Chapter III.23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two Days Before the Wedding, Continued
Miria spun around, a spell on the tip of her tongue should she need it.
Rosmilda strode into the room, her face smug, and Miria’s stomach sunk. Either she’d been expected or she’d tripped another unseen ward. It hardly mattered. The risky and reckless rescue attempt had failed, and her luck hadn’t held.
Well, this time she was not unprepared to deal with Rosmilda magically, if it came to that.
The spell danced about in her mouth, ready and eager, but Miria held it in.
She set the brush down behind her back and lightly pushed it away so Rosmilda wouldn’t know what she’d been up to.
She wanted to hear what Rosmilda had to say.
“I’m surprised to see you again so soon,” Rosmilda said, and Miria noted she paused just past the doorway. Her face was smug, but her body emanated tension. “Did you come to return my saltcellar?”
If she were Adaline, she’d have a witty comeback for that, but Miria hadn’t grown up at court. Verbal sparring was not among her talents. She preferred bluntness. “I came to confirm it was you who’s been making the children in town ill.”
“Oh, that.” Rosmilda’s brow pinched, as if she were genuinely confused and surprised by the accusation. But also unconcerned. “What did I say to make you figure that out?”
“Many things actually. Do you take blood from your own daughters, too? Do Winda and Katline suffer so you can have magic?” It was another risk, letting Rosmilda know she knew her sisters’ names, not letting Rosmilda underestimate her.
But despite her expression and earlier arrogance, Rosmilda seemed a lot more wary of Miria in person than Miria had anticipated.
If there was a chance she could intimidate Rosmilda into behaving for a while, the risk seemed worth it.
Rosmilda’s smugness faltered a moment, and she glanced at the girls’ empty beds with something that could have been tenderness.
“It is unfortunate, but their power will fade in time. I can’t seal it into them the way it was sealed into you.
And when they are older and that time has come, I will make it up to them by teaching them to do what I do.
For a small sacrifice now, they will be strong and powerful later. I’ll make sure of it.”
Miria tried to take heart that Rosmilda had ambitions for her daughters beyond them being a power source, but it was hard. Yet maybe it meant Rosmilda was not as horrible as Miria assumed. Maybe there was something good in her, something Miria could work with.
“And the other children?” Miria asked. “What of their lives? They never got to grow up.”
“That’s also unfortunate, but there are not enough children in this town born with magic to always spread my needs out adequately.
I tried to convince your father that we should move to a larger city, but he had his plan, and I can’t say it was a bad one.
Look at where it’s gotten us.” She spread her arms wide, then dropped them harshly.
“I go to their funerals. I say the prayers with their families. It comforts their parents that someone of my position would take the time to do that.”
On second thought, maybe there was nothing good.
Miria scowled. “So kind of you to pretend to mourn those you killed while you point fingers elsewhere. The Overseer’s wife must appear to be such a benevolent woman.”
Rosmilda shrugged. “People need someone to blame. You shouldn’t take it to heart.
The witch is not a person to them. She is a figure.
A symbol. She bestows favors and ill fortune like the gods, but while blaming the gods for your misfortunes is dangerous for your soul, the witch cares not about your soul.
She doesn’t control your afterlife. She’s a safe place to put the blame when you have no one else. ”
Safe for the townsfolk, perhaps. Not for the witch.
And if people did not blame the actual source of their problems, if they were too distracted by lies to seek out the truth, then their lives would never improve.
But Miria let all of that slide. “Yes, you give them an easy answer to accept. One that requires no effort on their part, and which conveniently deflects the blame that should go on you.”
“Should it?” Rosmilda suddenly snapped alert, like a string had been pulled in her spine.
“When a king’s army tramples over a foreign town, he is a powerful leader securing his people’s future.
When a man slaps his wife, he is just ruling over his household as the gods intended.
Men leave a trail of casualties in their wake for their ambitions all the time. ”
“And what of it? None of those things are good.”
