It shouldn't have been as easy as it was to pass them by and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at rapt attention, waiting for some small draft of movement to give them away should someone come near. Should they stop her, or worse, follow her, she wasn't sure how she would respond. Sending the thirst was out of the question. Pulling her sword meant she'd have to kill. Neither was the right thing to do, merely to satisfy some curiosity. She realized the smartest thing to do was to take off the veil and let them assume she had a right to be there.
She smelled them behind her long before she heard them, just as she reached the base of the narrow stone steps. The torches blazed in their sconces, inviting her forward, and just beyond, as the stairwell curved, the torches were replaced by oil lamps that guttered in the draft of air that traveled down.
She sighed and turned to the men, pulling the veil's end and letting it trail to the floor.
The youth had obviously heard of her but not seen her before. The shock of seeing the tattaus on her chin, black and thick, was written plain on his face. The other two merely looked annoyed.
"They say the witch will eat a man's soul," the boy mumbled and reached for his dirk.
"Yours would be a pitiful meal," she said and addressed the men when she saw talking to him would be useless. "I want to go up the stairs. I have business."
"What business could the Emir's witch have within his Keep?"
"What else, you fool, but the Emir's business."
The two exchanged looks even as the youth had taken to staring at the stone floor and clenching and unclenching his fists as though the movement could distract the witch from psyching him dry. She had to repress a laugh.
It took several heartbeats of staring them confidently down, before one, the obvious veteran, nodded his grudging assent. If the shaman or Saxon were there, these fools obviously knew nothing. She wasted no time questioning whether it would be revoked and moved up the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could.
When she came to the only door at the top, with no further hall, she paused and waited, listening for the hum of activity that might come from beyond. Hearing none, she listened at the door, her ear pressed close, the dampness of stone around her smelling of moss and old earth. It would be foolish to charge in, even if Yuri was in there, even if the shaman was in there, even if Yuri and the shaman had Saxon by the heels and were spinning him cruelly through the air. He could be surrounded by his guard, or worse, by the Python-thighed Bodiccia, and while Alaysha was confident in her abilities, she also knew in her healing state, that she was no match for the fiercess of that woman. In truth, she doubted she would be a match in any state. Many men were no match for that woman, and thus the reason for her being one of Yuri's most trusted.
No. Best she listen for the giveaway of voices or a light cough on the other side. She swore she could hear her own heart beating and she waited, then finally caught the murmur of a voice, somewhere beyond the door. Perhaps to the left, close to the outer wall. It was barely audible, but she knew it wasn't Yuri's. It sounded like a woman's. Bodiccia's voice, it must be.
Alaysha pulled in a bracing breath, tasted the sourness of damp stone and held it in her lungs. If she was going to do it, best she do it without delay. Best also if she enter slowly, with her broadsword on her back ready to be pulled into service.
She gripped the door handle and pushed, making certain to keep one hand ready to grab for the sword if need be. Bodiccia was large, but she was also fast as a serpent. And if taken by surprise, the woman would react without thinking, not caring who was charging in.
The door swung open and Alaysha took in the room with gawking eyes, her leg muscles coiled for flight or fight.
Someone was in a bed, yes, but it wasn't Yuri and neither was it Saxon. She thought she felt the rapid firing of her heart when she realized that, that she noticed a most curious thing about the person lying there.
It was a young girl, a teenager, really, with long black hair and a swath of linens across her chin and neck. She could have been a scrawny thing beneath the blankets because there was barely any mounds of flesh to create much of a form.
The girl turned to her and Alaysha knew in the moment it was the girl from the day of the attack. The one in the iron Smith shop being scalded by boiling water. The eyes were hauntingly familiar.
Strange that a girl of chattel would be in here in Yuri's keep, being tended to by the shaman if the vials of potions next to her on the table were any indication.
Confused, Alaysha stripped the room into bare essence with her eyes. She stepped in and could hear a soft whimper come from beneath the girl's bandages.
