The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (55 page)

Debtors had showed up  from all four corners of the kingdom, friends had turned their backs. They’d had barely enough money to purchase the small farm, far from the main village, and in the most undesirable territory in all of Sanguenay. Winter had fallen on them like a hungry wolf, chewing their bones and rattling the old farmhouse with its howling winds. They’d nearly starved, surviving only because the old witch in the forest, Mother Briar, had taken pity on them and taught them to forage for edible wild plants. She’d even shared some of her own personal stores to get them through.

It had been a poor substitute for the feasts they’d been used to, and none of them had felt it so acutely as Corrine. Her delicate sister with the sweet laugh had died that winter, replaced by a pale, brittle woman with hard eyes and a haunted expression that never truly left her. It had been Corrine’s idea to seek out Mother Briar after that winter and beg to be taught more than just how to forage for food.

“Hello, girls.”

Mother’s Briar’s raspy voice broke into Maribel’s reflections and she nearly jumped out of her skin as she realized they’d arrived at their destination. Her hand flew to her chest as her gaze darted around the trees, finally landing on the old woman standing amidst a tangle of flowing ivy, the long green vines spilling over the roof of her modest cottage to tickle the sides of the stone on the way to the ground. They writhed like the tentacles of a living beast as the witch disentangled herself and stepped to meet her visitors.

Ebony eyes gleamed as she brushed her graying hair out of her face and dusted off the simple brown dress she wore under her green cloak. Between her garments and the ivy covering her house, both the witch and her cottage were practically invisible.

“I’m sorry we’re late, Mother Briar,” Corrine said immediately.

Maribel frowned and glanced at her sister.
Late? This visit was planned?

“No sense waffling on about it now.” The witch gave Corrine’s burned hand a disapproving glance. “You were near a fire today. Another episode, I suppose?”

Sweat beaded on Corrine’s brow and patchy redness crept up her neck like a sickening sunrise. Corrine’s brave front wavered, the pain revealed in her moment of weakness. Maribel took an instinctive step closer, but Corrine stepped away, nearer the witch.

“Yes.”

If Mother Briar noticed how unsteady Corrine was, she didn’t show it. “We’ll need to step up your lessons. From now on, you’ll see me every day.” She glanced at Maribel and produced a book from somewhere under her cloak. She handed it off to Maribel and pointed at a circle of thick green bushes bedecked with broad-petaled purple flowers. “Maribel, take the book and go study those plants there. When I come out, I want you to tell me what kind of plant that is and be able to give me three ways to use them in healing.”

Maribel bristled at Mother Briar’s dismissive order. She parted her lips, ready to give the witch a piece of her mind—starting with what she could do with her book. The words halted on the tip her tongue as Corrine tensed, her eyes flashing too much white and a stricken look seizing her features. Maribel pressed her lips into a thin line and swallowed her irritation like a bitter potion.

“Actually, Mother Briar,” she started tightly, “I had a question first.” Maribel brushed away the tickle of unease as the witch focused her intense stare on her and squared her shoulders. “I was reading the book you gave me the other day, and I don’t understand Mountain Arnica. It says it can heal bruised skin, but it also says contact with skin can be poisonous.”

“Well?” Mother Briar prompted impatiently.

“Well? Which is it?” Maribel tried to keep the frustration out of her voice for Corrine’s sake, but she really wasn’t in the mood for Mother Briar’s mystique today. Especially not now that she had the distinct and growing impression she was being kept in the dark about something. Something involving her sister’s magic lessons.

“Depends on who you are. Mountain Arnica is also called Holy Herb. It’s used by humans and the bright creatures beyond the veil for healing. In other places, it’s called Demon’s Bane, and it is quite poisonous to those creatures closer to the other side of the grave. I wouldn’t recommend it for demons, vampires, and the like, but for humans,
sidhe
, and that sort of creature, it can be quite helpful.”

“The book could have said that outright,” Maribel muttered.

“This is why it’s important to study with someone who knows what they’re talking about instead of relying solely on books.”

