by Sarah Hegger
Maeve nodded. “Could she do it? Does she have that sort of power?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.” Roderick shook his head. “When we severed her connection, we believed we had destroyed her access to magic. Nobody anticipated her gaining control over blood magic. It’s powerful, unpredictable, and it would take a witch of enormous power to master it.”
Rhiannon had been the most powerful of the first, and now she was as ancient as the ground beneath their feet. There was no predicting how much power she could wield.
Maeve recoiled instinctively from the idea. “How does she access the blood magic?”
“An excellent question, and one we need to save for when the village isn’t trying to overrun the castle.” Roderick’s face settled into grim lines. “We achieve nothing by speculating, other than making ourselves nervous.”
“I didn’t think you got nervous.” Maeve glanced at him.
Roderick suppressed a smile but not fast enough that Maeve didn’t catch a glimmer of it. “I don’t,” he said. “I was referring to your nerves.”
Cold slithered over her skin and raised the hair on her nape.
Roderick stilled. His gaze snapped to the gate.
“What is it? Maeve followed his stare, rubbing her arms to alleviate the odd sensation, like a toothache over her entire body.
“The wards.” He unsheathed his sword as he ran for the entrance. “The wards have failed.”
Maeve stared at his retreating back. The wards didn’t fail. They couldn’t fail. It was impossible.
Shock broadsided her coven sisters. Some whimpered, others went silent, still others whispered amongst themselves, their fear palpable.
While they stood frozen, angry villagers poured over the drawbridge.
From the gatehouse, the coimhdeacht moved to intercept them, Roderick at their head.
Calm, disciplined, and deadly, they moved as if they shared one mind. Weapons wielded with awful precision, they met the onslaught on the drawbridge and drove them back.
The angry rabble was too disorganized to mount much of a defense against the implacable force facing them, and they fell back.
Roderick’s sword flashed in the meager sunlight, rising and falling as he and his men drove the attackers from the drawbridge, and over the stone bridge spanning the deep gully between the village and the castle.
Maeve couldn’t take her eyes off him. Their bonding was a mixed blessing.
Steadily, the coimhdeacht drove the villagers back. The invaders stopped where the castle wards should have been, Baile’s only line of defense.
Watching Roderick fight provided a kind of torment she hoped never to live again. Even knowing how skilled he was, her foolish fears wouldn’t be comforted. She wouldn’t breathe freely again until he was back safely behind the wards.
She stood on the battlements amongst her coven sisters and no one spoke to her, or even acknowledged her. Her isolation from her coven sisters stung now more than ever. She would dearly have loved to watch the fighting with other sisters bonded to coimhdeacht, share their mutual fears and perhaps even draw comfort from the older sisters who knew better. But they were down in the barracks, and Fiona had made her a pariah with the other witches.
She stared until her eyes watered. Her gaze fixed on Roderick as if she could somehow will him to be safe. Until he had rescued her in the village, she had never considered that something other than her choosing to journey beyond would sever their bond. She refused to accept that having survived the villagers to save her, Roderick would die at their hands anyway. Yet, he had so recently been injured. Pray Goddess his strength was where it should be.
Like the ancient stones of the castle itself, Roderick had always been there. Baile Castle without him, and now her life without him, was unthinkable. She yanked her thoughts away from that direction, which was singularly unhelpful to either her or Roderick.
Magic surged and crackled through the castle, raising the hair on her nape and rubbing across her skin. Warden magic. Maeve hardly dared breathe. Her gaze remained fixed on the men at the gates, they would sense the moment the wards came back into place.
Roderick dropped his sword first, and then nodded to the others. One by one, the coimhdeacht lowered their weapons.
A burly man standing near the front of the villagers gave a yell and lunged. He hit the wards and was repelled six feet back in the road.
Maeve took the first full breath she’d taken since Roderick had left her in the caverns.
The coimhdeacht pulled back to the gatehouse, where they left two men to stand guard. The remainder returned to the castle.
Maeve shoved past the knot of sisters and clattered down the stairs. Outside the great hall, coven sisters congested the hallway and Maeve used her elbows to great effect.
“Oy!” Madalyn, a friend of Edana’s, yelled and grabbed for her.
“Bide,” another witch said. “She goes to see how her coimhdeacht fares.”
She ran through the hall. The corridor leading to the barracks was quiet and she ran faster.
Several bonded witches milled about the barracks when she reached them. They nodded to her and made a space amongst them. From what Maeve had seen, none of the coimhdeacht had been harmed in the fighting, or even come close to getting hurt, but that didn’t matter to the women in the room. Like a flock of broody hens, they needed to make sure their chicks were safe.
Chicks in this instance referred to a group of overly large, heavily armed and deadly fighters. Maeve snorted back a giggle. An older sister looked at her and grinned, as if she understood what Maeve was thinking.
The door opened and the men filed in.
Sweat and blood streaking his handsome face, Thomas strolled through. He winked at her and went to join Lavina. They embraced and Lavina stared into his face as if to assure herself he really was hale. Thomas gave Lavina a genuine and tender smile before drawing her into a hug.