"Who are you?" She asked, but while the girl's eyes looked as though they wanted to answer, the response came from Alaysha's left.
"You, apparently."
The sword was pulled from its scabbard before Alaysha could think, and she kicked the door closed so that she could see who lurked behind it. It clacked into its frame and left Alaysha open to the woman standing next to the parapet window. Tall. Hair like Saxa's, but so beautiful it made Alaysha's pride hurt just to look at her.
The eyes that look back for mismatched: one orange the way a dying fire is orange, the other almost milky white. A ribbon of tattaus stretched across her chin.
Alaysha heard herself stammering and worked to get the very simple few words off her tongue.
"You're the witch of flame," she finally said.
The woman slid forward as though she were made of fire and was licking from stump to branch instead of scuffling along a floor made of stone. There was barely a sound. Seemingly, little movement. She put out her hand.
"My birth name is Aislin."
It was nearly too much to take in, but in a way it felt anti-climactic. Alaysha had waited and worried for this meeting for nearly a fortnight, ever since she'd heard of the woman's existence, and now the moment was upon her.
Aislin glanced at the bed where the scalded girl lay, her eyes in the full panic of a beast cornered.
"Poor thing," she said and perched on the edge. Her hand went to the girl's cheek, just above the bandages and Alaysha watched the young girl's eyes for signs that the witch was the reason for the panic. But no, the girl's eyes didn't shift. It was almost as though they had no ability to reason or had lost the power to show anything but the one emotion. Only when she looked at Alaysha did the girl react.
"I've done nothing to her," she said, thinking Aislin must have noticed.
The witch seemed unaffected by the admission. "I know," she said. "It's your father who has her afraid."
Alaysha breathed slowly, listening behind her, expecting Yuri to be at her back, but no. Nothing.
"She's not afraid because he's here," Aislin said.
Alaysha looked at the girl. "He's been telling her stories about me." It sounded flat, even to her own ears, but it made the most sense. Yuri was forever telling people how powerful his witch was. Sometimes he didn't need to use a tool to make it effective.
"I do hear that you're a nasty, heartless killer."
Alaysha wanted to say it was true, but she had the feeling this woman would see through the lie. "You said this girl was supposed to be me."
Aislin's hand moved to the girl's hair, pushing strands aside thoughtfully. "She does look a bit like you. Don't you think so?"
She glanced up sharply and met Alaysha's eyes. "But not where it matters."
"The eyes," Alaysha guessed and the witch smiled.
"The eyes. Yours haven't begun to change, I see. So you are young yet."
"I have almost nineteen seasons."
"And a full tattau you don't know what to do with."
Alaysha made a conscious effort not to chew the inside of her cheek or to let her hand rise to touch her chin.
Aislin seemed to notice the effort it took for Alaysha to remain still. "It takes many years to gain the full ribbon. How did you come by yours so quickly?"
Alaysha felt as though she'd done somethi
ng wrong and she inched away just slightly, lowering her blade, but not sheathing it.
"My nohmah," she said.
"Grandmother."
"My aunt." Alaysha couldn't keep her eyes off the girl on the bed. "I didn't know any better." She looked the scrawny form over. "Why is my father telling this girl stories? What is she to him?"
"I suspect she means very little judging by the blisters she has on her chin." Aislin sighed and rose from the bed. Before Alaysha could understand what was happening, Aislin tugged at the bandage, pulling it up over the top half of the girl's face, and the girl let loose a sob. Her face from the bottom lip was covered weeping blisters that all but marred her skin. It looked as though someone had rubbed soot into the sores or that she had gone under a poor artist's needle. Alaysha had to steel herself not to look away.
"It seems you had an accident on your way home one evening. Several men took it upon themselves to molest the temptress of the life blood and rid her of the horrible tattau that marred her beauty. I'm told the men were put to an agonizing death." Aislin let a cold smile spread across her face, but the look she gave Alaysha was a hot, angry one.
