as fast as Runa could break them. Aesa tried to picture Maeve somewhere in this chaos but could only imagine disaster. In all the tales, battle was never so…untidy.
Harsh bird cries filled the air, and Aesa risked a look up. The sky was alive with flapping wings, hundreds of birds circling like a cyclone, calling their fellows until the sky went dark. Runa’s chant peaked, and she brought her hand slashing down.
The birds dived into the fray like darts, covering guards and lizard horses alike. Aesa resisted the urge to cover her head; she couldn’t even see through the swarm of feathered bodies. One guard stumbled out of the swirling mass, but before Aesa could shoot him, the birds engulfed him again, and when they pulled away, he was nothing but armor and naked bones.
“Ashanate!” Runa cried, and the birds flew upward so quickly the air popped, and Aesa’s hair fluttered in their wake. When she glanced up again, they were gone.
Gilka’s crew paused, looking each other over, examining their own bodies. Then, as if it were a normal day, they gathered loot or tended wounds. Even the sheep resumed milling around, unmolested by the birds.
Aesa was struck by the urge to laugh at it all, but she held it in. Everyone would think she’d gone mad. “Lizard horses,” she whispered. The whole world was mad.
Otama stalked out of the press. “Runa, your rotten birds stole a kill from me!”
“They won’t mind if you take the credit,” Runa said.
Otama grumbled but started stripping a skeleton near her feet as if that were normal, too. As Aesa passed, she asked, “How’s your pet sheep?”
Aesa looked toward the gully. The sheep woman stood slowly, brushing dirt from her white robe as if she hadn’t almost been eaten by a rampaging lizard horse that was
now a pile of bones. “She’s not my sheep.”
“Head back to the ship,” Gilka called as she hoisted a full bag over one shoulder. “This is enough for a scouting trip.”
Aesa pointed at the white-robed people. “What about them?”
“Aw, do you want to take your sheep back home?” Otama asked. Many of the crew chuckled.
“They’re only thralls,” Aesa said. “They don’t deserve to die here.”
“If they can live, they live. If they can’t, they die. That’s just the way things are.”
“We can’t take them with us, Aesa,” Hilfey said. “There’s no room on the ship.”
“And we’re not slavers,” Velka said.
“I don’t want slaves, but they’re thralls, they’re…” Aesa was about to say that as warriors, it was their duty to protect thralls, but these weren’t her people.
Otama reached for a sheep man and shoved him to the ground. When he tried to get up, she pushed him again and kept doing it until he curled into a ball. Some of the others laughed, but Aesa shouted, “That’s enough!”
“Are they thralls, sheep, or bugs?” Otama kicked him, and he curled tighter.
“I said stop!” Aesa’s fist lashed out. Otama’s grin should have made her pause, but she’d never known how to stop a fight once it started.
Otama sidestepped as quickly as Gilka and kicked Aesa in the gut. Aesa’s knees dropped out from under her, her breath leaving so quickly she couldn’t get it back. Otama planted a foot in her chest and shoved, and Aesa hit the ground hard enough to bang her head.
“I appreciate your nerve,” Otama said as she knelt, “but you need to learn when to fight and when to turn away.” Her fist lifted, and Aesa rolled away, but Otama just dropped her hand as if she thought better of it. Or maybe Hilfey had glared at her. Aesa wondered if Gilka was looking and resisted the urge to try to stand before she was ready.
Someone caught hold of her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She turned, expecting Hilfey, but the sheep woman with the honey eyes stood there, face creased in concern. She said something, her voice deep and soothing.
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