by Amber Argyle
Ellesh nodded toward Tarten. “You can say that after what they did to Tarten? If we don’t destroy them, they will annihilate every nation who crosses them.”
Senna folded her arms across her chest. “You would be different, would you?”
”Yes.”
“Then be different now! There are innocents on Haven—Witchlings and Apprentices.”
Ellesh hesitated. “Has your Head of Water not taught you that there are always casualties in war? Do any of them deserve to die?”
“Ironic that you would punish Haven for the same crime you plan on committing.” Senna voice was tight with anger.
Her movements stiff, the Composer replaced the book. “After Haven has surrendered, Grendi will turn the survivors over to me. They will be grafted into Caldash.”
“You cannot justify the murder of many by the saving of some.”
The Composer looked angry. “You freed us, Senna. When you cursed Tarten, you provided us with the army we so desperately needed. Your part in this is undeniable. You are also Creator-touched. I would not risk harming you. Nor would I risk facing you.”
Senna wondered if now was the time to act, to sing and warn Haven. But she was inside a tree. There was no clear path for the Wind to escape intact.
“They are hard decisions, Brusenna. Decisions someone has to make.” Ellesh sighed. “Perhaps if I fail to restore the world, you will have your chance.”
While Senna hesitated, the old woman backed to the door and spoke to the Guardians on the other side. “Bring Cord.” She studied Senna. “Mistin has told me much about you. Your Discipline Heads fear you. Your peers mistreat you. Your Guardians oppose you.”
Shaking, Senna faced her. “You’re cruel.”
“You don’t trust me, Brusenna. I can’t fault you for that. After all, I don’t trust you. Only a fool would leave a threat such as yourself in our midst, especially since we don’t know how strong you shall become. Some have urged me to lock you away deep in the earth—bound and gagged until Haven has been defeated. Or simply killed outright.”
Senna suddenly couldn’t breathe. She felt the Composer’s knife gaze on her.
“But I will offer you an alternative.”
“What alternative?” Senna asked, realizing her chances of escape were slipping by the second.
The door opened, letting in a breeze that stirred the tendrils of her hair around her shoulders. Cord came through, his dark eyes grave.
Ellesh nodded toward Cord. “Take on Cord as your Guardian.”
Senna looked from him to the Composer. “I’ll take my chances with the cave.”
Cord winced. “Don’t be stubborn, Senna.”
Ellesh held out a small jar of ointment. By the musky smell, Senna recognized it as the potion that allowed a Witch to create a Guardian. “I will permit you to roam about the city of Lilette unfettered.”
Unbound…Senna would have a much better chance of escape. Still, she glared at Cord. “I already have two Guardians.”
He didn’t respond.
She hesitated. Ellesh was far too keen to risk Senna escaping or warning Haven, which meant having Cord as a Guardian was somehow as secure as confinement. Dared Senna risk falling into their trap for the chance of escape? Did she really have a choice?
Obviously reading the defeat on her face, the Composer put the wooden jar in Senna’s hand. “Sing.”
Senna stared at the ointment, her head spinning. “Fine.”
Ellesh visibly relaxed. “The song for our Guardians is slightly different than yours.”
“Composer, perhaps—” Cord began.
Ellesh silenced him with a slicing motion. He clamped his mouth shut, but he didn’t look happy.
Senna eyed the sheet music Ellesh held out. She sang it once.
Guardian of Sisters and Witch Companion decree,
Bound in purpose and solidarity.
Hesitantly, Senna stepped toward Cord.
His lips were pursed. “Ellesh, she doesn’t—”
“Shh,” Ellesh whispered. “It is nearly done.”
He opened his mouth to say something more, but Senna had the song in her heart now. She walked toward him and began the verse again. Rubbing the potion onto her lips so it would gather the residue of her song, she sang softly. The music of the Four Sisters coiled around her like hundreds of silky threads.
