Blood of Mystery (39 page)

Aryn stopped, suddenly conscious that Mirda was gazing at her. She felt her cheeks flush. Who on Eldh was she to prattle on like this, as if she knew anything at all? She was not the teacher here; Mirda was. “Forgive me, sister. I did not mean to presume so much. Please, would you tell me what is to be my lesson this night?”

“That was your lesson, sister,” Mirda said, her voice soft. “And you have learned it well.” She drew closer, cloak rustling. Somewhere in the night above bats winged past. “And now I think you are ready to know.”

Aryn could only stare. “Ready to know what?”

“A truth few of your sisters know. It is a truth few of them are ready to know, as you are, or even capable of understanding, as you can.”

Somehow Aryn knew what she was about to hear would change her forever.

“You know the prophecies,” Mirda went on, “the ones spoken at the High Coven. The prophecies tell how the Warriors of Vathris will fight the Final Battle, and how they will lose that battle. Because of their actions, the one called Runebreaker will succeed in shattering Eldh.”

Aryn could only nod.

“The prophecies are true. They were spoken long ago by the wisest and most powerful of those witches who possessed the Sight, and they will come to pass. However, there are other prophecies they made, prophecies that were silenced even as the wise ones uttered them, and in the centuries since only a scant few have ever heard them.”

Aryn found her voice. “But why? Why would their prophecies be ignored, even concealed?”

“Because the Witches did not care for them. And people have a powerful ability to deny or ignore that which does not fit their existing views. But these second prophecies are every bit as true as the first. And they tell us that the Runebreaker will save Eldh.”

Aryn felt dizzy; the stars seemed to spin overhead. How could this be? This went against everything she had learned since her initiation into the Witches. Runebreaker was going to shatter Eldh. Mirda herself said the prophecies were true.

“I don’t understand,” Aryn said, choking out the words. “How can the Runebreaker destroy Eldh and save it at the same time? How can both prophecies be true?”

Mirda spread her hands. “Those of us who know of both prophecies would give much to understand the answer to that question. We only know that each of these things is true. Runebreaker will be the end of Eldh. And he is its only hope.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“Is it?” Mirda glanced at the statue of Vathris. “And what did you tell me just moments ago, sister?”

And in a beam of understanding as clear and brilliant as the moonlight, Aryn understood. She reached out, touching the frigid water that poured out of the bull’s neck like blood.

“From death comes life,” she whispered.

45.

Aryn woke with the crimson fires of dawn and knew that everything in her world was different.

Her teeth chattered as she dressed quickly in a woolen gown; the servants had not yet come in to stir up the fire. Normally she would have stayed in bed until they did, but she couldn’t sleep any longer, not that day, not knowing what she did.

Runebreaker will be the end of Eldh. And he is its only
hope....

Mirda’s words seemed impossible; they defied everything Aryn had learned in the last year. All the same, Aryn could feel the truth of it in her heart. Travis Wilder was the Runebreaker foretold by prophecy, and three times she had seen him do everything in his power to save Eldh. She would not believe, could not believe, that he would harm the world.

But he will destroy Eldh, Aryn. You don’t possess the Sight,
not like Lirith, but the prophecies can’t be wrong. And even the
dragon said it would come to pass.

Last night, lying in her bed and far too excited to sleep, she had gone back over all of their journeys in her mind. And it was only then she realized she had heard words similar to Mirda’s once before.

Go. Runebreaker! Go destroy the world by saving it!

The ancient dragon Sfithrisir had spoken those words to Travis in the forgotten valley in the Dawning Fells. The dragon’s words made it sound like Travis might try to save Eldh only to destroy it despite good intent. However, according to Falken, while dragons always told the truth, that truth was carefully honed to cut like a knife.

So what was the real truth in the dragon’s words? Aryn knew it had to be there, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Despite her talk with Mirda the night before, it was all so hard to comprehend. How could shattering the world save it?

She didn’t know, not yet. But she was going to find out. And when she saw Travis Wilder again, if she saw him again, she was going to tell him everything.

But won’t that go against the Pattern?

She had addressed the question to Mirda as they walked from the garden, back into the castle.

On the surface it might seem so. The threads that aligned
themselves with the call to destroy Runebreaker were many,
and they were woven tightly together. But remember, the
Pattern was changed at the last moment, and you were part of
what changed it. Your thread, your voice, is part of what now
binds the Witches. Look deep inside yourself, sister, and you’ll
find the answer to your question there.

Aryn wasn’t certain it was so easy. She had tried looking inside herself, and she hadn’t seen anything at all, except maybe what she had had for supper and a whole bucketful of worries and questions wriggling like eels. All the same, considering the idea of talking to Travis didn’t fill her with the same nausea that avoiding writing the missive to Ivalaine had caused.

Aryn dashed out the door of her chamber just as a startled serving maid was opening the door. The woman dropped the bundle of sticks she had brought to build up the fire.

