by Morgan Rice
“Nothing,” Emeline said, and Cora could hear the disappointment there. She knew what it meant, and she knew that she was going to have to be the one to suggest it.
“We’re going to have to go down into the town,” Cora said.
“People are dangerous,” Emeline replied. “Look at what happened when we stopped at the farm.”
Cora could understand her worry. It felt as though they were about to make the same mistake they had before, but what other choice did they have?
“We’ll be careful,” she said. “We won’t even mention Stonehome. We’ll just be two travelers passing through, and you can watch out for any sign of it while we do it. Maybe we can buy a map, pretending that we’re on the road to somewhere else.”
Emeline looked doubtful, but even so, she nodded.
They walked down into the town. It was a small place, with the feeling that it was only a town rather than a village because a couple of larger roads converged on it. As she walked in, Cora could see a marketplace where people were selling vegetables, cloth, freshly cut peat, and what looked like carved stones harvested from the moors.
There were enough travelers and merchants there that people didn’t stare at them as they came into town. It made a nice change for Cora. Since she’d left the palace, it seemed that everyone they met had been suspicious of them. She was able to relax a little, looking around at the market stalls and wondering if they had enough money to buy what they needed.
She didn’t mention Stonehome. Instead, Cora chatted with stallholders about the weather and the road south.
“What brings you down this way?” one merchant asked.
“I’ve family that lives further along,” Cora said, knowing by now the lies that would deflect attention most effectively. “We only stopped here because of the market, and the chance to hear the news.”
The merchant shook his head. “Not a lot of good news going about these days. The war hasn’t spread here yet, but it’s still making it hard for merchants. If you have family around here, better to take them and go north.”
“That was the plan,” Cora lied.
She kept up the pretense as she moved around the market with Emeline. They were down here to see their family. They were cousins. They weren’t staying long. All the while, Emeline stayed near, presumably looking out for any sign of Stonehome in the minds of those around them, maybe even calling to see if anyone would reply. Their plan seemed to be working.
Then Cora saw the stakes.
They were set apart from the rest of the market, iron things that rose up from the earth, spreads of sand around them showing the space where a fire might be set, or blood might be absorbed. They were the kind of thing that might see people tied to them to have their debt sold on, or for a whipping, but those weren’t the things that Cora thought of when she saw them. She thought of the way the iron would heat with flames at its base, and how wood might be piled high around someone as they stood.
This was a place where they burned those with gifts.
Cora was still thinking about that when she saw the priestess. Actually, there were three, and they moved through the marketplace in concert, their veils and robes rendering them almost indistinguishable. There was only one, though, whose head turned toward Cora and Emeline. Cora might not have Emeline’s gifts, but she had spent enough time around the more predatory sort of nobles to know when someone’s attention was not a good thing to have.
She tapped Emeline on the shoulder. “I think we need to leave.”
Emeline followed her gaze, and then nodded. “Slowly though. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”
For Cora, the hardest part was trying to hold her nerve, trying to be as casual as she had been when walking into the small town. She needed it to look as though she had just changed her mind about going to the market, and—
“Witch!” the priestess cried out, one finger jabbing like a broken branch in their direction. “Catch the witches!”
“Run!” Cora yelled to Emeline, setting off as fast as she was able.
They dodged through the crowd, Cora pushing aside a woman with a basket full of washing, so that clothes and blankets went everywhere. She shoved past a bulky man, setting him tumbling into another.
It was still in the space of a chase where no one had quite worked out what was happening. They needed to gain some distance as quickly as they could, because already, Cora could see people starting to work out that they should be acting. One made a grab for her, and Cora barely broke free of his grasp. She saw another man grab hold of Emeline, and Cora spun to her, pushing the man away so that the two of them could start running again.
They darted down an alley, the crowd following after them. Cora sped up.
The journey had given her strength that she hadn’t known she possessed before. She ran, and for a brief moment, she and Emeline were alone, with no one following. Cora looked around, trying to find anything that might help them.
“What happened?” she asked. “We didn’t mention Stonehome, but that priestess—”
“I felt her,” Emeline explained. “She’s been trained.”
Cora tried to ignore just how frightened her friend looked at that prospect.
“I don’t know what that means,” Cora said.
“They’re taught by the Masked Goddess’s church to hunt the rest of us,” Emeline said. “Maybe they had flickers of talents themselves as children, or maybe it’s just their training. They can sense when we touch their minds, and I’ve been shouting to anyone who will listen.”
Cora kept looking around. Life in the palace had taught her to be able to find places to hide with only the slightest notice. Servants weren’t supposed to be seen, and those that were could quickly find themselves punished for it. Now, they had seconds at most.
“There,” she said, pointing to a space where a house had a cellar whose doors opened onto the street. There was a trapdoor above it, and she quickly hauled that open. Within, the smell of drying peat was almost overwhelming, but Cora pulled Emeline down into it anyway.
