The Last Witch Queen (Outlaws of Interra Book 2), page 22
There it is, from the witch’s mouth, proof that Verane DeMarais is working for the Legionnaire. A sour taste fills my mouth, and I fight to keep my arms from crossing, a telltale sign of defensiveness. Then a flicker of curiosity gets the better of me.
I look to Raven. “Were you the heretic?”
She shakes her head, then nods at Yoonai. We all turn and there are tears in Yoonai’s eyes. “You? You were that scholar?”
Yoonai nods and takes my hand. She is shaking. “I didn’t know I would have to wait so long, but I came to wait for you all. I believed you would find one another somehow.”
“How did you know?” Mi asks.
“I dreamt true, the same dream for eleven months. It ended the day I was banished and began my journey to Orn.”
“And what about you?” I ask Raven.
“I found Yoonai’s journals, hidden, quite craftily in my rooms in the Spire. I too dreamt true, of using my spirit sight to lift three books from the wall above my bed. It seemed impossible, but once I did it, I did not have the dream again. And when I read Yoonai’s journals, I knew.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” Cressida cries, reminding me that she is in the room. A flush of heat races through me. We shouldn’t be talking about this in front of her. Her aura continues to show the same three emotions: fear, confusion, exhaustion. She is hiding something, but what?
“I forgive you.” Raven manages to sound like she means it, but I wonder. Does she really forgive the girl’s betrayal? When Raven speaks again, her voice is even. “But why did you come? Surely you didn’t travel so far for an apology.”
Cressida shakes her head, “I would have, truly. I would have traversed the Void Lands for years, if that’s what it took to find you…” Her voice raises in hysteria, but her aura shows no sign of the shift in emotion, just the same note of fear as when she entered the room. It is unnatural, and something about it reminds me of the first guards who attacked us in Kilm, the day the dissidents came to our home. The way their auras simply went blank. This is something else, more sophisticated.
Raven hugs her, to calm her I assume. I’d like to stop her, keep her from even touching the girl, but I stay still as she speaks softly to her friend. “I believe that, Cressida. I do. Why are you here?”
“Verane has managed to create a lekanomance. It doesn’t work well, not yet, but she has all its power focused on your communications. She’s read every letter you’ve sent or received for the past two months. I came as soon as I could. It was difficult to get away.”
That is not my understanding of what a lekanomance does, but as I am about to ask questions, Raven speaks. “Where does she think you are?”
Cressida slumps in her chair now, exhausted. “Zoravo, to aid the Zhar and Zharina in their devotion to the True God.”
Raven looks to Birdy, whose countenance is fraught with concern. “Can you find her a chamber? Somewhere she can sleep?”
Birdy nods and helps Cressida to her feet. “Let’s get you to bed, littling. You’ve told them. Now you can rest.”
She nods, sniffling. “I’m so sorry, Raven.”
Raven hugs her friend. “We will talk when you’ve had a nice, long sleep. You are safe here, I promise.”
They leave the room, the blonde girl resting her weight on Birdy as they go. When the door closes Miyala looks at me. “Can we trust her?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Something strange is happening with her aura. It seems like it was… stuck.”
Raven sighs, her frustration apparent. “I know Cressida is… a lot. She’s irritating. People have always thought so. Do you think you might be judging her too harshly?”
I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s true. I did find her irritating, but I know what I saw. My forehead wrinkles as I try to find the words to explain what I saw.
“What emotions?” Miyala asks. Everyone watches the three of us carefully. Everyone but Morgaine, who is lost in thought—somewhere else entirely.
“What?” I ask. “Oh, fear, confusion and exhaustion.”
Raven’s delicate hands fly up in front of her face. “Why wouldn’t she be feeling those things?”
I open my mouth to try to explain further, but Miyala shakes her head. “Let’s don’t argue over this. We will watch Cressida carefully while she’s here. But I think we need to assume that whether she is working against us purposefully, that Verane is using her as a tool, no matter what.”