“Sorry!” Aryn called back over her shoulder. “But I won’t be needing a fire this morning anyway.”

Before the serving maid could so much as sputter, “Yes, my lady!” Aryn was racing down the corridor. It was still early. However, she couldn’t wait any longer. There was so much she wanted to ask Mirda; she had to hope the elder witch was already awake.

She was nearly to Queen Ivalaine’s chamber when she heard a voice echoing from up ahead. The sound drifted through an open archway that led to a small antechamber. Something about the voice brought Aryn up short. It belonged to a woman, and it sounded as if she was having an argument. Yet whoever it was she was arguing with must have been speaking in a hushed whisper, for Aryn could only hear the woman herself. Aryn knew she should keep moving; it was wrong to eavesdrop. All the same, she found herself drawn toward the archway.

“You have no choice. No matter how cruel that truth may be, you must bear it. You must. Are you not a queen above all? Your duty is to your Dominion first and all other things second.”

Shock and fear melded together in a cold amalgam in Aryn’s chest. She froze just outside the archway, one wide, blue eye spying the figure who paced in the antechamber beyond.

It was Ivalaine. She wore only a loose nightgown, and she was barefoot despite the cold stone floor. Her hair was snarled, and her skin was pale and shadowed, so that Aryn couldn’t help wondering again if the queen was sick. Then the previous day’s conversation with Mirda came back to her.

Is she ill?

No, sister. Not in any way you might think.

She caught a fleeting glimpse of the queen’s eyes; they were bright, as if with a fever.

“The Pattern does not bind you in matters of state.” She twisted a lock of her hair with quick motions of her fingers. “It can’t; it never could. And even so, what you did was right. He had to know, man of the Bull or no.” Laughter tumbled from her lips, cracked and bitter. “And is that the only reason? Or is it more? Perhaps you are neither queen nor witch. For is not your first duty as a mother? Would you truly sacrifice him so easily for the needs of your Dominion, and for the desires of your sisters? Would you?”

She was no longer twisting her hair. She was pulling at it, tearing it. Gold strands came away in her fingers, and she stared at them, as if not understanding what they were or where they had come from. Aryn clamped a hand to her mouth; this couldn’t be happening. She backed away from the arch, then turned around.

Sister Mirda stood before her.

“Go,” the witch said, her voice gentle but commanding. “Wait for me in your chamber.”

Aryn swallowed a gasp and nodded. Picking up the hem of her gown, she ran down the hallway, not looking back.

A minute later she burst through the door of her chamber and shut it behind her. She leaned against the door, heart pounding, then pushed herself forward and slumped in a chair by the fire. The serving maid had stirred up the coals, and now it was too hot in the room, but Aryn didn’t care. Her mind raced; what had just happened?

She still had no answer a half hour later when a soft knock came at her door. It was Sister Mirda. Her dark hair was drawn into a sleek knot at the nape of her neck and held in place with crossed wooden skewers. The witch gestured for Aryn to sit, then took the chair next to her.

They were silent for a long moment, until Aryn could bear it no longer. “Is the queen mad?” she said, gazing at the fire.

“No, she is not mad,” Mirda said. “If she were, I think it would be easier to bear. But she is quite sane, and that is why it is so burdensome. I believe she paced there much of the night, thinking. I suppose she left our chamber so as not to disturb me or her attendants. Even in her distress, she thinks of others.”

Aryn knew it was not her place to ask about Ivalaine’s private matters, but all the same she couldn’t help herself. “But what is it? What troubles the queen so?”

“The moon wears three faces, does it not? And so does Ivalaine, even though she is but one woman.”

Aryn chewed a knuckle. It did seem as if that was what Ivalaine had been saying to herself: something about how she was a queen before she was a witch, and how maybe she should be a mother above all. But that didn’t make sense. The queen wasn’t married, and she had no children. Perhaps she was referring to her subjects. Were they not like children to a queen? That had to be what she meant.

“It must be very hard for her,” Aryn said.

“Sometimes we are forced to make unbearable choices.” Mirda reached out and took Aryn’s left hand. “Even as you yourself have a choice to make.”

Aryn felt a surge of warmth that was not from the fire. Mirda had not spoken in her mind with the Touch, but all the same Aryn understood.

“Yes,” Mirda said, her almond-shaped eyes serious. “A dangerous path lies before you. I have given you knowledge some in the Witches have sought to keep secret for long years— knowledge they yet try to hide, or even destroy. It is up to you what you will do with it. But before you decide, let me tell you this: There are those among the Witches who have never forgotten the prophecies of the wise ones. We are the same who were saddened to see the crones shunted to the very edges of the Pattern. And while we are few, there are yet things we can accomplish, as you saw in the weaving of the Pattern. For many years we have met and worked together in secret.”

The heat of the fire went thin; it felt as if a cold draft had blown through the room.

