Treacherous Witch

It's late. Her comrades are sleeping. Some curled up, still and peaceful. Others fitful, caught in restless dreams. Valerie has yet to join them. She stares, listless, into the middle distance. The dying embers of the campfire provide little light and no comfort.

They buried Markus today. He was the last survivor from the borderlands, the last connection to home.

As gentle as a falling leaf, Shikra sits down on the log beside her. At first she says nothing. She simply takes Valerie's hand—

*

She only needed one chance to run.

It didn't come when she raised her hands. Nor when she fumbled with the silver locket around her neck. She squeezed it tight in her palm and prayed again to heal her wounds. That partially worked: she rolled her shoulder just fine, but her left leg still ached and she couldn't put any weight on it without further pain. Either the bullet or shrapnel must be lodged in the wound. She would need to sit down and pick it out, and she didn't have time for that.

Showing her injury would be a show of weakness, however. Valerie stood up straight, glad that her mask hid her grimace, and held out the locket to the Duke.

He snatched it from her. "This? Nothing else?"

She nodded. It was risky to give him the locket rather than removing the dress, but if she wanted to escape on the wyvern, she couldn't take the locket with her.

They tested that the spell was gone first, a single guard approaching her. She backed off away from the Duke. Then, when the first guard grabbed her and nothing happened, the rest surged forward. Four of them twisted her arms behind her back and marched her out of the drawing room. The fifth stayed behind to help the man she had knocked out earlier. The Duke shoved the locket into his pocket and followed them.

Surely someone would wander into the hallway. Surely someone would have heard the clamour. She filled her lungs and screamed as loudly as she could for help; they slapped her and a guard's hand clamped over her mouth to shut her up.

Her chance came when they reached a stairwell and encountered Titus at the foot of the stone steps.

"Lord Gideon, wait!"

He looked flushed, as if he'd hurried to intercept them.

"Titus? What the blazes are you doing here?"

The Duke shoved past his guards. The stairwell was a pinch point, the only exit a narrow archway, the only way forward the stone steps. And in that confined space, Valerie seized her moment. She lurched sideways, knocking into the Duke's shoulder. As soon as they made contact, she felt the locket's power again—she had reentered its magical field. The Duke shook her off, furious, but it was too late. The spell in her dress reactivated.

Lightning struck in several directions at once. As one, the guards crumpled. The spell narrowly missed the Duke, who had let go of her just in time. He made an incoherent sound, more like a roar than anything human, but Valerie was ready.

She threw herself at the shocked Titus. Words seemed to fail him also; he spluttered, trying to shove her away, but she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

"Let go of her!" the Duke snarled.

"I'm trying! Valerie, get off!"

He shook her violently, but Valerie didn't need to cling on for long. The Duke started forward, and her magical senses picked up a glowing glyph…

Like a wyvern nosediving out of the sky, Valerie rushed out of her body and into Titus's.

Her perspective flipped. Something heavy slumped into her chest: her own body, unoccupied. She caught it, nearly staggering back on the steps. Meanwhile, the Duke glowered at her, red-faced and all but apoplectic.

"What the devil, man!"

"She's fainted!" Her voice came out in Titus's Drakonian accent, and she ignored the strangeness of his vocal chords reverberating in her throat. His throat. Whatever. "Don't touch her—she might shock you too."

Somewhere at the back of her mind, a wave of fear and horror surged up from Titus who was now sharing his body with her. But unlike her, he had no way to fight it. She squashed him without mercy. Stay quiet and I'll let you live. The emotion damped down.

Now she had to deal with the Duke, who cursed at her. "Drop the girl! Step away."

"Right."

She crouched, laying her body down at the foot of the steps while the Duke towered over them both. She could feel his suspicion. He was like a dog with its hackles raised. He must be wondering why her spell hadn't shocked Titus, what he was doing here in the first place. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the unconscious guards and his bayonet lying next to him, only inches away…

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Well, then.

She glanced up at the Duke. Spittle covered his mouth. His face darkened.

Valerie snatched up the bayonet and drove the blade into the Duke's gut.

She had never fired a gun before and she wasn't about to try. But a blade, well, everyone knew what to do with that. It sank into him like a knife into an especially dense cake. With effort, she yanked it out, and the smell of iron filled the air as blood poured out. The Duke stared at her. Made a strangled sound. Then he bellowed and threw himself at her, and the fight began.

Several frenzied seconds of grappling, struggling and slipping on the blood-soaked stone followed. She would not have been able to withstand the Duke's heavier weight in her own body. Titus didn't have the build of a fighter either, and his centre of gravity was just different enough to throw her off, but she gripped the bayonet in both hands, gritted her teeth and pushed back until the mortal wound she had inflicted finally overcame him.

The Duke sank to the floor, gasping for breath. His face had gone from red to ashen with blotchy red spots. "Traitor," he croaked.

She was standing over her own unconscious body; in fact, she was fairly sure that she'd stepped on her own hand during the scuffle. At some point, she—that is, Titus—had suffered a blow to the temple. The wolf mask had come off. Blood stained her hands and clothes.

