Chapter III.27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One Day Before the Wedding
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Miria asked the next morning. If it could be called that. She’d set a magical alarm to alert them to the sun’s first cresting above the horizon, but all was still dark outside.
It was dark inside Miria, too. Her sister witches had departed after they’d cleaned up from dinner, promising to return this morning with more help and supplies.
After they’d left, Miria and Adaline had run through Miria’s plan multiple times, looking for weaknesses and ways it could go wrong and finding too many for Miria’s comfort. But Adaline had been undeterred.
“It’s better than anything else we have,” she’d insisted. “And unless you plan to abduct me in truth, then I’m leaving at first light to do my part.”
Since Miria would not do that, as tempting as it was, she’d given up and gone to bed, allowing Adaline’s lips and caresses to be a poor distraction.
(Poor, not because they hadn’t been pleasurable, but poor because every touch, every kiss, every whisper felt like a goodbye, so Miria could never forget what the dawn would bring.)
The dawn was here now, or something like it. Just a streak of blue velvet in the east made it clear that somewhere beyond the trees, the sun was, in fact, on the move. The air was chilly and damp, clinging to Miria like a second, unwanted skin.
And she was clinging to Adaline.
“It’s never too late to change your mind.” Adaline’s hair muffled her voice as Miria spoke into her neck. “Until you reach the manor gate, you can always turn back.”
Adaline squeezed her, hard. “There’s a fair chance I’ll run into my uncle’s guards before I reach the gate, but I’ll keep it in mind.” With a last desperate bit of force, she released Miria and stepped back. “It’s a good plan.”
“It’s a terrible plan.”
“Stop being so pessimistic.” She brushed a tear from Miria’s face that Miria hadn’t even noticed. “I know what I must do, and so do you. Even if everything falls apart and I end up married to your brother, there’s nothing to stop me from running away later.”
“Rosmilda might.”
“But you and the others will capture her,” Adaline said with a confidence Miria was too upset to share. “Whatever happens to me, I know she cannot stand against all of you.”
“Is it awful that I care more about what happens to you than what happens to her? Does that make me as cruel and selfish as she is?”
“It makes you mine.” Adaline tapped her right foot to her left ankle, indicating where she kept the original charm Miria had given her. “And I’m yours. And one way or another, you will have your revenge.”
Miria raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure if I don’t stop the wedding?”
“Rosmilda is your father’s charm. Take her away, and he will have to work far harder to maintain his position and wealth. I wonder if he actually knows how without her magic bolstering them?”
Miria had to admit it was an interesting thought. “I suppose that would be a consolation prize, but I don’t want merely a consolation prize. I want you.”
“You will always have me.” Adaline kissed her forehead, then she strapped on her sword. “Off to battle we go.”
“Like a knight in one of your tales.”
“A knight who triumphs.” Adaline grinned, but even in the dim light, Miria could tell her face was pale and strained. She was pumping herself up, probably for both their sakes.
Miria owed it to her to project the same confidence, so she buried her worries as best she could. “I will see you again tomorrow.”
“You will kiss me again tomorrow.”
“As much as you let me.” And every day after, but even if they were successful with this barely-there plan, Miria didn’t truly know what came after. Her mood was agitated enough without dwelling on that, though. Nor did it do her any good to worry about a future that might not come to pass.
With a heavy heart, Miria lifted the mist so that Adaline could see as far down the forest path as the light from the magical flame she’d given her would allow.
The flame would extinguish by the time Adaline got through the woods, but by then the sun would be her guide, and she’d be carrying no obvious trace of magic upon her.
Nothing to suggest that her escape wasn’t an escape at all.
When Adaline finally disappeared into the trees, Miria dropped the fog back in place, and her heart dropped with it. This was it. The wheel was in motion, or—if Adaline was correct—it had been so since they’d met, and she’d simply not understood what they were spinning toward all this time.
A large hand landed on Miria’s shoulder, and she turned in surprise toward Tuli. As lost in her head as she’d been, she hadn’t heard him approach.
Miria gave one of his clay fingers a gentle squeeze. “At least we still have each other.”
Tuli bowed his head in acknowledgment, and Miria thought she could detect sadness in his eyes.
Always, her golem replied. He didn’t speak in her head often, but Miria was ever so grateful that he’d started after Nana had died.
“We’ll get her back,” she told the golem, somehow able to inject more confidence in that than she could a moment ago.
Tuli nodded, a determined nod. I know.
That was one of them. Two, if she counted Adaline. But the golem’s confidence gave her some. She’d made Tuli with nothing but some river clay, a ribbon, and her own power and determination, and look at him now.
“We’ll have visitors soon. Hopefully just friendly ones. Let’s go prepare.”
And eat something.
“Yes, and I’ll eat something first.”
A yawn rose up Miria’s throat, but her nervous energy pushed it back down. She’d barely slept a wink, and there was no time to go back to sleep. But she could take a moment to fortify herself before the day’s work began.
The other witches arrived as the sun peeked over the forest crown—Sarel, Nalki, Dinia, and a fourth witch with bright red hair and a lilting accent.
While Miria shored up her wards, the others worked on spells to break Rosmilda’s magic.
It was work that would have gone much more quickly if they could have come face-to-face with the children, but that came with its own risks.
And once they were finished, they showed Miria what they’d done so she could replicate the spell on her own.
The others prepared food while Miria prepared additional spells, easier ones that she already knew how to do, for her plan the next day.
Along with Tuli, they kept watch around the cottage in case Rosmilda and the guard attacked—in that, they were willing to intervene—but no one came.
Whatever Adaline had said, however she’d convinced her family to leave Miria alone, it had worked.
When night fell, Miria was exhausted as she checked and double-checked her preparations for the next day. Despite her company and the forest chattering away as it always did, she felt so alone as she climbed into bed.