Chapter 8 Stefano
STEFANO
Irefastened my jerkin, making sure the extremities of the sprawling mark were hidden beneath my shirt, and slipped out of my rooms.
“You look like death.” The voice startled me, but I was relieved to see Nico standing in the shadowy corridor. He must have seen me looking around for the brothers, as he added, “I told them both to get some rest and I’d let them know when their services were needed again.”
I nodded, grateful. “Thank you, amico.”
Nico huffed. “What did the healer have to say?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Oh, she said it’ll probably clear up on its own, in time.
Nothing to worry about.” An idea occurred to me then.
I looked up and down the empty hallway and lowered my voice.
“Nico, would you wait here while I check something? I’m not supposed to leave my room, the healer told me to take two days’ bedrest, but I just need to speak to someone… ”
My friend raised an eyebrow. “Your fair lady, is it? She seemed burdened when she left you earlier. Lovers’ quarrel?”
I chuckled. “A gentleman never tells.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. But hurry, I won’t be able to stop the prince from entering if he turns up.”
I thanked him and headed down the hall with my shoulders hunched and my head lowered, stopping to admire the tapestries any time I crossed paths with a servant. When I reached the dungeons, I dismissed the guards on duty and closed the heavy iron door, shutting out the sound from outside.
It wasn’t hard to find the two witches; they were in the only occupied cell, right at the far end of the row, huddled together for warmth in the freezing underground space. Clearly, the black patch I had seen in the town square had been the result of a recent dungeon clear-out.
I strode past the line of empty cells, the light from a small, high window and one lit torch growing dimmer the farther I went. My boots were muffled by the straw scattered on the stone floor, but I could see the candlelight flickering in the eyes of both women as they watched me approach.
“Tell me everything you know about this mark.” I pulled my shirt to the side, and despite the low light, the younger witch still gasped at the sight.
Looking down, I realised the thing had grown again, and I had to fight the lightheaded, dizzy sensation that washed over me as the mark throbbed painfully once more.
I put a hand on the bars of the cell to steady myself.
“We know nothing about it,” barked the older, silver-haired crone.
I narrowed my eyes. These creatures were already testing my patience. “You called it a ‘bond’. What did you mean by that?”
“Why would we help you? You’ll only kill us anyway.”
“Sal, this doesn’t just affect him,” the red head said in a stage whisper. “Think of Morgaine.”
“Don’t say her name, Lavender,” Sal admonished her sister.
I rolled my eyes. “I already know her name. Now, tell me, or I’ll order the guards to beat it out of you. What is this bond she’s inflicted me with?”
“Let them. They’re going to beat us anyway, may as well give them a reason.” Sal muttered.
“Let us go,” the younger one—Lavender—asked, big blue eyes pleading.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. The only one who can is Prince John, and I do not think he’s in the habit of taking mercy on witches. Tell me what I need to know, and how I can free myself of the damned thing.”
“What’s in it for us?”
I hissed, “How about I won’t have the guards chop your fingers and toes off one by one, before they burn you at the stake?”
They only stared at me in silence, although Lavender quivered. Clearly, they assumed every terrible thing I listed would happen to them anyway, whether they talked or not.
“Alright,” I said, passing a hand over my face in exhaustion as the pain from the cursed mark drained my energy. “I can’t let you go myself, but if you tell me everything you know about the mark and the bond, I will give you a way out. How’s that?”
They looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. After a few moments, Sal nodded and rested her head back against the wall, eyes closed.
“It’s called the Life Bond Enchantment,” Lavender said.
She moved closer, kneeling almost within reach.
“It’s one of the most advanced and complicated spells we have, and only the strongest, most powerful witches can perform it with any degree of success.
It’s designed to connect the life forces of two people, usually when one is on the brink of death, to give them some of the caster’s vitality and bring them back to full health.
It leaves a mark on both parties and creates an unbreakable bond that makes both individuals stronger when they’re together.
They can draw from each other’s life force, energy, and if it’s done between two witches, their power. ”
Without opening her eyes, Sal added, “The pain and weakness you’re feeling, that’s caused by being separated from the other half of the bond. She fled, and you’ll never find her.”
I licked my lips. This was worse than I had imagined. “What happens if you’re separated for too long? Or by too great a distance?”
Sal opened her eyes then and stared at me, her cold gaze boring into my skull, intensifying the pain. “You die. And so does she.”
So, the witch had made a mistake in tying her life force to mine—or else why did she flee?
She must have known this would happen; must be feeling some of the same symptoms. I could only assume she had been attempting to bring the young blond girl back with the enchantment, and as the girl had been dead and I was the nearest, severely injured, living thing, the spell had instead rebounded into me.
And now we were irrevocably tied to each other, if any of this were to be believed. And if the knife twisting in my heart told me anything, it was that the witch was telling the truth.
“You said the bond is unbreakable. That can’t be true, there must be some way to break it. If one of us were to die, for example.” I could simply find Morgaine and kill her, that would surely free me from this curse.
“If one of you dies,” Lavender said, a sad glint to her eyes in the dim light. “You both die.”
I shook my head, raking my fingers through my hair. This couldn’t be it, this was not how I was supposed to die. Bonded to some wicked witch and fated to die whenever she did; hanged, or drowned, or stoned to death by my own men. The irony of the situation was not lost on me.
“There is one way,” Sal murmured, and I pressed against the bars, desperate to hear it. “There is a ritual.”
Lavender shook her head. “It’s too complicated, and it hasn’t even been proven to work. And he would need to perform it with Morgaine; I can’t see how that would happen.”
“What is it? Tell me the ritual, I will find Morgaine and we will do it. Whatever it is, just tell me.” I heard the desperation in my own voice, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t hide it now. I wanted out of the bond, and I could only assume Morgaine did, too.
“Morgain knows it. She’s the High Priestess, she knows all of the spells and disenchantments. Find her, and convince her to help you break the bond.”
I turned to leave before pausing. “Where would she be hiding?”
“With another coven?” Lavender suggested.
Sal shook her head. “She knows that’s the first place the sheriff’s men will look. She’s too smart for that. She’ll be somewhere hidden, somewhere secret that the guards would never expect her to be.”
I turned on my heel, ready to set out and find the witch who had cursed me to die beside her.
“What about our way out?” Sal called after me, a hint of panic in her croaky voice.
I pulled my dagger from my belt and slid it under the bars towards her. As I walked away, I said over my shoulder into the dimness, “There is only one way out. At your own hand, or at the executioner’s.”