by Lisa Jackson
She prowled.
He’d felt her move, slipping through the keep like a cold, invisible wind. He’d felt her presence outside, though of course he’d never seen her leave this dungeon.
He’d thought about it over the years and decided she had the power to not only change her shape but to manifest herself as others wanted to see her.
And that frightened him.
Was she actually an old crone about to die? A bygone sorceress herself, ready to pass into another realm?
Or was she stronger than he imagined and, using him for her purposes, feigning the limits of her power?
“You know she is near,” Vannora said in her raspy voice. Her hair was no longer white but streaked with gray, and she managed the thinnest of smiles upon lips that were starkly red, as if she’d feasted on something raw. “ ’Tis time. The witch’s daughter is at Tarth. But you know this already, don’t you?” she said, her hair darkening in the feeble light. “You already caught her scent.”
He nodded.
Her smile stretched a little wider, a bit crueler. She glanced into the bowl of water with its steamy surface, though no fire heated the liquid. Her eyebrows flicked together for a brief second, as if she’d seen something that surprised her, an image that shouldn’t have appeared. “You must ride at dusk,” she said as water ran down the walls in slow drips, puddling upon the floor outside the white circle.
When he didn’t reply, her eyes narrowed. “What is it? There is something bothering you.”
“The witch’s daughter is not alone.”
One eyebrow arched. “And this troubles you?”
“She rides with a man.”
“Ahhh . . . and you are threatened?” She nodded, those milky orbs gleaming with interest.
Hallyd’s jaw tightened. “Concerned. I’m concerned, not threatened. I’ve heard that he may be the bastard son of Deverill, Lord of Agendor.”
To his irritation her lips curved in satisfaction. “A bastard? Of a nobleman?”
“If the rumors be true.”
“Much like you,” she mused.
He felt hate rise in him. “My mother and father were married.”
“After you were born, though, wasn’t it? After that sweet little mother of yours killed your father’s wife? What was it now? A potion of hemlock? Or nightshade?” Her smile faded. “If the other bastard threatens you and ah, ah, ah—” She raised a single finger in front of his face to stop his protests. “If he threatens you, treat him as you would any enemy. Dispatch him.”
Hallyd’s hands closed into fists. He felt his blood grow hot and a twitch develop above one eye. When he spoke, his voice was strained to the point of snapping. “In sixteen long years, Vannora, there was never mention of a man. Never.”
“Worry not.”
“This is no oversight,” he said. “You knew of this and yet you decided not to tell me.”
“Trust in yourself. You can deal with the man. In fact, ’twill be good for you.” Her expression was pure cunning as she stepped closer to him, her toes not quite touching the edge of the ring drawn so carefully around the altar.
Was it a trick of light, or was she becoming more vital with each breath? She seemed younger than when he’d first walked into the room, her flesh smoother and plumper.
“And you must also remain patient, for though the time has come for the mating, you must not be overeager. I know your fantasies, Hallyd, that you will take the woman as your own for as long as you want, make her yours, brand her with your demon seed. For it is not just the lust you must quench but the burning revenge against the one who bore her. Still . . . you must not harm her yet.” Her face was pure determination and in it he saw the pulse of his own life. “Only she can find the stones. Only she can renew the power of the dagger. Only she can set you free of the curse.”
He felt the muscles between his shoulders bunch. “I’ve waited so long. To consider more time as a prisoner to a witch’s spell is unimaginable.”
“Nine months is but a small price to pay for your sight, for your freedom, for your power.” He was about to argue with her again, but she stopped him cold. “I have helped you, Hallyd, and I will continue to do so, but only if you promise to obey what I tell you. Only then will the curse be lifted.”
“I am truly damned.”
“Aye,” she agreed, but again a smile touched her lips, “but not forever. Now, we can begin. If you agree.”
He nodded, though he gritted his back teeth until they ached.
“Good. The prophecy will be fulfilled.”
