Witch Queen (6 page)

“I’m afraid not,” the high witch said
calmly. “I’m very serious.”

I had turned on them like a feral dog.

“Are you crazy?” I hissed, making Rose
flinch. “You’re the
real
witches, not me! I didn’t even know
what I was a few weeks ago. I can’t go alone! I wouldn’t even know
where to start or what to do. I don’t even know where the damn
realm is. This is madness! Don’t you want to stop the black blight?
Don’t you want to help?”

But they remained unruffled. I wanted to
strangle them all.

“Of course we do.” Ada’s voice was sharp,
and I had flinched as though she had slapped me. “You don’t
understand.”

“Oh, I understand plenty.” I leaned over the
table and faced them until I could smell the pine forest on their
clothes. “You’d rather hide away in Gray Havens and let others do
your dirty work, right? You don’t want to get your hands dirty. Am
I right?”

Swift as lightning, the high witch had
lashed out and grabbed my wrists with the strength an elderly woman
shouldn’t have had. There was a crack like thunder, and the room
shook. Books from Rose’s small bookcase spilled onto the floor as
Ada’s earthquake rattled the room and threatened to bring down the
walls of our makeshift cottage.

My skin burned under her grasp, as though
her hands were hot coals. I stifled a scream as the burning
intensified and moved slowly up my arms and into my chest. The
world flashed red and black and white. I thrashed and writhed, but
she kept her grip until she released my wrists after a final
squeeze. I looked at my wrists expecting to see burning skin, but
there was nothing there. Not even a mark. Nothing.

The room settled with a small final rumble.
I took a tentative step back and kept my eyes on the high witch. If
I hadn’t feared her before, I feared her loads now. I was sure that
she had only showed me a glimpse of her power. It appeared to be
unlimited. It wasn’t at all like the priest’s black magic, which
felt like a combination of shadow and cold fire. Her power was
different, like sand is to water, and yet just as powerful.

I blinked away the white spots from my eyes.
Now I felt ashamed.

I had expected to see fear in Rose’s eyes,
but she looked at me with a compliant expression, as if she, too,
had felt I’d overstepped myself with my spitefulness. But I wasn’t
about to apologize.

Ada spoke to me patiently.

“The witches on this side of the world, in
Arcania, are forbidden to enter Witchdom. We have been exiled.”

Her calm demeanor had returned, and if she’d
been angry with me moments ago, it had all but disappeared.

“Exiled?” I repeated stupidly, trying to
grip this new bit of information. Had my mother also been exiled?
What had the witches done to be exiled from their home?

“After Witchdom was separated from what is
now Arcania, some of us stayed here to provide refuge to those who
might still be born with magic. You see, we didn’t agree with the
Great Divide, when the magic bearers and the non-magic bearers were
separated into different realms. After the great wars between man
and witch, we believed there was still hope to heal the old wounds
and bind the two worlds together. We still believed that non-magic
and magic folk could live side by side in harmony. But the witch
king had grown angry after long years of battle, and his hatred for
humans had deepened into something dark and twisted. He forbade us
to stay. And if we didn’t follow the witches to the east, to the
new Witchdom, then we were exiled.”

There was so much conviction in the high
witch’s tone, it was clear she spoke from personal experience. I
wondered how old she really was.

“And even hundreds of years later, any witch
who chose to leave Witchdom to aid those born in the realm of man
was also banished.”

I held her gaze unflinchingly. “What would
happen if you tried to enter Witchdom now?”

Something like fear and regret clouded Ada’s
eyes.

“Only death awaits us on the other side, if
we dared to enter. Our families, our loved ones, and allies were
cut off from us, and we were cut off from that part of the world
forever. We have been left to our own devices.”

My heart twisted in sympathy at the pain I
saw flash across Sylvia and Maya’s faces. I didn’t have much of a
family, apart from Rose, but the memory of leaving Jon behind in
his sickness helped me understand how the exiled witches must have
felt.

I stifled the ache in my heart. “And you
decided to stay anyway.”

“Without question,” said the high witch.

But there was something besides quiet
hostility in her expression. I saw fresh pain that she couldn’t
hide.

Ada let out a long, exasperated breath.

“I know we have made an extreme request of
you, and it might even sound foolish. But I wouldn’t ask you to go
if we had any other choice. Our attempts to communicate with the
rulers of Witchdom have failed. Nothing is getting through. Even
our ravens come back, their messages still tied to their legs. In
all my years of living in exile, this has never happened before.
Our exile has never stopped us from getting messages across the
border. But now it seems that someone or something is blocking
us.”

The high witch exchanged a look with the
other two witches. I could see that they suspected what was
blocking them, but they weren’t ready to share this bit of
information. It only made me want to know even more.

Ada turned her eyes on me again.

“If our messages cannot get across to
Witchdom, then I fear that they too are blocked from communicating
with the rest of us. It is the only other rational explanation.
They may not even know about the black blight. So you see, my dear,
you’re the only one who can cross into the witch realm. You must
get us the help we need
and
warn them.”

“But how?” My mouth was dry with desperation
and fear that filled me like the poison from the red monk’s glove.
“You’ve just reaffirmed that those who enter
never
come
back. You just said it yourself, witches from this realm are not
welcome.”

The high witch smiled slightly. “Yes, but
you are different from us, Elena. You are a blood witch who was
born
outside
the realm of Witchdom.”

“So?”

The high witch laced her fingers together.
Her gaze grew sharper as if she were assessing something in me.
“So, you should be able to enter.”

