The Moon Witch Read online

  The Moon Witch

  The Fyne Witches, Book Two

  Linda Winstead Jones

  Contents

  The Fyne Curse

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Star Witch

  About the Author

  Also by Linda Winstead Jones

  Copyright © 2005, 2016 by Linda Winstead Jones

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Cover Design by Elizabeth Wallace

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  Created with Vellum

  The Fyne Curse

  For more than three hundred years, the Fyne witches lived under the cloud of the curse that robbed them of any chance at true love. The men they dared to love either died before the age of thirty, or else woke one morning to see something repulsive in the woman they had come to call their own. Death or desertion always followed love, for those descendants of the Fyne witch who’d rejected the affections of a powerful wizard. Still the line survived, as the women of the Fyne House either braved the curse or settled for a loveless match, in order that the bloodline might endure.

  In the 366th Year of the Reign of the Beckyts, Sophie Fyne defied the curse, falling in love with the rebel soldier Kane Varden and giving him a daughter. She opposed not only the curse, but the command of Emperor Sebestyen, the ruler of Columbyana, who wished to use Sophie for revenge. In facing the emperor, she brought his most feared prophecy down upon him.

  Seventeen years earlier, the wizard Thayne foretold that the touch of the sun on Sebestyen’s face would signal the end of his rule and his life. With her newly found powers, Sophie called the sun into the Imperial Palace.

  In the autumn of the 366th Year of the Reign of the Beckyts, Sophie and her rebel married. She carried their second child within her—a daughter who magnified her powers a hundredfold—as they escaped from the Imperial Palace and joined the rebel army intent on displacing Sebestyen from the throne.

  And Kane turned twenty-nine.

  On Fyne Mountain, the other Fyne witches, Juliet and Isadora, await news of their sister, unaware that Sebestyen has decided to harness their power for himself.

  Chapter One

  Fyne Mountain

  * * *

  Juliet squirmed in her bed, awake long past the hour when she normally fell asleep. The back of her neck prickled. She reached beneath her loose braid and rubbed vigorously, but still the sensation did not entirely subside. Something was wrong; she just couldn’t determine exactly what that something was.

  For the past three days she’d been unusually restless, pacing when she should be sitting, and snapping at Isadora over the smallest disagreements. That just wasn’t like her. For the past three nights when she’d gone to bed, she’d tossed and turned for a long while, unable to get comfortable. When sleep did come, it was filled with vivid and odd dreams she could not decipher. In some of the dreams there was heat and blood. Her heart pounded hard and fast, and a sea of faces swarmed too closely around her. She could never tell when or where she was, and when she woke, she remembered none of the faces.

  In addition to the dreams that made no sense, she’d been having an old nightmare for the past two weeks. It had been months since she’d had that dream from which she always woke in a cold sweat, the nightmare that had made her swear years ago that she would never lie with a man.

  Her psychic ability was all but useless where her own life was concerned. Juliet could see the past and the future of a complete stranger, but she never knew what tomorrow would bring for her. She hadn’t even been able to find her favorite hair clip when it had come up missing. Still, she knew in her heart that the nightmare was more than a fear. It was a premonition. And for the past fourteen nights, she had suffered with that nightmare every night.

  The dream always started pleasantly enough. The sensation of being taken into a man’s embrace was nice. That closeness warmed her to the depths of her soul and caused her insides to do strange things. At the pit of her being she burned and fluttered, and in the shelter of the surprisingly strong arms she realized that there was something wonderful waiting for her and the man who held her.

  But that realization of something good to come soon changed, and pain came without warning. It came with agony and blood. The arms that had held her so tenderly changed; a man held her down so that she could not move, and claws tore her flesh. She always saw the claws and knew what was coming, but she couldn’t scream, not even as they ripped into her body.

  Lying in bed, afraid of the nightmare that might or might not come again tonight, Juliet turned her thoughts to another subject of concern: her younger sister. Her ability to see what would come for her sisters was often no more clear than the window into her own life, but she knew in her heart that Sophie was safe. She didn’t know where Sophie and her daughter Ariana slept on this night, but she knew without doubt that no danger threatened them at the moment.

  The premonition that Sophie would never see this cabin again remained strong. Perhaps the youngest Fyne sister had still not forgiven her elder sisters for interfering where they should not, and perhaps she never would. But she was not in danger. No, Sophie was not the reason for this wave of anxiety that disturbed the night.

  Juliet threw back the covers, lit the candle at her bedside, and walked to the window. On this cloudless night, a softly shining half-moon added a touch of light to the land surrounding her mountainside home. She lifted the lace curtain to peer outside. Her fingers brushed against the icy glass, and her toes quickly grew cold. Months had passed since Sophie’s departure. It had been warm when Sophie and her rebel had ridden away in search of their daughter. Now the leaves on the trees beyond the barn had turned to vibrant reds and golds, with a few bright blue leaves mixed amongst them. Some of those leaves had died and fallen to the ground. When the sun shone down, the days were comfortable enough, with just a touch of a chill in the air. But the nights were cold as winter approached, time passing normally even though Juliet was certain nothing would ever be normal again.

