Coven: a dark medieval paranormal romance (Witches of the Woods Book 2) (23 page)

T
here was
no time even to properly dispose of the bodies of the dead sisters. We dragged them from the wreckage of their homes and piled the bodies on one of the still burning cabins. Tears streamed down my face as I watched the flames consume these fiery women I’d known and grown to love, who had welcomed me to their haven and shown me how to unlock my own magic. To see them so stripped bare, so debased… it reminded me of the great pyres of plague victims that burned outside of my old village. Real people of wit and kindness and substance, reduced to bones and ash, taken back to the earth from whence they came.

While I stood silent, motionless in front of the pyre, Ulrich raced into the forest. He returned a few minutes later with Tjard, their faces grave.

“There are more men pouring into the valley,” he said. “Your father has sent an entire regiment, and they all wear Clarissa’s crest. The men who burned your homes are just the beginning. They are getting in position to surround the entire valley.”

“Why?” Maerwynn’s eyes were hard as stone.

“They know you are witches. They will bring you back to Lord’s Benedict’s court, where you will be tortured and executed in public as an example to the god-fearing population of what happens to women who invite demons into their bodies.”

“I would like to see them touch me,” Maerwynn whispered. Her face held all the fury of a darkening storm. A cold shiver ran though my body. At that moment, I believed her capable of anything.

“I will not let it happen, Maerwynn.” Ulrich reached for her hand. She yanked it away.

“What do you mean? You’ve let it happen before.”

Ulrich’s face darkened. “That was different.”

“You killed her!” Maerwynn screamed. I looked up in shock. I thought Maerwynn had been talking about the witches who had died, but her face was twisted with something else- a deep-rooted, long-held pain. There was something else between them, something neither she nor Ulrich had told me.

“Maerwynn,” he said, his voice calm, quiet. “Please. You need to stay strong for your women. You need to lead them to safety. You must forget—”

Maerwynn howled, tearing at Ulrich’s face with her hands. “Forget?” she screamed.
“Forget?
You have forgotten her, Ulrich the depraved, Ulrich the murderer. You have forgotten my dear sister in the arms of that useless, evil girl. But I will never forget her!”

“What is she talking about?” Aubrey asked. “Ulrich?”

I stared into Ulrich’s eyes, but he glanced away.

“You want me to trust you,
witch hunter?
” Maerwynn spat. “You dare to return to my Haven and ask
me
for favours, and now you want my witches to follow you into the woods? You want your precious Ada to go running after you like a lost puppy? Well, then they should know the truth about you, about what you do to the women in your care.”

“You’re lying.” I snapped, terrified of her frenzied attack. “Ulrich has never killed a witch.”

“Is that what he told you? Then he is a liar as well as a murderer.” Maerwynn spat. “And you are a gullible child.”

“He never lied—” I started to say, but my eyes were locked on Ulrich. He looked up then, and his eyes met mine. One look at the sadness dwelling there and I knew it was true.

“You told me you never killed a witch,” I whispered.

“I didn’t lie,” Ulrich spat back at me, but his face told a different story.

“Leave us,
witch hunter.
” Maerwynn snapped. “Take these cursed women with you. We never should have taken them in. I am a fool to have trusted you once again, Ulrich of Donau-Ries. And
you,
” she jabbed her finger at my chest. “You are responsible for all this. You have the blood of a dark witch, and it has brought nothing but death and destruction upon me and my kind. As far as I’m concerned, you two deserve each other.”

“Maerwynn, this is suicide. With Damon on your scent, you will not last out the year.” Ulrich said. “What do you intend to do?”

“That is not your concern, Witch Hunter.” Maerwynn said, her words dripping with malice. “Unlike this weak woman you have chosen, I do not need a man to protect me. Now leave this place, before I throttle you with my bare hands.”

U
lrich and Tjard
loaded the wagon in silence. No witch came to offer us parting words, nor gifts of mead or bread for the road. Aunt Aubrey cried softly, muffling her sobs with her sleeve. Aunt Bernadine stared off into the distance, her mind in another place.

Tjard helped my aunts into the back. Ulrich reached out his hand for me, but I shook my head. The thought of going with Ulrich, knowing that he had lied to me, that he had taken a life of a witch, a woman just like me, made me sick.

“Ada, I know you’re angry, and I will explain everything, I promise. But now you need to come with me.”

“Is it true?”

“Ada, please.” he glanced around us. “We don’t have time—”

“You need to
make
time. Is what Maerwynn said true?”

