CHAPTER TWO

Kate opened her eyes as the blinding light faded, trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened. The last thing she remembered, she’d been fighting her way through to an image of Siobhan’s fountain, plunging her blade into the ball of energy that had bound her to the witch as an apprentice. She’d severed the link. She’d won.

Now, it seemed that she was out in the open air, with no sign of Haxa’s cottage or the caves that lay behind it. It looked only a little like the parts of Ishjemme’s landscape that she had seen, but the flat meadows and bursts of woodland could have been there. Kate hoped so. The alternative was that the magic had transported her to some corner of the world she didn’t know.

In spite of the strangeness of being in a place she didn’t know, Kate felt free for the first time in a long time. She’d done it. She’d fought through everything that Siobhan, and her own mind, had put in the way, and she’d broken from the witch’s grasp. Next to that, finding her way back to Ishjemme’s castle seemed like an easy thing.

Kate picked a direction at random and set off, walking with steady steps.

She marched along, trying to think of what she would do with her newfound freedom. She would protect Sophia, obviously. That part went without saying. She would help to bring up her little niece or nephew when they arrived. Perhaps she would be able to send for Will, although with the war that might be difficult. And she would find their parents. Yes, that seemed like a good thing to do. Sophia wasn’t going to be able to wander the world looking for them as her pregnancy progressed, but Kate could.

“First, I have to find where I am,” she said. She looked around, but there were still no landmarks that she recognized. There was, however, a woman working a little ways away in a field, bent over a rake as she scraped away weeds. Perhaps she would be able to help.

“Hello!” Kate called out.

The woman looked up. She was old, her face lined with many seasons out there working. To her, Kate probably looked like some kind of bandit or thief, armed as she was. Even so, she smiled as Kate approached. People were friendly in Ishjemme.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “Will you give me your name?”

“I’m Kate.” And, because that didn’t seem enough, because she could claim it now, “Kate Danse, daughter of Alfred and Christina Danse.”

“A good name,” the woman said. “What brings you out here?”

“I… don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I’m a bit lost. I was hoping you could help me to find my way.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “It is an honor that you have put your path into my hands. You are doing that, aren’t you?”

That seemed an odd way to put it, but Kate didn’t know where they were. Perhaps it was just how people spoke here.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “I’m trying to find my way back to Ishjemme.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “I know ways everywhere. Still, I feel that one turn deserves another.” She hefted the rake. “I don’t have much strength left these days. Will you give me your strength, Kate?”

If that was what it took to get back, Kate would work on a dozen fields. It couldn’t be any harder than the tasks set in the House of the Unclaimed, or the more enjoyable work at Thomas’s forge.

“Yes,” Kate said, holding out her hand for the rake.

The other woman laughed and stepped back, pulling at the cloak she wore. It came away, and as it did so, everything about her seemed to shift. Siobhan stood there in front of her, and now the landscape around them changed, shifting to something far too familiar.

She was still in the dream space of the ritual.

Kate flung herself forward, knowing that her only chance lay in killing Siobhan now, but the woman of the fountain was faster. She flung her cloak, and somehow it became a bubble of raw power, whose walls held Kate as tightly as any prison cell.

“You can’t do this,” Kate yelled. “You have no power over me anymore!”

“I had no power,” Siobhan said. “But you have just given me your path, your name, and your strength. Here, in this place, those things mean something.”

Kate slammed her fist against the wall of the bubble. It held.

“You wouldn’t want to weaken that bubble, Kate dear,” Siobhan said. “You’re a long way from the silver path now.”

“You won’t force me to be your apprentice again,” Kate said. “You won’t force me to kill for you.”

“Oh, we’re past that,” Siobhan said. “Had I known that you would cause such trouble, I would never have made you my apprentice in the first place, but some things can’t be foreseen, even by me.”

“If I’m such trouble, why not let me go?” Kate tried. Even as she said it, she knew it wouldn’t work like that. Pride would compel Siobhan to more, even if nothing else did.

“Let you go?” Siobhan said. “Do you know what you did, when you plunged a blade forged with my own runes into my fountain? When you carved apart our link, with no care for the consequences?”

“You didn’t give me a choice,” Kate said. “You – ”

“You destroyed the heart of my power,” Siobhan said. “So much of it, wiped out in an instant. I barely had the strength to hold to this. But I am not without knowledge, not without ways to survive.”

She gestured, and the scene beyond the bubble shimmered. Now Kate recognized the interior of Haxa’s cottage, carved on every surface with runes and figures. The rune witch sat on a chair, watching over Kate’s still form. She’d obviously dragged or carried it up from the ritual space deeper in the caves.

