Chapter 17 #2
I go too, though I stop and look around once more. Smoke pours from chimneys, several more cottages along this road. Interspersed between them are what I assume are businesses. They have signs, some of them with illustrations. The one closest has an image of rib bones. A butcher, perhaps?
“Come, come,” Lenka calls.
The cottage is warm, the air tinged with something that smells like sage.
Books line the entirety of one wall, a small kitchen with a low burning hearth lies to the left, and in the center of the downstairs is a cauldron.
Around it are shelves full of bottles, some of them emitting strange light or swirling in an uncanny fashion.
“A witch,” the words pop from my mouth, unbidden.
“Your mortal is observant,” Ilna quips.
My stomach sinks. She knows what I am. Lenka’s disguise, though stinky, isn’t as convincing as we hoped.
“Yes, yes. Nothing gets past your one eye,” Lenka retorts, but there’s no sting in it. That’s when I realize these two are friends.
“We’d better get down to business before anyone finds out you’re here. Your king’s Bargain is ripe for the taking.”
“Is Vander truly a king? I mean, I know his parents were royalty, but I thought …” I guess I don’t know what I thought.
Brin spoke of the DragonLands as if they don’t exist anymore.
So if Vander is a king, then he’s king of what?
“And why does someone want to capture me?” I perch on a wooden stool beside the large black cauldron, the contents inside roiling and bubbling with green and purple blotches.
“Keeping this tiny thing in the dark, are we?” Ilna reaches up and runs her gnarled fingers along several of the bottles, her sharp nails clicking along the glass.
“Not by my choosing.” Lenka shuffles to the kitchen, then leans low and blows into the fire.
The flames jump, heat pouring into the cottage and warming my bones.
“DragonKin are stubborn. And these males are foolish. Their mother was taken when they were too young to know better about females, about how to woo. It’s a shame, really. ”
Ilna turns to me and swipes the crusty hat from my head. Her one eye appraises me closely. “Why are you here, child?”
I glance at Lenka who’s perusing a bowl of fruit in the kitchen. “I, um, I wanted a dress for—”
“Pish posh.” Ilna tips my chin up, her one eye inspecting me. “Don’t you know better than to lie to a witch?”
All I know about witches is Lord Rayid burned them at the stake. I don’t think that’s a particularly helpful tidbit for me, so I keep it to myself.
Her unnerving gaze still on me, she reaches up and blindly grabs a potion from her shelf. “This will do what you’re here for.” Turning to the cauldron, she unstoppers the bright red potion, the inside swirling like a whirlpool, and drips the tiniest bit of its contents into the cauldron.
The ground shakes again. I look out the windows. “Giants?”
Ilna cackles. “No. Magic.”
The cauldron shakes and spits, sizzling as the colors inside change and morph into a kaleidoscope. I back away as it thumps on the wood floor, bouncing and sloshing.
“Do not fear.” Lenka calls from a stool in the kitchen where she’s perched and eating some sort of jerky.
“The cauldron will tell us what you seek.” Ilna steps back.
I do, too, but the cauldron hops toward me like it’s a living thing. “Lenka!” I yell.
The cauldron hops again, but this time it floats above me and tips.
I scream as its contents rains down on me, coating me with thick, viscous liquid. I cover my face with my hands, fully expecting my skin to burn and slough off in my hands.
Then a sudden cold envelops me. I open my eyes.
The cauldron is back on the floor, a low fire beneath it. Ilna and Lenka stare down into its depths. I cough and sputter, looking at my arms and body for burns, for any sign of the mess the cauldron just dumped on me. But it’s gone. As if it never happened. As if I imagined the entire thing.
“See that?” Ilna points to something in the cauldron’s depths.
“Hmmm.” Lenka chews her jerky, her gaze rising until she’s looking up, deep in thought.
“It’s what we feared.” Ilna sighs. “What you feared, to be fair. I have no say in what becomes of the DragonKin. Though, I do hope, for your sake, that the curse will be lifted. I’d like to see you back in your homeland, at least from time to time.”