Scenes of joyful reunion happened all around Maeve. Some witches contented themselves with a more sedate embrace, but others threw themselves bodily at their guardians.
Roderick entered last, his huge shoulders filling the doorway.
Shyness beset Maeve, and she had no idea what to do next.
Roderick glanced at a couple to his right. The pair was engaged in a particularly fervent kiss. He looked back to her, grimaced and raised one eyebrow.
Maeve giggled, and her shyness melted away. She approached Roderick and stopped a foot in front of him. “You’re well?”
He nodded and touched a finger to her cheek. “I’m well.”
Maeve stayed with him as he went to the hall to get something to eat. He had taken a few moments to wash the evidence of his fighting away, and like many of her bonded coven sisters, Maeve had stayed in the barracks and waited for him to do so. He returned from the kitchen with an impressively loaded plate and sat beside her.
Clearly, fighting was hungry work. She poured him a goblet of wine and gave it to him.
He raised that supercilious brow at her. “I’m touched.”
“Just drink it.” Maeve’s cheeks heated. Tomorrow she intended to go back to carping at him, but for now she felt too much relief for that. “Thank goodness the wards are back up.”
“Indeed.” Roderick wasted no time in spooning stew into his mouth. “But they won’t hold.”
Maeve stared at him. He chewed and swallowed as she waited for him to explain.
“The fix is temporary.” He pulled apart a loaf of bread and dunked a piece into his bowl. “I have a sense of Baile.” He touched his free fist to his chest. “In here. All the coimhdeacht do, but mine is stronger than the others.” He shrugged. “Maybe because I built her, or maybe because I’m older than the rest, but I can sense her and how she fares.”
Roderick’s bone, blood and skin were melded into the sto
nes of Baile.
“The wards—” He shook his head and tore another piece from the loaf. “They will withstand the villagers, but not whoever, or whatever brought them down in the first place.”
The repercussions of what Roderick said were enormous. Maeve took a piece of his bread and chewed. She swallowed without tasting it.
If magic had brought the wards down, someone within Baile had helped bring them down, a warden witch, and one of power and in a position of trust.
Chapter 17
Maeve shivered, the grass freezing beneath her feet. A charcoal sky stretched from horizon to horizon, jagged bolts of red lightning tearing through it. Trees loomed dark and forbidding above the forest clearing, their limbs, bare of leaves and ghostly, stretching toward her.
“Only one can live.” Tahra emerged from the mist shrouding the forest. Her red dress garish against the frosted ground, she stayed far back. “You must remain stalwart, Maeve. We are depending on you to bear the impossible burden.” The figure flickered. “We must do what we can, or all is lost. All of us must do all we can.”
“Maeve!” Roderick wasn’t part of her dream. He shook her shoulder hard enough to yank her back to her cold bedchamber.
Hanging over her, his face was drawn into tight tense lines. “Get up.” He dropped her cloak onto the bed beside her. Her sturdy walking boots followed. “I’ve got to get you to the caverns.”
Maeve stared at her boots her tired mind struggling to catch up. The air around them crackled with live magic, witches casting faster than she could follow. “What’s happening?”
“Maeve,” Roderick said forcefully enough to drag her attention away from the rapidly escalating magic all about them. “If you regret doubting me before, you’ll come with me now without arguing.” He shook her cloak at her. “I have a few minutes to get you to the caverns and they’re ticking away rapidly.”
Maeve jumped out of bed and pulled her cloak around her. The chill of the flagstones stung the bottom of her feet and she hauled on her walking boots. “Let’s go.”
Roderick took her arm in a firm grip and opened the door to the corridor. A scream echoed down the hallway and Roderick yanked her back in time to avoid a collision with a witch running full tilt away from them.
Patricia, one of Fiona’s, ran past them without a glance, her face hard with determination.
“The wards are down.” Roderick pulled her into the corridor and hustled her along it. “They’re all the way down this time, and Fiona isn’t letting anybody reset them.”
She had so many questions, but Roderick took the stairs two at a time and forced her to pay attention or risk breaking her neck.
“You.” A tall witch stepped into her path and scowled at Maeve. Around her the air sparked as she reached for her magic.
Maeve stared at her dumbfounded. Her befuddled brain couldn’t even put a name to her coven sister. A coven sister who reached for her magic to harm a fellow coven sister.
“Get out of my way,” Roderick snarled as he shoved the other witch.
Hand raised, she muttered an incantation.
“Don’t,” Roderick said to her as they passed. “I don’t want to hurt you, Blessed, but my duty here is clear.”
Maeve didn’t hear the other witch’s response because they were already running down the corridor again. Beatrice. That had been her name. Beatrice.
“She was gathering her magic to use against me,” Maeve said, panting as Roderick increased their pace.
“Aye.” He slammed the kitchen door open and dragged her behind him, shielding her with his body. “And that isn’t the worst of today.”
“It’s Maeve,” someone shrieked. “Get her.”
Roderick shifted, his shoulders bunching. He punched. A fist hit flesh. They were moving again.
“Watch yourself.” Roderick lifted her over the prone form of a fallen sister.
Roderick. Always the perfect gentleman, gallant to a fault Roderick, who would hack a limb off rather than injure a woman, had punched one of her coven sisters and left her insensible on the floor.