"I had no idea." She felt as though she needed to defend herself.
"Of course you didn't."
It was all thoroughly confusing, so much so, that Alaysha lost the will to keep prepared and eased her sword back into its sheath. The weight of it on her shoulders grounded her.
"Nothing is making sense," she had to admit.
"Your father thought to use this girl to trick me into believing I was training his witch. It seems he doesn't trust me."
Alaysha shrugged. "He trusts no one."
"The mark of a great leader."
"You would've known she wasn't me if she was clear of the tattau."
"Yenic did tell me you were fully inked."
"And this girl was not."
It was Aislin's turn to shrug. "They made a poor attempt, but it's not so easy. It takes great skill, and a willing victim. And so the marring of her beautiful skin."
"You would have known eventually."
"Perhaps. After Yuri could be sure I wasn't going to steal you away." Aislin exhaled a soft chuckle that sent a tickle up Alaysha's neck.
"But you knew?"
The chuckle grew to a laugh that sounded almost like a fire crackling merrily. "A witch's eyes don't react as others. Has no one ever mentioned that you?"
Alaysha shook her head. She didn't want to admit how little she knew about her own people. "No one looks at me that closely."
"Or who can keep your gaze, you mean. They fear you."
Alaysha didn't want to answer that and Aislin pointed to the girl, who had stopped whimpering and was doing her best to stay calm. Her eyes held Alaysha's as though they couldn't look away, as though they were trying to speak to her.
"They all fear you, like this one."
Alaysha wanted to say that she didn't see mere fear in the girl's eyes, but something more like terror.
Aislin went on. "One witch to another we know each other. You knew me by my eyes, yes?"
Alaysha thought of the mud hut village and the crones she had psyched dry. She thought of the eyes she collected, all different than the regulars. Smaller, perhaps, but not fully dried out. That wasn't the only way she knew them.
"The tattaus –"
Aislin held up her hand. "The tattaus made you certain, but the eyes held the recognition. You can't deny that."
Yes. The eyes. So expressive. So much the energy of the person who housed them. The center. Like this girl in the bed. Something so pitiful about who she must be, what she must be suffering. Alaysha wanted to help her. It would be nice to help someone for once. Instead of taking from them. Instead of hurting them. She thought about the mud hut village and the people within it that she'd annihilated when Yenic had escaped. She got a quick image of the crones inside sitting around an old fire of herbs and sulfur. Those eyes had all looked different desiccated than the other seeds she'd collected. The first of a different set in the dozens of years she'd been saving and killing. She hadn't given it much thought then, but she realized now that those elders of power showed their uniqueness even past death.
Remembering the crones and the deaths of the others that she'd caused just at the turn of the moon earlier sent a shiver through her solar plexus. Just as she'd killed Yenic's sister, she'd also killed this woman's daughter – the temptress of flame in her own right when the time was to come. So Yenic told her. She'd believed him then; she'd believed everything he told her. So did this woman know? Had Yenic told her as well, as part of his duty to her?
Alaysha found she couldn't meet the eyes that tried to hold hers. She took an instinctual step backwards towards the door and nodded at the girl on the bed who had inched closer toward her, nearly hanging off the edge, a slim hand reaching for her.
"If Yuri plans to swap her for me, he wouldn't be pleased to see me here."
Aislin advanced just slightly enough that Alaysha knew she'd moved, but so subtly it was a conscious effort not appear threatening.
And that was how she knew that Aislin did know. Worse, she knew Alaysha understood the breadth of the circumstances.
"If Yuri plans to swap this girl for you, best we keep him thinking he has succeeded."
Alaysha found herself nodding obligingly. The eyes that held hers had shifted strangely into a deep orange, even the milky one swirled within like flame on the rise.
"I can keep the secret."
"Perhaps then, we can see what we can do with you when Yuri is busy elsewhere."
"You mean –"
"I mean you do lack control, yes?"
