I glanced up at the abbess. "I see what you mean--he has Safire's smile."
"What Sa-sa-safire?" he asked, looking from me to the abbess.
"Safire is your dream mama, Sewell. Remember your dream mama?" the abbess prompted.
"Dweam mama," he repeated. "Dweam mama come at night." He put his thumb in his mouth, his eyes big and wistful.
"Dream mama is in Cormalen, Sewell." I touched the book. "You want to see dream mama?"
His nod was emphatic. "Wanna see dweam mama."
"I'll take you to dream mama." I gently grasped his small hand, and he regarded me, his mouth a straight line again. After a moment, his fingers curled around mine. His mouth slowly blossomed in that charming smile, so like his mother's smile that my eyes hurt. I reached out to her for the hundredth time since last night, but all I saw was a single, wavering flame amidst deepest night, all I smelled was a whiff of charred cedar, and all I heard was that lovely, unearthly keening, the song of her soul. God, I wished she were here. God, I hoped she fared all right. My love, my sweet witch wife.
Chapter Twenty-Four--Safire
House of Long Marsh, Silmer Province, Eastern Cormalen
October, last year
A ring of icy fire surrounded me. I slowly turned in the middle of the mob, my eyes going from face to face, but they all had the same hard, closed look. The bishop's wintery aura had touched them all and frozen any upsurge of pity or mercy. Except for Whitten. He furtively glanced at the men to either side of him, then met my gaze, doubt drawing the skin tight over his bones, the torchlight flickering over the hollows of his face. His bruised aura contracted, so dark suddenly that it blended into the night around us, and I knew then, terror fluttering inside, that something was not going according to plan. Why were we still standing here in the courtyard? Why weren't they taking me to the magistrate's headquarters in Calcors? Wasn't that where they usually held suspected witches and warlocks until their trials?
One of the torches sputtered then with a startling pop. I looked over my shoulder to find the bishop's eyes fixed on me, his thin, lined face hard and unyielding as ice on stone. He would crack before he would bend. My hand dropped to cover the slight swell of my belly, a futile instinct to protect the tender new life growing there.
The bishop noticed my gesture. "Being with child won't save you. Better for the demonspawn to be consumed by fire before it enters the world."
My tongue, a flame of rage, cleaved to the roof of my mouth as I bit back my words. Nothing I could say would thaw this man, and the last thing I wanted to do was provoke him further. God knew what would happen. They couldn't search the house, they just couldn't. Dominic had to stay hidden with the others. My son, my sweet son with his lopsided smile and sturdy hands and steady eyes. A sob rose in my throat, and I choked. I swiped my sleeve over my eyes, tears so hot they burned my skin through the thin cloth.
Cold fingers curled around my elbow, and the bishop shook me. "How dare you? Do you think your false tears will find you any sympathy here? These men know you for a foul succubus."
He wrenched me toward him. I tried to escape his grasp, which only made his iron grip tighten to the point of bone-snapping pain. I cried out. The charred odor of the torches seared my throat as I inhaled, my eyes watering.
I stumbled as the bishop began to tow me around the circle of men, yelling about witches. I shook my head, for some reason not able comprehend his words anymore, only the force of the loathing and pain behind them. Pale, acrid smoke spewed from his torch and his mouth. His icy aura settled on my skin and gnawed its way into my body, my flesh tingling and then becoming numb as if frostbit. I started shivering, my teeth chattering, my breath so loud and harsh in my ears that it drowned out all other sounds. The bishop's presence chilled me until the marrow in my bones turned brittle, and I couldn't seem to hold a clear thought in my head. All I could think about was how cold I was. And Merius . . . how I longed for Merius, the blazing hearth of his heart to warm me.
I felt the bishop's hand, taut against my back, then an instant of flying, ending with the hard punch of the cobblestones, the wind knocked out of me. Flecks of bluish-white frost danced before my eyes, the only light in this cold, dark place. I couldn't move at first after he threw me to the ground. My entire body prickled, encased in the ice of his hatred. A longing came over me, a longing for it to be over--I could just accept the cold peace the ice offered me and go to sleep forever. The ice was so thick I couldn't even breach it to say good-bye to Merius. Dear God, Merius. I could never leave him, our souls twined so tightly that wherever one led, the other would soon follow. What about my babies? I could never leave them--I had to see them grow. I had to hold Sewell in my arms again. I had to fight. A tiny flame flared to life deep inside, hope sparking in my blood. Every movement agony, I lifted myself on my hands and knees. I had to get out of here before I froze to death.
