Daughters Of The Storm (24 page)

Rose was meant to be collecting water from the stream behind the house, but it was too beautiful a morning to return inside. She put her bucket down and sat on a flat rock at the edge of the stream. She slid off her shoes and dipped her feet into the soft water, letting it lap around them. Bright green streamers of weed were pulled by the current, tickling her toes. The air was warm and the sun shone. A fresh breeze drove fine white clouds across the sky. The stream bent away to the east, disappearing into an oak wood, while to the west lay fields of unfurling flowers. On the other side of the stream were grassy hills. Sweet smells of creamy flowers and damp grass. She closed her eyes and listened. The stream running over rocks. The cheep and chitter of sparrows. Leaves rushing in the wind. And dogs barking.

She opened her eyes. The barking was close, around the bend of the stream. Happy barking. It must have been Bluebell's dogs, but Rose had left Bluebell back at the house. She climbed to her feet and made her way barefoot along the rocks — avoiding sharp points — and into the cover of the wood to investigate.

Almost immediately, Thrymm was barking happily at her ankles, shaking water off her coat and soaking Rose's skirt. ‘Bluebell?' Rose called. She moved a little further in where the stream widened and the trees opened up. It wasn't Bluebell with the dogs. It was Heath, stripped to the waist, standing in the water.

‘Oh,' she said.

‘Oh,' he said, seeing her.

Thræc, who was Thrymm's mother and a much calmer animal, raised her nose to sniff the wind, then returned to drinking from the shallows.

‘What are you ...?'

‘Bluebell sent me to take the dogs swimming. They were still muddy from the trip.' He shrugged. ‘It seemed like a good idea to go in with them.'

The breeze allowed a shaft of sunlight to break through the trees. It caught the red-gold in his hair, illuminating his white skin, his hard muscles, the black tattoo on his chest. A flame ignited, low in her stomach.

He must have seen the desire in her eyes, because he raised his hands in a stop gesture and said, ‘Don't, Rose. We can't be found together. Bluebell has made that clear.'

Bluebell. She hadn't stopped bossing everyone since they left Blicstowe. She treated them as though they were her army, not her sisters. Rose approached Heath. ‘I'm not afraid of Bluebell.'

‘I am.' He waded out of the stream and up onto the bank, where he pulled on his tunic. ‘You should go.'

Embarrassment made her angry. ‘Don't be afraid of her,' she snapped. Then, softer, ‘She's my sister. She won't hurt you.'

Heath didn't look up. ‘I believe she will. You haven't seen her in battle,' he said, belting his tunic. ‘I know what she is capable of.' He whistled to the dogs, who ran to his side with their tails
thumping. ‘You go back the way you came and I'll head back to the house separately, and we'll —'

How was she supposed to bear this? Three years apart from him and then, in their one moment alone, he was shutting her out. Wretched, wretched Bluebell. ‘Heath, please.' Her voice cracked. ‘Please.'

He wavered. He glanced around.

‘I cannot bear this. Why have I been chosen for such great unhappiness?' She began to sob.

‘Hush, Rose, hush,' he said, touching her shoulder lightly. This touch — the kind that could pass between any two people, not lovers — made her cry harder.

‘Let me hold you,' she said, reaching for his wrist. He didn't move. ‘Nobody will see us,' she said urgently. ‘The dogs can't talk.'

Slowly, he turned his hand over and caught her fingers in his. Rose's feet tingled, and she breathed back her tears.

‘I can't bear your unhappiness,' he said, ‘but I can do nothing to prevent it.' He squeezed her hand.

‘The blame is not yours.'

‘Can you not see? Here I am, willing to do anything for you. But nothing I do will change the situation. We cannot be together. And still I cannot accept that. I cannot feel it as truth in my heart, because surely such a love should ...' He trailed off, words stuck in his throat.

