Dragonwitch Read online

  The Chronicler’s voice was dry as stone. “I’m sorry, Lady Leta of Aiven,” he said. “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”

  “I said,” she replied and forced herself to meet his gaze, “does that mean it can’t be done?”

  The Chronicler studied her, his eyes shrewd and missing few details. She felt unprotected somehow and wanted to hide. Instead, she held herself straight and hoped her face betrayed none of her many fears.

  “No,” said the Chronicler at last. “No, I don’t think it means that at all.”

  3

  SOME CALL HIM THE CROOKED ONE; others, simply the Mound. He appears without warning, without premonition, a cancerous growth latching hold of the land. He is black earth covered in dead branches that rise like antlers to claw the air. No one knows how he comes uninvited into the protected realms of Faerie lords and ladies. When he appears, there can be no hope.

  I was scarcely more than a fledgling then, new on my wings, bright and full of the life I believed was to come. I had never heard of the Parasite, never heard the cursed breath of his name. But my mother whispered it even then.

  “Cren Cru! Cren Cru has come among us!”

  Standing with her on the rooftop of the Moon Tower, I looked out to the mound that had taken root in the center of Etalpalli. I thought it a strange, ugly lump, like a boil amid the green of our beautiful demesne. But I did not fear it then. I did not know. I was too young.

  But I quickly learned.

  The old scrubber was not permitted in the family wing of Gaheris Castle, but none was awake in the dead of night to shoo him away. So, on withered hands and bony knees, he scrubbed and shined each paving stone with the care a jeweler might take over a diamond. He had no candle but worked entirely by the light of the blue star shining through a narrow window.

  An icy breath wafted beneath a certain door. The scrubber felt it and sat up slowly on his heels, every joint and bone creaking. He moistened his shriveled lips, which froze immediately after. Then he crawled closer to the door and put his ear against it. Closing his eyes, he listened.

  He said, “Ah! There it is again.”

  In the chamber beyond the door, he heard the beat of horses’ hooves.

  Alistair rides in glorious hunt.

  Out here, flying over the grounds of Gaheris beside the shining, twisting rush of River Hanna, the full wildness of spring bursting on every side, he is free. Here, the sun chases away all darkness, and he himself chases his prey. His dogs—sight hounds, scent hounds, and massive curs—streak before him, their voices raised in bloodthirsty chorus, singing out death warnings to the wolf.

  This is what it means to be Master of Gaheris. To protect his people and their flocks. Danger sets upon the village, and who would ride out and subdue it? None other than the lord of the castle.

  Flanked by his uncle’s huntsmen, Alistair urges his horse onward, pursuing the trail of the lone wolf deeper into the wilds of Gaheris’s estates, beyond the tilled fields and hamlets. His heart beats with a certainty that he never feels within the confines of the castle itself. He will be lord of this house; he will be protector.

  And when the earls of the North Country offer Gaheris the crown, as surely they must, he will be king. He will hunt down the North Country’s oppressors and put them to the blade even as he hunts down this wolf!

  The sun goes black.

  It does not vanish behind a cloud, nor even sink beneath the horizon. It simply blackens as completely as a blown candle.

  Alistair stands in darkness. He feels it crawling up his skin, beneath his clothing, sliding down over his ramming heart. Where is his horse? Where are his dogs? Where are his uncle’s huntsmen?

  All gone. All devoured in the black.

  He tries to take a step but cannot see whether or not he has succeeded. He tries another, then another.

  A white light flickers in the distance. And he sees the shadowy silhouette of the child.

  He screams.

  The scrubber drew back from the door, putting a finger in his ear as though he could rub out the ringing sound of Alistair’s scream. With a shiver, he turned around and went back to his work. Bending to the stone, he blew away invisible dirt. Then, dipping his soiled cloth in a bucket of soiled water, he wetted down the floor.

  He muttered to no apparent listener, “His night terrors are getting worse.”

  Through the window above, the blue star winked twice.

  “The time is near; that’s what it means,” the scrubber said in answer to a question no one heard spoken. Then he whispered, softly:

  “Starlight, star bright, guide her footsteps through the night . . .”

