Patricia Briggs (2 page)

Wood splintered above me, and I ducked, certain they'd smashed through the floor—it sounded like someone had thrown our bed from the loft. The floorboards were new and tight. I couldn't see through them to assess the damage the thieves were doing, but they couldn't see me either.

I heard them laughing, and I scuttled back behind the barrel. I hoped they wouldn't think it odd there was no meat in the house, or they might start looking for it. Maybe they wouldn't notice the hollow sound of their boots on the floor.

Who'd have thought the
sight
had tried to warn
me
of danger? It never had before. I hunched down against the earth floor, and something more than cold began to seep in my bones.

Magic. I knew what it had to be, thought I'd never felt it before. The ground began to glow dimly, sullen red with small bits of gold here and there. As I watched, the bits of gold began to grow bigger and the red duller.

I worried for a moment that the raiders would see it, or that they'd caused it somehow, but the force of the emanation soon drove all thoughts of raiders from my head.

My body vibrated from contact with the earth. Power wrenched through me, making it hard to breathe. Did the bloodmages feel this way as they stood over their victims? By all rights I should have been terrified, but the sweet taste of magic prevented fear from touching me.

Red was woven over the gold in layers like a giant woven cloth, holding the gold back.

I stared at it, and suddenly knew what it was I saw.

Magic hadn't always been wrestled from pain and death. Once, so long ago the memory of it had disappeared except for Gram's tales told in secret on dark winter nights, one mageborn child to another, magic had been a joyous thing summoned from the earth. But jealous bloodmages had bound it until no one could use the wildling's power.

Beneath the red blanket, gold magic called to me, singing tenderly in my soul. Something snapped, and one thread of red came unbound. Then another.

Layer by layer the bands of red were being torn away, and the power of it lifted me off the ground. I hovered a fingerspan off the earth as one by one the angry red cords gave way. When the crimson ties broke, I could feel the corrupted touch of bloodmagic pull in places I'd never felt before—like a hair caught deep in my throat. It didn't hurt, but I could feel it all the same. The blood cords pulled me by their ties to the land of my birth, until I
saw
…

…a tower, dark with the force of the mage within. He called the magic tied to the land. I felt the strength of him like the heat of the smithy forge. Madness lurked in the heart of his call, adding its strength to his purpose.

Then the vision was gone. With it went the last of the binding spells of the bloodmages. I felt them go—as any mageborn native to this land would have. For a moment the floor glowed brilliantly gold, then the light traveled up the walls as if driven by demons, fading, leaving me sitting, exalted, on the ground, alone in the dark cellar.

My eyes told me the magic was gone, but where I touched the ground, my body still tingled with its sweet warmth. I felt clean, though I'd never known I was dirty. I put my fingers against the dirt of the cellar floor and knew the bloodmage's hold on the magic of the land was gone.

A loud shout drew my attention to the raiders above me: I'd forgotten about them. Without the protection of the magic, fear returned apace. For a moment, I thought they'd seen the light as well, and waited for them to storm the cellar to investigate.

My heart pounded, my breath came in quick pants, but they were only fighting over some piece of loot. Gram's silver mirror, probably.

Let them fight about it. Let them just go. The longer they were here, the better the chance they would find me. They'd been here for a long time now: they should be getting nervous. The men might be coming down from the field.

An immense pot in the cellar fell to the floor with a crash. The sound quieted the men who stood above.

“There's something below us—look for a door outside. These kinds of places usually have a cellar. There could be valuables in it.”

I jumped to my feet and ran to the far side of the cellar. It was dark, but the dirt floor was clear of things that could catch my feet. There was a violent boom from above. They'd knocked over the big shelves near the fireplace.

Without actually seeing it fall, I caught the big soap-making cauldron as it slipped from the peg Daryn had worried was too small for it. I'd have to remember to tell him he had been right. Men liked that—at least Ma said they did. The weight of the cauldron made me stagger, and the handle flipped down and bruised my thumb where it rested over the edge of the pot—but I managed to hold it and my knife without making any noise.

I set the cauldron carefully on the ground. As long as nothing else fell, I was safer now. The shelves had fallen across the trapdoor. There was nothing the raiders could do to the house that we couldn't repair. Nothing they could take we couldn't live without.

I could safely marvel at my vision of the pot falling. I'd never had one so clear, never had one I could use to prevent a disaster. It must be because of the unbinding.

I would tell Daryn about the
sight
tonight, I decided. Not to punish myself, but because I could tell him how it had saved me. If magic was unbound again, maybe I could use my bit of magic to help us, help the village—as Gram had done. I was still smiling when yet another vision took me.

Daryn held the horses in place while Father helped Daryn's younger brother, Caulem, attach the harness to the plow Lord Moresh had given the village two years ago. Father was patient, letting Caulem fumble with the unfamiliar double harness. Beresford had only the older style, single-horse plows.

Something caught Daryn's attention, and he held his hand to shade his eyes as he stared into the rising sun. His body tightened to alertness, and he said something urgently to my father.

Father dropped the leather strap into the dirt and stepped forward to Daryn's side.

After no more than a look, Father grabbed Caulem's shoulders and shouted something at him, throwing the boy onto the horse that hadn't yet been hitched to the plow. He shoved the reins into the boy's hands. Caulem shouted something back, protest written in the stiffness of his jaw. Father took his hat and slapped the horse, sending it running down the path to my parents' house.