  Her neck prickled, and she reached around to once again rub at the odd warning sign. It was downright frustrating to have a gift that could be used to help others, but was all but useless where her own life was concerned. Not that she wanted to know every detail of what the future held for her, of course, but still...when she had strange dreams she could not remember well, and that unsettling nightmare plagued her, and this odd sensation at the back of her neck disturbed her sleep, she did wish she could see a glimpse.

  Of course, it was possible such a glimpse would not soothe her at all, but would only make matters worse.

  Juliet’s head snapped around sharply, drawn to the autumn trees. It was too dark in the mountain forest for her to see anything at all, and yet she was almost certain that something out there moved. Something that did not belong.

  A man.

  Juliet let the curtain drop and flutter into place, then turned and ran on bare feet to the hallway. “Isadora!” she shouted. Outside the cabin she heard the rustle of boots in the dirt and the whisper of male voices
that seemed to assault her from all sides. The footsteps and the whispers sounded in her head, not her ears, and yet they were real. Very, very real.

  Isadora, rumpled with sleep and wearing a plain white nightgown, stumbled into the hallway still more asleep than awake. “What’s wrong?” she asked, a touch of annoyance in her voice. She likely suspected that a startling vision of some sort, or perhaps a frightening dream, had disturbed her gentler sister.

  “Men,” Juliet said. “They’re coming.”

  Isadora came instantly awake.

  Juliet halted while she was still several feet away from her sister, her heart heavy with the knowledge that her understanding of the warning had come too late. “They’re here.”

  The front door splintered open with a resounding crack, windows throughout the house shattered, and men dressed in green invaded the Fyne home in a thundering loud swarm. They shouted threatening words and screamed ear-splitting war cries, and carried torches that lit their way and swords that gleamed in the firelight.

  There were so many of them. Five, ten...twenty. And they were dressed the same, with only a few minor variations here and there. Emerald green trousers and tunics, some plain, some with the markings of their rank or awards for services rendered to the emperor. Soldiers. The men who burst into the Fyne cabin through the front door and the windows surrounded the sisters almost instantly after breaking into the cabin.

  Isadora spun and reached for the nearest soldier, surprising the man who wielded his sword in a threatening manner and gripped a dagger with a slim blade as if he were ready to make use of it. The eldest Fyne sister stretched forward sharply, her hand graceful but quick, and laid two fingers over the man’s heart.

  “Ishna foreg. Ackla foresh,” Isadora whispered in a gruff voice, the deadly spell spoken in the ancient tongue of the wizards that Lucinda Fyne had taught her daughters. The soldier’s reaction was immediate. He dropped his weapons, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he sank to the floor. Dead.

  Isadora wasted no time in snatching up the man’s sword. She swung it wildly, and those soldiers closest to her stepped quickly back. “Get out” she said, “before I stop the heart of every man in this room the way I stopped this pig’s small heart.”

  For a moment all was still in the hallway and beyond. The soldiers were afraid of Isadora, and with good reason.

  Behind her, Juliet heard the steady clip of boot heels on the floor. Soldiers stepped aside as the new arrival made his way to the hallway, but she did not turn to look. Her eyes were riveted to Isadora and the soldiers around her. Someone whispered to the man who continued to move forward, ordering him to stop before the dark witch killed every man in the room with a word.

  But he did not stop. Juliet turned her head in time to see the burly man brush past the soldiers at the end of the hallway. His head was turned, the features lost in deep shadows away from the firelight cast by blazing torches.

  “If the dark witch could kill us all with a word, why aren’t we dead yet?” he asked.

  “I don’t care to deal with the cleaning that would come after,” Isadora answered sharply. “Take your man, be grateful there is only one dead, and go.”

  The man stopped directly behind Juliet. When she made a move to join Isadora, he grabbed her upper arm and held on tight. Memories of the night Ariana had been kidnapped flashed through Juliet’s mind, so clearly it was almost as if that night were happening again now.

  “I don’t believe it.” He drew a knife from the scabbard at his waist as he pulled Juliet up against his large, solid body. One swift move and the tip of the knife touched her throat. She could not so much as breathe without feeling the sharpness of the blade. “Drop the sword, or I kill her.”

  “You’ll kill us anyway,” Isadora argued. She tightened her grip on the sword’s hilt, even though a momentary flash of fear in her eyes gave away her uncertainty. “I plan to take a few of you with me.”

  The man who held Juliet glanced down at the dead soldier. “We’re not here to kill you, though as always I will do what I must.”

  For years Isadora’s protective spell had kept men like this away from the mountain. There had been no violence here, not until the night Ariana had been kidnapped. Juliet shuddered. That tingling began at the back of her neck again. This time it ran down her spine. That gruff voice. The rough hands. She turned her head slightly, feeling the increased pressure of the blade, and looked into the face of the man who held her.

