A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (37 page)

But there was nothing.

Nothing but the silent scream in my head and the blinding whiteness of the blade as it flashed towards my heart.

Then something cold and wet crashed into me, flinging me sideways so that my head smashed against a stone and the whole night exploded in a blast of light and pain.

For a minute I was too blinded to see what had happened. I lay on the sand, pain stabbing through my head, my eyes refusing to focus. Everything was a blur, but I could feel hands clutching at me – cold hands – wet, salty hair across my face, and there was the sound of breathing, hard and harsh against my ear and a cry of pain.

It was Seth – Seth lying across me, salt-wet from the sea, his breath tearing white in the darkness, his body shielding mine from Marcus’ knife.

He hauled himself to his knees and then turned to Marcus.

They stood facing each other in the moonlight, Marcus naked, Seth stripped to the waist, both of them bloodied and battered and exhausted. There was a long slash across Seth’s back where he’d taken the blow Marcus meant for me. Blood dripped to the sand, slow and dark.

‘Go home,’ Seth said. His voice was cracked with anger and exhaustion.

Marcus only laughed. He threw back his head and laughed, his throat bared to the moon, the knife slack in his hand. Then he looked at me.

‘Things are pretty bleak, Anna, when you have to rely on an outwith for protection.’

He raised his knife hand high. But before he could take a step towards me, Seth grabbed him, wrestling him to the ground with a thump that shook the rocks around us.

For a long, horrible while they struggled, skin on skin, fingers tearing at each other, panting breaths and the smack of fist against muscle and bone. The knife flashed between them, catching the moonlight as they struggled.

Then suddenly Seth gave a gasp and sprawled backwards on to the sand. He pulled himself to his feet, his legs shaking with the effort, and stood, looking down at himself, at his naked chest.

At the knife that stuck out of his side, pushed hilt-deep beneath his ribs.

Then he looked at me. I tried to say something – but there were no words. My voice died in my throat as Marcus grabbed Seth’s shoulder and yanked, dragging the knife out, pulling, pulling, inch after inch, until it came free and Marcus staggered back. Seth made a sound like a strangled, gargling gasp and blood began to gush from the wound.

Marcus held him by the shoulder and he thrust again, this time in the centre of Seth’s belly, in and up and back out, with a squelching, grating suck.

‘A—’ Seth managed. His eyes were locked on mine.

He staggered, just one step, then he fell, twelve stone of muscle and bone and life crashing to the beach.

He lay, gasping, the blood pooling beneath him, and Marcus shoved the knife in one last time, ripping up through his ribcage, up to his heart.

Seth’s body gave one, last convulsive heave – and then lay still on the black sand at Marcus’ feet.

Fury and agony and grief exploded through me. From somewhere I found the strength to stagger forwards and I fell on my knees beside Seth, tears streaming down my face, falling on to his shoulders, into his hair. I kissed his cheeks and his lips and his forehead, the sobs ripping me up inside.

He reached out his fingers towards me.

And then his eyes left mine. He raised them, over my head, looking at something I couldn’t see. His lips parted – but no sound came out.

I raised my head, following his gaze. It was Marcus, standing over us both, a smile on his lips, Seth’s blood on his hands.

I reached for the knife.

It was stuck in Seth’s ribs, and I sobbed helplessly as I pulled it out, feeling the bone grate against steel and the blood spew out beneath my hand.

I knew the action might kill him, if Marcus hadn’t already done that. But I had nothing left to defend him with – no magic, no weapons of my own. It was the only weapon left.

I staggered to my feet and stood, facing Marcus.

‘Leave us alone.’

‘You stupid girl,’ he said softly. ‘Any power you ever had is in that jar over there.’ He nodded to the fragile glass flagon glowing on the beach, white as a second moon. ‘You think that knife gives you power? You don’t even know what you’ve lost.’

A coldness spread into my fingers, up my arms, through my body. It was a chilling, hopeless, horrendous cold. The worst cold ever. Worse than death.

‘
This
is power,’ Marcus whispered. ‘This is the only power that matters.’

My hands were suddenly locked to the hilt, but numb – so numb I couldn’t feel anything. I wanted to stab Marcus in the heart, watch him die. But instead, slowly – very slowly – the point of the blade turned in, towards me, as Marcus forced my hands inwards.