“My duty was clear,” he said, as if he despised himself in that moment.
“Indeed.” Maeve surprised herself with her lack of sympathy for the fallen witch. “I can only be glad that you consider me to be your duty, and not a hindrance.”
He threw her a glance over his shoulder made up of equal parts amusement and bemusement.
Chaos reigned in the bailey. Witches ran this way and that, so quickly she couldn’t see who was who.
Through the gate came the villagers, streaming into the bailey with murder in their eyes. A man caught sight of them and shouted.
“Damn.” Roderick’s grip on her hand tightened. “They got in faster than I thought possible.”
“They shouldn’t be here at all.”
A man grabbed her cloak, almost yanking her off her feet.
Roderick spun, grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted.
A sickening crack of bone made Maeve shudder.
The man screamed and dropped to his knees, cradling his wrist to his chest.
“Wards are down, nothing to stop them,” Roderick said. “Fiona helped Rhiannon lower them from the inside.”
“Why?” She jerked to a stop.
“It doesn’t matter now.” Roderick dragged her back into motion. “She’s not even bothering with a pretense anymore.”
But it did matter to her. Why had Fiona betrayed her coven sisters and ushered this mayhem into Baile?
A woman screamed.
Maeve’s steps faltered.
A large man, perhaps the village blacksmith, dragged a screaming witch into the bailey by her hair.
“Let’s show this bitch how to act as she should.” His intent was written clearly on his face.
“You have to help her.” Maeve tugged Roderick to a stop. “Even now she’s forbidden from using magic to defend herself. You have to help her.”
The blacksmith tossed his victim to the ground at his friend’s feet.
Men closed on her.
Hester, a young apprentice, hadn’t enough magic to defend herself even if Goddess hadn’t forbidden its use.
“Help her.” Maeve yanked at Roderick’s grip on her arm.
“My duty is clear.” Roderick shackled both her wrists and dragged her through the sea door to the staircase leading down to the caverns.
Behind them, Hester screamed, and kept on screaming.
Maeve struggled against Roderick. She threw herself this way, and then that. If he wouldn’t let go of her, they’d both tumble to their deaths on the rocks below.
With a growl, Roderick upended her over his shoulder and took the remaining stairs at a run.
Inside the caverns, he right sided her so suddenly her head swam, and she almost lost her balance.
Roderick shoved her at someone. “Keep her here.”
Maeve swung to fight him, but Roderick was already running up the stairs.
Strong, male hands tugged her back into the cavern. “I’ll tie you up if I have to,” Thomas said. None of his usual humor showed on his face. “You’re safe here, and he can help others.”
“Come.” Colleen took her hand. “Coimhdeacht always act out of their sworn duty first.”
A handful of blessed huddled in the caverns. Most of them, like her, still in their bedclothes. Looking grim and resolved, coimhdeacht were guarding the entrance to the caverns. The witches in the caverns were mostly bonded sisters. She and Roderick now knew who was on their side, but there were far too few.
There had to be others still out there, others like young Hester.
Roderick appeared and pushed a pale and shaken woman inside.
It was Hester. Sobbing, bruised and bleeding from a split lip, she shook convulsively. Other sisters rushed to tend her.
Roderick disappeared up the stairs. Maeve wanted to chase after him and apologize. Again. She should have known he wouldn’t leave Hester like that.
Four coimhdeacht stumbled into the caverns. Blood streaking his features, one of them yelled, “There are too many of them and they keep coming. Most of the healthy witches fight with them.”
“The passage to the village.” Thomas herded witches deeper into the caverns to the secret entrance. “Let’s get the sisters to the village green. Our best chance is to separate.”
“But Roderick is still out there.” Maeve stared down the empty corridor leading to the entrance.
Thomas grabbed her arm. “No, Maeve. You come with us.”
“He needs help.” Maeve couldn’t bear to leave Roderick.
“Maeve.” Thomas shook her. “I vowed to him I’d get you to safety. Now go.”
He shoved her so hard she stumbled toward the wall.
“The incantation.” Colleen glanced about her. Tears had dried on her face, leaving rivulets in the sweat and dust. “I don’t know it.”
Maeve stepped forward and murmured the incantation. Air without the odor of blood and hatred, air clear of smoke, swept out of the tunnel.
“Come.” Colleen kept her arm around Hester. “Our coimhdeacht fight, but the longer we tarry, the more the danger to them.”
That’s what it took to get a bonded sister to move. They slipped into the tunnel in a line. Fourteen, thirteen full powered witches and Hester the apprentice. And her.
The coimhdeacht formed a protective ring around the passage entrance.
Her heart behind her with Roderick, Maeve followed the others through the tunnel. He was alive, she knew that much through their bond. A jumble of powerful emotions blasted from him; fury, determination, and a growing stoic acceptance. Like Roderick was preparing for eventual failure.
Maeve sent everything she had through the bond, seeking to bolster him and give him her strength to draw from.
Renewed purpose came back to her.
Up ahead, a patch of dark lighter than the gloom surrounding them appeared.
She stumbled through and nearly ran into the back of a witch in front of her.