“You’re part of a shadow coven!” Aryn gasped.

Mirda gave a tight smile. “I suppose that’s what others might call us.”

Lirith had told Aryn of the shadow covens during one of their lessons: small groups of women who met apart and in secret from the Witches, working their own spells, weaving their own patterns. Many of the shadow covens of old had been dark in nature, seeking ways in which to use the Weirding for the purpose of controlling and manipulating others. It was the discovery of this by common folk that had, a century ago, led to the burning and drowning of many witches.

Aryn pulled her hand back from Mirda. “But all of the shadow covens were disbanded. That’s why we come together in a single High Coven now, so that we all work as one.”

“And would you work with Sister Liendra and her faction?” Mirda’s words were spoken in her usual even tone, but all the same they were like a slap.

“So one shadow coven survived.”

“One that I know of, at least,” Mirda said. “But if we persisted, who is to say there might not be others? Regardless, now you come to your choice. You can join with us, and in so doing become a renegade, a heretic—crimes punishable by having your thread plucked from the greater Pattern of the Witches. And believe me, it is a terrible punishment, worse even than you imagine. For once the spell is worked, if enough Witches join in its weaving, you can never Touch the Weirding again.”

Aryn shuddered; the very thought made her ill. It would be like death, only worse. For she would know every minute of every day exactly what she was missing.

“Or you can reveal our presence to our sisters in the Witches,” Mirda said. “You can send a missive to Sister Liendra. Be assured this will cause you to rise high in her favor. And you can watch as my sisters and I are discovered and, one by one, cut from the Pattern and the Weirding forever.”

“And what if I do nothing?”

“That is the one thing you cannot do.”

“Then I—”

Mirda held up a hand. “No, sister. Such a decision should not be made in a moment. Think on it until the moon is full, three days hence, and tell me your decision then. Unless, of course, it is your desire to go to Liendra at this moment.”

“No!” Aryn blurted out, horrified.

“Then in the meantime let us continue your lessons.”

It was nearly impossible to concentrate after what she had seen, after what Mirda had told her. All the same, Aryn commanded herself to focus on the task at hand. Her goal that day was to learn her first spell in the art of illusion, and soon Aryn lost herself in the lesson.

“By reshaping the threads of the Weirding,” Mirda said, “you can convince the eye that it sees something that isn’t truly there.”

Mirda handed Aryn a silver hand mirror. Aryn’s task was to alter the appearance of her own face in the mirror. It was
hard
. Aryn stared into the mirror for what seemed an eternity, but the only alterations to her visage were in the way it twisted into horrible grimaces as she concentrated, and the slight blue tinge it took on when she held her breath too long.

She couldn’t do it. How could she ever deceive another if she couldn’t even deceive herself?

But that’s not true, Aryn. There was another once whom you
deceived, wasn’t there?

Even as she thought this, the mirror seemed to ripple like the surface of a smooth pond after a pebble is thrown in. A woman gazed at Aryn out of the mirror, her hair a burnished red-gold, her eyes sharp and scheming. Aryn gasped, and in a heartbeat the image of the strange woman was gone; now it was her own startled face that stared out from the mirror.

“Very good,” Mirda said, taking the mirror. “That was a difficult spell. Few master it their first time. But you’ll need much more practice to be able to maintain it.”

Aryn hardly heard these words. What had she been thinking just before the image in the mirror changed? She was certain it was important, only now she couldn’t recall what it was. Just that for some reason it made her think of Lirith and Grace.

“Sister?”

Mirda’s voice was soft with concern. Aryn shook her head. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking of Sister Lirith and Lady Grace, that’s all.” A sigh escaped her. “I wish I could speak to them.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Aryn stared at the elder witch. What was she talking about?

“You know the spell of speaking across the Weirding,” Mirda said. “I’ve heard your voice.”

“But I don’t know where in the world Lirith is. And Grace is leagues and leagues away from here. I can’t possibly talk to someone so far away.”

“And why not?”

Aryn didn’t have an answer to that, other than that it seemed impossible. Once she had tried to speak to Lirith over the Weirding when the witch was in another part of the castle, and she had failed.

Mirda moved to the window; sunlight bathed her face. “The Weirding is a vast web. It spans the entire world, weaving among all things and connecting them together no matter how far apart they are. Wherever your friends are, if they are on Eldh, then at this very moment you are connected to them. All you have to do is follow the right threads, and you’ll find them.”

It was madness. Aryn’s power couldn’t possibly reach so far. All the same, she found herself saying, “I want to try it.”

Mirda studied her for a moment, and Aryn didn’t know what she saw, but at last the witch nodded.

“Sit down,” Mirda said. “Shut your eyes and form a clear picture of your friend in your mind.”

Aryn did as instructed. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the sun against her cheeks. In her mind she pictured Grace—for of the two Grace seemed somehow a little closer right then.