“The prophecy?” His strong fingers clenched into fists. “What is this you speak of?”
“The ancient legend of the Chosen One. Do you know it?” she asked lightly, as if she were toying with a babe.
Since he had abandoned his father’s dark arts and the cloaks of Christianity, Hallyd put no stock in prophecies. “Yes, of course I know it.” Drivel. Why should it matter to him?
Vannora was already chanting quietly, like a child savoring a favorite rhyme. “Sired by Darkness, born of Light, protected by the Sacred Dagger, a ruler of all men, all beasts, all beings. It is he who shall be born on the Eve of Samhain. . . .”
“Another ridiculous forecast. We know where the Sacred Dagger is. There is no Chosen One.”
“Not yet,” she whispered, a secret smile on her shiny lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You shall see, in time. For now, we must set it all in motion.”
She held out her hands, her palms faced toward him so that they were directly above the white circle. He placed his palms against hers and felt a coldness so sharp and icy he had to summon all his strength to press his flesh to hers. “With this power I bestow upon you, you shall be able to seek her out, to touch her, to fool her. She will be given a potion to make her pliant and submissive. A wanton vixen.”
“If you can do this, why not just lift my curse?”
“Ah, Hallyd, if only I could. But the curse must be lifted by the blood of Kambria. You know this. Only through Kambria’s daughter.”
“You could have given me this power before now,” he charged.
“But you were not ready; the time was not right.” Her cloudy gaze stared deep into his and began to glow with an eerie, inhuman light that bored straight to his heart.
Her voice lowered to the timbre of a beast. “Speak no more,” she ordered, and linked her fingers through his. She smiled with a malice as evil as hell itself, revealing the snags of her yellow teeth. Before his eyes those jagged teeth appeared to straighten and whiten. Lengthen. Sharpen.
Within the room he felt a wind blow hard and fierce through his body and into his soul. Her flesh, once as cold as the sea, suddenly heated and he felt her pulse, her lifeblood, beating in his own body.
Stronger.
Faster.
Her fingers tightened their grip, until he imagined they were great talons, piercing his skin.
She uttered words in a strange language, one he didn’t understand, without moving her lips.
A fierce wind rushed through his body, threatening to crush his bones and pulverize his organs. Pain screamed through every inch of him. He let out a scream that never reached his ears and still she clung with a ferocity and strength he would never have believed. Blood flowed from his hands, red drops falling to hit the white circle, where they sizzled and hissed.
And the circle moved.
Shifting.
Spinning.
The room seemed to fade and he saw a vision of the dagger, shiny and bright, the stones intact. Someone was raising it to the heavens, higher, higher. The blade ignited. Fire rained and, with a deafening, rumbling roar, the earth cracked.
He looked into her eyes, saw into the vortex of her soul. She was suddenly more beautiful than he could have imagined, her hair long and black, her smile seductive, her eyes clear and beguiling. Yet beneath it all was the lure of pure, pulsing, perfect evil.
He knew not if
Vannora actually changed, or if it was a trick of light. Was she just playing with his mind?
It didn’t matter.
The dice had been cast, his fate determined. His nerves were singing, his blood rushing hot through his veins.
“There will be a child born of this mating,” Vannora said, “and then the curse laid upon you will be lifted. You will rise again and rule again, not just here at Chwarel but over other baronies as well. But first you must destroy all of your enemies, any who would thwart you. Do these things and you will be powerful, Hallyd. So it is written.”
She dropped his hands.
He glanced up quickly, caught a glimmer of something in her suddenly clear eyes. “What?” she asked, the spark in her eyes quickly extinguished. “Is this not what you want?”
“What about you, Vannora? What is it you are waiting for? Why is this so important to you?”
She smiled enigmatically. “’Tis my mission to right the wrongs that have occurred because of the loss of the dagger. Kambria’s actions have upset the balance between the worlds. My entrance to the Otherworld relies upon that babe . . . the Chosen One. As the prophecy makes clear, he will be born on the Eve of Samhain, the only night when the veil between the worlds lifts for passage. Just as you need the dagger, I need the child.”