It seemed as though there was more behind the woman's question than mere words. While her speech sounded forthright and the tone was carefully comforting, the eyes, the expression, didn't move so. Almost as if the witch was seeking to see beneath Alaysha's skin, drilling down through her eyes, trying to read her as though she were a parchment.
The woman's daughter. Her mother. Her unborn granddaughter. Must be. The witch was trying to read what Alaysha knew about them and their powers and, she thought, she was trying to decide if Alaysha deserved to live.
And yet. Still something coiled in her scrutiny that didn't account for grief. It seemed the woman didn't mourn what she knew she'd lost, what Alaysha had taken from her. And to offer teaching in return for such cruelty as Alaysha had delivered, seemed ludicrous.
Still. Alaysha so wanted it. Yenic had forgiven her the deaths; perhaps this woman had too.
It was a helpless shameful nod Alaysha offered next, and she felt as though a warm blanket had been thrown over her when Aislin responded with an indulgent smile. It seemed as though the witch would reach out for her and engulf her a motherly embrace. Alaysha braced herself for it, both afraid and hopeful at the same time. She would've accepted the touch, but just when she believed it was inevitable, she felt a cold draft of air from behind her.
The young page who had accompanied Theron on his last foray into the parapet to treat the girl, the boy who had met her on the stairs, fumbled into the chamber with a bowl of herb scented water and a bleached linen. He met Alaysha's eyes, his own wide and afraid when he realized he'd walked into a discussion between the fire witch and the water witch she was not supposed to meet.
Alaysha opened her mouth to beg for his silence when she heard a snapping crackle coming from somewhere behind his eyes. In less than two heartbeats the bowl fell with a wet thud to the stone floor, and the flesh that had been a standing youth leapt into a flame so hot Alaysha had no choice but to stumble back into the room to avoid the heat.
No sound, no cry, no scream of pain came from him, he simply erupted into a length of flame that contained itself perfectly to his clothes and flesh.
"If it's to be a secret, it must be a secret," Aislin said.
Alaysha found herself nodding dumbly. She stole a glance at the girl on the bed who had squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that she
had to rock back and forth to keep them closed.
Beneath the shock, Alaysha was numbly aware of the sense of something else besides the outrage of taking the innocent youth's life: wonder. Such power. Such control to contain the power to the one area, to throw it out exactly where she wanted. She felt the sure development of greed take root her chest. She wanted that much control. She wanted that much command over her power.
"A secret it shall remain," she heard herself saying. "So long as the girl can keep quiet as well."
Aislin raised her voice, ensuring the girl heard her. "Of course you will, won't you, Alaysha?"
The girl who would be Alaysha bobbed her head up and down, never once opening her eyes as if to say she'd been witness to nothing, knew nothing.
Aislin mumbled her satisfaction and bent to scrabble beneath her skirt to something on the floor within the ashes.
Alaysha didn't need to see what Aislin was reaching for. She knew it was the youth's eyes.
Chapter 11
Alaysha left with conflicted feelings. She had set out imagining she would find either Saxon or Yuri, or both in the parapet. She assumed she'd find the shaman there, performing some sort of twisted sacrment to keep Yuri alive that much longer. She felt sick that she believed her father capable of allowing his own son to be presumed missing, and even sicker thinking that he and Theron would use the boy for ill. Such was her mistrust of her father by now, and sitting just below that nauseous realization was the relief that she was wrong. Although what she had discovered would end up to her advantage, she was sick over the poor doppelgänger who Yuri had placed in her stead, for whatever reasons she couldn't know.
And going to Saxa's with no further knowledge of Saxon's whereabouts made matters worse, made whatever elation Alaysha felt over her opportunities to train with Aislin dampen in comparison.
And there was still the matter of Corrin. The man deserved to suffer for the things he'd done to her, and countless others. She had no doubt that Corrin had trained Gael. She wondered how old he must have been and how badly Corrin had treated him to turn a naturally skilled youth into a stoic soldier for Yuri.
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