Ulrich closed his eyes. Up close, his face appeared old, tight with worry. “Maerwynn had a sister,” he said finally. “Her name was Ellyn, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, before you, that is. When Tjard and I first struck out on our own, we worked for a time in a small village along the Elbe, and it was there I first met Maerwynn and Ellyn. They lived with their father in the village, for their mother had been killed as a witch some years previously, by my father. Ellyn had been sent away to convent, and so it was just Maerwynn and I in the beginning. She wanted me desperately, and for a time I indulged her, because she was beautiful and strong and haunted by her past. We had much in common, not least of which was a hatred of my father.”

“But all of this changed when Ellyn was sent home from the convent for turning the holy water into beer. From the moment I laid eyes on Ellyn, I was hers. She was beautiful, clever, bright, and intoxicating, in many ways similar to you, my love.”

“So what happened?” I didn’t really want to hear about this other woman, but I knew this story wasn’t going to end happily.

“Maerwynn was angered that I had cast her aside for her sister. Perhaps if I had been paying more attention, I might have been able to prevent disaster, but I was too distracted by my lust. Witch fever was sweeping the village, and it was no surprise that one of them should be accused, given their mother’s fate and the fact that, unlike most of my victims, they were
actually
witches. Ellyn was delivered to my dungeon, and there we enjoyed each other for several days.”

I gulped back tears.
I don’t want to hear this.

“I was engrossed by my desire for her, and I pushed her further than I had any other woman at that point. But she was so young, only nineteen summers, and her love for me, her
need
of me, was so all-consuming that it slowly took over her mind. I did not see it, so taken I was with my own lust. Ellyn’s trial was approaching, and Tjard and I had planned everything – how I would save her and her sister, how we would escape together into the forest, and Ellyn and I would be wed. But it was not to be.”

“You did not save her in time?”

“Oh, no, we saved her. The four of us fled the village, and we came to Haven, where the High Priestess agreed to take Maerwynn and Ellyn in. But the dungeon had forever changed Ellyn. She wasn’t herself any longer. The woods terrified her. She heard noises no one else did, saw things that made her scream and run in terror. We would often find her wandering the woods, unsure of where she was or how she got there. Her mind was no longer her own. One day she ran into the river and drowned.” Ulrich shuddered at the memory. “Maerwynn blames me, for she believes it was the dungeon that broke Ellyn’s mind.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“This is the truth, Ada. I swear.”

“If Maerwynn truly hated you, she wouldn’t have listened to you when you first came here. I know Maerwynn, and she doesn’t mess around with the safety of her witches. She would have killed you on sight.”

“And she very nearly did, remember? But Maerwynn is human, as much as she pretends to be made of stone. She hates me, but she also desires me. She wishes she had been accused in Ellyn’s place, so that she might have had pleasure so great that it can the mind. In the depths of her heart, she feels guilty for her sister’s death. She feels it should have been herself, instead of Ellyn, found face down in the water.”

“But … what about me?”

“I’ve been careful, ever since then.” Ulrich said. “I haven’t taken things as far as I did with Ellyn. I was young, then. I didn’t understand boundaries, hers or mine. I didn’t have rules in place to ensure Ellyn maintained control. That is why I did not deny it when Maerwynn accused me- because I feel responsible, Ada. I blame myself for what happened, and I promised that I would never allow it to happen again.”

“Ulrich, we need to move,” Tjard called out from the wagon.

“Yes, we do.” Ulrich’s eyes bore into mine. “That is the truth, Ada. I swear it. Now, will you come? Do you trust me?”

I searched his face, his hard eyes, his thin lips, trying to find some trace of the monster Maerwynn clearly saw there. I tried to put myself in her place, to see in those eyes a murderer, a man who had turned my beloved sister mad. But all I saw was Ulrich,
my
Ulrich. I saw a man who blamed himself for a woman’s suicide, a man who has been torn with guilt and anger over the life he had been born into, and who tried, over and over, to redeem himself into someone good.

“Of course,” I said, holding out my hand. “Let us go.”

Ulrich squeezed my hand tightly as he helped me into the wagon. As he settled me down in front of my aunts, he whispered in my ear, “Thank you.”

T
hat night
we camped in complete darkness. It was too dangerous to even light a small fire, for we didn’t want to alert and of Damon’s men that might be patrolling nearby. We ate stale bread Tjard found at the bottom of the wagon. The crust broke one of Bernadine’s teeth.

We sat in silence, staring up at the dark canopy of trees, each of us lost in his or her own dark thoughts. Ada crawled under my arm, pressing her tiny body against mine. I squeezed her back, my chest aching with relief that she was with me, that she was safe, and that she had not cast me aside after hearing about Ellyn. I had been so afraid that she would run back to Maerwynn that she would refuse to see me again after hearing of my part in Ellyn’s death. But now the secret was out, and Ada was still safe in my arms, I felt relieved.