So this was the reason she had appeared to him soon after the dagger was lost and the curse was cast upon him. He had wondered why a dark witch would choose to live here, aligning herself with a near-blind, cursed man.
Now ’twas clear. She needed the babe . . . a special child.
“You want my son.”
“The child you would never want. The child who, if he ever found the dagger, would have the power to rule all of Wales, including you.”
“So why should I beget this threat?”
“Ahh,” she said, smiling as if she understood his very soul, “because the creation of the babe I need, ’twill be a glorious task for you—mating with Kambria’s daughter. Your demon seed with a sorceress of Light. Yes, the fulfillment of your lust will bring me the power I need to enter the Otherworld. And fear not. Without the dagger, the Chosen One will be helpless. You, Hallyd, will be the true ruler of all Wales.”
He felt the wanting swell deep within at the mention of his imminent reign . . . and Kambria’s daughter.
“Patience,” she warned. “Don’t let this chance slip through your fingers as Kambria did.”
His jaw clenched and pain flared in his temples at the mention of the witch. The memory of the hot, stirring wanting and her cold rebuffs still resounded with the pain behind his eyes. How he’d ached to spill his lineage of darkness within that fiery temptress. . . .
“You will have your chance with Kambria’s daughter,” Vannora said, reading his thoughts. “For now, you must let the sorceress find the gemstones. Only she can do this. Take care not to thwart her on her quest, or all will be lost.”
Hallyd didn’t argue. He had always suspected that she was using him, just as he was using her. His gaze skimmed her renewed body. “You seem to be getting younger, to have somehow recaptured your youth.”
“Is that so?” she said with a laugh, and for a second she appeared no more than twenty. Her face was full of vigor, her hair shimmering, her eyes bright as amethysts, the color of twilight. “’Tis an illusion, Hallyd, for I, on this earth, am old as the moon.”
He snorted in disbelief. “And young as the stars.”
“Mayhap,” she admitted. “But when the sun sets, you must leave. Tonight is just the beginning.”
A shudder passed through Bryanna’s body.
As if something bitter and cold had slid through her soul.
’Twas lunacy, of course, and yet she glanced over her shoulder as she rode. “Stop it,” she ordered and wrapped her hands more firmly in the reins as she rode away from the village, toward the fresh smell of the river. Who did she think was chasing her?
Faceless men wearing dark cassocks?
Like the dream.
Or are you hoping to find Gavyn riding like a wild man, desperate to catch up to you?
The question irritated her. She leaned over the mare’s withers and urged Alabaster onward, ever faster. She didn’t want to admit that the dream had scared her, nor did she like the idea that a part of her was hoping for a glimpse of Gavyn, furious though he might be for her abrupt departure.
“How foolish is that?” she wondered aloud as the first rays of sunlight slanted through the mist that had clung to the sky until late afternoon.
Concentrating on the road ahead, she felt the sun on her back as she passed several huts and told herself to ignore the reactions of the innkeeper’s wife and groomsman. So they thought Gleda a little odd; people at Calon and Penbrooke had thought the same of Isa.
And yourself . . . when you were a girl and saw playmates no one else could.
Still, she could not help but feel a bit of trepidation as she crossed a narrow rushing creek that snaked through the valley, then spied a flat wooden structure with a thatched roof, a goat pen attached to it, and a row of bee skeps made of straw not far from the living quarters. Smoke rose from a chimney of stone while pigs were rutting in a copse of oak trees, their snorts audible over the occasional bleat of a goat. Bryanna decided she must be at Gleda’s home.
She dismounted and walked to the front door, where a man was seated upon an upended oak log, sharpening his scythe. As she approached he spit upon his whetstone and ran it, screeching, along the tool’s curved blade.
“Excuse me,” Bryanna said when the farmer, so interested in his work, didn’t look up as she approached. “Sir?”