On the third and final repetition, Senna stood directly in front of Cord. She looked up to find the concern on his face replaced with awe. She should have been used to that reaction to her song by now, but it never failed to surprise her. The look of rapture always made her feel like she could never live up to the beauty of her voice.
Ellesh whispered, “Hold the final note for eight counts on the third rotation.”
The final note rang from Senna’s mouth as she hesitantly rolled up Cord’s sleeve.
One.
The strands of thread spun faster. Like a hurricane.
Two.
Cord couldn’t see it, but he must have sensed something. His face was filled with a sort of longing.
Three.
Seeing his bare arm, she hesitated. She’d only ever made one other Guardian—Joshen.
Four.
With a pang in her heart, she looked back to Ellesh. The woman motioned for her to continue.
Five.
Senna gazed into Cord’s inscrutable eyes. She didn’t want to do this. Something was wrong. But it might be her only chance for freedom.
Six.
She closed her eyes and thought of Joshen.
Seven.
Her lips buzzed with the residue of power from the song.
Eight.
She pressed a kiss against the soft skin on the inside of Cord’s arm. She pulled back and studied the perfect green imprint of her lips. Suddenly, the white filaments around them snapped tight, jolting Senna into Cord’s arms. Only his firm grip kept her from falling.
Quick as a striking snake, Ellesh pressed Senna’s wrist against Cord’s and shoved a tiny, doubled-edged blade between their arms.
Senna blinked and shook her head. She glanced at her enemies in confusion. Warm, sticky blood beaded between her skin and Cord’s. She felt a tingle—like a wriggling feather—between their arms.
Senna jerked free. Beneath the sheen of fresh blood, a waning gibbous had formed on Cord’s arm. That wasn’t right. It should be a circle. With a start, she realized the wiggling feather feeling hadn’t stopped when she’d pulled her arm away. Her heart heavy with dread, she lifted her wrist. Just beneath the shallow cut, a waxing crescent was forming on her skin.
Her eyes traced the partial moon on Cord’s wrist. She knew if she pressed them together, they’d form a perfect circle. Ellesh’s satisfied smile woke a terrible intuition in Senna’s mind. “What have you done?”
Ellesh gestured to the pendant at Senna’s throat. “Long ago, we discovered how to incorporate the process used to make the Lilette Stone to alter the potion used to bond a Guardian to his Witch. Now, Cord will always be aware of you. He’ll be able to keep you safe.”
Her necklace. The necklace that allowed the two halves to always find each other. Somewhere, Joshen had the other half. Senna swayed on her feet. And now Cord was linked to her even more intimately. “Aware of me how?”
Ellesh shrugged. “He will be able to feel your location.”
“How?”
“Through the connection forged between your blood.”
She turned her fierce glare to Cord. “You knew!”
He stared at the floor.
Joshen. She was bound to a Guardian, and it wasn’t Joshen. She ran to the basin of water Ellesh had used before. Senna snatched the soap and scrubbed her skin. Bloody bubbles formed, turning the water pink. She clawed at her arm, trying to scratch the crescent off. Her skin welted and turned bright red, but the mark didn’t budge.
Cord’s hand closed around her arm. “Senna, it won’t come off.”
At his touch, somethi
ng rushed inside her. A foreign awareness. A bundle of emotions. Dread and hope and a cautious longing.
She sagged against the basin, water soaking into the front of her tunic. She could cut her arm off, but it wouldn’t break the connection. It was in her blood. “I can feel you.”
The pendant felt impossibly heavy around Senna’s neck. Joshen’s ring on her finger seemed to tighten as if sensing the betrayal. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It was me or someone else. I couldn’t bear for it to be someone else.”
Her hands curled into tight fists. “So it was a kindness? To tether me forever to yourself?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. She felt his regret building inside her mind. It was a dim echo of emotion, a shadow of true feeling.
Somehow, she was going to escape. She was going to find a way to warn the other Witches. And she was going to free herself from this link.
“Cord?” Ellesh said.
He stared at the floor. “She’s plotting her escape.”
