Bone Witch (Elemental Magic, #3)

by Thea Atkinson

  Not without blood. Barruch’s blood once again. Blood she would have to shed or psych of its water if they were to survive. Just the thought made her chest burn. She had to inhale and exhale repeatedly just to keep from panicking at the futility of it.

  She felt her legs tremble, heard Gael's voice as a whisper, coaxing her, telling her it was okay.

  “I’ve killed before,” she said, searching out his eye. “You know I have. But this is different.” She heard the pleading in her voice, like a toddler begging her father not to spank her. Father, she thought morosely. It was all her father’s fault she was in this spot in the first place, her father’s fault she was a killer.

  Gael’s arms went round her, and she fell against his chest, choking back sobs.

  “You don’t have to kill the beast,” he said next to her ear. “You only have to thirst his blood once it flows. I’ll do the deed for you.”

  She discovered her fists were beating against his back, that she was squirming in his arms. “You’d kill him? You’d kill my Barruch?”

  Gael’s hands found hers and held them tightly against his sides. His body pressed into hers in command for her to be still and yet with a gentle intimacy that actually stilled her. “I would kill anyone—any beast, any witch, any woman—to save you.”

  She peered up at him. He’d not mentioned their night together, as he’d promised, not once since she’d lost Yenic and her sister and her father Yuri all in one day and needed the comfort he’d offered. He’d not once told her again that he loved her. That he would say anything now was proof of how bad off they were, how close to dying—how close he knew she was to unintentionally psyching them dry.

  “Just do it,” she croaked and staggered away from Barruch. If it must be done, then on with it, but she couldn’t look into those lovingly haughty eyes and watch the life die from them, see his realization of her betrayal.

  “Do it,” she sobbed and stuffed a fist into her mouth. She stared back over the dried earth they’d traveled. She forced herself to think back on the days that had set them on the path in the first place, fleeing her homeland with an old man, a young girl, a criminal, and a warrior, and leaving behind the only true friend she’d made.

  The thought of Saxa and her willowy frame, the soft voice and silver light hair brought her to thoughts of Yenic, and thoughts of him brought her to her twin sister.

  Then the meandering thoughts stopped. They had to.

  Her sister, newly discovered, was no more. Aislin, the witch of flame, had killed her trying to goad Yuri into relinquishing Yenic.

  It was all a tangled, nightmarish mess, all set in motion by Yuri’s greed for power, his megalomaniac desire to control each of four witches that a season ago Alaysha hadn’t known existed.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to hear the familiar whinny as Gael’s blade moved across the broad neck. Each limb felt taut with anxiety. She scraped a bare foot across the earth, remembering how it felt on Barruch’s back, how he’d struggled to reach her when she’d caused the flood at the mud village. She hadn’t thought he’d live through that. She smiled nostalgically. She remembered seeing him at the edge of the river when he’d brought Gael out from the city during Aislin’s rampage.

  She recalled how handsome that horseflesh looked to her each time, how it made her stomach flop over itself in relief.

  Her friend. Her family. Her one connection to the humanity she thought she’d given up each time she had to kill for her father.

  Dear deities, how could she let this happen? She couldn’t, that’s what. She wouldn’t.

  She spun around, intending to shout for Gael to wait, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

  She would have gotten the words out too, if Aedus hadn’t yelled first, pointing to the horizon, jumping up and down when the girl shouldn’t have the energy to stand, let alone hopscotch from one foot to the other.

  Theron's posture revealed his surprise, and as confused as Alaysha was to see a hulking shape coming toward them, her first thought was to make sure Gael hadn't gone ahead and murdered her Barruch. She felt her heart squeeze in her chest, the fear that it was too late keeping it from pumping.

  “Gael?” she croaked.

  He met her eyes and she felt her whole body slump with relief when he spoke.

  “He's safe yet, Alaysha,” he said and she breathed easier at his words.

  The horizon could finally take her attention then. “What sort of beast is that?”

  Gael shrugged, but it was Theron who spoke, his voice such a strange tone Alaysha didn't realize at first that it was dread.

