Mist-Torn 01 - The Mist-Torn Witches (7 page)

“I warned you,” Jaromir said.

The girl’s body was lying on a table beside two others in the same state. All three had been desiccated—shriveled down to skin and bones. Two were dressed in fine gowns, but the third wore plain homespun. Their long hair was spread around them. As a healer in a village like Shetâna, Céline had seen her share of dead bodies, but she’d never seen anything like this.

“Was it plague?” Amelie whispered, standing beside her.

“No,” Céline answered, and some of the numb feeling from the night before was returning to her hands. She needed time to recover between the fears and horrors and losses she’d experienced, but they just kept coming. The dead girls looked so fragile, so brittle, lying there with their hair spread around.

“How did this happen?” she asked Jaromir.

He, too, just looked down at the bodies, and Céline thought that even for him, a hardened soldier, this sight was difficult. “There was a fourth…I mean a first,” he said. “She just vanished one night, and her father found her in the stable, hidden beneath some hay. He sent word to me because he did fear plague and thought I should know. We burned the body. Days passed and no one else got sick…but I still wondered what could do this to a girl her age. She was only sixteen.”

He sounded so frustrated and so bereft that in
spite of everything, Céline wondered what it would be like to live in a community where the people could report a death to the soldiers and someone like Jaromir would take charge, would actually care.

“But then it happened again, about a week later,” he went on, “only this time, the girl was found in her own bed.” He pointed to the girl in the homespun. “She kissed her parents good night and went to bed, and they found her like this the next morning. At that point, I reported both deaths to my lord, and he ordered me to store the body. We have a royal physician at the castle, Master Feodor, and Prince Anton had him examine the body, but he could tell no more than me. The poor girl was just a dried husk.”

Céline stared down at the body and shook her head. “But it happened twice more?”

“Again, about a week apart,” he said, “and only at night. They’d just go to bed, and someone would find them like this the next morning. Only these two were from…wealthier families, merchants’ daughters, but all of them were sixteen or seventeen years old and said to be uncommonly pretty. I managed to keep this hushed up for a while, but rumors are starting to spread.”

Then his tone changed, and once again, he sounded like a soldier. “Sub-Prince Damek is known for his penchant toward brutal strength. As cruel as it sounds, his father, Prince Lieven, respects that. Anton is known as a good leader who
takes care of his people. His father respects that, too, but I don’t know which quality holds the most sway. I only know that if Anton loses his standing as a leader able to protect his people, it could destroy his chances of being named heir.”

Céline shook her head. “What is it exactly that you wish me to do?”

“Use your powers,” he said. “I can put together a list of young women this age who are thought to be pretty, and you can read their futures. If you can touch upon the next girl to die and see who or what is killing her, you can tell me. I can’t fight what I can’t see, but you can see for me.”

“Read their futures?” Céline asked. “Won’t that just set a blaze to more rumors?”

He hesitated. “I have a few ideas where we can make it look like a game…entertainment being provided by the prince.”

“A game?” Amelie said, glancing at Céline. “That might work.”

“You can do this, can’t you?” Jaromir asked Céline, unashamed to be voicing doubt. “I mean, I know Prince Anton believes you are a true seer, but he has a trusting heart.”

She looked down again at the three dead bodies, but Jaromir wasn’t finished.

“Here’s the bargain,” he said. “If you solve this for us, help me put a stop to it, the shop is yours unconditionally. You can live here and conduct business under Anton’s protection for as long as you like.”

“And if I fail?”

“Then you’re no seer and no use to us here. You can leave and go your own way.”

Céline closed her eyes and saw the pretty shop with its yellow shutters and the herb garden out back. She imagined living in a world where the soldiers actually protected people and the prince cared for their welfare. She remembered the flash of ugly reality that had hit her when she’d read Rhiannon. Would it happen again? Had she inherited her mother’s gift? And if it didn’t happen again, how would she go about finding out whom or what was killing the young women here?

She only knew that she wasn’t going to pass this chance by, and if she had to, she’d start looking for the cause herself…leaning upon her ability to read people and see the secrets beneath their faces.

