“I think so.” Piers scratched the growth of dark beard on his chin. Apparently, mages taking care of them didn’t include shaving. Wycke scratched his own chin, where much sparser growth clung.
Aberfrer handed the book to Piers with an overly dramatic flourish.
Piers took the grimoire from the sorcerer and sat straight, body rigid, staring at a point past Aberfrer’s shoulder. He opened the front cover. A woman’s voice said, “I am Nyanda Gimitri, the only child of Kephan Gimitri. My family line should have ended with me. If someone hears my message, then this isn’t the case. My legacy lives on in this tome.”
Piers sagged, eyes sliding shut.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Piers stood in a familiar tower room where he’d lain imprisoned. Shudders wracked him when he stared at the worktable. Flashes of fear. Pain. Seeing his friends die. Or so he thought.
Then light.
No body lay on the table, certainly not his, no blood stained the stones, and no friends lay dead on the floor.
Sunlight streamed through a stained-glass window, sending colors dancing across the walls and floor. The room looked better kept than during his imprisonment, though immobility had prevented Piers from studying his surroundings too closely then.
Now he turned, taking in the carved canopy bed, the intricate jewelry on a vanity’s surface, and an elaborately brocaded dress laid out on the bed. A woman’s chamber, complete with rich furnishings. All appeared old-fashioned, antique-store chic, but far too new-looking. The scent of herbs and subtle perfume permeated the air.
Definitely not how Piers remembered this room.
He turned back to the worktable. This half of the room appeared to be a workshop. Shelves lined one wall, holding an array of daggers and other things he’d expect to find in a horror movie villain's hideout. Additional shelves held stoppered bottles.
The door opened. A woman entered with an armful of flowers, a smile playing on her full lips. Wow! Stunning! Jewels and a confident bearing showcased her beauty. Her hair fell loose to her waist in a cascade of dark waves.
Piers jolted. He saw a version of that face every time he gazed into a mirror. This woman could be his sister.
She hummed to herself, placing the flowers on the table and grabbing some kind of wicked-looking cleaver. With a loudthwack!she brought the blade crashing down on the blossoms.
Piers jumped, but she didn’t appear to see him, too busy destroying gorgeous roses and other flowers. She swept the ruined blossoms into a kettle, which she hung in the fireplace. A fire sprang to life with a wave of her hand.
Sorceress. But she didn’t seem evil as she danced around her room, singing, “My love isn’t lovely or fair, his face dear only to me, because I can see past beauty, the things most important to me.”
As though pulled by some unseen force, Piers found himself at her elbow, noting which jars she took from, how much of each she measured, and the order in which she threw the ingredients into the pot. He winced at some of the labels: “tongue of a bard three days dead” and “blood of an innocent.” Several jars bore the label, “blood of an innocent.”
At last, she stood before the kettle, stirring. Making tea? Piers certainly wouldn’t drink something made with dead people's parts or blood.
Time skipped, the lady disappeared, shadows lengthened, night came and went, yet Piers remained. The woman popped into view long enough to tend the kettle, sleep, or dress.
She removed the kettle from the fire after what must have been three days, placing the cast-iron pot on the work table. She hummed tunelessly, her voice soft. At last, she tipped the kettle up. Three drops of dark liquid fell into a waiting vial.
She left the vial on the table and returned to the part of the room appointed as living space. Time skipped again.
The woman stood before a full-length mirror, brownish-black hair swept up in an elaborate braided style. Embroidery enhanced the sleeves and bodice of her blue velvet gown, accentuating her narrow waist. Sapphires hung at her ears and throat. The setting sun beaming through an open window cast blue highlights to her hair, similar to Piers’ own.
Was this his mother, so beautiful and smiling so serenely? The woman everyone called evil? Hard to imagine the horrors she’d done, at odds with her sweet young woman appearance.
A sweet young woman who conjured with the blood of innocents.
After a final appraisal in the mirror, she hid the vial in her bodice and hurried from the room.
Time passed again.
The woman entered the room, dressed in a different gown but equally beautiful. Laughter spilled from her lips. “The potion worked! The old queen is dead!” she shrieked. Jubilation dissolved into a smirk. “Long live the new queen.”
A raven, wings the same color as the woman’s hair, sat on a perch in the corner, hanging its head. A single tear fell, rolling down its beak.
Time passed once more. The woman entered the room again, footsteps heavy. She neither hummed nor smiled this time. Instead, she grabbed a vase of flowers and hurled the delicate glass against the stone wall. The vase shattered, raining shards and blossoms over the raven sitting on its perch.