“Such is my point.” Rosmilda’s sharp gaze bore into her, and Miria sensed the older woman was as confused by her perspective as Miria was revolted by Rosmilda’s.
“The world is not good or just, and it is especially not so to us women. I come from a background much like you. The witch who took me in tried to tell me I could have a purpose. For a while, I bought all of her noble bullshit, but then I grew up. Why should I waste my talents helping people who never cared for me? Why shouldn’t I help myself the way men do? ”
“We’re not men.”
“No, we’re not.” Rosmilda finally took another step into the room, animated by her anger.
Finally, that was something Miria understood.
“Men have power. Even a poor man, like your father was, had power solely based on the luck of his birth. Why? Because the church decrees it. Even the crown, the supposed ultimate power of this land, clings to the church for the power it gives them. And the church clings to its gods for the justification. Power is always granted by affiliation with more powerful people. That is why witches, for all their magic, have none. They are women, alone.”
“So you latched onto my father to legitimize your power.”
“Yes, he’d used that spell he traded you for well, but he’d never have come this far without me.
” Rosmilda picked up a child’s volume of stories from the table by one of the beds and ran her hand over it reverently.
Miria didn’t know how much a book like that cost, but she knew it wasn’t insignificant.
“Don’t think that half the women in this town wouldn’t murder my family to take what I have.
We all have to look out for our own. I’m doing what I can to protect my children; it’s what a mother should do. ”
Miria couldn’t help but scoff. “It’s not what my father did.”
Again, something softened in Rosmilda’s face like it had when she’d glanced at her daughter’s bed. “A father wouldn’t for a girl, it’s true. But a mother would. It’s a shame you did not know yours.”
“I had a nana, and she taught me to be better than that.”
Rosmilda groaned. “She taught you to be content to live within a world that despises you when you have more innate power than the people who wield social and political power do. Is that why you came here? To try to shame me for not being content with that lot?”
I came here to stop you, Miria thought, but she held in the words. She could not, would not fight more with Rosmilda until she knew her sisters were safe from their mother’s spells.
“I came here to reason with you,” Miria said instead. “Leave me be.”
“I would, happily, if you had not abducted Lady Adaline. Witch—Greta—that was your name, was it not? Your brother has told me so.”
Miria flinched at the name she hadn’t gone by in so many years, but she did not correct Rosmilda.
“Greta, I do not wish to fight with you, and I believe that you do not wish it either. I think you’re smarter than that. You wish to avenge yourself on your father, do you not?”
Miria said nothing, unsurprised that Rosmilda had figured out one of her motivations for stealing Adaline away.
Taking her silence for the agreement it was, Rosmilda set down the children’s book and pressed on.
“I would as well, in your place. That’s why I know you aren’t unreasonable.
You want, too. But put aside your grudge for long enough to think clearly.
Think bigger. Just imagine how much we could do once your brother is wed to Lady Adaline—a woman with a direct connection to the throne!
I cannot even credit my own spells for that good fortune.
We were lucky she has earned such a reputation for being difficult that her family was willing to consider our match.
It’s a chance that must be seized upon, and you could be a part of it. ”
“It is tempting, I grant you, to dream about having the political power to reshape this world for the better.” Miria couldn’t deny it.
When she thought about the children in town whose bellies went empty, the women forced to flee their homes because of the quiet violence inside, every person forced into a role they would not have chosen.
Even the rich and allegedly powerful like Adaline, sold off into marriage for someone else’s gain.
A single witch could help a single person.
A group of witches could help a few more.
But it took more power than any sisterhood of witches to change a country, a culture.
Miria could dream of myriad ways to help so many more, no more redirecting a river like a beaver slowly stacking one log against another, but with all the power of a kingdom’s army engineering a dam of stone.
But that wasn’t the power Rosmilda dreamed of. A woman who would trample on the helpless to rise so high would continue to tread upon them once she reached her aim. And the higher she rose, the larger her boots would be, the more who would be crushed beneath them.
Some dreams could only ever be that. Even a wish spell had limits, and a witch was wise to know hers.