  “That would be an Enyalian. And an Enyalian means this shaman and these good people are good as dead.”

  Chapter 2

  Alaysha watched as the strange hulking beast on the horizon grew bigger as it drew closer. With relief she saw that what Theron called an Enyalian was alone. What harm could come from a lone rider?

  “Should we fear one Enyalian, Theron?” she asked him, and didn't feel so reassured when she saw his reaction.

  “She'll have seen us,” he said, casting panicked looks around him. Alaysha noticed he took to stepping side to side anxiously, his filthy cassock swaying over his blue-veined feet.

  “She?” Alaysha asked and glanced at Gael for confirmation. “Did he say she?”

  Gael nodded and Theron edged closer, staring thoughtfully at the warrior.

  “All Enyalia are shes.” He took measure of Gael, and seeming to decide something of importance, began pressing Gael to sit on the ground. At first, Gael resisted, but when Theron grew persistent, the warrior settled on his buttocks next to Barruch with a shrug. Despite his seemingly relaxed posture, Alaysha noted his fingers clenched the handle of his blade beneath his arm.

  “What's going on Theron?” she asked as the shaman did the same to Edulph who had a harder time finding a dignified sitting position with his hands bound in front of him.

  The shaman took Aedus's hand and led her closer to Alaysha.

  “Any number of Enyalia is dangerous—life threatening, even, yes yes yes—especially for a man.” He moved them to stand in front of Barruch. “Let her see this witch first,” he told Alaysha then looked back at Gael. “Spring when she's noticed you, but only if she notices you. Otherwise, look weakened or dead or near dead.” He paused when he'd checked Edulph, seeming to decide the madman's fate. “If the foolish madman wants to live, he'll pretend he's dead.”

  “And then what?” Aedus piped up. “If she wants to kill us, she needn't waste her energy, Theron. She just needs to pass us by and let this cursed land do it for her.”

  Alaysha wished she didn't have to hear the note of sourness in the girl's tone. To have lived and thrived on your own as this girl had done only to be put in harm's way repeatedly because of Alaysha and all the messiness her life had become must be an insult to the girl's tenacity.

  Theron glared at the girl. “The Enyalian won't take the chance, oh no.,” he said, looking past Alaysha at the approaching beast. Alaysha followed his gaze. Indeed, it was a beast—unlike any horse she'd ever seen, but the figure atop didn't ride so much as slump over it.

  “We can protect ourselves,” she said aloud. “If we stick together.”

  Theron shook his head. “Maybe if we weren't so weak. Maybe if we had more men...”

  “She is one woman and we have a witch,” she said indignantly.

  He grinned. “A witch without the control to be discreet in how her power works. Better the warrior out there than the witch right here, we say. Yes. Oh yes.”

  Aedus threw her hands up. “Then what's the point, you fool?”

  Theron looked at her. “Better than this small child has called us a fool. Indeed, a fierce Enyalian herself did so, didn't she? Yes. So long ago.”

  Alaysha could swear he looked nostalgic. “How do you know these warriors? Who are they?”

  He chewed his cheek, sent a furtive glance forward. The figure had come so close, Alaysha nearly st
aggered in surprise at the queerness of the beast. She could make out a long neck, and what had looked like two figures atop the one back she could now see was one woman slumped forward across a large hump. The legs of the beast, long as they were, seemed supple and strong despite the heat. The woman's legs hung down well past the belly of the beast but looked red and raw. Not bleeding—just raw.

  That was the moment she realized it.

  “We're not in danger,” she said aloud. “She’s hurt.”

  Theron squinted, shading his vision from the sun with his palm. “It's worse than that,” he murmured. “Worse even than our deaths. Oh no no no no.”

  Alaysha saw it the same moment he did it seemed. Both of them stumbled forward to help the woman from her mount.

  “Oh dear deities,” Alaysha heard herself say, through the heavy breath of her exertion. She heard Gael's voice behind her as he spoke.

  “Bodicca,” he blurted even as Alaysha's hand reached the woman's leg. It was indeed raw, covered in boils in a long strip of flesh that appeared to be from a trail of something wet and greasy.

