Steel Maiden (29 page)

“What are blood witches?” I was curious and
hungry for more information.

“A blood witch is someone who is born with
magic. The steel maidens cannot do magic like the dark witches, for
example. They cannot conjure objects out of thin air, cannot hex,
or curse, and they cannot wield magic like the other witches. Steel
maidens are unique. They were the only clan of witches that did not
produce any male heirs. Only a
female
witch could be a steel
maiden.” I had no idea witches could be male, but I decided not to
interrupt her. “They are strong,” Ada went on, “and have an innate
ability to fight and to wield any kind of weapon. Their
extraordinary healing abilities mean that nothing can beat them.
They are a force to be reckoned with.

“Witches have been at war with the world of
men for thousands of years. Men fight with us because they fear
what they don’t understand. More importantly, we have been fighting
because men always wanted more: more land, more power, more of
everything. Unfortunately magic cannot defeat steel, not always.
And when magic couldn’t save the witches, the steel maidens
evolved. They began as a fierce group of blood witches that could
fight better than any man, could manipulate any type of weapon, and
had the unique ability to heal. They became the guardians of all
the clans. For centuries the steel maidens kept the race of man at
bay.

“But magic comes at a cost, as you have
already learned. You cannot use magic indefinitely. If you take
something from the Goddess, you must give something back. The magic
of the witches was finally exhausted by war with men, and most of
us were driven out of Arcania. Some of us, like me, chose to stay
to provide refuge to those who were still born with magic in a land
that hated it. Soon Witchdom was divided between what is now
Arcania, where a few of us remain, and what’s left of Witchdom on
the other side of the Mystic Mountains where most of the witches
reside today. The clan of the steel maidens thinned over time, and
they simply disappeared.”

“Until Elena,” said Jon.

Ada shook her head. “Until Elena’s
mother
came to us.”

I nearly fell off my bed. “What? My mother?”
My heart sped in my chest. “You knew my mother?”

The light in the high witch’s face
faded.

“I did, yes, many years ago. Your mother,
Katherine, lived here with us before you were born. She was a
valuable member of this clan, even though she was a steel
maiden.”

“You are the spitting image of your mother,”
said she with an added smile. “I knew who you were the minute Jon
carried you through the front doors.”

“So why did she leave?” I was dying to hear
anything that had to do with my mother. I only still had vague
memories of her, and it pained me to admit that sometimes I forgot
what her face looked like.

A small frown appeared on Ada’s forehead,
and I noticed the slight hesitation before she opened her mouth.
“For love. Your mother’s stay with us was very short-lived. She
stayed only a few weeks, until she fell in love with a young man
and left with him. She never came back, but we kept in touch.”

She looked at me again. A shadow on her face
made her lines appear deeper.

“I was very sorry to hear of her death,” she
said and blinked away a tear. “She was a beloved member here.” Ada
closed her eyes, and I could see the pain in them when she opened
them again.

Then her face darkened. “She didn’t deserve
to die in the hands of that man, that
priest
.”

“You mean at the hands of that bastard,” I
spat.

My cheeks burned with anger, my lips
trembled, and I couldn’t continue. I felt Jon’s reassurance as he
squeezed my hand, and I squeezed it back.

“There’s a lot you still don’t know about
your heritage, Elena,” continued Ada. “About your blood magic and
what you can do.”

The old woman sighed. “You are the last of
the steel maidens. I wish you could stay here and learn more, but
there’s no time.”

She had clearly left many words unsaid.

“Where’s the stone, Elena?” asked Jon. I
suspected Ada had wanted to ask me the same thing. I also had the
impression that she knew more than we did about the stone.

Jon leaned closer to me, his face was pale,
his eyes haunted. “It wasn’t on you when I found you.”

I clenched my teeth down hard. “Prince
Landon has it,” I hissed. “The bastard took it from me while I lay
there dying like an animal. He said it was for the good of the
realm and some horseshit like that.”

I kept my face as blank and as pain free as
I could, even though Landon’s betrayal still hurt. Just the thought
of him threatened to release my tears. It hurt to have cared so
much for someone who cared nothing in return.

“He said that the priests offered to return
his land and his title as king of Anglia if he brought them the
stone.”

“Stupid prick!” Jon let go of my hand and
raked his fingers through his hair. “How stupid can a prince be?
They’ll never give him back his throne and title. They’ll never
give it back.”

“Of course not,” I answered. “But he seems
to believe they will. Those monsters have been lying to us for
years, abusing us, raping us, and still he chose to believe them.
All he cares about is getting his title back. He doesn’t care about
the rest of us.”

“Damn it. We underestimated the priests.
Somehow they got to the prince. If he’s been in league with them
this whole time, then none of us are safe. The entire rebellion is
in danger.”

“None of it will matter if the high priests
get the stone,” Ada breathed.

She gripped her staff until her knuckles
were white. “There will be no more lands, no more wealth, no more
rebellion, no more of anything. If the priests get the stone, there
will be only darkness.”

Her eyes rested on mine, her expression
hard. “Elena, what did the high priest give you to contain the
stone?”

I shrugged. “Some sort of gold cage.
Why?”

The old woman just clamped her mouth shut
and stared into space. I searched her face. It was unreadable
again, but her eyes were focused and full of energy.

“What is it? What are you not telling
us?”

“The high priests are not what they seem,”
said Ada. “There is something unnatural and evil about them.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes bore into mine. “Elena, did you
ever wonder
why
the high priest sent you on the Great Race?
Why would they send an untrained woman on such a deadly
mission?”

I nodded, my eyes narrowing. “Because he
knew what I was.”