Senna gasped soundlessly.
Ellesh nodded. “Make sure she fails.”
She was as shackled as if she was gagged and bound. Shifting her weight, she hauled back her arm and punched Cord in the jaw. He saw it coming and he probably felt her intent, but he didn’t try to avoid the blow.
Pain erupted in Senna’s hand. Resisting the urge to cradle it against her body, she ignored the sharp pain echoing from Cord’s jaw and stormed past them. She paused at the door. “You’re worse than the Haven Witches have ever been. Both of you.”
Cord didn’t look up from the floor. Ellesh had the grace to look abashed. “It was necessary,” she said. “I cannot risk killing or harming a Creator-touched.”
Senna stormed out of the tree.
Their voices followed her out. “Cord?”
“She’s doesn’t have a plan. She’s just running.”
“Follow her.”
He came after her.
She knew because she felt him. As she felt the direction of the sun by the heat on her body, she knew Cord was three steps behind her and a little to the left. But that wasn’t all. Cord’s emotions seeped inside her. And right now it was so hard to tell where his emotions ended and hers began.
Her body. Her mind. They weren’t her own anymore.
She broke into a run to escape the horror, but how could she evade her own blood?
28. Blood Curse
Senna hugged her knees to her chest. Her cheeks felt tight where the salty tracks of her tears had dried. She looked down at the city of Lilette—part city, part forest. The setting sun cast a golden haze over the scene.
She felt Cord behind her, close enough to stop her should the sudden urge to jump off the cliff come to mind—his thought, not hers. Grunting, she stared at the drop a few paces away. It actually wasn’t a bad idea. She could launch herself off, feel the rush of the wind all around her, then nothing.
She felt Cord’s concern grow. With the scrape of gravel under his sandals, he sat within arm’s reach. Her body went rigid. Her hand still ached from hitting him. She didn’t think it was broken, just sprained. Still it had been worth it. It might be worth it to do it again.
“No.” His voice sounded rough. “It still feels like you dislocated my jaw. And you need at least one serviceable hand.”
She glared at him, wanting so badly to hit him again.
“I won’t let you,” he said softly.
She winced—he’d read her thoughts again, while she was trying her best to ignore the hints of emotions and hurt seeping through. But if he could manipulate the connection, so could she. She concentrated on the small swirl of emotions mixing with hers like a drop of milk in hot tea. His jaw did hurt, right at the joint. He was overwhelmed and frightened, and so very sorry.
She ignored the last bit and explored further. The link between them was more like a leak—like a bit of his emotions and thoughts spilled into the crescent moon on her arm, into her blood, where they mixed with hers.
By the Creators, what would Joshen think? Senna pressed the heels of her palms into her swollen eyes. For the first time in her life, she felt like she knew who she was, what she was capable of. She and Joshen could rebuild their relationship now. But he was gone—captured or…
No! She refused to believe he was dead. He had to be alive. She remembered the way he gently cupped the back of her head, the way his lips felt on hers—hungry and yet somehow gentle. There would be no beauty in the world if Joshen no longer lived in it.
Cord sucked in a breath.
She blushed scarlet. “You dung-licking son of a weasel, stay out of my head!”
He cleared his throat. “You and Joshen…I didn’t know.”
She cast him a searing look. “What do you mean you didn’t know? How could you not know?”
He clambered to his feet and moved as if to go back to the city. He was hoping distance would hide the horror he was doggedly trying to suppress. After a few dozen steps, he remembered he couldn’t leave her and stopped with his fists clenched at his side. “I didn’t know it had gone that far.”
Senna was on her feet before she realized it. Jealousy and confusion and denial poured into her blood in dizzying waves. She stumbled back.
Cord tensed—he must be feeling her dawning understanding. He took a deep breath and then his shoulders sagged. “All I ever saw was you arguing with him. I didn’t even know you liked each other anymore. I had no idea you were to be married. I’m sorry.”
