Daughters Of The Storm (44 page)

Ash looked around and saw a basket full of kindling beside the woodpile behind the door. She brought him a log and an armful of sticks. He arranged them in the hearthpit. His movements were considered and precise. Almost gentle. He didn't have the strength in his upper body that a man like Heath had, and it made him seem almost effeminate. Only he was not womanish either. Sex seemed almost a ridiculous proposition with Unweder.

‘Will you sit,' he said, gesturing to the other side of the hearthpit.

‘I'd best not. Bluebell is expecting me.'

‘Your sister is a bully.'

‘That's her job.'

He smiled. With a noticeable effort, he stilled his hands. Then held his fingers over the fire and rubbed them softly against each other. The kindling burst into flame.

‘How did you ...?'

‘You could too.'

Ash's heart thudded. ‘I could?'

‘You have no idea of your power.'

‘If I'm so powerful, why can I not control it? Why could I not even reassure Rose her daughter is safe, or see if my father will survive this elf-shot?'

‘You can't control it because you haven't focussed it yet.'

Ash considered him. The flames loaned a warmth to his skin that was usually missing. ‘I have so much to ask you.'

‘Go on then.'

‘I have about a minute left,' she laughed.

‘Then ask me your most pressing question.'

She thought hard, then said, ‘Why are you not afraid of me?'

‘Why should I be?'

‘You mentioned the dream to Bluebell, so you must know of it. Yldra sensed it on me. My Becoming is blighted and I am a danger to others.'

He shrugged. ‘I am curious about you. About this latent ability that fills you.'

‘It doesn't fill me,' Ash said. ‘It overflows.'

A thumping at the door. ‘Come on, time's up,' Bluebell shouted.

Ash glanced to the door, then back to Unweder.

He dropped his head and stirred the fire with an iron poker. ‘Go, don't upset Bluebell. She already hates me.'

‘She's only trying to protect me.'

‘You'll be back,' he said.

‘I don't know if I will be.'

‘You will.'

‘Have you foreseen that?'

‘No. You'll be back because you have nowhere else to go.'

Ash swallowed hard. ‘Goodbye,' she said. ‘Thank you for your help.' She opened the door. Bluebell stood waiting.

Would she be back, as Unweder said? The thought filled her with a deep, dreadful thrill, and she suspected he was right.

Bluebell woke with a prickling sense of something being amiss. Almost immediately, she realised Ash wasn't next to her in the bed. She sat up and looked around. They were in a tiny, stuffy room in an inn less than a day's ride from Yldra. Ash was nowhere in sight. Frowning, she climbed to her feet and pulled on her cloak. She cracked open the door. The village was quiet, the sun hadn't yet fully risen. She would have heard if Ash had been dragged out against her will, so she assumed her sister had slipped off as silently as possible. Trying not to be missed.

Bluebell closed the inn door behind her and headed down the shady path towards the stream they had crossed yesterday. Ash had been secretive and strange since she'd met Unweder, and Bluebell didn't much care for it. She demanded nothing more of Ash than her loyalty and honesty, and now she doubted she had either. Somehow, half the story was missing.

Across the stream, in the tangled shadow of a willow tree, Ash stood very still. A finger of yellow light broke over the horizon and caught the corner of Bluebell's eye. She shielded her gaze and watched Ash a moment, then approached.

Ash, sensing her, snapped into awareness and opened her eyes.

The ground shook under Bluebell's feet, dislodging a small rock that tumbled into the water. Bluebell faced her sister across the stream. Beloved Ash, somehow a stranger.

‘What are you doing?' Bluebell called.

Ash shrugged helplessly. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Come over this side,' Bluebell said, gesturing with her hands. ‘Talk to me.'

Ash picked her way over the stepping stones and came to Bluebell's side.

‘Why are you sorry?' Bluebell asked. ‘What are you doing out here?'

Ash sighed, and sank down to sit on the soft undergrowth at the edge of the stream. The sun over the horizon flushed the treetops yellow bright. ‘Can you see them, Bluebell?'

Bluebell cast her eyes around, alert. ‘See who?'

‘Of course you can't see them. Only I can. The unseen world, teeming with elementals. I can see them all. I only have to focus a little ...' She held her thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart. And there they are.'

Bluebell crouched next to her. A bold blackbird fluttered down low to look at them. ‘Are these the elementals you called to help me at Sceotley?'

‘Yes.'

‘But they helped. So they are good?'

‘They are neither good nor bad. They don't like me, but for some reason they have to do what I ask. When I can make the magic work.'

‘So this is magic?'

‘Undermagic. Of course. It must be. Unweder is right. I should never have gone to Thriddastowe. I am an undermagician, by birth. As you are a warrior. There is nothing else for me.'

Bluebell considered this carefully. She knew what it was to be born for something. ‘But you once told me it affected you, made you sick.'

‘It does, though not so much physically any more. But I can feel a little black spot on my soul. Like a flower of mould on bread.'

‘Then perhaps it's not right. Perhaps you shouldn't do it.'

Ash's gaze was far away. ‘I don't know if I can stop.'

‘Then try to stop.'

Ash focussed, turned to smile at Bluebell. ‘Perhaps you are right, sister. But there's something more I have to tell you and I promise you that you won't like it.'

Bluebell sat back, crossing her legs in front of her. She was suddenly desperate to piss, but didn't want to interrupt Ash now she had decided to talk. ‘Go on.'

‘The dream.'

‘This is the business Unweder spoke about?'

‘Yes.'

‘So there is something you haven't told me?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry. But I've seen my Becoming in a dream. And it is blighted.'

‘Blighted?' Bluebell repeated, an ancient dread shuddering in her belly. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes. I have always known it in some ways. Perhaps you have always known it of me too.'