  “Sweet Liliah,” she heard Theron say. “Melted down. Poured on her, poor thing.”

  Alaysha swept a look over his face. He looked stricken and it wasn't just from the wounds; it was as though he felt connected to the woman's pain.

  “So brave,” he murmured. “Poor brave thing.” He tutted and did more to ease her down than either Alaysha or Gael did. They were awkward trying to wrest her from the beast without causing her further pain. Theron was adept, gentle. He stripped away his cassock and laid it on the bare earth. He stood in his flaxen shift, with his scrawny arms hanging at his sides. Strangely enough, scrawny as they were, they looked to have some semblance of old sinew and muscle. The tattau on his ribs stretched and sagged with his skin.

  “Check the other side,” he commanded. “She'll have water skins. Yes, oh yes, she will. Plenty.”

  Aedus made for the other flank and whooped in victory, Then Alaysha lost sound of her as the girl presumably guzzled from the skin.

  “Careful,” she shouted at the girl. “Not too much. Lots of little, Aedus, so you can keep it down.” She turned to Gael, who was already striding round the beast.

  “I'll see to it and get you some,” he said, his expression shifting to barely hidden revulsion as he spied Bodicca's back.

  “It's a mess, Theron,” Alaysha said. “Thank the deities she's passed out.”

  He said nothing to that, merely began digging through the pack he'd been carrying since they'd fled the city and refused to relinquish to anyone even though it was no doubt a heavy parcel for him to manage. She doubted he'd have any medicines or herbs to heal the mass of bubbled flesh in splotches and streaks down the warrior's body.

  “What did this,” she mused aloud. "Boiling water?"

  “Boar fat, we should imagine. Melted down yes oh yes but oh so hot,” he mumbled, then choked and gagged loudly as he inspected the warrior's back.

  Alaysha could stand no more. She turned in relief to Gael who held out a water skin.

  “It's hot, but very sweet.” He flashed another, uncharacteristic grin. “Aedus is giving Edulph some.”

  She kept her lips tightly closed thinking about that horrible villain finding relief. "And Barruch?"

  “She's already cut a hole big enough to let him at it.” The large warrior looked back over his shoulder and Alaysha followed his gaze to see Edulph cupping his hands into the broad leather. Aedus was scolding him not to waste any.

  Alaysha gulped at the mouth of the skin, watching them curiously. “Is this it?”

  “There's two more. Looks like she hasn't been able to drink much.”

  "I imagine not." Alaysha hated to do it, the reluctance to even think what was invading her mind was strong, but not strong enough to overcome the worry of it. She couldn't stop herself from wondering aloud what they would all need to know eventually.

  “If she's here, where do you think Yenic is?”

  Bodicca had taken him when the struggle between Aislin and Yuri had looked to go bad. Gael had told her back then that where Bodicca had taken Yenic meant and that he was undoubtedly dead. If she was here, alive but sorely injured, it must be true. She tried to force her lungs to expand.

  “Do you think he's gone then?”

  Gael sighed and nodded at Theron. “He'll do his best to find out for you.”

  She met Gael's eye and saw something shift within the depths. Hurt, maybe.

  “Not just for me, Gael," she said, trying to placate his pain. "For Saxon too. If Yenic lives we may yet get Aislin to release your nephew.”

  He nodded mutely, but Alaysha could see he still felt miserable. Better she focus on something she could fix, something tangible. She made her way to the shaman and searched his face questioningly, hoping he would understand what she wanted without having to say it.

  “She lives, “Theron said.

  She breathed deeply, wanting to ask about Yenic. “That's good.”

  “Perhaps,” he shrugged.

  “What does that mean, Theron?”

  He groaned as though he thought her simple and Gael stepped closer. “The Enyalia, Alaysha. They are a caste of fierce warrior women.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “Did you miss the term 'women'?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Enyalia allow no man to enter their lands. I should have known by her height, her demeanour toward men that Bodicca was one of them, but it was so strange to see one in your father's city.”

  “Gael, get to the point. It doesn't make sense that they did this to her. What does it mean?"