  The simple children’s rhyme rolled from his tongue and danced its way down the dark, sleep-filled corridors of Gaheris Castle.

  For possibly the hundredth time that hour, Alistair rubbed his eyes and watched again as the words on the page before him swam slowly back into focus. He could hear the Chronicler’s voice droning in lecture. He knew he should be paying at least cursory attention to whatever was being said.

  But his gaze kept sliding to the illumination on the opposite page of the day’s selected reading. An unskilled artist’s portrayal of Sir Akilun standing with the Asha lantern in his outstretched arm.

  On the brink of a bottomless chasm.

  “And you have heard not a single word I have said for the last quarter of an hour.” The Chronicler snapped shut the book he had been reading. He inspected the young lord slouched over the table. There was nothing lordly in Alistair’s bearing or demeanor that morning. His hair stood up in wild tufts as though he’d made no attempt to tame it, and his clothes, though finely made and trimmed in fur, were mismatched and buckled in odd places.

  Worst of all was his face. It was so full of dumb dullness, it made the Chronicler want to slap him.

  The Chronicler crossed the room and stood at Alistair’s elbow. And still Alistair stared at the page before him, his eyes glazed over without a notion of what he was meant to be reading. “My lord?” said the Chronicler, and again more loudly, “My lord?”

  Then he slapped his hand down on the page beneath Alistair’s nose, startling his pupil upright. “Oh! Chronicler!” Alistair gasped, frowning and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I do apologize. My mind’s simply not in the books today.”

  “As though it ever is,” said the Chronicler, backing up and crossing his short arms. “What excuse do you have for me this time? Another pale-faced child? Or perhaps it was a whole crowd of them, eh?”

  Used as he was to the Chronicler’s sharp tongue, Alistair did not reward this remark with so much as a sour look. He leaned back in his chair and, assuming a dismissive expression, yawned. “I’m simply not interested,” he said, which was both a truth and a falsehood. “I have . . . things on my mind.”

  The Chronicler opened his mouth but shut it again suddenly. He backed up, returned to his desk, and climbed up onto the high stool. This stool had been commissioned and built specifically for him so that he could sit at Raguel’s tall desk. From this height, he was the equal of any man. He looked down his nose at Alistair.

  “I’m sure contemplation of the forthcoming delights your impending marriage will bring is indeed a great strain on your intellectual capabilities,” he said. “But if you could see fit to set these pleasant daydreams aside and concentrate on the lesson before you, I’m certain even Lady Leta herself would understand.”

  Alistair snorted. Beyond that, he could think of nothing to say, however, so he bowed his head, his fingers pressed to his throbbing temples, and tried yet again to make some sense of the lines scratched in umber ink across the vellum.

  “The elder brother, Asha in his hand, stepped into Death’s—”

  The library door swung open.

  “Just what do you think you are doing?” rang the voice of Lady Mintha.

  Not once in all the years of Alistair’s life had he compared his mother, even in his thoughts, to anything heavenly or etherea
l. Yet he turned to her now with a smile one might very well bestow upon a rescuing angel, glad for any opportunity to escape the labor before him.

  “Well met, Mother,” he said with false cheer and stood to greet her with a kiss as she swept into the room. Mintha put up a hand and pushed his face away, rounding on him in a flurry of thick gowns, her veils settling over her like the heavy darkness of thunderclouds.

  “Four months, Alistair!” she said. “Four months, and have I seen even the slightest effort on your part?”

  Alistair shrugged and settled back into his chair. He leaned an elbow on the book’s open pages and rested his head in his hand . . . an attitude that made the Chronicler, sitting on his stool in the shadow of Lady Mintha, writhe with scarcely suppressed fury as he considered the damage to the volume’s spine.

  “You know I always make an effort,” Alistair said, grinning behind the hollows under his eyes. “Simply put a task before me and I’ll jump to it.”

  “Don’t be flippant with me,” said Lady Mintha. “You know how important this is, and yet I find you here, hiding away behind these Lumé-forsaken books of yours.”