Chapter Twenty-Five--Eden
House of Long Marsh, Silmer Province, Eastern Cormalen
October, last year
"Evi, please," I whispered as I cuddled her. "Shh, shh." Her little face screwed up even tighter as she opened her mouth in a blood-curdling scream that every assassin in Sarneth could likely hear. Dagmar, Bridget, Jared, Elsa, all holding wide-eyed, unnaturally silent children, turned to look at me as if I had spawned a demon. Evi, seeming to realize she had an audience, yelled even louder, numbing my beleaguered eardrums. "Damn it," I muttered. Normally I would have just handed her to Mordric--all he had to do was say "Shut up, Evi," and she did, but he wasn't here. Safire could soothe any baby with her witch powers, but she wasn't here either.
Bridget, a sleeping Flavian draped across her shoulder, crept over to me in a crouch to avoid the low ceiling of the cellar. "What is it, my lady? Does her rag need changing?"
"No--it's nothing like that." I had just fed her an hour ago and changed her diaper a half-hour ago. And she wasn't prone to colic. I bounced her a little, each bounce breaking her wail until it sounded like she had a bad case of the hiccups.
"Maybe you're holding her too tightly?" Bridget suggested.
I glanced down and noticed my knuckles shone white in the flame from the single oil lamp. "Oh," I said. "Of course, how silly." I drew a deep breath, the cellar air smelling of rich, damp earth, and exhaled slowly, only then realizing how tense I was. Evi's wail slowly became to a low, sullen cry, almost more grating in its monotony than the screaming had been in its loudness.
Dominic suddenly sprang off Elsa's lap and scampered over to us. "Dominic, come back here," Elsa hissed, diving after him.
Dominic ignored her, standing before me. "Evi mad," he observed, his steady gaze fixed on us as his mouth drooped in a slight frown like a scholar puzzling over a particularly difficult arithmetic problem.
I gaped at him, my standard response to this witch's changeling. I had little experience with children, but I knew enough to know that Dominic was odd, an old man in a toddler's body. Before I could move, he reached out and put his palm on Evi's furrowed forehead. Remembering how he had struck her last month for touching his cup, I shrank back against the rough stone wall and tried to shield her with my hand. Then I realized she had stopped crying. I glanced down at her. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she yawned, her mouth returning to its proper rosebud shape afterwards. She was a beautiful baby--when she was quiet.
"What did you do?" I asked Dominic before I remembered he wasn't quite two yet.
He regarded me silently, a spooky smile curling up one corner of his mouth before he turned and trotted back to Elsa. She started to scold him, then paused and glanced at me and Evi as if she suddenly realized the crying had ended. She rested her hand on the crown of Dominic's head, her expression thoughtful.
"Well, I'll be," Bridget exclaimed, staring after him.
"Likely just a coincidence."
"There are no coincidences with that one," Bridget said darkly. "He's a wicked little sphinx." She shifted Flavian to her ot
her shoulder, and he murmured something in his sleep about frogs.
"Really, Bridget, he's barely past infancy. And he did get Evi to quit crying."
She looked ashamed. "Sorry, my lady. I didn't mean to snap--honestly my nerves are frayed. Why hasn't Lady Safire come down yet?"
"I don't know, but I'm on the verge of going to look for her."
There came a knock at the door then, and we heard Randel's familiar voice through the key hole--he sounded out of breath. Jared unlocked the door. Randel stumbled in, his face so haggard and pale I thought he might collapse. I rose, absently cuddling Evidee as I stared at him.
"Where's Safire?" Dagmar demanded, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.
"The bishop came," Randel panted, gripping the door jamb. "With a mob."
"What?" Evi started screeching again, a dim sound over the hammering in my ears as I concentrated on Randel's mouth, what horror he would utter next.
"She worried they'd search the house, find you--she went out to meet them."
"Oh dear God." I spun toward Bridget. "Can you hold her?"
