EIGHT
Angharad
Cold mist had settled over the field during the night, and Hara couldn’t feel the tip of her nose. She should have been chilled to the bone here on the frozen ground, but the rest of her body felt deliciously warm under the blanket.
Then she became aware of the heavy presence of Gideon, entwined along her back like a drowning man. Their legs were tangled, and his arm curled possessively under her ribs. As she wriggled to shift positions, her backside nudged against his semi-firm member, and the night before came rushing back to her.
He had made love to her with his fingers, and she’d let him.
Enjoyed it.
She could not blame him for what had happened last night; one could argue she was the one who started it.
Had he meant any of the insane things he had said? That he’d stroked himself to her and yearned for her for weeks? It all sounded like honeyed lovers’ talk, she thought.
Hara closed her eyes again, basking in these quiet moments before daylight crested the hill and exposed them where they lay entwined together.
When the first shards of sunlight warmed her face, Hara distangled herself and sat up, shimmying free and slipping from the bedding.
Gideon moaned softly when she began to sort through her satchel, looking for tooth powder. He did not speak when she left to fill their small pot at the stream nearby and returned to the fireside, stirring the coals. When she began to scrub her teeth with a reed, she heard his sigh as he gained his feet, and then he came to her side.
They scrubbed their teeth in silence, performing their morning ablutions with mute efficiency. Hara was fine with this. Until she had mastered her own mind, she would rather they kept their own thoughts to themselves. She was not interested in declarations of love or rejection.
Gideon stuffed the disguise he’d been traveling in onto the fire, where it smoked and caught alight quickly.
“Good riddance to good rubbish. It served me well,”
he said, fastening his cloak about his shoulders. His courtly attire suited him, and Hara caught herself gawking before she turned away with warm cheeks. The ill-dressed man she’d become accustomed to had transformed into a tall, intimidating stranger.
He turned those pale blue eyes to her and said.
“Now, it’s your turn. We need to find a shop, Madam Witch Hunter.”
They rode Ruteger into the small hamlet of Mortimer. After tying him to a mounting post, they roamed the square, trying to find a shop where they could buy suitable clothing.
They’d barely exchanged more than a few words that morning, and Hara wondered if the awkwardness was due to regretful feelings on his part. Much as she would like to deny it, she felt no such regrets. Hara couldn’t with full confidence say she would turn him down if such a thing happened again. If that was what his fingers could do, she was intensely curious about the rest of him, and she knew that made her a fool.
Soon they would be back at court with his father nearby and the important task of finding her mother. They would not have time to steal moments with each other, and if they did, it would be unwise. No doubt his father and Corvus had spies.
With a small sigh, Hara tried to keep her mind from wandering to those passionate words of desire he had whispered against her neck at the height of her pleasure. She would examine them later, when she was alone in bed.
Finally, Gideon spotted a promising establishment.
“Aha. Secondhand goods. We’re likely to find something suitable in there.”
They stepped into the shop and their nostrils were assaulted with the musty smell of shelves upon shelves of travel-worn items. There were old cooking pots, bedding rolls, herbs for medicine, iron charms to ward off magic-folk, weapons, books, and clothing.
“Looking for something in particular?”
the ruddy faced shopkeeper asked as he glanced up from his scales.
“Courtly attire for a witch,”
said Gideon.
The man jerked his thumb before turning back to his bookkeeping.
“Over there.”
A trunk in the corner overflowed with cloaks, boots, and traveling garb, so Gideon and Hara set to work. They sifted through clothing in various states of disrepair until Gideon was satisfied that they had found what they needed to make her into a convincing witch hunter.
They brought the clothing to the counter, and the man glanced at their pile.
“Sixteen silver marks.”
Gideon nodded and said.
“Would you have a storeroom we could use to change? Want to be sure everything fits.”
The man waved them towards a dank store room stacked haphazardly with boxes and musty goods.
“You don’t have to come in with me,”
she said as Gideon made to follow her. He had seen her in her shift many times, but now, the thought of him watching her change into the new clothing made her feel shy. He had seen and felt her come undone on his fingers just hours ago.
Thankfully, Gideon did not press her, and he waited on the other side of the cloth hanging.
The supple hide of the black trousers clung to her legs, and she had to shimmy and hop about to pull them up. It felt unseemly to reveal the shape of her legs, but that was the least distasteful thing about this outfit.