  “Well, they’re not mine. They’re Uncle’s really, for all the pleasure he gets from them. Besides, Mother, I don’t quite follow what’s brought you here in such high dudgeon.”

  “Why must you pretend ignorance?” Mintha wrapped her arms so tightly about her body that she became a quivering pillar of indignation. “You’ve made no effort whatsoever with the girl, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “Oh.” Alistair heaved a sigh. “Leta.”

  “Yes, Leta. Your bride-to-be. Granted,” Lady Mintha continued in a slightly gentler tone, “she’s an insipid little thing. I myself can scarcely get two words from her. But that in no way reduces the importance of your role, Alistair.”

  Her son shrugged and, mercifully, took his elbow off the book again. “Leta’s a nice girl. Sweet.”

  “Is that all you can say?” Mintha cried. “She’s been here four full months, and have you made any attempt to woo or win her?”

  “Why bother?” Alistair replied, staring down at the illustrated lantern on the page. “The betrothal is set. The papers are signed. We wed next spring, come what may. She’s a fine match, and I’ll make her a good husband if I can.” His finger traced the line of the chasm opening just behind the ugly figure of Akilun. “We simply have nothing to say to each other.”

  “Don’t be overconfident,” Lady Mintha said sharply, emphasizing her words by grabbing her son’s shoulder. He started under her touch, but she did not let go. “If something goes awry . . . if that little chit sends word to her father that she’s unhappy at Gaheris . . . what’s to prevent him from coming to fetch his daughter?”

  “If that should happen, so be it.” Alistair felt his mother’s anger build right through her fingertips. Just then, however, he was too tired to care.

  Mintha growled. She let go of her son and backed away, moving to the window and gazing down into the courtyard below. Alistair could hear her heavy breathing as she collected herself. When she spoke again, her voice was calm but edged with an ice that was more dreadful than the fire of her wrath.

  “This is not the attitude I expect from you. This marriage must take place. You must secure the alliance with Aiven to have any hope for the future crown.”

  There it was again. In the last ten years of his life, Alistair could not remember a single conversation with his mother that didn’t revert to kingship. The Crown was the darling wish of her heart. He had been brought up with his gaze always turned to the future unity of the North Country. His uncle also talked of it with an air of grave certainty that made one almost believe it possible. For Lady Mintha, it was nothing short of a consuming passion.

  But neither of them knew of his nightmares.

  Alistair shuddered. Then he said heavily, “Let it be, Mother. If the earls were going to unite under a king, they would have stuck a crown on Uncle Ferox’s head long ago.”

  Mintha turned from the window, narrowing her eyes at her son. The light from the day outside fell upon her, making her very pale beneath her dark veils. But her eyes were bright.

  “The earls had reason enough for not crowning Ferox,” she said, her voice low as though she feared being overheard. “There was talk of it for many years.”

  “Which came to nothing.”

  “Who would crown a sonless king?” Lady Mintha asked, her voice dismissive. Then it hardened into the sharp resolve it always held when she spoke on this subject. “You are their new hope. The hope of Gaheris. The hope of the North Country. And if you prove yourself a worthy successor to Ferox, you will see the earls kneeling at your feet soon enough. But you must secure alliances now. Earl Clios is behind you, and Ianthon and Sondmanus. Aiven is the key. You make certain this marriage takes place; you make certain you have Earl Aiven at your right hand, and kingship is only a matter of time.”

  Alistair glared at the illustration of Akilun but did not dare to glare at his mother. “It will be a matter of some time,” he said. “Uncle Ferox isn’t going to hand over Gaheris next week. We have years yet, and I’m not going to concern myself with a future too far away to consider.”

  “Your uncle will not live to the year’s end.”

  A stone dropped.

  Both Mintha and Alistair turned at the sound and watched the Chronicler’s pumice roll across the floor to the edge of Mintha’s long gown. The Chronicler, silent upon his stool, stared at it as though it were his own life rolling away from him. Ink from an overturned inkwell dribbled to the edge of the desk and began to drip into his lap.

