Had she meant a sister witch, as Isobelle had assumed at the time? Or had she meant …?
Either interpretation seemed equally impossible, and yet …
Olivia clobbered Princess Buttercup over the nose with one hand, and as the mare shrieked her disapproval, Isobelle’s calm shattered. She raced across the broken courtyard, dodging cracks in the ground and mounds of stone and earth thrusting up towards the sky, and when she reached Olivia, she threw her arms around her, finally obliging her horse to let go.
‘That beast,’ muttered Olivia, wrapping her arms around Isobelle, smoothing her hair down, hands running over her to check for injuries. Isobelle knew without lifting her head that Olivia would be checking over her shoulder for Gwen, who was picking her way across the remains of the courtyard at a more sensible pace.
‘Princess Buttercup was keeping you safe,’ Isobelle managed, feeling like she might cry, even from safely inside the cotton wool. ‘She knows you’re important. I told her all about you as we rode. She’s not as restive when you keep up a conversation.’
The words seemed to tumble out of their own accord, only trailing off when Olivia pulled back to hold Isobelle’s face between her hands, examining her features for signs of injury, or perhaps for signs of whatever had happened in the tower.
‘Who was in there?’ was all Olivia said.
‘Nobody, now,’ Isobelle replied softly.
Isobelle gazed up at her, taking in the familiar face of the woman she hadn’t known as well as she’d believed. There was much still to discuss between the two of them. But Olivia met her gaze gravely, silently promising that they would find a way to speak of it all.
Gwen reached them, and Olivia greeted her with a nod.
The three of them mounted up, Isobelle behind Gwen on Achilles, and Olivia on Princess Buttercup, who had abandoned hostilities now her work was done. As they made their way out of the ruined courtyard, the girls told Olivia in fits and starts what had happened. Bingleton. Tabitha, and her fate among the ruins. Isobelle’s magic.
Isobelle left out the part about entering Gwen’s dream – it seemed as though Gwen had no memory of what had taken place between them, and the experience was not one she wanted to unpack in front of Olivia. She wasn’t even sure if she should unpack it with Gwen. Perhaps the whole point was to simply leave the memory of the dragon’s assault on Gwen’s soul forever in the abyss into which they’d cast it together.
She also left out the part about Tabitha … being her sister.
But was she? She was trying to get Isobelle to leave, to flee the tower before it finished collapsing. How better tojolt Isobelle out of her determination to rescue Tabitha, than tell her a lie shocking enough to shake her own foundations?
Isobelle tried to focus, instead, on the rhythmic pace of Achilles’s steps.
Without needing to discuss it, they turned at first not for the town, but to follow the path that led to the base of the cliffs. And there they dismounted, surveying the huge chunks of stone that lay in the sea, the waves washing around them. There was no sign of the luminous glow of the sea monster, but as they stood in place, another chunk of stone crashed down from above, splintering and sending fragments in every direction.
They spent some time moving through the rubble and climbing over the cracked and tumbled ruins, but they found nothing but crumbled stone and splintered furniture. Isobelle wasn’t sure whether she had hoped or feared they would find some sign of Tabitha, but when Gwen gently took her hand, she let her beloved lead her away.
The sun was rising as they rode into Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea.
At first, all seemed as it had been – the doors were closed, the windows were shuttered. It seemed the town still slept, buried in its own fear. The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves echoed with no reply.
Then, as the golden fingers of light began to flowalong the cobblestone streets, a wooden door edged open, a child’s face peering through the crack.
Another door opened further along the street, and a woman walked outside, blinking as if she were waking from a dream. She turned to look past the riders, up towards where the tower had stood on the edge of the cliff, and watched the last pieces still crumbling into the sea.
As they made their way towards the town square, more and more of the citizens of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea began to emerge, looking to each other for answers none of them could give, and then turning to watch the tower’s demise. Up on the hillside, the sheep were grazing with the peaceful focus of contentment. One of the townsfolk, the same woman who had fed them fried honey cakes when they’d first arrived, stepped outside to begin tugging down the woven wards against darkness hanging from her eaves. She handed them to her son, who ran along to the square to place the remains, wreath-like, on the plinth where once the statue of the paladin had stood.
Isobelle wondered if they knew, somehow – if they had felt the same presence she had when the curse had broken, and understood that the women who had lived and died here as witches had been a part of their salvation.
In the square stood Henry and the other lads from the town, along with Rosamund the tavernkeeper, who’d brought fresh bread outside on a tray, steam rising from it in the crip, cold morning air.
The fear that had settled over the little town like a muffling blanket had been lifted away, and as the sun continued to climb up from the horizon, hope rose with it.
37
Hopebringer
Rosamund kept sending up platters of food and pitchers of drink, until they had to send message via one of the servants that they wished not to be disturbed further. The three of them sat in Gwen’s suite, Olivia on a packing chest near the door, Isobelle on the bed, and Gwen by the window. The view that had been so desolate a day earlier was lively once more, even chaotic, with the townsfolk of Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea resuming their daily activities and scurrying to catch up on time lost.
Gwen had conducted a survey of the damage to her armour as she pulled off each piece, with Isobelle’s help. One of the pauldrons was badly dented, though her shoulder only throbbed a little – a falling rock was nothing compared to the brutal slam of an opponent’s lance. Scratches down the back of her breastplate told of other rocks that had grazed her, and crumpling at the elbow articulation had limited her movement severely until they got the vambrace off.
Now, having changed out of her padded jerkin and trousers, and having sponged off the worst of the sweat underneath, her fingers itched for a task. Despite her restlessness, her whole body ached with weariness, and her mind as well – she longed for sleep, for what felt like the first time in months, knowing that the decaying dragon no longer lurked in her mind, waiting for her to drop off.