  Theron scuffled his feet and made a furtive movement toward Bodicca, almost a feigned need to inspect her back again, and it made Alaysha even more suspicious. "Gael? Theron?"

  The shaman rolled his eyes. "They allow no men," he said. "If Bodicca is here, then Yenic is dead."

  Gael reached for her hand and held it next to his heart where she could feel the thudding within. “Alaysha,” he murmured. “I think he's saying that no man who enters Enyalia lives to leave.”

  Chapter 3

  Alaysha was pretty certain her hunger and thirst had made her delirious. Yes. Seven days across the burnt lands with barely any water—rationing what they did have, baking in the unyielding sun, worrying about accidentally killing those of her companions that she loved. All of those things had sent her over the edge into full blown sun sickness.

  It had to be so. Bodicca did not lie at her feet, covered in sores from some horrible burning. She wasn't there lying alone without Yenic whom she herself had taken captive from Sarum in retaliation for Aislin's kidnapping of Saxon. She did not lie there, a massively huge woman at the feet of the strangest beast Alaysha had ever seen, letting Theron do his best to tend to her pains when she knew, just knew, that the man she'd saved was dead. And that she was to blame.

  No. It was the sun. It had to be. She was certain of it when the ground trembled beneath her feet, nearly imperceptible at first, but when her soles vibrated, she was sure of it. Sun sickness. It made sense.

  She stared mutely at Gael for a moment, wondering if he was sharing the delirium.

  He twitched his shoulder helplessly. “I'm sorry, Alaysha. I know it's true.”

  Bodicca groaned quietly and Theron began babbling again in his nonsensical way as he crouched over her. Alaysha didn't understand half of what he said, but then, she rarely did.

  “It can't be true.” She toed the woman's skin closest to her. “She wouldn't have left Yenic there.”

  Theron slapped her foot away. “This warrior would have had no choice. No. Not this one.” He looked at Alaysha, glaring with unexpected vehemence. “She earned this pain long ago.” He ran his hands over the length of her back, never touching the skin, only sweeping the sheerest bit of air currents toward her feet. “You earned it, did you not, warrior?”

  Before she could ask what he meant, Aedus crept
up next to her and pressed the water skin into her hand. Alaysha glanced down at the dear ferret-like face with its tiny black eyes, and hair in ratty strings of caked and dried mud. She couldn't help a smile.

  “You drink, little one,” she told her.

  Aedus shook her head and Gael shuffled closer. “The girl is right,” he said. “You need to drink your fill.”

  Alaysha's mouth twisted in self-loathing. “Why, because I'm more important?” She thought of the shaman's confession before they'd started this cursed journey that she must be the goddess Liliah.

  “No, because I'd rather not end up as a pair of rolling eyeballs on this cracked earth.”

  "Some humour then, to lighten the load, Gael?"

  He shrugged. “I guess you don't know me.” Gael grinned and squeezed her shoulder. “No,” he admitted. “Because you're more dangerous this thirsty.”

  “Ah,” she said with a sigh. “Lest I drain you all of your life-giving fluid to save my pitiful self.” She upended the skin and gulped greedily, forcing herself to pause every now and then so she didn't get sick and waste the fluid. “Barruch,” she gasped at last, holding the skin out.

  Aedus took the skin from her. “Barruch is already doing better.”

  Alaysha nodded. “Good.” She sighed, loving the feeling of sloshing that took over her belly. She glanced again to the horizon. “We've passed the zenith,” she said.

  Gael nodded in agreement. “It will get easier for a while.” He turned his attention to where Edulph was still sitting, his hands bound in his lap. “Did you water him, Aedus?”

  She toed the dirt. “Not enough.”

  “Come then,” Gael said, reaching for the girl's arm. “I'll protect you while that particular beast drinks his fill.”

  Alaysha watched them go then reached to feel Barruch's neck beneath her palm “Well, old man,” she said. “We live another day.”

  He snorted at her and shoved his nose beneath her chin. His breath felt hot, but no longer dry and smothering. She gave his nose a pat on the white patch. “I wouldn't have let them do it, you know.”