“My fountain sustained me,” Siobhan said. “Now I need a vessel to do the same. And there happens to be a conveniently empty one.”

“No!” Kate shouted, slamming her hand against the bubble again.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Siobhan said. “I won’t be there long. Just long enough to kill your sister, I think.”

Kate went cold at the thought of that. “Why? Why do you want Sophia dead? Just to hurt me? Kill me instead. Please.”

Siobhan considered her. “You really would give your life for her, wouldn’t you? You’d kill for her. You’d die for her. And now none of that is enough.”

“Please, Siobhan, I’m begging you!” Kate called out.

“If you didn’t want this, you should have done as I required,” Siobhan said. “With your help, I could have set things on a path where my home would have been safe forever. Where I would have had power. Now, you have taken that away, and I need to live.”

Kate still didn’t see why that meant Sophia had to die.

“Live in my body then,” she said. “But don’t hurt Sophia. You’ve no reason to.”

“I’ve every reason,” Siobhan said. “You think masquerading as the younger sister of a ruler is enough? You think dying in a single human lifetime is enough? Your sister carries a child. A child who will rule. I will shape it as an unborn thing. I will kill her and rip the child clear. I will take it and grow with it. I will become all I need to be.”

“No,” Kate said as she realized the full horror of it. “No.”

Siobhan laughed, and there was cruelty in it. “They will kill your body when I kill Sophia,” she said. “And you will be left here, between worlds. I hope you enjoy your freedom from me, apprentice.”

She murmured words and it seemed that she faded. The image of Haxa’s cottage didn’t, though, and Kate found herself screaming as she saw her own body take a breath.

“Haxa, no, it isn’t me!” she yelled, and then tried to send the same message with her power. Nothing happened.

On the other side of that slender divide, though, plenty happened. Siobhan gasped with her lungs, opened her eyes, and sat up with Kate’s body.

“Easy, Kate,” Haxa said, not rising. “You’ve had a long ordeal.”

Kate watched her body feel around itself unsteadily, as if trying to work out where it was. To Haxa, it must have looked as though Kate was still disoriented by her experience, but Kate could see that Siobhan was testing out her limbs, working out what they could and couldn’t do.

She finally stood, rising unsteadily. Her first step had her staggering, but her second was more confident. She drew Kate’s sword, swishing it through the air as if testing the balance. Haxa looked a little worried at that, but didn’t back away. Probably she thought it was the kind of thing Kate might do to test her balance and coordination.

“Do you know where you are?” Haxa asked.

Siobhan stared over at her using Kate’s eyes. “Yes, I know.”

“And you know who I am?”

“You are the one who calls herself Haxa to try to hide her name. You are the keeper of runes, and were no foe of mine until you decided to help my apprentice.”

From where she stood trapped, Kate saw Haxa’s expression shift to one of horror.

“You aren’t Kate.”

“No,” Siobhan said, “I’m not.”

She moved then, with all the speed and power of Kate’s body, lunging with the light sword so that it was barely more than a flicker as it lanced into Haxa’s chest. It protruded from the other side, transfixing her.

“The problem with names,” Siobhan said, “is that they only work when you have breath to use them. You shouldn’t have stood against me, rune witch.”

She let Haxa fall, and then looked up, as if knowing where Kate’s vantage point lay.

“She died because of you. Sophia will die because of you. Her child, and this kingdom, will be mine because of you. I want you to think about that, Kate. Think about it when the bubble fades and your fears come for you.”

She waved a hand, and the image faded. Kate threw herself at the bubble, trying to get to her, trying to get out of there and find a way to stop Siobhan.

She paused as things around her shifted, becoming a kind of gray, misty landscape now that Siobhan wasn’t shaping it to fool her. There was a faint glimmer of silver in the distance that might have been the safe path, but it was so far away it might as well not have been there.

Figures started to come from the mist. Kate recognized the faces of people she’d killed: nuns and soldiers, Lord Cranston’s training master and the Master of Crows’ men. She knew they were just images rather than ghosts, but that did nothing to reduce the fear that threaded through her, making her hand shake and the sword she carried seem useless.

Gertrude Illiard was there again, holding a pillow.

“I’m going to be first,” she promised. “I’m going to smother you as you smothered me, but you won’t die. Not here. No matter what we do to you, you won’t die, even if you beg for it.”

Kate looked around at them, and each of them held some kind of implement, whether it was a knife or a whip, a sword or a strangling rope. Each of them seemed to hunger with the need to hurt her, and Kate knew that they would fall upon her without mercy as soon as they could.

She could see the shield fading now, becoming more translucent. Kate gripped her sword tighter and braced herself for what was going to come.