  It was him—the man who had kidnapped her infant niece.

  “You!”

  The large, decidedly ugly man smiled. “The name’s Bors, and yes, I have been here before, as I’m sure you remember. How’s your head, Red?”

  On his last visit to this cabin he had rendered her unconscious with a blow to the head. She never would’ve allowed him to take Ariana otherwise.

  “Do you plan to kidnap us, too?”

  “Yes. The Emperor Sebestyen requests the pleasure of your company.”

  In a rage Isadora stepped forward, her sword pointed directly at the man who held Juliet. The rash move was a costly one. While her attention was on Bors, a soldier to the rear moved bravely forward and raised his sword. Juliet cried out, but it was too late. The young soldier lifted the sword high, brought it down swiftly, and slammed the heavy hilt into Isadora’s head. She crumpled to the floor beside the man she’d killed.

  The soldiers who had been frightened of Isadora moments earlier were not at all afraid of the unconscious woman on the floor. Isadora didn’t look particularly frightening in her nightgown, with a dark braid falling down her back and her hands limp. One of the soldiers, a friend of the fallen man perhaps, moved forward and shifted his sword so that the sharp tip touched the back of Isadora’s neck. His intention was to kill, unlike the soldier who had hit Isadora on the head to stop her.

  Bors growled and then barked. “The witch is to be delivered to the emperor alive, as ordered.”

  “She has murdered an emperor’s man,” the soldier argued. After a moment, he grudgingly shifted the threatening blade to one side.

  Again all was still for a moment, and then a soldier who had been standing well behind Isadora stepped forward. “There are other ways to make the women pay.” His observation was met with titters of laughter and a few nodding heads. The man who had spoken winked at Juliet and grabbed his crotch in a vile manner.

  “I suppose you can do with them as you wish,” Bors said casually.

  A chill ran up and down Juliet’s spine. Was this why the nightmare had returned? Had it been yet another warning deciphered too late? She had always feared joining with a man, thanks to the dream, and had shunned all thoughts of marriage for that reason. Her sisters thought her refusal to marry was her answer to the curse which promised that the women of the Fyne House would never know a true and lasting love. She had heard of too many Fyne women burying the men they loved before their time, and she had seen Isadora suffer, thanks to the curse. Isadora had buried her beloved husband before his thirtieth birthday, as many of their ancestors before them had done.

  In truth there was much more to Juliet’s decision to remain chaste.

  Pain, and blood, and the inability to move...

  Some of the men were smiling, but not all were amused or pleased by the crude soldier’s suggestion. Perhaps the soldiers who had invaded the cabin weren’t all evil. Juliet sensed that some were doing what they considered to be their duty by serving the emperor, while only a few truly enjoyed hurting people.

  Juliet attempted to pull forward as the young soldier who had suggested making the women pay made a move toward Isadora, who still lay unconscious on the floor.

  “However...” Bors began. Again, he commanded the soldiers’ full attention as he yanked Juliet back into place. “I wouldn’t touch that one.” He nodded toward Isadora. “She killed Hynd with a few words, and from what I hear of her, it might not be wise to touch her. The villagers at the foot of the mountain are all afraid of that one.
”

  The soldier gave Bors’s words serious consideration. “What about the redhead? She hasn’t hurt anyone. She seems right meek, in fact. I don’t think she’d put up much of a fight. Not for long, in any case.”

  Bors shrugged, as if he didn’t care.

  Juliet lifted her chin and gathered every ounce of strength she had locked inside her. “I assume the emperor asked for us because he has some use for the powers we possess.”

  “I assume,” Bors answered. “He does not confide in me, you understand. I was hired for this job because I’ve been here before and this cabin is unusually hard to find.”

  “I doubt the emperor would send you so far to fetch two women who could not help him in some way. The journey from Arthes to Fyne Mountain is a long and not entirely easy one.”

  “True enough.”

  Juliet didn’t lie. Normally. But the idea of these men touching her caused a fear well beyond any she had ever known. “If a man abuses me, I will lose my gift of sight.” It was a common notion that seers had to remain virginal, and the notion might even be true in some cases. It might even be true in her own case, but she did not think so. Her grandmother, the first Ariana Fyne, had had the gift of sight herself, and her psychic ability had survived not only years of an unhappy but true marriage with a man she had never loved, but the birth of Lucinda Fyne, her only daughter.

  With the touch of a hand and a bit of concentration, Juliet could see into a person’s mind, into their future, into their past. Even now, with all that was happening around her, she could see into the mind of her captor. Bors was a greedy man, but did not see himself as such. He thought himself ambitious, clever, and powerful. His death would be ugly and painful and it would come soon, but it would not come today. He loved his wife and his children, in his own selfish way, but did not treat them well. He thought love a weakness, and so he denied it.