It’s the diplomatic response. She hasn’t accused Raven’s friend of being here to spy on us, but she’s registered and acknowledged that my concerns are valid. I make a soft humming noise to show I agree and Raven nods. Her dark eyes soften and she gives me a half-smile. She doesn’t want to believe the worst of either of us, and she doesn't want to fight. Bori plays with her hair in a way that makes me squirm with jealousy. I want someone to smooth away my ragged edges.
Morgaine still isn’t paying any attention at all to the conversation at hand and I wonder what has her so preoccupied. We sit in silence for a long time, each of us thinking.
Bori finally breaks the hush. “So we have to assume Verane wants us to know she is aligned with the cult of the True God.”
This sinks in for a moment, and then they’re all talking at once. I can’t make out any individual voices. I’m sitting next to Yoonai and I grip her arm. “What is happening?”
She takes my hand in hers. “Does the sound bother you?”
I must look confused, because she adds, “Of so many voices? Is it disorienting?”
I nod, a fluttering panicked feeling filling my chest.
“Breathe evenly. Don’t give into the feeling of scattering. You are in control.”
I do as she says and my attention narrows sharply, like a telescope coming into focus. Now I hear them each separately, but at the same time. The perception that I can hear each voice with clarity dissipates quickly, but when it’s gone, the panicked feeling is gone as well.
Yoonai smiles. “With practice, you will be able to hold onto that focus. This may be a part of your change, Echo.”
I try to smile back, but the thought of being able to do something so inhuman bothers me. Am I even human? Yoonai pats my arm to bring my attention back to her. “A month ago, we completed a survey of all who’ve emigrated here from elsewhere, along with the dissidents who chose to come with us to Lyonesse. Across the continent, a cult of the True God has proliferated.”
This doesn’t surprise me. From what we saw before we left Kilm, their influence has been growing for a while. “What are they like?”
Yoonai shrugs. “It is hard to say. Sometimes they seem like ignorant bumpkins. They believe wildly different things about what the True God might do for them.”
The look on her face tells me that this is not the whole of the story. “Sometimes… What are the outliers like?”
Her countenance darkens. “Violent, coordinated. Connected to powerful people and groups. I had hoped the Alabaster Spire was not one of them, but I cannot deny I worried Verane would ally with them.”
“Why would she do such a thing?” I ask, not understanding.
Yoonai shrugs. “Verane is a keen judge of the currents of power on this continent, Echo. She must believe the cult of the True God will be very powerful in the days to come.”
My blood chills. “Because their ‘true god’ is the Legionnaire?”
A strand of Yoonai’s silvery-white hair falls onto her forehead, escaping the messy riot of tresses held together by combs. She pushes it back into place and her aura is steady when she nods at me.
My whole life, the Ravenni have seemed so closely aligned with Raothami ideals. We were not the same, to be sure—our groups had different goals, different approaches—but it always seemed to me our values were the same: all people should be free and in frequent concert with the otham.
Now, I see my foolish mistake. The Ravenni have closed themselves off more and more, acting less as liaisons between the common folk and the otham, and more the gatekeepers of arcane magical knowledge. No wonder Raven did not fit with them—I wonder for the thousandth time since I met her how she ended up in a Lorami prison, but she resolutely will not speak of it. I understand that. There are things in my past that I don’t speak about either. I stare at her across the table, and her gaze meets mine, and then Yoonai’s, and then back to mine.
Raven’s brown eyes shine with unshed tears, with years of sadness. I know so little about her. I’ve been gone for months and everyone here knows one another in ways I do not anymore. The time I have left feels desperately important. I let my eyes fall on each of my family members and the people who would be my friends if I had not left for Port Thraice and then Kythrea. I come last to Morgaine, my Morgaine.
