Fire Witch (9 page)

Owyn sent an appraising look Aislin's way. "It wasn't so much Feran we were willing to kill for," he said and she wrapped the blanket even tighter.

"Please," she said. "Someone tell me what's going on."

"We were sent to collect a witch," Raga said.

"My mother," she guessed. "Then you still have the wrong redhead." She thought of her younger sister and the light shade of her ginger hair. It was but a weak echo of Indiris's flaming locks. Whatever it was these men wanted the witch of flame for, they still hadn't got it right. Too late, she realized that she'd just given them the exact information they needed to strip her of her value. She found herself edging closer to Chelan as she imagined what they might do to her if they realized she was just as useless as she started out.

Chelan had a peculiar look on his face as he watched her. "Nice try," he said, offering her an opportunity to redeem her mistake. "But I'm quite certain you are the one Conn sent us to collect."

"And what is it I'm collected for?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? It was a difficult task, and as it happened, I needed redemption," he said. "I didn't ask."

Raga shuffled forward. "Yes, you did," he said. "You wanted to know why you are risking your life. Don't you remember?"

Chelan glared at Raga and the boy squirmed under his gaze. "Well, you did," he said. "Don't you think she should at least know?" He turned owlish eyes on her and she realized he wanted her the same way these men did, except maybe he had grown to like her.

"Know what?" Aislin demanded, losing patience with the seeming mystery and not caring whether or not the answer imparted any value to her body in the face of these men.

Even though she demanded it of Chelan, it was Raga who answered.

"You are to be his concubine," he said.

"Concubine?" She echoed, feeling half sick and half furious. "What gives him the right?"

She watched as Chelan toed the dirt with his boot. She gripped him by the forearm. "Who does he think he is to steal me and enslave me?"

Chelan peeled her fingers from his arm and tucked it back beneath the blanket. He pulled the edge is tighter, so that she felt trapped inside. His mossy eyes refused to meet hers.

"He is Conn," he said. "And he gets what he wants or he ravages the very earth his enemies squat on."

Each of the men brought their legs together with a slap as he said it, and she looked from one to the other as though she were still lying on the ground dreaming and this nothing but another nightmare. Nothing was making any sense.

"I don't care who he is," she said. "I don't care what he wants of me. My mother will not let this stand."

Chelan's hand moved to cup her chin. His thumb stroked it tenderly, almost pitying.

"You don't understand," he said. "It was your mother who sold you to him."

Something flapped against her rib cage in an effort to escape. None of this made sense. She took in Chelan as he stood in front of her, trying to work out whether or not he was telling the truth.

"You're lying," she said. "I'm my mother's heir, the one who will receive her power when she's gone. Why would she Arrange to have me sold into slavery?"

She wouldn't, that's what. Her mother might be selfish with her power, but it was a hereditary magic, one that she couldn't deny. It would come to Aislin after her mother's death, whether her mother wanted it to or not. Both she and Indiris understood that. The whole village did. There was no reason for her to even believe her mother would do such a thing.

"No," she said, jerking away. "She would need to have me close to her, to ensure my safety."

His hand found the small of her back and he guided her away from the men and positioned her between his monstrous horse and Raga's smaller one. He spoke in hushed tones, but the voice was firm and honest and she couldn't help but believe him.

"It's true," he said. "My brother paid a goodly sum to hire mercenaries to attack the village so we could extract the young witch. We were told she would have red hair." He reached out to pull her plait onto the front of her shoulder, letting his thumb play with the fluff at the end.

"There were only two redheads in the village that I could see: your mother doing her level best to repel the invaders we paid to attack as a diversion, and that young girl."

"My sister," she said numbly. She recalled how Feran had willingly relinquished his hold on Kasia when Chelan reached for her. Then, she'd believed that the raiding party was interested in any quarry, not a specific one. She should have known better. The way they scouted out the yard, ignoring livestock and women as they went. No raiding party did that.

"Feran found her first," she murmured, thinking that even as she spoke that if things had been different – if she had just been moments later, her young sister would be no doubt already passed over to some man and that he had known no differently.

"He thought she was me," she said.

"Indeed. I was so relieved it was that quick; I didn't question it. I was just glad we didn't have to kill too many men. Then you appeared –"

"Ruining it all," she said.

He nodded. "It would have been easy to just grab her and go. Should have been. I thought she was a bit young for Conn, but youth has never been a deterrent for him before." A scowl wavered across his mouth but then he took command of his expression again and she doubted she'd seen it.

He shook his head as though to dislodge an unwanted thought. "Besides," he said. "It was a goodly sum. He would make every effort to take what he was promised, what he'd paid your mother for."

His eyes landed on her braid and he reached out with questing fingers to brush aside some of the locks that had come free, tucking them behind her ear.

"I couldn't see your hair," he mused. "I don't remember why. It seems I would have noticed."

"I had on my kerchief," she said, remembering. "I don't sleep well. Sometimes I can't wake up when I do sleep at all."

She had to will her knees to stay locked. If she hadn't had another one of her horrible nightmares, she might have been up and about, wandering the yard, with her hair in full view rather than covered with her night kerchief and tied into a braid. It would have been a beacon for any man searching for the shade. Put side by side, no one would have mistaken Kasia's auburn tresses for her crimson ones.

She watched him processing this information, wondering if he would ask her why she wouldn't sleep, and if she would tell him about the vivid lucid dreams that plagued her so frequently that the entire village had grown used to her terror-riddled shrieks in the middle of the night.

His fingers trailed along her jaw line to touch the corner of her mouth and she licked her lips, suddenly nervous.

