He is rocking the baby, a somewhat lost look on his face as the child plays with one of his fingers. Suddenly an imperial soldier rushes in, his armor making a clinking sound as he stops before the man. He gives a short salute before speaking, “Sir, we have found them.”
The man’s lip curls up in a sneer. “Leave not a one standing.”
The soldier’ hesitates. “Sir… they’re already dead.”
As the man’s words fade into the winter storm, the vision changes one final time, revealing a pile of bodies. Faces I recognize as belonging to the warriors stare blankly outward, a blackness like ink leaks from the corners of their mouths and eyes. Their veins bulge with a darkness within, but other than this there is no sign of the cause of their death.
No blood, no wounds, and most importantly of all, no struggle. As if they all just simply dropped over dead.
I find myself staring into the face of the closest man, I think he was the man who first tried to kill the babe, but all I see staring back at me is the memory of my own vision of my death. The emptiness in my gaze and the black that leaked out of my eyes like tears.
Then suddenly I’m gasping as my head is jerked out of the basin. I’m back in the Werma’s tent, my head spinning with more questions than I have answers to.
Chapter Eleven
The Most Terrifying Words
“Witch!”Marcellogaspsout,jerking back so quickly that he slams into the mantel of the fireplace. He bumps it so hard that I notice a bit of red stemming on his bandage again. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing,” the Werma says in her maddeningly unclear way of speaking. “What you saw had already been done, all I did was open your eyes to it.”
I reach up, wiping the droplets off my face although they cling to my hair and clothing. “Leave him be. What he witnessed was horrific.”
I turn, taking in Marcello, my eyes glancing over his shivering form. His eyes are no longer bloodshot from the tears since they came only in the vision, but his complexion is still pale, and I can still see the horror written across every one of his features. Rivulets of water drip from the ends of his curling hair and run down his cheek.
What a tragedy it must be, to have a mother that actually loves you, only to lose her.
I still bear the scars of the loss of my father, and that was something I was not forced to bear witness to. No, all that was required of me was to live in the aftermath and embrace the isolating loneliness of having no one and nothing to wait for me in my home.
I stride across the room, grasping a heavy blanket which I then swing over Marcello’s shoulders. The cold up here in Nelgata can be ruthless, and it will use any weakness to grasp a hold of your mortal soul with its icy fingers, even grief or shock. He looks at me, startled and I shove him, perhaps a bit too roughly so that he falls backward into a chair set up just in front of the fire.
I do not want him to get any ideas, but there are also some things that are too cruel even for captives. Death or servitude may not be avoidable for those in that position, but there is certainly no need to torture them like with the bloody eagle. Nor to torture their minds like that vision did to the shivering imperial boy in front of me.
I whirl on the Werma resting my hands on my hips. “Why would you show us that?”
“So that you may see,” she croons, getting up and walking toward the back room where her bed and scant personal belongings are located. The Werma made her life the herbs she inhales and the bones she scries; and it’s a fact that is difficult to ignore in her hut.
I give Tira a side glance to let her know to keep an eye on Marcello. He is cunning and desperate enough that I wouldn’t put it past him to try to escape while we are lulled into complacency by his apparent weakness.
She gives a small jerk of her head, and I leave my place at his side, striding after the Werma. “Enough of your riddles, old woman,” I snarl, blocking the door as she turns around with a woven cloth in her gnarled hands. “You will speak plainly to me, or I swear by the corpses of the gods that you will be just as dead as them when the night is through.”
She clucks her tongue. “Dear oh dear, matricide then?”
“You are no mother to me. You are simply the madwoman who birthed me, but I will have no part in you and yourmotherhood. Little as it is.”
I wish my words could hurt the Werma even just a portion of how much they slice through my core, but her face remains emotionless and hard. Like the stone.
Indeed, I learned long ago that to love the Werma was like loving a stone.
“Very well, I will tell you the truth, although I doubt you are ready to hear it.”
I fold my arms, widening my stance. “Spare me your concern for my feelings, you’ve never allowed it to dictate your ways in the past. Why should you start now?”
Marcello steps up beside me, the end of his blanket brushing the floor near my boot. I startle slightly, turning to him. This is the only reason why I am so off my guard when the Werma says. “You’re a dead woman, Laduga.”
I swallow as I turn back to her, trying to conceal the surge of fear that courses through my veins. I had thought it a possibility, but it makes a difference hearing it from her mouth.
Hate her as I might, the Werma is never wrong when it comes to the future.