They stood like that a moment, eyes locked together. Her skin burned. He reached for her. His clothes were damp. Her breath flew from her lips. The scent of his skin overwhelmed her as she pushed her body against his, her cheek into his shoulder. Her hands spread out across his hard flanks. She felt his fingers in her hair. Her skin hummed.

Then, a whistle in the distance. Thrymm and Thræc immediately turned and began to bolt. It was Bluebell.

Heath pulled away from Rose as though stung. Her body missed his immediately. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, and his sea-coloured eyes grew sad. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Don't worry,' she said. ‘I'll disappear. Go on.'

He took her hand, squeezed it once, then went running after the dogs. She watched him go, then pressed her palm to her lips. She imagined she could smell his skin on her fingers: salty, male. It smelled like endless sorrow.

The shoulders of the day were best avoided if Ash wanted to stay clear of elementals. Like birds and ants, dawn and dusk were the times they were on the move. But Ash wasn't sure she necessarily wanted to stay clear of elementals. And that surprised her.

It had been a glorious day: sunshine and pale blue skies, the air heavy with the scent of flowers and damp earth. She had cleaned the farmhouse floors and laid fresh rushes, been in charge of mucking out the chicken coop and helped Rose cut up vegetables for soup. The house was filled with the smell of cooking and she was looking forward to a meal and a good night's rest.

But first, this.

As she left the farmhouse, the sky was pale pink along its western rim, shading to dusky blue. She headed for the stream, in particular the oak grove that stood to the north. A chill in the air coaxed goosebumps from her skin. Behind her, at the house, she could hear Rowan crying, Heath and Sighere laughing. She felt a long way outside everything, head down, hurrying for the dark grove.

She moved far enough into the trees that she was certain she would be undisturbed. Then, heart thudding, she closed her eyes and opened up her senses. Her skin fluttered. At first she could only
hear her pulse, but then other sounds came to her. A breeze among the leaves, birds chattering as they settled in their nests, the soft pop of a twig deep in the wood as a small animal scurried about ...

And the faint ringing of magic. Slowly, she opened her eyes. In her normal vision, the wood looked as it had before. Rocks, undergrowth, dark ivy-wound trunks, the flat stream. But her second vision picked up indistinct shadows nestled inside the ordinary shadows. Now the magic was growing louder, drowning out the other sounds.

‘Come,' she said, ‘show yourself.'

Under the lowest branch of the closest tree, a shadow began to shiver. Ash kept hold of her focus, even though her heart was thumping hard. A figure began to form, only visible if she didn't look on it directly. Small and brown, a pointed face and black eyes, wild hair and two tiny horn buds. A tree elemental, with an expression of hostile curiosity on its face.

It spoke, its voice appearing in Ash's head even though its lips did not move. ‘Who are you?'

‘I am Ash.'

‘I am oak.'

‘Why can I see you?'

‘All is unveiled to you, woman. You can see behind the workings of the world.'

This statement made Ash's stomach roll over with fear. The elemental turned around to move away.

‘Wait! Come back,' she said.

It did as she said, stood in front of her. She moved closer and, although it flinched, it didn't run away. Ash raised her hand and reached for its face, found only a freezing pocket of air under her fingers.

The creature's face twisted in scorn. ‘I wish you would not touch me. I wish you would let me go.'

‘Let you go?'

‘You command me.'

‘I certainly don't.'

‘You told me to come back.'

Ash hesitated a moment, then said, ‘And why did you?'

‘Your voice is
aræd
.'

Ash knew this word from her studies. It was an undermagic word, and it meant inexorable, unswayable and all the other words between. ‘Are you saying ...?'

‘Whatever you tell me to do, I must obey.'

Ash caught her breath. ‘But why?'

‘I do not know.'

She gazed at the creature, her mind too full of her own fears to recognise that it, too, was frightened. Then she shook herself. ‘I am sorry. Go. I set you free.'