The deep-crimson cloak looked like a mantle of blood as she fastened it around her shoulders. She raised the hood over her head, and her soft brown curls disappeared in shadow so that only the bottom half of her face was visible. The shining points of her eyes in the darkness of the hood gave her a forbidding aura, and Hara quickly lowered it. It was an effective disguise.
When she emerged from the storeroom, Gideon and the shopkeeper turned to study her. The red cloak caught the shopkeeper’s eye.
“Going witch hunting, are you?”
said the man, nodding approvingly as he slipped some coins into his strongbox.
“Lots of coin to be made from it, but they’re harder to find nowadays. They’ve grown clever, working their wiles on the fringes. Why, this past summer’s drought was caused by a witch what lived in my sister’s village. Turned her in and it rained the next week. We need more trustworthy magic-folk to turn in the evil ones, smoke them out like vermin. If Norwen wasn’t so soft . . . ”
Hara ignored the man’s distasteful ramblings. She noticed that Gideon held two bone knives sheathed in a belt, apparently purchased while she had been changing. His eyes had not left her, and Hara felt a hint of self-consciousness.
“Are those for me?”
she asked, indicating the knife belt.
Gideon nodded and stepped forward, looping the harness about her waist.
“The Recruiters use these, I’ve been told.”
It made sense, Hara thought. It would be too uncomfortable for most witches to wear steel. The bone daggers rested against her hips, easily concealed by the cloak but within reach. Hara hoped the mere sight of them would be enough warning to would-be attackers.
“Do you know how to use them?” he asked.
“No, but—”
she began, but he was already slipping his hands beneath her cloak, bracketing her waist to grip the handles of the daggers.
“Watch carefully,”
he said and, faster than an adder, unsheathed them and turned to the shopkeeper, who ceased his blathering immediately.
Gideon leapt over the counter and backed the man against a display of Mycanese crossbows behind him. One blade was pressed against the man’s throat, while the other was pressed just under his ribs.
Hara let out a cry of alarm, but Gideon hissed.
“Be still.”
“You’ll be wanted if you kill me,”
wheezed the man.
“Rogues like you are hanged every day.”
“Silence. I’ll take my coin back, and then I am going to relieve you of the rest,”
said Gideon.
“Are you mad? I won’t—”
“You won’t?”
asked Gideon, raising his brows and pressing his knife deeper into the man’s throat. A thin line of red bloomed along the white blade.
“Take it, take it all,”
the man grunted.
“Darling, take that bag there and gather up the strongbox. I find myself light on coin and this vile man is flush with it,”
said Gideon.
“Gideon, we don’t have to do this,”
Hara hissed. If he was in need of coin, Hara could give it, but this was neither the time nor the place to explain that she could turn objects into gold.
“I rather think we do,” he said.
She sensed Gideon might seriously harm the man, and Hara decided that wringing her hands and dithering was not going to remove the knife from his neck. She seized a leather sack hanging nearby and quickly swept the coins by the scales into it, along with the box that the man had carelessly left unlocked when Gideon bought the knives.
“Apologies are in order,”
said Gideon.
“I’m very sorry for doing this, but I cannot in good conscience give my custom to one so narrow-minded.”
The man seethed at Gideon, frozen except for his heaving chest and the pulse that beat visibly against the blade at his throat.
“Your turn,”
said Gideon.
“What?”
spluttered the man.
“Apologize to my companion. You insulted her brethren.”
“What sort of magic-loving, thieving—”
“One with a knife on your neck and under your lung. Quickly now.”
“I’m—I apologize. I apologize!”
“For what?”
“For—insulting her. I’m sorry for the things I said—about them being tricksters, and evil—”
“Don’t forget the vermin.”
“I’m sorry for calling them vermin.”
The man was sobbing now, tears spilling down his reddened cheeks.
“Please, please don’t—”
Gideon turned to look at Hara over his shoulder.
“Do you accept his apology?”
“Yes,”
Hara whispered.
Gideon released him.
“By the grace of my lady, you live. Thank you for your coin.”
Gideon leapt back over the counter and swiftly sheathed the daggers at her waist. Then he took Hara by the hand, smoothly guiding her from the shop.
“Let us hurry. I don’t fancy lingering long enough for that fellow to summon some more soldiers for me to fight,”
said Gideon, eyes darting as they left the shop and made their way back to the inn to collect Ruteger.