Besides, in this scenario, Adaline was reduced once again to nothing but currency for someone else.
Regardless of any other failings Miria found with Rosmilda’s ambitions, she would see a hundred hard, hungry winters of her own before she let Adaline’s fate be determined by anyone other than Adaline.
Still, these thoughts lingered in her mind long enough for Rosmilda to see something there, and she grasped at it, assuming she had won the day. “People like us, we’re forced to fight over scraps, and I refuse to settle for that. Hardworking, skilled, clever people deserve more.”
Not for the first time during this conversation, Miria was forced to concede that Rosmilda was not wrong. But nor was she entirely right. Everyone deserved more than scraps, not merely the most clever or most ruthless, and that Rosmilda disagreed only hardened Miria’s resolve to stop her plans.
“Your offer is generous,” Miria said, though it was anything but.
It had probably seemed like a generous offer to the other woman, but the truth was—Miria had magic and Rosmilda wanted it.
If there was anything honest in Rosmilda’s offer, it had to be driven by fear.
She was worried Miria could thwart her, and Miria hoped she was right to be.
“I will not be a part of any plans that have relied on the deaths of innocent children to come to fruition. When you plant a seed in poisoned soil, all you get is poisoned fruit.”
Rosmilda sighed. “You must realize you can’t hide Lady Adaline forever. I found you today, and I can do it again.”
“You and your creation failed today, and would do so again.”
“It hardly matters.” Rosmilda waved away this reminder with a well-manicured hand, but Miria saw the way her cheek twitched. “We have all the resources of Lord Sigmun and Sir Alberik on our side, and do not think for a moment that Adaline’s family isn’t on our side.”
Miria did her best not to react, but the way Rosmilda said the words certainly hinted that she’d placed them under a spell.
Miria should have expected as much. Was it more charms like the one she’d tried to give to Adaline, or something harder to remove?
Whatever it was, it meant more challenges for Miria.
Two days ago she’d really believed her plan to save Adaline and get revenge would be simple. Miria didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Lady Adaline’s family is so anxious to have their sweet, headstrong daughter back,” Rosmilda continued. “If you refuse to cooperate, they’ll eventually retrieve Adaline by force.”
Forget laughing or crying. Screaming would do. Rosmilda’s threat was nothing Miria hadn’t anticipated, but her stomach twisted all the same.
She glanced around the room and back at Rosmilda, who stood some ten feet or more away. Rosmilda had never dared get closer, but Miria doubted she was defenseless, and to be certain, she reached out with her power, trying to sense any magic upon Rosmilda’s form.
It was tempting to try subduing Rosmilda here, while they were alone.
But Miria hadn’t planned for a direct confrontation.
She had spells to defend herself and spells to escape should it come to that, but fighting with Rosmilda had never been her intention.
Not until she could free her sisters. If Rosmilda was defenseless, though, Miria might risk it.
Unfortunately, as expected, Rosmilda did not appear defenseless at all.
When she concentrated, Miria could feel power hovering around her body, the same sort of magic that had fueled the sigil on the stone path.
It was an unnatural sort of power, stolen from others, and Miria let her focus shift back to normal, determined not to provoke Rosmilda into using it.
Eventually, she would have no choice, but she’d be patient.
Today’s lack of patience had gotten her nowhere; lesson learned.
Or perhaps not nowhere entirely, but she’d not accomplished her goal, which was frustrating.
Either way, it didn’t appear as though she was going to accomplish more here. She needed to return to the cottage quickly, fortify her defenses, and make new plans. And she had to warn Adaline of everything she’d learned.
“You can try to take Adaline by force,” Miria said, inching closer to the open window. “But I do not recommend it.”
“Brave words for a girl without a lord’s guard at her disposal.”
“I don’t need a lord’s guard. I’m a witch, not a woman clinging to a man for her power.” The shot landed, and Miria had the satisfaction of seeing Rosmilda’s placid mask crack just a fraction. Adaline, she thought, would be proud of that verbal bolt.
Then Miria transformed into her owl form and flew out the window.