“Should?” I stared at the old witch. “Why am
I not comforted by that? It can’t be that simple.”

“It won’t be,” said Maya with a low,
incredulous laugh.

Ada shot her a dangerous look that would
have left me cringing, but Maya continued to smile. Her silver eyes
bore into mine, glistening like tiny moons, whether in a challenge
or warning, I couldn’t tell. And yet a chill shivered down my
spine, and it took some effort to look away.

“What does she mean?”

“She means it’s going to be dangerous,”
replied Ada abruptly. But her anger quickly faded. “Listen to me,
Elena.” The high witch’s smile appeared to be bright, but I could
see that it was forced.

“You’re not without help. When you reach the
northern boundaries of Fell Forest, look for the witch, Fawkes.
He’ll be waiting for you. He will help you journey across the
Mystic Mountains. Then continue east and make for the capital city
of Lunaris. Pray to the Goddess that the witch king will hear our
plea. You
must
make him help us. Because if he doesn’t,
there’ll be nothing left of the world when you return.”

The high witch left it at that.

There was no more arguing. It was clear the
witches would not come with me. They would not be able to help
us.

And now here I was, partly to blame for all
of this and partly cursed. It was obvious, even though I didn’t
like it or want to go, I
needed
to go to Witchdom to save
Jon. Rose would be safe in Gray Havens for a while, and I took
comfort from that. I didn’t know how fast the black blight was
spreading, and I hoped it wouldn’t reach Gray Havens until I got
back with magic reinforcements.

Leo and Will had only been able to convince
four members of Jon’s rebellion to join us on our journey: Max, a
dark-skinned middle-aged man with arms as thick as tree stumps;
Lucas, a solemn quiet type with twitchy eyes, about the same age as
Jon; Garrick, the youngest member, if I were to guess, and the only
one who seemed anxious to get going; and last was a brutish-looking
man with a long braided beard. I couldn’t remember his name because
I’d been too busy staring at all the piercings around his ears and
the tattoos that covered most of his exposed skin.

Their mounts were regular carthorses from
the Pit—thin but sturdy. The men’s thick linen tunics and cloaks
were travel-stained and had seen many years of wear, like the ones
I was wearing now. I had burned the fine clothes that the
necromancer priest had given me on the day of the race. I wanted
nothing that reminded me of my past alliance with that damn prick,
or of what I had done in the name of the temple.

Their weapons were modest, like the two
daggers and short sword that I wore. We had no fine blades forged
with the best metal in Anglia for this trip. No, we used weapons
that had been in our families for years and anything else we could
scrounge in the Pit. We brought what was available to us.

The newest members of our group all shared
the same battered look of hard combat that showed in the faces of
Leo and Will. Even young Garrick’s eyes were haunted with scars
that spoke of battles beyond his age. It was something only being
born in the Pit could give. Despite the sparks of determination
glimmering in their eyes, it couldn’t mask their fear.

We
weren’t enough.

Six men, one woman, and seven horses. It
would never be enough.

Unfortunately, most people wanted to wait it
out. They thought they’d be safer in their makeshift homes. But the
necromancers’ reach was long. Sooner or later the black magic would
reach them, and their dilapidated homes wouldn’t protect them.
Nothing would.

I couldn’t blame them for being frightened.
Everyone was scared. And I was terrified.

I held my hands in a death grip on the reins
to keep them from trembling. The witches thought
I
could
convince a witch king to give me an army of witches? Would a king
even give me an audience? I had talked myself out of tight corners
before, but this was madness. And I was out of magic tricks.

I didn’t have to be from the Augur witch
clan to
see
the outcome of this journey—it was hopeless.
Either Ada and the other witches had some inexplicable faith in me,
or they were very foolish. I was leaning towards the latter.

Perhaps
I
was their last chance. And
if that were the case, we were all damned. I was just a steel
maiden from the Pit. What could I do?

I tried to suppress the panic that raged
inside me like a wild fire and let out a low, shaky breath. The
men’s attention was on me now. I didn’t look at them. Despite the
terror that stirred in me, I wouldn’t show them fear. Fear was a
weakness. Fear got you killed.

I was their leader now. The witches had made
it so. No matter how much I hated it—it was the path I had to
take.

Jon depended on me.

With the sickness storming across the land,
leaving death and infection in its wake, too many things could go
wrong. It could all be for nothing.

“If there is a Goddess,” I whispered into
the sky, “may she protect us.”

I tore my moist eyes away from Rose and the
witches, hit my heels into Torak’s flanks, and we flew.

CHAPTER 5

W
E RODE IN SILENCE.

Will and Leo rode beside me on earth and
tawny-colored horses from Jon’s stables. Our newest members
followed behind. Torak’s familiar smell and companionship helped to
calm my nerves. But even in the strange, overbearing heat, I
couldn’t shake off the icy feeling that wrapped around my
heart.

I hated myself for leaving Jon.
He
had never left
me
.

When the other men and women had sought to
claim the Heart of Arcania for themselves, when I had been left to
die, he had stayed with me. Jon had only joined that damned race to
keep an eye on me. And he had saved my life. But what had it cost
him?

I blinked the tears from my eyes and hoped
Leo and Will thought they were caused by the wind. I was still a
little uneasy that they looked to me for leadership, and that they
were willing overcome their own beliefs and fears to follow me to
Witchdom. I didn’t want the responsibility for all these people. I
had never really cared for friends. I had never really trusted
anyone but myself and Rose, until now. Until Jon.