“Was that necessary?”
said Hara, exasperated. She appreciated the seriousness with which he took his vow to help her on their journey, but his vicious displays were becoming too common. Defending her from soldiers who wanted to capture her was one thing, accosting a doddering old man was another. The man had been frightened out of his wits, and there had been no need for Gideon to press hard enough for the blade to break the skin at his throat.
“I apologized and thanked him, didn’t I?”
said Gideon. Seeing that her stony expression remained unmoved, he continued.
“I was running low on money and I’d rather steal from a bigoted old arse than another traveler. All these inns have been pricey, you know.”
So it was about money. Jumping to her defense and the show of apologies was just a convenient excuse to rob the man. Gideon may have been a lord in title, but he was no better than a lowly thief.
“How can you be so cold and remorseless?”
she said, yanking her hand out of his grip.
“I didn’t like what he was saying.”
Hara sighed.
“It wasn’t so very long ago that you spoke to me like that. People like him are harmless, I’ve been hearing such talk all my life.”
Abruptly, Gideon halted his strides and turned her to face him, and her breath was stolen by the wild fury in his eyes.
“Well, I haven’t. And I’m sorry for saying such things to you in the past,”
he said, his voice fierce with sincerity.
“Never accept it, Hara. Every hateful person who treats you that way deserves swift retribution, whether they’re princes or soldiers or helpless old men. If you are too gentle, or frightened, or tired to fight them all, then I will fight them for you.”
With that, he took her hand again and pulled her along in swift strides towards the mounting post.
Seraphine sat contently on the horse’s hindquarters. She blinked slowly at their approach, and Gideon gave her a quick scritch under the chin. Hara still trembled slightly from the encounter, but she was able to appreciate that it was much easier to mount while wearing trousers as her leg swung freely over the saddle.
Gideon watched her intently as she mounted and adjusted her seat.
“What is it?”
she asked.
“I’m rather partial to those breeches,”
he said as he swung up behind her.
“I knew how your arse felt in the dark, but now I can appreciate the sight.”
As he gathered up the reins with one hand, the other stroked boldly up the back of her thigh, coming to cup her backside beneath the cloak. He gave it a light squeeze, but before Hara could react, he spurred Ruteger forward.
Gideon
The town of Cat’s Paw was an afternoon’s ride from Mortimer. Unlike the strictly guarded and taxed border between Norwen and Lenwen, Norwen and Montag kept a simple bookkeeper to record travelers.
“Names?”
the soldier asked, her gaze lingering on Gideon’s face for slightly longer than was polite. He was used to this kind of attention at court, but that was when he was bathed and dressed in something that hadn’t been stuffed in a satchel for days on the back of a horse. Perhaps she was simply taken aback by his swollen lip.
“Lord Gideon Falk,” he said.
The soldier’s eyes widened as she took in the embroidered crest on his cloak.
“My lord, welcome home,”
she murmured, bowing deeply.
“Make no note of my companion’s name. You may list her simply as my guest.”
Uncomfortably, Gideon remembered that witches were required to provide papers and pay a hefty tax to enter or leave Montag. If Hara was traveling alone, they’d have probably pulled her aside for questioning too. Sorcerers’ movements were well tracked.
“Of course, my lord. Do you require a guard?”
the soldier said. This was definitely not allowed, and Gideon almost smiled. It felt right to be back in a place where the rules were bent for him and services were offered without question. He was home.
“No need. You wouldn’t have an available autocar, would you?”
“No, my lord,”
she said, her brows furrowed in regret. It was unlikely so far from the city, but it did not matter.
“Very well,”
he said, spurring Ruteger onward.
He would have preferred to take an autocar, or at least gain another horse. It would arouse suspicion if he was seen riding so informally with a supposed fearsome witch hunter. But it was easily remedied. They could leave Ruteger at a soldiers’ station in the city and take an autocar up to the palace.
They found a clearing well away from the road, and there they stopped to stretch their legs. Gideon tried not to watch Hara as she ate, but ever since the previous night, he felt himself a little mad.
If he was aware of her before, it was nothing to the magnetism that now fixed his eyes to her every move. He burned with curiosity to know what had woken her last night, and why she hadn’t pushed him away. All morning his thoughts were pulled back to her sweet gasps, and the way she arched into him as she came. That untouchable air she carried had dissolved last night under his touch, revealing a well of passion and heat.
It was surprising, and wonderfully exciting. The mere memory of it made him hard, and he pulled his traveling cloak surreptitiously over his lap.