Seth made a sound at my feet, a gargling rattling sound.

The point bit and a red blossom began to spread across my chest.

I was shaking. In spite of the cold, there was sweat on my lip and on the palms of my hands. My fingers slipped on the hilt of the knife, as the point dug deeper … deeper … God, it hurt!

A whimper came out of my lips.

Marcus smiled.

I took a breath, feeling my abdomen press agonisingly against the tip of the knife. Every breath, I impaled myself a little more. The point burrowed into my skin while I fought against it, my fingers refusing to obey, but my own muscles driving the knife deeper and deeper into myself – compelled by Marcus’s magic and hate.

‘
This is the only power that matters
.’ Marcus stepped very close, his cheek next to mine, his hand over mine, ready to push the knife home if my hands faltered.

Was it true? Had I lost it – the only power that mattered in the world? What use was strength and honour and endurance against a power like this, a power that could force you to gut yourself while your friends watched, helpless, waiting for their own deaths.

While Seth died at my feet …

‘Give up, Anna,’ Marcus whispered in my ear, his breath a cold cloud of white, like a halo overhead. ‘Give up.’

My hands slipped on the knife.

I closed my eyes.

It was not true. It was
not
true. There
were
other powers that mattered.

I wrenched the knife-tip out of my stomach, feeling warmth flood through my limbs, and with my other hand I pushed Marcus away with all my strength.

His face was white, blank with shock. Then he crouched and leapt at me, like a crow crouching to leap into the air. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of his breath in my ear, snapping beak, scratching claws, hands wrestling for the knife, wrestling to turn it back into my gut, his strength against mine, his breath hot on my cheek.

I fought like I’d never fought before, fighting for my life, for Seth’s, for Emmaline and Abe – hands slippery with blood, face wet with tears and sweat. The knife flashed between us as our fingers slipped and clawed for control, first on the hilt, then the blade, then grabbing for each other’s wrists, trying somehow, anyhow, to get possession of the knife.

Somehow I found the hilt and hung on to it, but Marcus’ hands closed round my wrists, his grip painfully strong. He began to force my arms backwards, forcing the tip of the blade back towards my heart. I pushed against him with all my strength, but his grip was iron. The muscles on his arms stood out in the moonlight.

The knife-point bit into my skin and I knew this was it – I’d lost.

Then suddenly his hands, wet with blood, slipped from my wrists and he lost his grip. The blade flipped towards his gut.

I thrust, as hard as I could.

There was a sound like a scream – but worse. The worst scream you could imagine – high and harsh as a crow, keening as a man, with all the horror of death. And then it stopped.

Marcus staggered backwards, gasping. He looked up at me and then down at the hilt of the knife, buried fist-deep in his charred black wound.

He fell suddenly to his knees, then on to his side, convulsing in agony. Blood bubbled from his lips and a black stream, like hot tar, welled from the knife wound. His mouth tried to form words – but only blood came out. His head lolled to one side and darkness bubbled out from his eyes and mouth, covering his face and throat in a slick black shroud. It welled unstoppably, spilling out over his stomach and chest, until his whole body was covered, melting, consuming itself and soaking into the black sand.

At last there was nothing left – just a handful of feathers, drowning in tar.

I stood, looking down at my hands, soaked in blood and streaked with black to the wrist, and I tried to feel something for him. I’d murdered my cousin. I’d murdered my own cousin, stabbed him to death. I ought to feel something: guilt, horror. I
wanted
to feel something, even if it was only the sick, fierce delight of victory.

But any other feelings lay buried beneath a huge suffocating weight of anguish.

Seth was dead.

H
e lay at my feet. His face was completely untouched, his eyes wide and open, their calm grey expression unchanged by death. He was looking up at me and his lips seemed to smile, as if to say,
It’s all right. Everything’s all right
.

But it was not. Nothing could ever be right again. Seth was dead – his body broken, his blood spilled out all over the sand.

I don’t know how long I stood, watching over his still, unmoving body. But I became aware after a while that Emmaline and Abe were there, had somehow dragged themselves down the cliff-face and were standing behind me.