“You don’t understand,” Emeline said, but Cora held a finger to her lips. They needed to be silent.
Outside, she could hear the sounds of their pursuers. There were shouts now, and there was even the barking of dogs, although Cora doubted that any dogs would be able to smell them over the thick, earthy scent of the peat they rested in. She kept her head low, daring to put an eye to the thin crack between the two doors that let in sunlight.
There was an eye staring back at her.
“They’re in here!” the priestess called.
The doors above Cora were thrown open, and she found herself surrounded by townsfolk. She flung herself forward, ready to run again, but this time the surrounding crowd was ready for her. They grabbed at her arms, pinning her in place as securely as if they’d tied her. Cora looked around, hoping that Emeline might be able to help her to break free, but the townsfolk had her as well.
Cora fought, but fighting did nothing. There were so many people that they were more like a force of nature than a collection of individuals. Even when she felt her foot connect with a man’s leg, it just earned her a punch in return.
They dragged her in front of the priestess and her companions, forcing Cora to her knees beside Emeline.
“You are a witch,” the priestess said, staring at Emeline. “I heard you calling, searching for Stonehome.”
Beside Cora, Emeline said nothing.
“Silence will not save you,” the priestess said.
Cora laughed at that. “You’re going to pretend that something will? You’re going to lie to us and tell us that there’s some way that you let us go?”
The priestess turned to her. “You are not a witch. You do not have the stink of their vileness. Yet you travel with one, you aid her, and you seek Stonehome.”
“Emeline is my friend,” Cora shot back. “She has helped me ever since I got out of the…” She trailed off, realizing that this woul
dn’t be a good moment to mention the palace, or Rupert. She would rather burn to death than be given back to him.
“Since you got out of where?” the priestess asked. She reached out, pulling up the hem of Cora’s dress, revealing the mask tattoo there. “You have fled the goddess’s price. You deserve to be punished just for that.”
Cora saw her look to the others.
“The Masked Goddess is merciful, though,” the priestess said. “Denounce your friend as the witch she is. Agree to work in one of the temples of the goddess. You will be spared.”
“Do it,” Emeline said. “Save yourself, Cora.”
Cora shook her head. “If that’s your idea of mercy, I don’t want it. I’d rather die free.”
The priestess stepped back as if Cora had slapped her.
“Very well,” she said. “You can burn beside the witch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
For Kate, the hardest part of getting to Haxa the rune witch’s home was doing it without her cousins coming with her. If Ulf or Frig saw her leaving, they would undoubtedly want to come too, to try to help or simply to be there to support her. Kate suspected that this was something she had to do alone.
So she made her way out of Ishjemme quietly before going up into the surrounding hills. She could remember the path from her previous trip, even though it felt different here, like this. Just the thought of what she was going there to do made the hills seem more on edge, echoing with the threat of a storm.
Kate kept going. She needed to do this.
It wasn’t long before she made it to Haxa’s cabin. Kate paused, swallowing as she tried to fight back the sudden nerves that had started to build up inside her. This moment had the potential to set her free, but Kate had felt the kind of power Siobhan possessed. Kate doubted she would be set free from it easily. Maybe it would be better not to risk it, especially now. Maybe it would be better to turn back.
That would mean doing whatever Siobhan demanded of her next. Kate couldn’t do that. She couldn’t kill another innocent person. Raising her hand, she knocked on the door.
“Come in, Kate,” Haxa called from inside. “Everything is set up.”
Kate walked in, but she couldn’t see any difference in the house compared to the last time she’d been there. The walls were still the intricately carved artworks that Kate remembered, the furniture was all in exactly the same position. Haxa sat at one side of a small table, runes set out in front of her. The curtain at the back of the cabin was closed, covering over the way deeper into the hillside.
“I wasn’t sure if you would come,” Haxa said. “Runes and names have their power, but they are not able to predict things precisely. I trusted that you might, though.”
Kate looked at her. It would have been easier if she had been able to read the witch’s mind. She could have worked out what she might gain from this, and why she was doing this.
“You don’t trust me,” Haxa said.
Kate wasn’t sure what she could say to that without lying.
“I do not take that as an insult,” Haxa said. “There is a good reason I do not give people my name. I do not trust them with it. Most would never harm me, but they would still say it carelessly, and it would reach those who might. This is not a world for trust.”
“But you have still offered to help me,” Kate said, “without asking for anything.”
Haxa nodded. “And you do not trust that. Well, that is your choice to make. Come with me, or don’t. I won’t try to force you.”
She stood and went over to the curtain, pulling it aside to reveal the cave mouth that stood beyond. Where it had been dark the last time Kate had been there, now it glowed faintly with a light that hinted at something brighter, hidden within the depths of the mountain.
“All right,” Kate said. She didn’t want to sound afraid, even though she was. “I’ll come and look.”