It felt like a secret between them now, those raw moments in the night. She hadn’t mentioned it, her cool mask snapped resolutely back into place with the dawn. It was hard to believe she had backed him against the door at the inn and kissed him. Perhaps he’d taken it too far by touching her, mistaking her gratitude after the fight for genuine interest.
Several times that morning he’d almost spoken, clumsy openings ready to burst from his lips, but what could he say? He did not understand his own feelings, so strong and unsettling that he couldn’t form the words to describe them to himself. What if he offended her again, or said something cruel? He wasn’t a kind, noble person who could charm her with words and deeds. He had wealth and beauty, which Hara was immune to. She said herself that she wasn’t sure if she liked him.
The uncertainty of her feelings and the desire that raged in his blood swirled and chased each other in his mind all morning, until all he could do was stare at her in barely concealed frustration. Gideon could not remember the last time he had to work for a woman’s attention.
Those tight trousers weren’t helping as he watched her unclasp the cloak and spread it over the ground, kneeling to sit upon it like a picnic blanket. He needed to distract himself.
If Hara was to play the role of cold-blooded witch hunter, she needed to commit to it. It was possible that her tranquil demeanor could be seen as a facade to hide her ruthless nature, but Hara was too sincere.
“We need to work on your mannerisms,”
he said, taking a bite of traveler’s bread.
“I grew up in the court. I know how court sorcerers behave. Even witch hunters,”
said Hara, watching Seraphine pounce for field mice in the long grass.
“Do you?” he asked.
“One was with them when they took her. A witch hunter.”
Her words sent a sinking sensation in his gut. Of course. How could he be so thoughtless? He recalled the voices in her memory.
“He was almost bored. Completely unfeeling,”
said Hara, twining a bit of grass between her fingers.
“He watched them drag my mother out. The two of them could have easily overpowered the soldiers, but he helped them take her.”
They listened to the wind and the soft chirping of crickets.
“Can you . . . can you do violent magic?”
he asked. He had been curious about this, but now seemed an appropriate time to ask.
“I could, I suppose,”
she said.
“But it doesn’t come easily for me. There are some who can perform it well, powerfully even, but they have honed that skill the way I have honed my healing.”
“What could you do? Are there spells?”
“The most I ever managed was a flicker of pain, much like the shock one gets after rubbing against a rug. Not very impressive. Some can invent spells, but most violent magic happens in the moment, you see. My aunt could char flesh.”
“Char flesh?”
he asked, impressed and mildly horrified.
Hara wrinkled her nose and smiled.
“It’s a nasty wound to heal, but useful to cauterize wounds. Speaking of which, how does your mouth feel today?”
Gideon felt the tender skin at the edge of his mouth. It was just a mild swelling now, barely noticeable.
“Much better.”
Her smile grew.
“Then come here.”
Gideon swallowed. Visions of using his recently healed mouth swam before him as he stood from the boulder and walked the short distance to her makeshift blanket, sinking onto it.
“Tell me about the court under Corvus,” she said.
His hopes wilted. It seemed the only activity his mouth would be engaged in was prattling. He sighed and looked to the sky.
The court. How could he describe it to someone who had only ever lived with fire for heat and light, a well or a stream for their water? These journeys into neighboring kingdoms were rustic and primitive by comparison, even in the cities. Norwen had recently invested in steam boilers for their palace, but even that luxury was a basic necessity in the Montag kingdom.
“You may find it overwhelming at first,”
he said, remembering Hara’s answer for why she preferred to perform all her menial tasks by hand.
“The city is so efficient, it has surpassed the need for magic in many ways.”
“How so?”
“If you wished to bathe in your cottage, you would draw water and heat it in your cauldron, one bucketful at a time. At the palace, you could open a spout with your voice and hot water would fill a tub almost instantly, and it would never grow cold.”
“Open a spout with my voice?”
she said, looking at him as though he had spoken a foreign language.
“You may have to show me.”
“Don’t worry, it’s intuitive. You’ll catch onto it quickly,”
he said with a small smile. Truthfully, Gideon was eager to see her discover the wonders of his kingdom.
“What’s going to be most challenging is the people. They can be nasty to outsiders, but to witches, they can be vicious.”
Hara nodded, her lips firm.
“I rather think I should keep to myself, then.”
Gideon nodded.