As her shadow reached him, his head snapped up. He stared at her from beneath the brim of his cap, his deep-set eyes looking her over before he glanced at her horse. “Eh?”
“I’m looking for Gleda,” she said as he blinked beneath the brim of his cap. “Does she live here?”
“Gleda, y’say?” he repeated, shouting so loudly one of the goats lifted his bearded head.
The door swung open and a woman, looking frail as a newborn bird, crossed the threshold. “You don’t have to yell, Liam,” she reprimanded as she wiped her hands on her apron. “For the love of God, we’re not all as deaf as you are—oh . . . my . . . by the stars! Kambria?” she whispered, turning white as a swan’s feathers.
“I’m sorry. My name is Bryanna.”
“Nay . . . oh, lass . . . you look just like . . .” The woman swallowed hard, her hazel eyes rounding and her right hand moving deftly, making the sign of the cross over her small chest.
This little spry thing was the person two people in the town feared?
“Come in . . . come in,” she insisted, ushering Bryanna inside and leaning back to say, “Have you no manners, Liam? See to the lady’s jennet. By the stars!” she said, shaking her head as she closed the door behind them.
A fire burned in the hearth, casting red and gold shadows on the whitewashed walls and warming a pot of stew that hung from chains over the flames. Chickens clucked and roosted on crossbeams, and a cat, spying Bryanna, slunk deeper into the room, away from the large plank table where a distaff, teasels, and a pile of goats’ wool had been left.
“That man! Sometimes I wonder if he has any manners at all. Now, please”—she waved Bryanna onto one of the benches—“sit down and rest a bit. You look like you’ve ridden a long way. Where have you come from?”
As Gleda pushed her spinning items to one end of the table and sat on the far side, Bryanna slid onto a bench facing her. Absently she rubbed at a sore spot on her throat as she gave the older woman a shortened description of her journey. Rather than admit that she was being guided by the voice of a dead woman, or that she’d spent time with a murderer, she said only that before Isa’s unfortunate death, the nursemaid had entrusted Bryanna with some of her personal things, one of which was a dagger, another the map. She removed both items from a pouch and placed them on the table before Gleda.
“ ’Tis
a miracle you found me,” Gleda whispered, tears shining in her eyes as she fingered the dagger and smoothed the map upon the tabletop. “I thought Isa may have had these, but I was not certain. She never admitted as much.” She smiled despite the sadness evident in her features. “Isa . . . dear God,” she said, her voice husky. “’Tis horrible that she was slain.”
Worse than you know, Bryanna thought, but did not say the words. “Her murderer was found out. Justice was served.”
“Good, good,” she said, but seemed distracted and far away for a few seconds. Finally she cleared her throat and asked, “So . . . now you are here because of your mother?”
“Nay, ’twas Isa who sent me.”
“Oh, yes, I know. But you seek me out because of your mother and the curse.”
“My mother was cursed?” Bryanna asked, shaking her head as the fire hissed and a cat with mottled fur slid beneath a stool by the hearth. Cursed? What was this farmer’s wife talking about? “She didn’t tell me.”
“Of course not. She couldn’t.” Gleda laid a wrinkled hand upon Bryanna’s, and the lines around her lips tightened. “She died shortly after you were born.”
“What? Nay! My mother died but a few years back at Penbrooke. I was there.” She drew her hand away and stood quickly, knocking against the bench and startling the cat. It hissed and slipped quickly away to hide behind a small cupboard.
What was this heresy? She knew her mother, was raised by her. Bryanna remembered all too sadly how she’d stood at Lenore’s bedside and seen her unmoving body, just as she’d witnessed Isa’s.
“Who was your mother?” Gleda asked softly.
“Lenore. Lady Lenore of Penbrooke.”
“Ah. Then ’tis true.” The older woman was still seated, but she shook her head sadly. “As I thought. Lenore was not your true mother, not the woman who conceived you, child.”