Answers,a quiet part of me whispered. Not safety. Not comfort. Answers.
My instincts were pulling me toward the voice. But if I was going to do this, it needed to be now. Bastien wouldn’t be gone forever.
Gathering my courage, I slipped the seashells into the pocket of my robe, which I quickly tied, then held the horn out in front of me like a wand.Or a shield.My wolves fell in behind me as I began the descent.
After a few steps, the light from my bedchamber was lost, and I walked in near darkness. The temperature grew warmer with each step, as if the walls themselves were heated by a supernatural power.
Perhaps Tansy hadn’t been joking,I thought dimly.Perhaps a dragon truly did sleep beneath the castle.However, when I rounded the next corner, I didn’t see a scaly beast, but a cavern with sharp stones sticking from the ceiling like jagged teeth, looming over a large salt pond. Steam hung like a cloud over the water.
“Well, well, well,” croaked the voice from somewhere behind the mist. “If it’s not the Duchess herself. Prince Bastien’s long-awaitedmate.”
My heart pounded hard in my chest. Only thosewho had taken a blood vow knew about my marriage. This person knew things they shouldn’t. My wolves growled, yet I did not turn and run. Not even when a skeletal figure emerged from the mist. Her long silver hair hung in dripping strands around a sunken face, and grayish skin clung to her bones. But it was her eyes that gave me pause. They glowedemerald.
Tansy had joked that a mermaid lived beneath the château, tending the dragon. This woman was no mermaid, but a witch. You could always see magick in a witch’s eyes.
When Witches of the Light cast spells, they shone pale as moonstone. When Witches of the Darkness worked their power, their eyes burned like liquid rubies. But I had never seen anything like this. Emerald did not belong to either side. Perhaps she was a water demon, like Mama had warned me about when I was a child.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The woman’s lips peeled back in something that might have been a smile, revealing a row of chipped teeth. “Is that what you wish to know? My name?” she croaked. “Or are you here to ask a different question?”
“What do you mean?”
“I only answer questions in exchange for payment. And you”—her gaze flicked downward—“only brought enough shells for one.”
I reached into my pocket and drew out the small handful of shells. I realized these weren’t gifts. They were currency. Payment for the old witch in the water.
The woman slipped beneath the surface of the lake and swam toward me, appearing again at my feet. I swallowed hard, fear tightening my throat, but I did not move.
She regarded the wolves sitting beside me, completely unafraid of them. “So many questions cloud your mind. Who am I? What should I do? What is my husband hiding?”Unfurling her spidery hand, the woman waited expectantly for my shells. “Which will it be,my lady?”
The emerald of her eyes flashed greedily as she stared at them. She wanted these shells as much as I wanted answers, and I knew I needed to use that to my advantage. So I put them back in my pocket. When I did, the light dimmed from her eyes, and she crinkled her brow. “Come, girl, give me your shells and ask your question. The prince will be along soon. And something tells me you wouldn’t want him to find you here.”
“That’s a bold thing to say,” I replied evenly. “Especially from someone who refuses to tell me her name.”
She narrowed her strange, shiny green eyes. “I am the last remnant of what existedbefore.”
I didn’t have time for cryptic answers. Frustration bubbled under my skin. The near-constant irritation that I couldn’t seem to control. “Beforewhat?”
A strange grin flashed across her face, like she had been waiting for me to ask this question. “You were born during a time when magick is either dark or light. Moon or demonic. From the greatmother, Diana, or from thefather, Damien. But it wasn’t always that way.”
She paused, seeming to watch the way the questions swam through my mind, then patted the lip of the salty lake. “If you want to know who I am, come sit by the water, and I’ll tell you a story.”
“I’m not giving you my shells to hear a story,” I said. I came here for answers, not tales.
Her eyes lingered on the horn. She leaned closer, her joints creaking as she moved, bones shifting beneath parchment-thin flesh. “I’ll tell you this one for free. But when the story ends, youwillask your question and give me your payment. Agreed?”
She held my gaze with those unsettling eyes of hers. I hesitated. The heat rolling off the lake had me sweating, makingthe horn slick in my hands. I didn’t know who or what this woman was, and she was asking me to make a bargain with her. A bargain for the shells I’d created with my own magick.
Fear had kept me small before. I wasn’t going to lose the chance to gain agency over my magick because of a creepy old woman. Besides, I had my wolves to protect me.
Lowering myself onto the damp stone, I winced as steam hissed against my skin, and the salty air stung my eyes. “Agreed.”
Satisfied, the old witch settled herself onto a submerged boulder and crossed her skeletal arms. “You’ve never heard the story of Damien and Diana’s daughters, have you?”
Chapter 6
Ressurgir