She is arguing with Fenric about something, but it is a good-natured disagreement. They too are friends. I am so alone. I nearly rise from the table to leave, but Yoonai’s hand on my arm keeps me seated. “Stay still, chicklet. No more running.”
She isn’t talking about only this moment. She always knows my heart best, now that Baba is gone. I take her small hand in mine and she kisses my palm. “I know you will do everything you can.”
As everyone’s voices dies down, Morgaine muses, “It seems like Verane is showing us too much of her hand, between the information about the lekanomance and her alignment with the True God. Wouldn’t it be better to keep all that a secret?”
Quess shakes her head. “Not necessarily. Not if she already has the information she needs. The question is what purpose is served by letting us know she can monitor our communications?”
Fenric answers, grim lines furrowing his forehead. “She means to slow us down. She knows we’re close to finding the Prophecy. We have to assume she knows Bori and Raven are headed to Air Sen’ai, and that the three of us will be in Zoravo.”
“And that I will be in Kilm,” Miyala adds.
“If we can’t communicate with one another easily, we’re likely to miss something, some connection Verane doesn’t want us to make,” June muses.
“What can we do?” Morgaine asks.
Raven stands. “Nothing. There’s nothing we can do. Verane is several steps ahead, as usual.”
“That’s not quite true,” Yoonai says. “You give her too much of your power. There is a reason I didn’t tell you all what I knew.”
The room is silent, each of us holding our breath, waiting for Yoonai to speak. I did wonder why she wouldn’t have told all this long ago. “If you didn’t know, you couldn’t act in ways Verane could predict. She always assumed I came here to tutor all of you in becoming the Ophanir and fulfilling Alycone’s prophecy. So I didn’t tell you and you’ve acted naturally.
“Prophecy isn’t a prediction, it’s a set of conditions that must be met for a thing to occur, like a spell. If they occur, and it is terribly rare that they will, then there is a result—the problem for us is that we don’t know what the result is, if each aspect of the Prophecy of Alycone occurs.”
“But Verane does,” Morgaine breathes, her eyes wide.
“Yes,” Yoonai sighs. “And whatever she fears will happen, she is taking action now to stop it. This is her intervention, an act of desperation.”
“It feels a lot like a power play,” Morgaine mutters and Arquessa nods. The atmosphere in the room grows heavy and still. Faces fall as it occurs to each of us that our timeline to get ahead of Verane, of the Legionnaire, is compressing faster than we can keep up, and now Verane has revealed that we’re even further behind than we thought.
I see it in my friends and family’s eyes—it feels like the plan is spinning out of control. Raven buries her face in Bori’s shoulder, and even June’s usual buoyancy and desire to forge ahead seems blunted. I watch as each of my loved ones’ postures slump and their auras darken with worry. The weight of the collective response to this news is oppressive. We thought we had things worked out, and now new obstacles stand in our way.
Yoonai’s sharp voice slices through the thick cloud of worry. “This is exactly what she hoped for. That this will demoralize us, cause us to make mistakes, stray from our focus.”
“So what do we do?” Bori asks as he hugs Raven extra tightly.
“Just as we’ve planned,” June reasons, his voice taking on his usual note of confidence. He is always the first of us to regroup. “Only more carefully now, with our eyes open for the slightest bit of meaning. We must find the information she fears we will faster than she expects, we must make better connections than she feels we can. We must be our best, because Verane is determined to do her worst.”
The speech seems to calm us, break us out of our worry. Soon, everyone is talking animatedly about our plans, cheerful once more, trying to pinpoint the exact date we must meet to exchange information in Kilm in order to kill the Warlord before the Reaping Moon.
Yoonai pats my shoulder as she follows everyone else out of the room. They’re off to get started on everything that must be done to prepare to part ways in a week. All but Miyala and Raven. The three of us stare at one another for a long time.
Raven takes my hand and then Mi’s. “We’re in this together. We can defeat Verane and the Legionnaire. I know we can.”