“We need a plan,” Tjard said, his voice breaking the dreary silence. The moon above peeked through the criss-crossed branches, illuminating the faint outline of his form.

“There is no sense in hiding.” I said. “I think Clarissa is using my oath mark to trace me wherever we go. It would explain how she knew we had come to Maerwynn in the first place, while at the same time appearing in person at Lord Benedict’s court to set her plan in motion. When she says she ‘followed’ us, she meant she followed us with magic.”

I glanced over at Aubrey for confirmation that my suspicions were correct. Her silhouette nodded. “I think you are right. I think Clarissa could be a witch. It might also explain how her men beat you to Haven. If they knew where you were along the road, they would know where they had to go around you, and how fast they had to ride to overtake you.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Bernadine snapped. “Clarissa didn’t know you snuck into the castle, otherwise she would have warned Damon.”

“And why didn’t they come to the cabin to capture Ulrich?” Ada asked. “If they knew you were there alone?”

“The amulet.” Tjard replied, his voice wavering.

Suddenly, it hit me. Tjard had given me the second amulet just before we’d split up. We had figured out by now that the amulet denoted witch hunters who were loyal to Clarissa. He thought that if it helped me keep a disguise on the road, than I should have it. I’d tried to insist that he kept it, since I had foolishly buried mine with the girl, but Tjard couldn’t be bargained with on those matters. I wore an amulet when I entered the castle, and when I came to the cabin with Ada. And both those times, it was as if I was invisible to Clarissa.

Tjard had come to the same conclusion, and he explained to the others how we came by the amulets in Stuttgart, and how he had given me his one to wear.

“You have the amulet now?” Aubrey asked.

I dug into the collar of my tunic to pull out the leather thong, but as I did I noticed my collar had been torn. The thong came out in my hands, but the leather had snapped. The amulet was gone.

“It was torn from me in the battle of Haven,” I said. “I am sorry.”

“There was another one,” Tjard said. “Ulrich lost it in the dungeon. Probably his father has it.”

“No, that’s not where I lost it,” I said, remembering the woman on the road. “While Tjard and I waited to enter Stuttgart, I saw one of the scharfrichters march by with a long line of prisoners. A woman fell, and his men beat her to death and left her body to rot in the ditch. I couldn’t stand it, so I buried the body, and I placed the amulet with her. I did not know of its power, it just seemed the right thing to do, to leave her with something.”

“Well, that was idiotic.” Bernadine said.

“Thanks for your very helpful input,” Tjard shot back.

“That amulet could have kept our movements invisible from Clarissa.” Bernadine snapped.

“If she's a witch, couldn’t she just scry for us?” Ada asked.

“Scrying doesn’t work on other witches. Surely your benevolent teacher Maerwynn should have taught you that. We can make a charm to protect Tjard and Ulrich from a scrying attempt, but she will still be able to track Ulrich through his oath mark.”

“There were dead soldiers back at Haven,” Ada said. “They would wear the amulets, too. We could go back and—”

“That’s a stupid idea. The valley will be crawling with Clarissa’s men. There are only five of us. We need to put as much distance between us and them as possible.”

“Well, could we find the body of the women again?” Aubrey asked. “We could dig it up and retrieve the amulet?”

As her words registered, my anger flared. “Maybe you merrily go around digging up the dead like wretched grave robbers, but I do not.”

“Oh no. Far better to be the one driving them mad and placing them in the grave in the first place.” Bernadine shot back.

Anger flared inside me. “I am trying to save your life, woman—”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“Stop it, both of you.” Aubrey said, gently, but firmly. “We’re all on the same side here. Arguing doesn’t help matters. Now, Ulrich, you could find the grave of this woman again, if you had to?”

“Yes, I marked it was a cairn, but I can’t agree to this. It’s sacrilege. It’s wrong.”

“You’ve never cared about what is sacred before,” Ada turned to me. “This woman has no need of the amulet, Ulrich, but we do. You did the right thing, and gave her a good, Christian burial. I think she would forgive us this one indiscretion.”

“You can’t be serious.” I couldn’t believe Ada was siding with her aunts.

“It’s our only hope,” she said simply, squeezing my hand.

I sighed. I hated it, but I couldn’t think of any other way, and the fact that neither Aubrey or Bernadine suggested an alternative made it clear that they couldn’t think of one, either. “Fine. We will travel to Stuttgart to collect the amulet, and then when our movements are invisible to Clarissa and my father, what will we do then?”

“Then,” Aubrey said, her voice thick with resolve. “We go to Rotstrom castle to free all the witches.”