She followed Haxa down into the depths beneath the hill. The rune witch drew out a small stub of candle, setting it glowing to provide yet more light as they walked, and by it, Kate could see carvings worked into the walls at least as intricately as in the cabin. There were letters in a dozen alphabets, ranging from runes to pictograms, with lines of flowing script in between that looked as though it would have been nearly impossible to carve with a chisel.
Then there were the pictures. Kate stared at them as they went lower. There were pictures of faces and of strange creatures, far-off places and objects that Kate couldn’t begin to guess at the uses for. Each was accompanied by a series of letters in a simple carved oval. Somehow, Kate knew that those letters represented names, and not just ordinary names.
“If you want to learn to read them,” Haxa said, “that will cost you.”
Kate shook her head. “I don’t think I want to be another witch’s apprentice.”
Haxa smiled. “And I have no patience for teaching. But I will help you with this.”
She continued to lead the way through the tunnels. There were branches to the left and right, turning the place into a web of corridors that Kate knew she would have been lost in instantly had she been alone. Haxa led her unerringly, though, down to a spot where the light grew stronger, and the corridor started to open out.
The room beyond the cave didn’t have walls carved with scenes or faces, just with letter after letter, set in lines that seemed almost like the bars of a cage to Kate, there to contain power, or channel it. They ran in perfect circles around the room, while more circles sat on the floor, this time in widely spaced lines that looked like the concentric walls around some ancient castle.
A plinth sat at the center, and on it, Haxa had set a stone cup, again carved with so many stylized letters that it seemed almost to be something alive.
“What is all this?” Kate asked.
“The right words have power,” Haxa said. “Names have power. This is a place where that power can be worked with, explored… even changed.”
“You’re going to change my name?” Kate asked, not understanding.
Haxa looked at her for several seconds. “I guess that is one way to put it, but no, I am not literally going to rename you. It is more complex than that.”
Kate stared at the seemingly endless runes spread around the perimeter of the cave. “How much more complex?”
Life was easier when she could fight her way through her problems. Give her an enemy to battle or a friend to save, and Kate could do it. She’d proven that again and again, in her return to the House of the Unclaimed, on the battlefield, even with Siobhan’s specters. Moments like this, when there was magic involved with rules, she couldn’t begin to understand.
“There is a connection between you and Siobhan,” Haxa said. “In becoming her apprentice, you changed things about yourself, you forged a link that is a part of who you are now.”
“And you have the means to break that link?” Kate asked.
Haxa shrugged. “Not exactly. I am not strong enough to go up against something like her directly, especially not with someone she has claimed so strongly.”
“I am not hers!” Kate insisted.
Haxa put a hand on her shoulder, the weight of it probably meant to be reassuring. Her next words weren’t, though. “You are. It is written into the fabric of your being.”
Kate started to pull back, but Haxa’s grip was stronger than it looked.
“What is written can be unwritten. If you drink from that cup, it will not wash the words away, but it will give you a chance to do it for yourself, if you are strong enough.”
“If I’m strong enough?” Kate echoed.
Again, she had the sense of things she didn’t understand.
“You are going to be making changes at the level of your very being,” Haxa said. “That is never easy, and with something like that… it will fight back. It will not be easy. There is a chance that everything you are could unravel.”
That made her sound more like a piece of cloth than a real person, and made what could happen so
und far gentler than it would be. Kate understood what the witch was saying, though. If this went wrong, she could die.
Then there was Siobhan’s anger to consider. She wouldn’t have the same connection to Kate, wouldn’t have the same power over her as she’d had before, but she would be angry about that loss. She would go from being an ally to an enemy in an instant, and a dangerous one at that.
“No,” Kate told herself. “She was always an enemy.”
“What’s that?” Haxa asked.
Kate shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me, what would I have to do?”
Haxa gestured to the cup. “Step over the lines of runes, being careful not to touch any of them. Drink from the cup. After that, I can’t tell you what it will be like.”
“We experience it differently,” Kate said, thinking of what Finnael the healer had told her.
“Exactly,” Haxa replied. “All I can tell you is that you must find whatever changes Siobhan has wrought in you and find a way to cut them clear. If you manage to do it, you will no longer be hers. She will no longer have a claim on you if you do not wish to do what she asks.”
“And what do you get out of this?” Kate asked. She’d tried to ask it before. Maybe this time, Haxa would answer her.
“Siobhan is powerful, with the way she manipulates things,” Haxa said. “I have no wish to see a thing like her in control of life and death.”
“And would I find myself controlled by you instead?” Kate asked. “You said that names have power. How much of mine would you see?”
Haxa nodded. “A good question, but I swear to you this: I am not trying to control you. It is not you I’m interested in.”
“And I won’t be stuck owing you someone’s life?” Kate asked. She wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again.
“No,” Haxa said. “Given all they say you’re destined to do, I suspect that your gratitude will be more than enough repayment. That is all I can tell you. So now choose, Kate. Will you do this thing, or do you want to walk away?”