Shock and disbelief crowded her mind. She stepped back but her foot only found open air. She’d moved to the rim of the drop-off without realizing it. She started tipping back, her arms windmilling to stop her fall.
Before she could cry out, Cord was there pulling her away from danger and spinning her so he stood between her and the edge.
His touch burned—in a very good way. Like she had reconnected with a part of herself she’d lost without realizing it. The link flooded open and information poured through.
He released her a second before she jerked away. But she’d seen what he had in his pocket. Moving by impulse, she reached into his trousers and grasped something soft. She pulled out a square of soft leather and opened it. Inside were golden strands of her hair. Cord had tied a knot in the center.
He jerked it back from her, his face coloring. When he’d cut her gag and accidentally snipped her hair, he’d taken the strands and saved them in his pocket.
Her breaths came in short gasps. “You don’t love me. You love my song.”
She felt his emotions as he looked at her. Her hair and eyes reminded him of dark honey. The center line in her bottom lip—he wanted to touch it, rub it with his thumb. Her small frame—he wanted to press his body against her. But it was the sound of her voice that drove him.
All these thoughts were his. She pressed her hands against her temples. “Stop it! You don’t love me!”
The thoughts kept coming. While Cord had recovered from being stabbed, Mistin had hid him shockingly close to Senna’s tree house so he could spy on her. He’d listened to her sing, had watched her from afar for days.
She hadn’t thought it was possible to feel more violated. “You’re attracted to my body, my song—not me!”
His brow furrowed as he reached for her. “Isn’t that how love begins?”
“No!” She shied away from his touch as if it would burn her. “Love is so much more than that. It is a choice you make every day.” Inside, she felt dirty, as if she’d somehow betrayed Joshen. She closed her eyes and thought of him again. His dogged concern, the way he swore when he was angry, the way he inhaled his food. He’d left everything to follow her long before he’d ever heard her voice. Their love had blossomed from their friendship.
Not like this. Not based on looks and her voice as golden as her hair and eyes. Her delicate hands. She tried to block out Cord’s thoughts. “That’s attraction. Not love.” She backed away from him.<
br />
It was true things with Joshen had been off kilter in the last few weeks, but her feelings for him hadn’t changed. She glanced again at the cliff, wondering if she had time to push Cord off it.
“I’ve trained in combat since I was old enough to hold a stick.” He wanted to reach for her, but he knew better this time.
Steeling herself, she held her clenched fists tight to her sides. “You will control your thoughts. I am your Keeper. You will obey my orders and keep your distance. And you will not touch me again.”
His hand fell. “Very well. Just remember that the Composer’s orders supersede yours.”
Senna raised herself to her full height. “And if I tell her of your feelings for me and request another Guardian?”
He shrugged. “It’s inevitable, Senna. You feel what I feel. Can you imagine living through me even kissing another girl, let alone marrying her?”
She shuddered as she imagined passion seeping through the link. It would be the worst kind of voyeurism. “What have you done?” But he’d already answered that. If not him, Ellesh would have chosen someone else—a complete stranger.
By the Creators, that woman was going to pay for this.
Senna turned on her heel and stormed back down the mountain. She chose a path that seemed to meander toward the tallest tree—the listening tree. She hadn’t gone a dozen steps when another tree blocked her way. The path branched off to the left or right. She took the right and found herself heading away from the center. She took the next left and found herself cutting back to the right. As far as she could tell, there were no straight roads. Everything curved and twisted around trees.
The Keepers grew the trees like this to confuse anyone who tried to attack the city—Cord’s thought. He was trying to nudge her to take the middle fork. Furious at the intrusion, she took the left. Within a few dozen steps, she was surrounded by Witchlings. They gave half bows as she passed, their faces alight with wonder.
The strong smell of herbs permeated the air. In a pavilion, girls were mixing their first potions. As Senna watched, one of them tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. Singing softly to herself, she crushed a leaf between her thumb and fingers, rolling it to a pulp before dropping it in. That had been Senna a few weeks ago.