Bluebell thought of the intense protective instinct she had always had towards Ash. Was it just sisterly love or was there a creeping shadow of fear that somehow she was marked?

‘I am destined to take thousands with me, unless I slip into exile,' Ash said. ‘Yldra knew. She sensed it when I travelled to her in my mind. She told me not to come near her.'

‘But ...'

‘That's right. I'll have to leave you to meet her alone.'

Bluebell was torn between different emotions. She had already lost Rose to some nonsense, and now she was to lose Ash. She wondered how much Unweder's influence was pressing on Ash's mind. But more than anything, she felt a deep pity for her sister, who was so young and so fragile, and yet somehow had to endure such a heavy load. Her heart squeezed. ‘Are you sure?' she said again.

‘I am sure,' Ash answered, her voice catching on a sob. ‘The only way I can be certain this horrible event won't happen, is if I take myself out of the world. If I am alone, then I cannot hurt anyone.'

‘Where will you go?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Go home to Ælmesse,' Bluebell said. ‘We have land to the north-west, hunting land. Whatever you need: gold to pay someone to build you a house, a servant, anything. You are a king's daughter. If this is truly meant to be your fate, then at least suffer no hardship. Return to Blicstowe and tell Dunstan. He will organise it all for you.'

Ash palmed tears off her face. ‘Thank you, Bluebell. But all the riches in the world cannot buy me happiness, if I must be away forever from those I love.'

‘Forever?'

‘How else can I be certain?'

‘I don't know about forever,' Bluebell said. ‘Maybe the path that takes you on this Becoming may one day be behind you. I will never stop hoping for your return.'

Ash smiled weakly. ‘I hope you are right, sister.' She patted Bluebell's thigh. ‘You must let me find my own way. I will not return to Blicstowe. I can no longer risk being in places where there are many people. As soon as I have led you as far as I can, I will find a place near a small village, perhaps by the sea.'

‘In Ælmesse? Under your father's rule?'

‘Maybe. I don't know.'

Bluebell bit her tongue. ‘How far can you lead me?'

‘I'll feel the limit. Yldra will start to resist me. I've sensed every undermagician, in every hut and hole since we crossed the border into Bradsey, prickling under my skin, pushing me away.'

Bluebell gazed at her sister's face: her fine skin and liquid eyes. She struggled to understand. Her world was plainer than Ash's, painted in broader brushstrokes. But she would let Ash go for now, and later, when Father was well again, she would find her.

As the day grew warmer and brighter, the pressure grew stronger and harder in Ash's mind and heart. The time was drawing close: time to leave Bluebell, time to take up her exile. This moment had been coming since she first understood the dream, but that made it no easier to accept. But despite the guilt at leaving Bluebell alone, despite the despair at separating from her family, there remained a small tingle of excitement.

The further north they went, the more elementals came out to see her pass by. It became easier for her to communicate with them in her mind, and she didn't feel so sick afterwards. Clearly, this was her skill. This was a power the Great Mother had given her. All she needed to figure out was the reason for her power, and how to use it best. She wouldn't get those answers from Bluebell.

But she knew where she might get them.

The pressure didn't come solely from within, though. Slowly, as they made their way up the road, she felt Yldra's resistance to her. As Unweder had said, Yldra had protected the way to her house fiercely. Along the way were charmed stones, woven mats buried under a thin layer of dirt, cotton ribbons tied in trees. Bluebell didn't notice these things, but Ash certainly did. A fine
web of Yldra's magic, stretching out thirty or forty miles from her house. Ash was certain her presence was felt along those silken threads and that Yldra knew she was coming.

It wasn't until the crossroads Unweder had spoken of that Ash simply couldn't go any further. As she tried to turn her horse to the west, her ears started to ring loudly.

‘What is it?' Bluebell asked, when Ash pulled up.

‘I ...' The pain in her head was sudden, intense, and she gasped.

‘Ash?'

Ash dismounted and ran back to the road. Her stomach heaved and she bent over to throw up. When she looked up, Bluebell was behind her, holding Ash's horse by the reins. ‘I take it this is as far as you can go?'

‘It is.' Her heart twinged.

Bluebell nodded. ‘Be safe, sister.'

Ash took the horse's reins. Bluebell put her arms around Ash's middle and squeezed her tightly, then let her go and took a step back. ‘Send news if you can.'

‘Bluebell, I ... I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if I should contact you. I don't ...'

‘You are my sister. You won't ever fall out of my life completely. I have faith we will see each other again. In happier times.' Bluebell glanced off to the road that headed west. ‘I will travel better alone.'

Yes, without Rose and me to slow you down. But do be careful.'

‘I'll be with Yldra by noon tomorrow.'

‘Be careful with Yldra.'

‘She's my father's sister.'

‘She's an undermagician.'

Bluebell fixed her in her gaze. ‘As are you. Apparently.' She grew suddenly intense, hunching up like a great spider preparing
to attack. ‘Ash, now your power is growing, can you tell me if Father will recover?'

Ash pinched her brain for the answer, but it slipped away. ‘I'm sorry, Bluebell. I don't know. I hope so. But I'm not so good at seeing the future.' She was good at commanding the elements. She said it again in her mind.
I command the elements
. A cool shudder of pride.

‘I hope Yldra can help,' Bluebell said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure.

‘I believe she can,' Ash said, squeezing her sister's hand. ‘Take care.'

Bluebell squeezed her hand in return, hard enough to bend the bones. ‘You also,' she said. Then she was pulling away, returning to her waiting dogs, to Isern, to her future as king of Ælmesse.

Ash felt she was choking on the emptiness as she watched Bluebell move off to the west. Then she wiped away her tears and looked back towards the south. It was time to return to Unweder.