Still stunned, I keep wiping my hands down my arms, expecting to find some evidence of what I just saw. “What is this? What happened to me?”
“Divination.” Ilna straightens and sucks on a tooth. “For good or ill omens.”
I creep forward and lean over, barely close enough to the bubbling cauldron to see its contents. Inside, the colors have changed. Silver and gold swirl and form a vortex of red in the very center. A sickly crimson. Blood.
The prioresses always warned us to never trust a witch, to put no faith in portents or fortune tellings.
All are forbidden by the gods, who control mortals and immortals alike and decide fate.
But now, knowing what I know about the Arbiter and the Bargain, I can’t say I believe the church any longer.
My fate wasn’t decided by some unmoving, unseen gods.
It was decided by the Arbiter, by the priory, by whoever seeded my name into the Eternal Chalice.
The colors flicker and darken, both gold and silver pouring into the widening red eye. “What does it mean?”
Ilna and Lenka exchange a long look.
“Tell me!”
“It means that you made the right choice,” Ilna says to Lenka, her voice suddenly gentle. “You mustn’t falter now, no matter what it costs you.”
Lenka looks at me, dolefulness in her eyes. I’ve never seen her sad, and I don’t understand why she is now. “What’s happening?” I back away a step. “Wh-what is it?” Foreboding takes hold in my gut. Something is wrong. Very wrong. “What cost?”
A sudden knock at the door makes me jump. When I turn around, it bursts inward. I scream as a large woman walks in, her hair in silver war braids along her pale scalp. Deep orange eyes, bare biceps bigger than any mortal man’s, and a smirk on her peachy lips.
I back up a step, then another, the instinct to run buzzing like hornets beneath my skin.
“You said you wouldn’t harm her,” Ilna says.
“Why would I harm her?” The woman steps closer, and I notice the glint of scales along her collarbones. Pale green. A DragonKin. “She belongs to me now.”
“Lenka!” I yell as the woman grabs me by my upper arm.
“Smelly little thing, aren’t you?” The DragonKin drags me toward the door.
“Lenka!” I twist in the woman’s unforgiving grip. “Lenka, help me!” But Lenka doesn’t move. Ilna wraps her arm around Lenka’s shoulders as fiery tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Larellin. Please forgive me. Sela, don’t hurt her. Don’t—”
“That’s Queen DaySilver to you, hag,” one of the male DragonKin hisses.
And then I’m yanked out into the street. Lenka is gone. Out here are two more DragonKin, both males. They eye me predatorially as the female drags me along the cobblestone road. No one is out here any longer, and all the windows are dark.
“Help!” I scream.
The female laughs. “Does that work in the mortal realm?”
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” I struggle in vain, her grip like an iron band.
“I’m your new mate.” She grins. “You’re my Bargain.”
“Vander—”
“Is nothing to you.” She turns me toward her, her eyes boring into me.
“He’s nothing and no one.” Her grip tightens painfully.
“I’m the only thing keeping you alive right now, little one.
Just me. Cling to me, and you might survive Oblivion for a few more days yet.
Disobey me, and your death will be swift though not painless. ”
“My queen, we should go. Our scouts have sighted a golden approaching Crone’s Crag. It won’t be long before he comes looking,” one of the males calls.
“To the aerie, then.” Sela lets me go, her eyes narrowing on me. “Run, mortal. Run for your life.”
I don’t hesitate. Turning, I take off. My limp slows me down, but I move as quickly as I can, hurtling down the cobbled road toward the woods.
I’d prefer them to whoever this new DragonKin is, the cruel female with the burning orange eyes.
My lungs are already aching by the time I dash past the red demon watchman.
He gawks after me, but then I hear the sound of air whooshing past, the trees stirring in a sudden, violent breeze.
I scream when talons close around me, yanking me up as easily as a hawk snagging a fish from a stream. I’m caught, trapped as the cold wind weaves an icy spell and the DragonKin carries me higher and higher, bearing me away from my new home, from my traitorous friend, and from Vander.