I remembered the sick triumph I had seen in
his eyes when I had been captured with the crown I had stolen. It
made my stomach churn just to think about it.

“He knew the moment his guards brought me to
him. He knew I would be able to touch the stone.”

“Exactly.” Ada shuffled towards the small
window and peered outside.

“
Steel maidens were
famously immune to different types of magic, especially to druid
spells and magic stones.”

She turned around and our
eyes met. “It was no wonder that they made you their champion. You
were the only one who could bring it back.”

I had always known that I
was just a pawn in the high priest’s game. But I had never done it
for them or for myself.

“He threatened to kill
Rose and all of the inhabitants in the Pit if I didn’t get him the
stone. She’s been a mother to me, but she’s a powerless old woman.
It wouldn’t take much to kill her…”

“I told you Rose would be
looked after,” said Jon. “My people are guarding her.”

My blood raced, and I took
a deep breath to try to calm myself.

“I know, but I have a bad
feeling. If anything were to happen to her, I would never forgive
myself. I left her. I left her all alone.”

“She’ll be fine. I
promise,” Jon said.

I felt a sudden urgency to
go after Rose. Maybe I could bring her back here, to Gray Havens.
She would be safe here with the witches, away from the clutches of
the priests.

I met Jon’s
eyes.

“He also said that he
would kill all the children in the Pit, the entire village if I
didn’t get him the stone.”

Jon swore, and even Ada
looked like she was about to curse something.

“It was the only reason
why I joined this stupid race in the first place. I was forced to
do it. And it was all for nothing. He’s going to kill them, I know
he will.”

“I won’t let that happen. I promise.”

“The Empire of the Temple of the Sun will
never give back the prince’s title or any other titles for that
matter,” informed the old witch. “The high priests desire power
above all else. They want the power the stone can give them.”

Although I had felt the power of the stone
when I had first held it, I had known, even then, that I had only
glimpsed its true power.

Jon stood up and paced around the room. He
turned and looked at Ada. “But I thought only Elena could touch the
stone. How can the priests manipulate it?”

I nodded. Jon had taken the words from my
mouth.

“They cannot touch the stone,” said Ada.
“Otherwise they would have taken it centuries ago. No, it’s
something else, but I’m afraid I don’t know what. All I can assume
is that they have discovered a way to use it. They wouldn’t have
bothered trying to find a steel maiden unless they knew they could
control it.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “They must have
discovered a way. We have our suspicions that the high priests are
not what they appear to be. I felt it in the earth and in the
waters of the world when the high priests first appeared. Something
dark came along with them.”

I sat up straighter. I felt a sting where my
stitches pulled, but I wasn’t sure it was from the stitches
themselves so much as the poison that still lingered there.

“What do you mean? What came along with
them?”

Ada let out a breath. “The world changed
with the arrival of those priests and their Temple of the Sun
nonsense. From the moment they arrived three hundred years ago, I
felt a shift in the balance of light and dark, of good and evil.
Someone or something is trying to call forth demons from the
underworld. Something wants to destroy the world as we know it. Not
even the most powerful of witches or the most powerful dark
sorcerers can conjure creatures from hell and control them unless
they can wield the terrible magic that resides in the stone.”

I tried to sit up straighter, but I kept
sliding off my pillows.

“Why is this stone so special and dangerous?
What
is
the Heart of Arcania?”

“In truth, we don’t know for sure,” answered
Ada. “A weapon, maybe? The stone is a magical relic. We know that
its power is derived from the world’s own magic, and that the stone
stores that magic until it can be released. The stone is connected
to our world. We don’t know who created the stones, only that they
existed before the time of witches and men.”

“The
stones
?” Jon furrowed his brows.
“There’s more than one?”

Ada looked tired.

“Three. But the other two were nowhere near
as powerful as this one, and they were destroyed long ago. But we
couldn’t destroy the Heart of Arcania. The witch clans decided to
keep it secret and safe. It was meant to be safe on Goth, where it
was protected by a secret society of men called the Order of the
Stones. They swore to protect the stone with their lives.”

Jon and I shared a look. “The masked men in
Hollowmere.”

Shame burned on my cheeks.

“They were protecting the stone…and
we
killed them.”

Ada looked at us gravely.

“The stones were meant to be secret. Magic
is magic. It can be used for good or evil. I don’t believe that the
stones were ever meant to be wielded by anyone alive today. Their
power comes from a world long forgotten in this land. It is a power
that we should never have discovered all those years ago.”

Her eyes looked wild.

“You must stop it. Forget your friends, your
lovers, forget everything. There is nothing more important in this
world than to get the stone away from the priests before it is too
late. Before they damn us all.”

“If I hadn’t stolen the Anglian crown, none
of this would be happening,” I said softly.

I could feel Ada’s eyes on me, but I stared
at the sheets instead. The long silence was enough of an answer. I
couldn’t just sit here pitying myself. I had to make things right
again.

Jon cleared his throat. “There’s no point in
blaming yourself, Elena. You didn’t know. None of us did.”

“What’s done is done.” Ada moved to the foot
of the bed.

“Never mind that now,” she said and pointed
her staff at me. “First we need to get you well enough to travel.
Preferably tomorrow, if you can.”

I leaned back against the headboard,
nodding. “I will. I’ll get it back.”

She moved closer to me and spoke with a
fierceness that made me cower a little.

“Elena, you
must
stop the stone from
getting into the hands of the high priest. Do you understand?”

She slammed her staff on the floor, and her
voice rose. “The world as you know it will burn if you fail.”

CHAPTER 30