Miyala nods and locks eyes with me. “For everything they’ve done—”
A wicked grin spreads across my face as I answer. “We’ll make them pay.”
Chapter 27
Sarka
Zoravo| The Fourteenth Day of Juno
It’s been weeks since she last saw Melity, and Sarka is restless, and a little jealous. He’s traveled to Urukhesh, yet again, to meet with Verane DeMarais.
A necessary separation, the voice reminds her.
“Mmm,” she says aloud, in response, forgetting Alexei.
“What's that?” he asks as he buttons his pants.
She turns and smiles, fixing her skirts. “Nothing my love. Just my pleasure at being full to the brim with your seed.”
Alexei groans, exasperated. “You little fool. Why do you say such things?”
He’s been challenging her this way frequently. Her menses, which bloom on schedule, without fail, are due to arrive in a week and he says he can smell her empty womb while he bangs away at her. She hears the sneer in his voice each time he says it. Sarka Zharina would like to reply that if her womb is empty, it is no fault of her own, but she values her neck too much for that.
Careful, the voice cautions. She lowers herself into a deep curtsy, while color flushes her cheeks. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”
Alexei rolls his eyes and slaps her across the face. Not hard enough to make a mark, but in anger all the same. He has the decency to look ashamed for a moment, then stomps out of her rooms, muttering to himself about the uselessness of having a wife. She says nothing, does nothing, as he goes, the voice reminding her, not long now, not long.
She has always known it would come to this, that someday he would hit her. His father knew it too. Konstantine knew who his son was, knew he was a disappointment, and yet still he made him heir, because of her. Because he believed she could guide Loramir into a richer future. Because the children he fathered were all weak fools who married more weak fools, and she alone is strong.
Brew the tea now, the voice reminds her.
Yes, it has been ten minutes. She gathered the herbs herself, an unpleasant task that took days of trial and error, referencing many books of herbal lore until she found just the right combination to stop her monthly flow from arriving. When Melity returns, in just a few days’ time, their first union will occur, but in the meantime, Alexei must believe she is pregnant.
She spoons the herbs into the pot and pours the hot water and waits. Seven days of the vile brew. Just seven days to suppress the bleeding, and then when he is sure to stop looking for evidence of her failure, she will allow herself to menstruate… At least until Melity can make her pregnant himself.
Then you’ll be safe, the voice reassures her.
She drinks the tea down in one foul gulp and then pours herself a glass of wine. If no one will come to amuse her, she will amuse herself. Lately, the court has sensed the rift growing between her and Alexei. While he was somewhat discreet to begin with, now he fucks courtiers in the halls for all to see.
He thinks to make one of them pregnant with an heir and to dispose of her. That much is obvious. It is Melity’s growing influence and the fact that she is seen twice a day praying at the temple of the True God that keeps him from simply annulling the marriage. Only last week the temple of Ogneyna Matroya was sacked by acolytes of the True God, all the nuns driven out into the street without their meager possessions. Now it too is an altar to the God of Gods.
She smiles thinking of the nuns. They would have nowhere to go, having renounced their families and outside lives to devote themselves to the Mother. Sarka has always hated nuns, ever since she was a child and her mother… well, perhaps it is better not to think of Mama now, or ever. A rustle of paper in her solarium distracts her from such thoughts. Has Alexei returned?
“My love,” she calls, making her voice sweet for him as she winds through her apartments to the solarium. “What do you…”
She nearly faints at the sight of the child, rustling through the papers on her desk. When the little girl looks up, the skin on her face is sunken in, and a bloody gash streaks across her forehead. Sarka’s breath comes in ragged gasps and her heart pounds wildly. The solarium is suddenly too bright. Air cannot seem to reach her lungs and try as she might, she cannot hear the voice that comforts her. The child steps forward, staggering a bit, as though injured.
“Hello, Sarka,” the child says. Its voice sounds as sweet as the last day Sarka saw her little sister.
“Irina?” she whispers.