A book
you
gave me and told me to study.
Maribel bit back her retort, giving in to the plea in Corrine’s eyes. She graciously accepted the new book the witch offered her, gripping it tightly to keep from giving in to the urge to whack the old biddy with it. Corrine practically ran inside the cottage without so much as a backward glance at Maribel and the witch shuffled after her. For a heart-stopping moment, Maribel thought Corrine was going to crash into the doorframe, but she managed to twist at the last moment and stumble safely into the house.

Again Mother Briar appeared unperturbed by Corrine’s worsening state. She strode into the house with the meandering gate of someone who hadn’t a care in the world, leaving Maribel to glare at her back. Her ire went unnoticed as Mother Briar shut the door behind her.

Alone again, Maribel let out a breath of resignation and trudged with her book over to the plants the witch had indicated. It didn’t take long to identify the plants as blue elderberry and she plucked some of the flowering tops to prepare a tea later. The book said such a tea would ward off a cold, and though Corrine didn’t have a cold, Maribel guessed it wouldn’t be long until she or her father caught one. It was one of those things that came from working outdoors all day—something Corrine didn’t have to worry about.

Smothering the nip of guilt that bit her at that last uncharitable thought, Maribel was about to close the book when she spotted a particularly beautiful bloom filling a page in her peripheral vision. She opened the book and flipped through the pages until she found the flower that had caught her eye.

“Rose of the Mist,” she read aloud. “A rare and beautiful bloom that shines gold in the sunlight. One of the rarest flowers known to man, the Rose of the Mist is said to endow those who consume a tea steeped from its petals with the radiance-absorbing qualities of the rose itself.”

A flare of excitement burned fast and bright, briefly stealing her voice. She quickly scanned the rest of the page, her hopes rising higher and higher with every paragraph. A Rose of the Mist had been found in a part of the forest between here and the main village of Sanguenay less than ten years ago. If there’d been one then, perhaps there were more.

If I could make Corrine a tea from that rose, all she’d have to do is sit outside in the sun and she’d never feel weak and exhausted again!

Slamming the book closed, Maribel slumped back against a resilient young sapling. Nervous energy twitched over her skin like creeping vines and she fidgeted in her makeshift seat of tender leaves. There was no way she could go on a journey today. She had to get back home and start preparing dinner so her father had something to eat after he came in from the fields. And then there were all the chores she’d been forced to abandon so she could accompany Corrine here. There wasn’t time to go wandering around the woods searching for the rose.

“Tomorrow,” she promised herself. “I can find it tomorrow.”

Waiting for Corrine to finish with the witch was pure agony. The usual pleasure Maribel found in these spare moments, searching for herbs to cook with that had nothing to do with eating and everything to do with flavor, failed her. All she could think about was that rose, the difference it would make for Corrine.

“I’ll need to fix some food that will last a day or so, something that won’t spoil while I’m gone.” She plucked a raspberry from a nearby bush and chewed as she thought. “I don’t have time to dry any meat. Bread would be all right, and there’s always vegetables—”

The door to the witch’s cottage opened and Maribel’s thoughts ground to a halt. Corrine and Mother Briar were talking as they left the cottage, their voices hushed, too low for Maribel to make out the words. Maribel tucked the book against her body and dashed over to Corrine.

“Corrine! Come on, we have to go. Mother Briar, may I borrow this book?”

Corrine stared at Maribel as if she’d grown a second head and Mother Briar’s stern features pinched in confusion.

“Yes, take the book,” she said finally. “Study it and return it when next we meet.”

“Thank you!”

Maribel barely remembered her sister’s injured hand in time to keep from grabbing it and dragging her sister off. She glanced down at Corrine’s palm, impressed to find it covered in shiny pink skin, all traces of blood and blackened flesh gone. The fingers of the hand were curled into a half-claw, but the improvement was undeniable. She snatched up Corrine’s good hand and hauled her sister off Mother Briar’s front porch.

“Come on!”

“Maribel, slow down,” Corrine wheezed, yanking her arm from Maribel’s grip. She stopped with her hands on her hips, her chest heaving as she fought to regain her breathing. Her dark hair fell in wild disarray around her shoulders, the natural curl doing its best to survive against the tugging fingers of the wind. “Why are you in such a hurry? Is missing one afternoon of chores really such a setback?”