She nodded as she lowered Flavian to her lap, her eyes so large I thought they'd pop loose from their sockets. I dumped a struggling Evi in her outstretched arms, pausing to kiss my daughter's tear-salted cheek as she opened her mouth in a fiendish yowl. Then I was across the cellar and almost out the door when Randel grabbed my arm.
"My lady, I won't allow it," he said hoarsely.
"Randel, I'm just going upstairs to see if I can spy out anything. You know me--I won't do anything stupid."
"But I may, so she needs to come with me to make certain I don't," Dagmar said, her voice brisk. "Here, watch Jaco for me," she said as she eased a drowsy Jacold into Jared's arms.
"You need to guard them, Randel." I gestured toward the children. At his stricken expression, I said, "I'm just going to look out a window, that's all. Mordric will want to know if we can identify anyone in the mob, see if we have leverage with any of them. You know, come tomorrow, none of them will claim they had anything to do with this, except the bishop, of course. We need to see who they are--it may be Safire's only hope."
Slowly, he nodded, his hand loosening, then dropping from my arm. I spared one last look at my daughter. No longer screeching (likely her vocal cords had worn out), she punched the air with little fists as she scowled at Bridget. Bridget met my gaze then, gulping visibly, her arms tightening around Evi as Flavian, somehow still asleep, flung one hand over the edge of her lap. My heart lurched and fell against my stomach as I turned away and raced up the steps to the kitchen, Dagmar close at my heels. The door scraped shut behind us, the muffled click of the key as they locked it from the inside.
When I reached the top of the steps, I slowed down and crept across the slate floor, shimmery in the moonlight. Dagmar followed suit, the only sound her low whimpers for breath as we tiptoed into the back hallway. I pushed open the door to the dining hall, then reached back to clasp her icy fingers as we drew around the huddled shapes of the chairs, the long line of the table. An orange glow lit the edges of the diamond panes of the large windows that looked out on the courtyard.
We crouched together and peered through the windows. It was a small mob, clustered at this end of the courtyard near the drive leading from the house--I counted twelve torches in all. Safire stood in the midst of them, a slight, pale figure in her new frock of creamy silk, crisscrossed with green ribbon vines. I had helped her choose that material just a fortnight ago in a Corcin shop. We had so enjoyed that afternoon out together--we had left Dominic and Evidee with Elsa and taken to the streets like naughty urchins.
"Is that Whitten?" Dagmar hissed.
"It is . . . what the hell?" I stared at my slouch-shouldered kinsman, both of his hands wrapped around the handle of his torch as if he feared someone would snatch it from him. Craven cur. I tried to get a look at the other men, but my gaze kept returning to Whitten. Wondering. Mordric had said he was in league with Peregrine . . .
"Why are they just standing there?" Dagmar asked, voicing my own thought aloud.
"I don't . . ." I trailed off as the bishop dragged Safire around the inside of the circle of men, twisting her arm. She cried out and attempted to yank herself from his grasp, but he plowed on, completely oblivious to her pain. "That son of a bitch," I muttered, my fingers coiling around the edge of the window sill, my nails digging into the ancient wood until I broke them to the quick.
"See this witch!" the bishop yelled, the glass barely deadening his deep, rumbling voice. "This wretched sinner with her false tears! We should put her out of her misery now . . ."
"But there's been no trial, Your Grace," Whitten said, his words faltering so I could hardly hear him at the end. But still--it surprised me he had the guts to speak up at all.
"Trials--I'm ill of these petty contrivances the council calls trials. Her tricky kinsmen will find a way around a trial, and she'll never be punished for her wiles and witchcraft. She's a sinner of the vilest kind!" The other men murmured agreement, nodding as torchlight glazed the bishop's pale eyes a hideous red. He flung Safire to the ground. She lay there for what seemed like an eternity, gasping for breath, before she lifted herself up on her hands and knees and started to crawl toward the edge of the circle. The bishop's booted foot flew out and kicked her in the side then. She crumpled to the cobbles, her back heaving. Dagmar moaned and clapped her hands to her mouth as her whole body swayed.
One of the men stepped forward and produced a bottle of what appeared to be whiskey from the folds of his cloak. Its amber contents sloshed as he emptied it all over Safire's back and skirt. She turned her head up then, choking, her gaze seeming to lock with Whitten's.