"I told you," she panted. "You were cursed the moment you put your hands on her. Now you'll suffer a slow, painful death."

Quick footsteps alerted her. Valerie swung around and pointed the bayonet at the archway that led back into the main hallway. A man in servants' livery stopped short as he took in the scene: four unconscious guards scattered around the stairwell, the girl in the black ballgown sleeping at Titus's feet, and the Duke of Hennich slumped on the floor before them, slowly bleeding out.

He let out what might best be described as a squeak and darted off before she could shoot him.

"At least…" The Duke gargled, coughing up blood. "At least… I know that you'll die too, you spineless little…"

Much as she would have liked to stay and watch him die, that servant was going to raise the alarm. She had to be gone by then. Plus, all that blood from the Duke's body was starting to pool around hers, and she didn't want to ruin her dress. She crouched down to pluck the locket out of the Duke's pocket, then lifted her unconscious body up to the first step and placed the locket carefully in her hand.

When she was satisfied that the locket was secure, she sank down against the step, readied herself, and stabbed the point of the bayonet into Titus's ankle.

Maska, that hurt.

With a gasp, she threw the bayonet as far as she could. It skittered across the floor and came to rest at the lip of the archway.

Then she abandoned Titus's body.

She followed the glyph's golden thread back into her own flesh and again experienced the disorientation of an instant perspective shift. Her eyes opened to the flickering candlelight on the shadow of the stairwell. The step dug into the small of her back, and she was bruised in several places. No time to heal. She gulped in air and leapt up, ignoring the wave of dizziness that swept over her.

Titus lay where she had left him on the floor, groaning and dazed. Bodies were scattered around. The stench of blood thickened. She gathered her skirts and ran.

"Valerie! Wait!"

Titus tried to stand, tried to grab at her, but he couldn't catch her with his injured ankle. She crossed into the hallway, dashing past another startled servant, and wondered which way to go… Had Melody taken her left or right? Her injured leg was really starting to burn too, and she found herself limping the last few feet before she passed through another archway and back into the entrance hall.

Nearly there.

Shouts followed her. Titus hadn't given up.

Two ladies gasped at the sight of her—like a bedraggled, bloodstained wyvern—but the entrance hall was otherwise empty. Light and music spilled out from the ballroom. Was the Emperor, perhaps, making his speech? Was Avon in there too? She looked in that direction, tempted to burst in and make a scene, but then she spotted the guard by the door and thought better of it.

She turned tail and ran outside. As soon as she reached the porch, heart racing, several things became apparent. Firstly, the night had turned much darker and colder, the moon half-hidden behind cloud. No guests lingered around the marquee, made a wish in the fountain or laughed and chatted by the fire-braziers. Secondly, the two imperial guards posted at the entrance had found themselves a wine bottle to share, so they were a little out of sorts. Most importantly, the empty lawn beckoned her, leading down to the river, and there she made out a distant but unmistakable shape…

The wyvern!

"Oi, ma'am! Are you all right?"

The other guard sniffed, frowning. "Is that blood?"

Lucky her black dress didn't show up the stains. "I'm fine, thank you."

She headed to the fountain, pausing only long enough to drop the locket into the shallow basin before hurrying on to the lawn. Behind, she heard Titus shouting, raised voices as he snapped at the guards. Booted feet marched after her, and Valerie ignored the pain in her leg to put on another burst of speed.

The wyvern unfurled its wings, seeming to recognise her. Her heart swelled. Hopefully, Avon would come looking for her, and she could swoop down and pick him up…

Then the Patriarch stepped out from inside the marquee.

Valerie froze.

His pale, watery eyes pinned her where she stood. His white robes billowed, hands tucked into his sleeves. He looked unperturbed. As if he'd expected her.

All of this was frightening enough. But when the wyvern launched into the air and swooped towards them, its magical field swept over both herself and the Patriarch, and she saw who he truly was. Or rather, what he was. A figure shining with magic—every bit as much as the queen's—a sorcerer blessed with unimaginable power. She couldn't tell where that power came from. Did he carry the blessing of the goldentree? Or did his sorcery come from this new source, from the mercurite?

The Patriarch regarded her. "Oh," he said, sounding a little disappointed. "You're not her."

Before she could reply, before she could even think of what he meant, the wyvern's screech filled her ears. More shouts came from the palace. The alarm had been raised.

This should have been her triumphant escape. But as the wyvern dived, claws outstretched, she realised that her glyph had vanished. She could no longer control it.

He was controlling it.

The wyvern hurtled towards her. The guards closed in behind. Gripped by panic, she tried to dart out of the way, but the wyvern banked in the air and its talons tore across her back. She screamed, a raw, animal cry. The spell in her dress activated, sparks flying out, but the wyvern's momentum wouldn't stop. It bowled her over, claws pinning her down. Valerie slammed headfirst into the grass where she mercifully blacked out.