“Can you do it?” Amelie asked, and Céline saw that her sister wanted to stay as badly as she did.

Céline looked straight into Jaromir’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I can do it.”

C
éline hurried down an upstairs passage behind Jaromir, with Amelie following. It seemed that once the bargain had been struck, he was in a rush to get on with other business.

After leading them up from the cellars, where the bodies were stored, to the main floor of the castle, he’d bypassed the great hall and led them into a stairwell inside the north tower and then up three flights before stepping off the landing there and striding at a rapid pace down the chill stone passage, making several turns, until Céline felt hopelessly lost. This entire experience was making her more aware of just how little of the world she’d seen.

“Lieutenant,” she breathed, trying to keep up. “Could you slow your pace?”

He stopped. “Oh…pardon.” But he still looked distracted. Perhaps he wanted to report the bargain they’d made to Prince Anton. “Over there,” he said pointing to a door. “That is an
empty guest room. I’ll have someone finish preparing it for you immediately. Go on in.”

“Thank you,” Céline answered for lack of anything else to say.

Without waiting to show them inside, he brushed past and headed back the way they’d come.

Amelie raised her thin black eyebrows at Céline. “Well, at least he’s gone.”

Uncertain if that was a good thing or a bad thing, Céline walked over and opened the door. While the room could hardly be described as “empty,” it was certainly unoccupied, and she stepped inside.

Amelie followed her, drawing a loud breath. “Is this for us? He might have made a mistake.”

“I don’t think he makes many mistakes.”

A four-poster mahogany bed waited across the room, covered in a sunflower yellow quilt. Interior shutters over the long window were open, letting misty light filter inside. Céline walked to the window and looked down, realizing they must be on the inner side of the tower, as they had a view of the courtyard below.

She turned back to take in the rest of the room.

A full-length mirror with a pewter frame stood in one corner and a mahogany wardrobe stood in the other. Dainty damask-covered chairs had been placed in front of a dressing table that sported silver brushes and a porcelain washbasin. A three-paneled dressing screen offered privacy
for changing clothes. Best of all, the room contained its own small hearth.

Céline had never seen a room like this, much less been invited to sleep in one.

She walked over to the dressing table and noticed a miniature portrait leaning up against the mirror, of a lovely woman with chestnut-colored hair. Something about it made the room feel less their own, so she put it in a drawer. Then she touched one of the silver brushes, hoping for a few moments of peace, deciding she might not be able to handle even a mild event or encounter added to the long line since last night. And now…she had four deaths to solve. But she was also tired, sore, and hungry, having neither eaten nor slept, and she was sure Amelie must feel as weary as herself.

“Maybe we should rest?” Amelie said, as if reading her thoughts.

There was little else to do anyway. Even if they wanted to go in search of food, Céline doubted they could find their way back to the great hall. The only solid detail she could remember from the rushed journey up here was the sight of Jaromir’s back.

“All right,” she said, “but I’ll have to sleep in my shift. I don’t have anything else to—”

Without a knock sounding, the door burst open, and a stocky, stooped old woman came inside carrying a surprisingly large load of folded blankets and drying towels, with a wooden tray of food balanced on top, complete with a porcelain pitcher.

“Ah, here ye are,” she announced. “His lord majesty lieutenant told me you were already in the room, but you never can tell with men. Half the time, they’ve no idea what they’re saying.”

At the irreverent reference to Jaromir, Amelie turned with some interest and took in the woman’s measure. Céline followed suit, but the aging creature rambled on.

“Blankets I can see a need for, but there’s no tub in sight, so what do you need with drying clothes, I ask? Men. Never know what they’re about. Now, you both come and have some of this bread and cheese. He said you’d not eaten either. But Helga’s here now. She’ll feed you.”

She appeared to be at least in her seventies, with thick white hair up in a bun that was partially covered by a green kerchief. Her wrinkled face had a dusky tone, and she wore a faded homespun dress that might have once been purple.