"No!" Whitten shouted. He charged forward, dropping his torch. The man beside him whipped out a dagger and plunged it in Whitten's back. I fisted my hand over my mouth as my kinsman stumbled, falling to his knees at the edge of the circle.
Then, as if fire were a sacred benediction, the bishop lovingly touched the flame of his torch to Safire's gown.
Soaked with spirits, the material flared immediately. "Roll, oh dear God, roll," I whispered to her. But Safire, screaming, couldn't have heard me even if I shouted. The circle closed in on her when she tried to stand, the men preventing her from fleeing.
Before I realized it, I had risen, Dagmar with me. We ran through the house, Safire's screams so shrill now they pierced the thick brick walls. I could only pray that the children couldn't hear her. I threw open the front door and raced down the steps, stumbling at the bottom. The sickly sweet odor of burning flesh reached my nostrils, and I coughed, the inky, bitter smoke heavy in my lungs as Safire's voice tore the night. She sounded like some wild creature in agony, a bird perhaps, not human at all anymore.
Dagmar fell nearby, wailing. "You bastards!" she screeched. "You godforsaken bastards--I hope you all burn in hell!"
None of the men even turned to see who yelled. They were transfixed by Safire writhing before them, so engulfed in fire now that I could only catch glimpses of her shadowy form through the flames.
A sudden burst of white light, a thousand lightning bolts igniting the sky, ripped through the courtyard with a clap of thunder so loud it deafened me. Blinded, I rolled over to Dagmar and covered her with my body as the world exploded around us.
When my ears quit ringing, I wondered if I had died and somehow snuck into heaven. An achingly beautiful soprano voice swelled through the courtyard, its wordless rise and fall so acute the glass panes of the windows rattled in their frames. I remembered an opera I had attended in Sarneth featuring a famous soprano, how my heart had trembled at her voice, one of the most intense experiences of my life. That paled before the sound of this eerie beauty.
I raised my head. My eyes widened till they ached, taking in a sight that my shock-numbed brain couldn't comprehend. All the men had vanished, their torches with them. A fiery glow still lit the courtyard, in the midst of it the most gorgeous bird I'd ever seen
. It had the shape and soft contours of a dove, long coppery plumes trailing from its head and tail. The song that made me think I was in heaven poured from its throat as it stretched out huge wings. Iridescent purple shimmered across its feathers. It looked like Safire had taken the warm hues of her palette, all the scarlets and crimsons and golds and ambers, and overlay a purple background with brilliant lines and swirls of warm color. I tilted my head as I stared at it. How was I seeing all these colors in its plumage? It was nighttime. Was the bird emitting the glow? I couldn't see another source of light, but how could a bird give off light . . .
"What's that sound?" Dagmar murmured. I rolled over and knelt beside her, my hand on her back.
"It's a bird," I answered. "A beautiful bird." All the foul smoke was gone. Instead, a spicy incense of cedar wafted around us with the fluid melody of the bird's song.
"What?" Dagmar lifted herself up on shaky arms, her profile etched orange in the glow. "Where's Safire?" she demanded, her voice shrill. "Where's my sister? If they took her . . ."
The front door burst open, and Randel and Jared bounded down the steps. "Lady Eden, Lady Dagmar, are you all right?" Randel demanded. "We heard a horrible rumble--the whole house shook." He stooped beside us and grasped Dagmar's hand as she staggered to her feet.
"Those men--they burned my sister. They burned Safire, right here in this courtyard where we used to play tag . . ." She fumbled to grasp Randel's wrist for support, her usual briskness replaced by a dazed, childlike shock.
"Where are they?" Randel surveyed the courtyard, the road, the fields. "They can't have gotten far--it's only been a few minutes. What's that? A bird? What the devil . . ." He strode forward, towing Dagmar behind him.
Jared took a few hesitant steps toward the courtyard, his gaze fixed on the bird. Then he stepped back, stumbling against the boot-scraper. "No, no, not this again," he muttered.
"What again?" I got to my feet and dusted my skirt from habit, staring at him.
"Sir Merius--that glider turned him into a huge hawk. Maybe the fire did something to Lady Safire . . . you say they burned her?"
Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3) Page 55