"We were told it would be difficult," he said. "That your mother was very powerful. We were told she would let us extract you, so long as no harm came to any of the others." He shivered and she knew he was recalling the stink of human flesh burning, the sounds of agony as they did so. He knew as well as she did that the witch of flame would not simply allow a broken bargain to remain to go unpunished.

"We had no idea what she was capable of. Witch isn't a word we have in our language, but when I saw it, I knew I couldn't leave without accomplishing what she'd paid for."

"And yet your men did kill," she said. "She wasn't about to let you live after that." She heard a note of pride in her voice, and squashed it down. There should be no pride in a woman who would sell her own child.

"By then Feran lost the girl and I was too busy to care about anything except my own hide."

She remembered the chaos that had unfolded as Aislin strode the village burning alive anyone she pleased. The men from her village had done their best to do their part, swarming the young warrior but leaving her open to Feran's attack, all of them oblivious to Aislin's plans and thinking they needed to protect their witch-in-waiting.

No one could have protected her from the beast who accosted her, though, no one except Aislin and it now was abundantly clear that it hadn't been coincidence that kept her mother too busy offer aid. She might even have turned a willing blind eye.

Aislin felt sick. She looked askance at the party of men huddled together, fearsome-looking burly men who had their own leader to answer to. She thought of all she might have endured at their hands if not for this young warrior before her.

"So with your mission abandoned, I became a mere trophy," she said. "A thing to be used to relieve the bloodlust." She felt rage building in her belly at the futility of the circumstances. She'd been so blissfully unaware. She'd been so trusting.

"By then, I was willing to return to my brother and tell him the girl had died in the attack even if he killed me for the failure." He looked as though he would shudder if he gave it much thought, and she wondered just exactly what kind of man his brother was that Chelan was willing to risk death for a girl he didn't know. "She really was too young for the likes of him."

"Bravo for your conscience," she said bitterly.

He cocked his head at her. "Aren't you pleased that she's at least spared him?"

She thought of the frail girl who always seemed like a pale imitation of her mother's strength, the girl who would be her own blood witch when the time came. Now Aislin knew that time wouldn't ever come. Her mother had never intended to mark her with the sacred symbols. She wanted to keep the power for herself and die with it harbored in her own breast. Selfish woman. It was hard for Aislin to feel grateful that her sister was spared. All she could feel was betrayal.

"So now you'll be bringing home the correct witch after all," she ground out. "I'll be presented to some new brute and endure goddess knows what kind of violence beneath his hand. But at least your life will be spared." Beneath the blankets her fingers balled into tight fists. She felt the nails digging into her palms. "I'm sure you're relieved."

His shoulders sagged as he let go a weary sigh. "I'm not relieved," he said. "I should kill you mtself to spare you Conn's touch."

She blinked at him, unnerved until he ran a hand through his bushy curls. "Would to the gods it were that easy," he said.

She felt his hand searching for hers beneath the blankets and couldn't help releasing the tension in one long enough to let him take it. She felt joined to him in that instant as he met her gaze with his green-eyed one, his sun-browned face an earnest mask that covered over something more troubled.

"You're his," he whispered. "And everyone in this party believes that I've spoiled you. That means I'm as good as dead when he finds out."

"So perhaps he won't find out."

He shrugged. "He won't. I'll tell him." He ran his hand along his mount's hindquarters almost absently.

She watched him, trying to understand why a warrior as skilled as he would accept death so easily.

"Then you're a fool," she finally said when she couldn't comprehend any other reason.

"A man is a fool because he's too much of a coward to be honest. A warrior faces the truth. Truth be told, I've been living on borrowed time anyway." He sounded resigned.

She regarded him cooly, trying to feel empathy but only registering the searing anger for her mother burning beneath her skin. Somewhere to her left, a bush caught fire and she eyed it impassively.

"Family doesn't harm those they love," she said and heard in her tone an edge she didn't expect.

"My brother doesn't love me," he said. "He owns me like he owns these men. He will execute me without qualm. He will execute any of those who let you escape and any who lie to him. They'll tell the truth as they know it, and in so doing will be doing exactly what they hoped to avoid."

His arm slipped beneath the blanket and found her waist. His hand felt warm and soothing, as though he were asking her question that he couldn't speak himself.

She swung her gaze to meet his and found a trembling smile trying to thread itself onto his chiseled face. Seeing the peculiar revelation of emotion, she let the blanket fall to the ground and puddle around her feet, letting him see her unafraid yet vulnerable as well. With a careful hand, she reached out and touched those full lips, feeling powerful for the first time since she'd been taken and at the same time such fury that she didn't think it could be contained in one body.

He pulled his cheek away as though her touch burned.

"You want me to lie for them," she said, realizing it. "You want me to tell him you took me."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"They don't care about you," she said. "They betrayed you for Feran."

"You'll understand our ways soon enough," he said. "They're my brother's best men. They are used to a certain way."

"Soon enough," she echoed harshly. "When I'm presented to your brother as a slave for his pleasure."

She thought about the journey ahead of her, the journey her mother had put her on out of selfishness and fear, and she realized that any man who would sacrifice himself for the sake of men who hated him must know something about this new land that she did not. She would need an ally now that she couldn't count on her mother for rescue. She would need such a man to fight for her when the time came. Because the time would come. And she would end her mother if she had to set her alight from a hundred hectares away. If it took her years to find and harness the magic that writhed beneath her skin, untested and untrained. If she had to burn alive every man, woman, and child who stood in her way.