‘Anna …’ Abe put his hands on my shoulders. ‘For God’s sake, don’t look. You can’t do anything for him now.’

He tried to pull me away, tried to turn my face away from the carnage, tried to take me in his arms. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away from Seth’s face. His eyes.

It’ll be all right.

How could it be? I’d done this to him – from the first moment I laid eyes on him. In that moment I’d reached into his life and ripped out his heart, split him in two, just as surely as Marcus had. I’d brought him here, dragged him here in spite of his will.

I’d brought him to his death.

And there was nothing I could do. No spells left to cast. The emptiness inside me screamed.

I had no magic left.

Except …

The jar on the sand glowed white, shimmering like liquid pearl.

I pulled myself out of Abe’s grip and took a faltering step.

‘Anna …’ Abe said. Then, as I bent towards the jar, ‘Wait, what are you doing?’

I began to struggle with the lid.

‘What are you
doing
?’ Abe asked, a sudden fear in his voice. Then, as I carried on grappling with the lid, ‘No! Don’t do this. Wait, please wait. Maybe, if we take Seth’s body home—’

‘You were the one who told me I had to choose.’

‘Not like this! How can you give this up? I won’t let you! I won’t let you do this to yourself. Em, for God’s sake, say something! She’s going to …’ He choked, unable to finish.

‘Anna!’ Em lifted her head, her face white and blotched. ‘Don’t do this – don’t destroy yourself like this! It won’t work!’

‘You don’t know that.’ The lid slipped in my stupid, weak fingers. I couldn’t get it undone. ‘It might work.’

‘You can’t give up your whole future for a chance!’

‘I have to choose.’

‘You don’t!’ Abe cried. He stood in front of me, the wind tearing at his hair, his black eyes full of agony. ‘I didn’t mean like this – not like this. I told you once, you could have both. Love
and
magic – you could have both. For God’s sake …’ His voice broke. ‘
I
could give you both. Please, please don’t do this.’

‘Will you help me open the jar?’ I held it out to him and he shook his head, tears running down his cheeks.

‘No!’ His voice was cracked. ‘I won’t do this to you – I won’t help you destroy your life like this. You’re throwing your magic away, for God’s sake. He’s an outwith! His body will reject it – shut down. This isn’t going to
work
.’

‘Em?’ I held it out to her. ‘Em,
please
.’

‘No.’ She looked sick with fear. ‘Please, no – you can’t ask me.
Please
don’t do this.’

‘Anna …’ Abe held me in his arms, his face white, his black eyes reflecting the jar’s light. The agony in his voice tore at my heart. ‘Please, I’m begging you. Give me a
chance
.’

‘I love you.’ I touched his cheek, where the tears lay wet and cold against his skin. ‘I’ll always love you. But Seth …’ I swiped at my eyes with my free hand and took a shuddering breath. ‘Seth never asked me to choose. Seth loved me no matter what – with magic or without.’

‘Are you sure?’ Abe said. He looked sick and I knew suddenly what he was about to say, but he forced himself on, forced himself to spell it out. ‘Are you
sure
he did? What if you give up your magic, only to find it’s gone – his love is gone?’

‘I—’

‘I love you
now
,’ he said. ‘For real. No spells. No illusions.’

My hands trembled, the magic in the jar rippling and lapping at the glass. My heart hurt inside me.

‘I will
always
love you,’ Abe said.

I looked up at him. His face was shadowed and I remembered the feel of his hands, the softness of his lips, the combination of strength and gentleness and magic.

‘Would you?’ I asked. My voice shook. ‘Could you love me without magic?’

His lips opened – and he didn’t speak. Behind me I heard Em’s stifled sob.

I leaned forwards and I kissed his lips, very gently.

‘I have to choose,’ I said. ‘But you don’t – you
can
have both. But not with me.’

I picked up a stone.

‘No,’ Abe said.

I held the jar out, over Seth’s body, and smashed the stone into the glass.

‘
No!
’

But it was too late.

The crack spread across the surface of the glass more swiftly than my eye could follow – and then the whole jar exploded in my hands, glass and magic raining down in a shower of light, spattering Seth’s body in a fiery white blaze that lit up the beach and the black cliffs as if it were dawn.