Almost before the sentence was finished, the elemental had dissolved back into the shadows of the wood. With its disappearance came the abrupt cessation of the ringing in her ears. Everything seemed quiet, suddenly. Normal. Her roiling stomach drove her to the edge of the stream to throw up.

Ash sat on a rock and wiped her mouth with a shaking hand. Always at the outer edge of her thoughts was the knowledge that her Becoming was blighted, and that she was a danger to others. Was this why? What kind of uncanny ability was possessed in her slight body?

And how long before that unwieldy power began to shake her to pieces?

It was well past time to leave and Bluebell knew it, but she put off leaving day after day because she feared the moment she left, Father would die. As though her presence, her will, could keep him alive.
Cooped up in the farmhouse, she felt unhappy and unsettled. Her sisters were sore with her for ordering them about and their reluctance made her bad-tempered. At the end of the third day, she could bear it no more. She had to get out and kill something.

Of course, there was nothing to kill, she realised as she stalked through a carpet of daisies. A few badgers maybe, but that would hardly satisfy her. Besides, killing animals was not sport. They were not armed. In the distance, she could see an old scarecrow. She drew her sword and hefted its weight in her right hand, loosened her wrist by flourishing the blade, then began to run at the scarecrow. Moments later, its straw head was lying among the daisies. Still not satisfied, she hacked off its left arm, then its right. She lifted her sword above her head, ready to bring it down and slice the damned scarecrow in two, when she heard a rustle behind her.

She turned. Rowan stood there, looking at her with frightened eyes.

Quickly, Bluebell returned the Widowsmith to its sheath. ‘What are you doing out, little chicken?'

‘You killed him!'

Bluebell glanced over her shoulder at the headless scarecrow, bent shafts of straw poking up out of its collar. She turned back to Rowan and shrugged. ‘He was looking at me funny.'

Rowan's little mouth turned upside down.

‘Why are you crying?'

‘He was my friend!'

Bluebell winced. ‘He was?'

Rowan nodded. ‘I played with him every day.'

‘Ah, I see. Well ...' She bent to pick up the scarecrow's head and balanced it back on the body. ‘Now he's fixed, you see?'

Rowan didn't look convinced. Then a stiff gust of wind swept across the fields, making the head fall with a thud to the ground and she started to wail.

Bluebell crouched in front of her. ‘Please don't cry. Sh.' She loved the little girl, but had scant patience for her. Always whinging and crying. Rose was far too soft with her. The child needed a firmer hand. ‘Come on, hush.'

Rowan threw herself towards Bluebell, her little arms encircling her neck. Bluebell put her right arm around the child and lifted her up. ‘Let's find your mother.'

‘I miss my papa!' Rowan wailed. ‘Where is Papa?'

Bluebell tried giving her a comforting squeeze, but perhaps it was too hard as Rowan began to cough. The coughing descended into more sobbing.

‘Quiet now, little one,' Bluebell said, hurrying back towards the house. ‘Rose! Rose!'

Rose was at the back door already, her arms outstretched. Bluebell handed the child over.

‘What happened?' Rose asked.

‘Bluebell killed my scarecrow!' Rowan blubbered.

‘I killed her scarecrow,' Bluebell said.

Rose kissed the top of Rowan's head, stroking her hair.

‘I don't like this place. I want Papa. I want to go home to Papa.'

Realisation dawned. ‘Was she pretending the scarecrow was Wengest?' Bluebell asked.

‘I'm not sure,' Rose answered, ‘but she's been down there every day talking to it.'

Bluebell was torn between guilt and annoyance. And, admittedly, a small thread of amusement. She patted Rowan's back. ‘Your mama is here now, please stop crying. Warrior queens don't cry.'

This made Rowan cry harder. Bluebell had had enough. The endless round of domestic duties, the crying child and, through it all, her father lying silent and still. It was time to tell Ash of her plans. It was time to leave and find Yldra, even if it meant leaving Æthlric behind.