For Céline, another mystery of this castle was figuring out exactly who was who in the order of things. For one, Jaromir’s rank was that of lieutenant, not even captain, so why did he appear to be second to the prince in the command structure here? This aged woman…Helga, appeared to be a lowly servant, but she’d called Jaromir “his lord majesty lieutenant” with enough sarcasm that it could not be missed.

Who was she?

“Don’t just stand there, my girls,” Helga went
on. “Come and eat.” She set the blankets and towels on the bed and brought the tray to the dressing table. Picking up a generous slice of soft, yellow cheese and placing it on a piece of white bread, she held it out to Amelie.

Céline had tasted white bread only a few times in her life, as it was a delicacy afforded only by the wealthy. “I…,” she tried to say, at a loss. “I…”

Amelie appeared equally uncertain, but she reached over and took the offered food.

“Two seers,” Helga murmured, prepping the next helping of bread and cheese. “Good, good, just what the castle needs now. From the line of Fawe.” She nodded in approval. “How many years apart were you born?”

Céline’s mouth fell open. What did she mean by “two seers,” and how did she know their family name? Well, Anton knew it, and he must have told Jaromir. Jaromir must have told the woman.

“Three years,” Amelie answered, biting into the cheese.

Just then, a single knock sounded at the door—which was still open—and all three women looked over.

A fourth woman stood in the doorway, and something about her caused Céline to tense.

She was young, perhaps eighteen, as slim as a reed and standing stiffly, as if she’d rather be anywhere but in that doorway. The first word that came to Céline’s mind to describe her was “colorless.”

Her hair was that shade of grayish blond, like ditch water, and her eyes matched. She wore a plain gray dress with a high collar—but it was well made from good wool—and she had small gold hoops in her ears. Again, Céline was lost to place her position. She was hardly a lady of the castle, but servants did not normally go around wearing gold earrings. Although her features were small and could even be called attractive, her face was pinched, and her expression was nervous or worried. As she took in the sight of Céline, her eyes flashed clear dislike—possibly hatred.

Céline’s gaze moved down to see that she carried two silk gowns in her arms, one a shade of rich amber and a second of midnight blue.

“That would be Inna,” Helga announced, gesturing at the young woman with one hand, as if this should give Céline and Amelie an idea of Inna’s place or position here.

Inna seemed hesitant to enter the room, and Céline glanced back at Amelie, who had put down her bread and cheese and was watching this new figure in the doorway with caution.

“What are you doing in here?” Inna demanded of Helga. “Get back to the kitchens.”

“The maids are shorthanded today,” Helga muttered. “His lord majesty lieutenant sent me to help.”

“Do not call him that!” Inna ordered. But then the dislike on her face shifted to disgust. “Well, I suppose it is only fitting. Gypsies serving gypsies.”

Céline’s mouth nearly fell open, and she struggled to keep her expression still. What could they possibly have done to earn this young woman’s contempt?

“How might we help you?” she asked.

At the sound of Céline’s voice, Inna’s attention shifted back.

Taking a breath, as if speaking to Céline was difficult, she said, “Prince Anton has invited a number of the better families to the great hall tonight for a banquet and entertainment. You and your sister are both expected to attend.” She walked in brusquely and dropped both gowns on the bed. “The Lady Karina was kind enough to send you decent attire for the evening.”

Although the suggestion that they were indecent posed a further insult, Céline could not help asking, “Lady Karina?”

But it was Helga who answered, “The prince’s auntie.” She nodded to herself again. “Yes, yes, his auntie.”

“I don’t wear gowns,” Amelie said flatly, looking at Inna. “And there’s nothing wrong with our clothes.”

However, as she spoke, Céline couldn’t help a flush of embarrassment. Her red velvet gown had once been her mother’s. Though the color had held fairly well through many washings, the seams were worn and the material was thin. Although as yet she’d not seen many other women of the castle, she’d seen no one here wearing such
a dress of such bright scarlet—or that fit quite so snugly.

Inna first stared coldly at Amelie and then Céline, looking them up and down. “Well, if you wish to grace Prince Anton’s table dressed like a ruffian and a whore, that’s none of my business. I was told to deliver the gowns and bid you to be in the great hall at sunset.”