  “What are you doing here?” Lady Mintha’s voice washed the room in frost.

  The Chronicler, brought back to himself, put out a hand to catch the dripping ink, then fumbled for a blotting cloth, hastening to wipe up the mess. Busy with this task, he replied in his dry, quiet voice, “Allow me to remind you, my lady, that this is my library.”

  “Your library?” Mintha picked up the pumice stone, hefting it in her palm. “Is that what you think, Chronicler? Is that what you’ve been led to believe all these years? That anything within Castle Gaheris is yours?”

  “Mother,” said Alistair, rising and taking the stone from her, half afraid of what she might do with it. “The Chronicler was here already, as he always is. You intruded upon his privacy, not he on yours. Have a little courtesy.”

  “Courtesy? To a scribbler?” Lady Mintha gave the Chronicler a final look, a look he met with equal coolness. In that moment they were surprisingly alike, this tall, proud lady of the castle and the humble, misshapen servant. Alistair could easily believe that anyone who stepped between them would either turn into a pillar of ice or burst into flame.

  He took his mother’s arm and pulled her gently away. “We’ll speak of this later,” he said. “I am in the middle of my reading lesson, in accordance with Uncle Ferox’s wishes.” He led her to the library door and opened it.

  And found Leta standing there.

  Mintha and her son stared down at her, and she stared down at their feet. A long, silent moment hung between them, full of too many questions. How much had she heard? How long had she stood there?

  Then Mintha exclaimed, “Gracious, child!” putting a hand to her heart. She masked her scowl behind a quick smile and stepped quickly out into the hall, drawing her son behind her. “You did give us quite a turn! What are you doing in this lonely quarter?”

  Leta, still without looking, opened her mouth but said nothing. So Mintha continued to fill the silence. “Are you here to meet this handsome son of mine, perhaps?” She pinched Alistair’s cheek winsomely and laughed. “Has he quite charmed you yet?”

  “Oh no!” Lady Leta protested quickly. She glanced up at Alistair and turned a remarkable shade of red. “I wouldn’t . . . I mean, Lord Alistair and I . . . I mean, I would never dream of—”

  “Tut, don’t rattle on so,” said Mintha, her voice less bright than a
moment before. “I’ll leave the two of you to your little tryst, and no harm done.” She began to move on, leaving a terrified Leta trembling before Alistair, who stood with his arms crossed, trying not to look at her.

  Mintha paused before she had gone many paces and looked around. “Leta, my dear, it just came to me: Are you come here to have the Chronicler write a letter to your father?”

  Leta blinked. Then, as though ashamed that she had not had the idea herself, shook her head.

  “Well, if you do,” Mintha continued, her eyes shrewdly fixed upon the girl, “try not to mention my dear brother’s health, will you, my pet? I think it best if your lordly father heard the news from Gaheris House first. All in due time, you understand.”

  “Earl Ferox is ill?” Leta asked.

  Her voice was so full of innocent concern, one could almost believe she could be so ignorant. Mintha smiled grimly. “All in due time. There’s a sweetness. You keep your letters full of wedding details. Tell your dear mother all about your new gown, yes?”

  With that, Mintha chucked Leta under the chin, wrinkled her nose as though to a baby, and moved on down the hall, her heavy skirts dragging on the stones behind her.

  Leta stood very still, her jaw clenched. If Alistair had not known better, he would have thought she was barely suppressing a boiling anger. But Leta lacked the passion for real anger, he felt certain. It was probably nothing more than timidity and nerves.

  When at last she glanced up at him, she could not hold his gaze. “I’m sorry, my lord Alistair,” she said in her small voice. “Am I interrupting your lesson?”

  Alistair shook his head. “I believe I am through with reading for the day.” He sighed then and asked with resignation, “Were you looking for me?”

  “No!” she said, perhaps too hastily. Her small hands squeezed into fists at her sides, and he thought for a moment that she would say more. But in the end, she was silent.

  He sighed again. “In that case, would you mind very much if I excused myself?”