“At first, it might be wise. You should be quiet, but not mysterious. Out of the way, but not invisible. Corvus isn’t as fearsome as you might expect, but my father . . . ”
The Commander was Corvus’ right-hand man in all things, and they had a subtle understanding between them. While Corvus met with the people and gave speeches, it was his father who wrote the speeches and signed the papers on his behalf. Gideon knew that his father still carried a deep disdain for all magic-kind; it had not been Corvus’ idea to hunt down sorcerers after the coup.
Gideon hoped that his father’s gratitude towards Hara for saving his son’s life would allow him to overlook the fact that she was a witch.
Gideon opened the sack Hara had used to carry the coins from the shop and he rifled through, counting. Less than he would have expected a trader to have, but better than nothing. Hara’s mouth set in a hard line as she watched him.
“If you were running short on money, you should have told me.”
“I couldn’t have you selling your fortunes for a couple silver guilds. That would take another day, and I don’t fancy the idea of sitting around hearing sob stories.”
“So you would rather steal?”
“Yes. He was a fool.”
“That’s not the point. I could—”
Hara stopped short.
Gideon lifted a teasing eyebrow at her.
“I don’t know about you, but I point-blank refuse to wash dishes or muck out a stable for a few coins.”
“Gideon,”
she said, and she suddenly looked unsure, as though she was warring with herself whether or not to tell him something.
“What, are you going to tell me you can summon gold out of thin air?”
he said with a short laugh.
Hara rolled her lips into her mouth and her eyes flicked away from him, and in that hesitation, Gideon’s mocking smile dropped.
“Hara . . . are you telling me you can create gold out of nothing?”
“Not nothing,”
she said quietly, avoiding his eyes. As she spoke her fingers found a stone on the ground, and she grasped it in her fist.
“It works best if the material is metal to begin with, or at least hard and dense like stone or wood.”
Gideon’s eyes were fixed on her closed fist, watching as her fingers flexed around the stone rhythmically. It seemed to go on for several minutes, and then Hara’s grip relaxed, and she placed something warm in his hand.
A glowing lump of gold rested in his palm, heavier than any stone.
He stared at it for a moment, his mind scrambling to absorb this new information. A clear thought suddenly buoyed to the surface above all the others.
Hara was in grave danger.
He looked up at her as she began to speak in a hurried murmur.
“You cannot tell anyone, Gideon. Swear to me. Not a soul can know,”
she said, and before he could stop her, she snatched the stone-shaped lump of gold and tossed it into the waving grasses. He made a strangled noise and had halfway risen to his feet when she pulled him back to earth again.
“Please swear to me, Gideon. Swear you will not tell anyone.”
Gideon looked down at her, the blank fear in her eyes breaking through his astonishment. She needed reassurance now, not his slack-mouthed shock. He took up her hands in his.
“I swear it,”
he said, and her fearful eyes relaxed slightly.
“I understand, Hara. If the wrong person knew that you could make gold . . . ”
“This is why the witch hunter did not find me. He had a way to sense if there were iron-shy creatures nearby, but I’ve never been bothered by metals. Not like the others,” she said.
“So you can make more than gold?” he asked.
Hara nodded.
“My tutor only taught me how to make gold, silver, and other precious metals. But I can make others.”
The possibilities bloomed in Gideon’s mind. So much of the wondrous technology that Montag built relied upon their mines. He himself had toured mines with his father, seeing the hard labor and the danger that countless workers were subjected to in order to obtain these materials. The weaponry, the transportation, the communication, the wealth. All of it was tied to their mines in some way or another, the source of their power in the mountainous realm.
And here was Hara, able to create precious metals on a whim with a simple touch.
“My mother and my aunt told me that my gift was rare, even among the royal elementals. There hadn’t been a natural alchemist in living memory. Those with the ability used to be hunted, forced to make gold for those who imprisoned us. My mother made me swear never to tell anyone outside of my tutor, Alcmene.”
“Why did you tell me?”
asked Gideon.
Hara slowly brought her eyes up to him.
“You bled for me. I do not think you would sell me out so quickly,”
Then her brows furrowed.
“And you stole from a man at daggerpoint. If I had known you were going to do that, I would have told you before. You really are dramatic.”
“I, dramatic?”
said Gideon.
“Rich coming from you. That is quite the parlor trick you just showed me.”
Their words were light and playful, but Gideon could only think of one thing. His father could not know about Hara’s ability. If he did, she would be kept prisoner, guarded and locked away as no mere Ilmarinen sympathizer had ever been guarded before. There would be no words, influence, or power that could free her.