The track was wide and the horse knew every rock and rut, sprinting full-out for home. The bandit waiting in the tree at the edge of the field had a finger missing from one hand, but it didn't affect the flight of the arrow that took Caulem in the throat.

The man leaped from the tree and tried to catch the horse, but it had been thoroughly spooked by the run and the scent of blood. It was a working horse, strong enough to pull the raider dangling by its reins as if he weighed no more than a twist of straw. The man held on until he lost his footing and the horse's iron-shod hoof caught him in the leg, throwing him to the ground.

Unhindered, the animal raced on. The message that the bandits had come covered its back in a red blanket of Caulem's blood.

The vision shifted abruptly.

My father was facedown in the dirt, an ax buried in his back. Daryn stood over him, work-hardened muscles lending strength to the blows he dealt with Caulem's walking staff. The men he fought appeared only as vague blurs and flashes of weaponry. Blood ran down Daryn's face and neck until it disappeared in a larger stain of red spreading from his shoulder.

The staff he held broke, and he threw it aside, taking a step forward to protect my father. Metal gleamed, and a sword sliced into his neck.

A winter lily grew out of the unbroken ground, browning with the weight of time. A drop of Daryn's blood fell on the faded, scarlet petals.

The vision left me, and I sat where I was, stiff with shock. It was too late for me to do anything. From the position of the sun in my vision, I knew Daryn had died before I'd hidden in the cellar, running from his killers. The shock held me for a moment before the warm rush of rage followed it.

My hand tightened on the butcher's knife, and I ran for the ladder. I climbed up three rungs and pressed my back against the trapdoor, but it wouldn't move. I stepped up another rung and straightened my knees, forcing my shoulder against the door and pushing, but the shelving atop it was too heavy for me to move. I hammered it with my fists, screaming with fury at the barrier that prevented me from attacking the raiders.

At last, knuckles bloody, I stumbled off the ladder and sat on the ground—numb in body and soul. The raiders were gone. If they'd been in the house, they'd have heard me and opened the door.

I dropped the knife in the dirt and stood up again. A rough table against the wall contained a few tools in need of sharpening. One of them was a saw.

I fumbled in the darkness. My hands didn't feel quite right after hitting the door. I found the saw and set to cutting my way out. It took a long time to cut the cross braces of the door with the dull blade angled over my head. Once the braces were gone, I pulled the door into sections that fell from the opening and dropped below me.

With the door out of the way, I slid through the shelves and climbed out into daylight. Bits of broken crockery were everywhere, intermixed with chunks of wood and scraps of torn cloth from Ani's quilt.

In the barn a few chickens, still spooked by the noise of the raiders, scattered away from me. Daisy the cow lay dead in the straw. They'd hacked off one hind quarter and taken it with them, leaving the rest to rot. I looked away from the cloudy film that covered her warm, brown eyes.

Louralou, our riding pony, was gone from her stall, along with every bit of leather harness in the tack room. The piglet was gone as well. They'd left the sacks of grain.

Out of habit, I took out a fair measure of corn and scattered it for the chickens. There was a saddle blanket lying in the walkway where someone had thrown it. I stared at it for a moment.

I ought to cover their faces
, I thought.
The crows will come
. The thought of Daryn's eyes eaten by the birds made me violently ill, and I vomited in the straw.

I rinsed my mouth in the bucket hanging in Louralou's stall, then picked up the blanket. I beat it clean against one of the stall walls, and set off to cover my husband's face.

The wind was warm, carrying with it the sweet perfume of spring flowers. Only the torn-up soil of the trail showed that this afternoon was different from any other.

I knew I wasn't thinking clearly. I should have been worried about meeting the raiders again. But it was a distant thought, and I ignored it.

Even so, when I heard men's voices and the creak of a wagon, I stopped, then found a hiding place deep under the bows of an old spruce tree, ignoring the sharp prickles of the needles through my woolen gown. For a moment, I had a strange feeling there were two of me: one here and now, kneeling in my favorite dress, and the other…

…wearing a stained tunic and a pair of men's trousers with a crossbow clutched tightly in my hand.

I wiped at my eyes with the rough saddle blanket and bit my lip until the pain drove the vision away.

As the sound of the wagon's squeaking drew closer, I recognized Talon the smith's smooth tenor as he shouted something over the rattle of the wagon. It was the villagers, then.

I eased out of the shelter of the spruce. It was much easier to go out than it had been to go in against the growth of needles. Dirt from the cellar stained my gown along with flour from the crock that usually sat on the shelves by the fireplace; the hem was covered with cow's blood. Pieces of spruce hung from my hair, brushing against my cheek.

When they came over the hill, I knew they'd been to the field before me. Knew it because the wagon was carrying something covered by a blanket.

I stopped where I was, unwilling to go any closer. Albrin, who lived closest to my parents, was there on his favorite mare. The wagon was his, drawn by his oxen. Next to him rode Kith, his son, who'd served under Lord Moresh as one of his personal guards until he lost his left arm. Kith had been my brother's best friend.

Three of the four other men also lived nearby; only Talon actually lived in the village. He must have been at Albrin's shoeing horses. Except for Kith, who still had his sword from his time of service, they were armed with scythes and long knives. There was a broken staff on top of the blanket that covered the contents of the wagon.

They slowed when they saw me. I couldn't tell what they thought because my gaze kept slipping past their faces and settling on the covered load in the wagon. My throat was dry and rasped uncomfortably as I spoke.

“They've gone on. The raiders.”