Maribel bit off the urge to point out that she was, in fact, doing the chores of two people and that an afternoon made an incredible difference.
Just get the rose. Everything will be fine if you can get the rose.
“I don’t want Father to worry about us,” she said instead. She waited for Corrine to catch her breath, shifting from foot to foot as her nerves urged her to run ahead. The picture of the rose hung in her mind, whispering promises of how much better life could be if she found it.

“Father will be in the field until dark,” Corrine pointed out. She waved at the sky, still gloriously bright. “We have plenty of time.”

“But I left that book in the field, the tomatoes still haven’t been weeded, and I need to get dinner started if it’s going to be ready to eat by the time Father comes in.”

“If you keep running like this, we’re going to relive your little trip down from the well when you were eight. Remember that?”

Maribel winced, slowing down to wait for Corrine. “How could I forget? That stupid duke’s son, what was his name? Jack? I never should have let him goad me into that race down the hill.”

Corrine grinned. “You did win.”

“Technically, neither of us won since neither of us had any water left in our buckets after the tumble down the hill. Though I suppose since Jack ended up with his scalp split open and I just had a few bruises, I did come out better off.”

“Maybe someday I’ll race down a hill. On purpose, I mean, not falling down because I had an episode on a steep slope.”

There was a wistfulness in Corrine’s voice that tugged at Maribel’s heart. She opened her mouth to respond, though she had no idea what to say. It hadn’t really occurred to her that Corrine wanted to do those sorts of things. Corrine hated to run.

Awkwardness swelled between them and Corrine put on a burst of speed, as if the pressure was too much. Her gait was uneven, hindered as she tried to run with her injured arm still cradled against her stomach, but though she tilted a bit, she didn’t fall.

As they rounded the top of the hill that marked the northern boundary of their land, both girls came to a sudden halt. A strange man was riding away from the farmhouse, his stern features and plain clothes unfamiliar. Their father stood on the path to their front door, rooted to the spot, his graying brown hair tousled by the wind and his gaze locked on a crisp parchment he held open in front of him. If he hadn’t blinked, Maribel would have worried he was suffering one of Corrine’s episodes. It was eerily similar to Corrine’s posture when her sickness held her prisoner in its grasp.

“Father, what is it?” Corrine scurried the rest of the way to their father’s side, injured hand scrabbling at her skirts to try and hold them up as she went. Her eyes widened as she abandoned the skirt to point at the official port master’s seal on the message. “Father?”

Their father slowly raised his cloudy blue eyes, the hand holding the letter beginning to tremble. “A ship. It… One of my ships…survived. It…came into port.”

Corrine twitched and a small sound halfway between a gasp and a squeak escaped her throat. Maribel snared an arm around her waist in time to keep her from sliding to the ground, grunting as she took her sister’s full weight. Corrine’s eyelids fluttered as she clumsily tried to get her legs under her. It took her two tries to speak.

“What… What does this mean?”

“It could mean nothing, it could mean everything.” Their father rolled up the parchment, his eyes avoiding the paper as if the mere sight of it raised his hopes so high it hurt. “I must go to the harbor. I need to see for myself if this is truly my ship, if its cargo is safe. If it is…” Tears glistened in his eyes. “My daughters, we may be able to get back what was lost to us.”

Corrine burst into tears and threw herself into her father’s arms. He gripped her tightly, mouth moving in a silent prayer. He gestured for Maribel to join them, lips pressed together as if too emotional to speak. Maribel offered a feeble smile as she allowed her father to gather her into the shared embrace. There was a strength in her father’s body that hadn’t been there the last time he’d hugged her, as though the thought of going back to their old life had revitalized him. Meanwhile, Maribel’s stomach had fallen out and suddenly the last thing she wanted to think about was dinner.

He’ll sell the farm.

Images paraded through Maribel’s mind. They would be back to high society, back to the endless social functions and false niceties, back to having servants to do all the work Maribel had only recently realized she loved doing. She would be back in tight-laced gowns, restricted from activities that might damage her fine clothes. There would be parties full of people—people who had shown their true faces in the wake of her family’s misfortune, but who Maribel would be forced to socialize with nonetheless if they returned.