Daughters Of The Storm (52 page)

Rose was ready at dawn to leave, alone in the stable with the door propped open, breathing the scent of dew-drenched morning and fresh hay. She hadn't slept more than a few fitful hours, her mind a
whirl of plans, adopted and abandoned equally swiftly. She was not about to stay here in Netelchester. But neither could she return to Blicstowe, to a life she had been displaced from five years ago. She didn't even know if there was still room for her at the family compound. In the end, there was only one thing she could decide on: go back to the flower farm and tell Heath. He couldn't fix anything, but she longed for comfort and she knew he would give it to her.

She hoped, too, for Bluebell's compassion. Oh, there was no doubt Bluebell would be angry, but she was loyal to family and surely she would fix things. Wengest couldn't keep Rose from her own child forever.

Once again she shuddered with the sorrow. Her baby! Where was her baby? Was she missing her mama? Asking for her every hour? Crying? Did she think Rose had abandoned her? The pain of this thought was so acute she had to stop saddling her horse and bend over double, clutching her belly.

‘Queen Rose?'

She turned. Coelred, Wengest's first retainer, stood there. She stood up tall, forcing herself to meet his eye, fingers clenched around the reins. ‘Coelred?'

‘Wengest sent me to pass you a message, my lady.'

She smiled tightly. ‘Am I still your lady, Coelred?'

His head drooped a little. ‘Your quarrel is not with me,' he said quietly.

‘Go on, then,' she said.

‘You are to pass this onto Bluebell. The future of our kingdoms relies on you doing so.'

Her blood cooled. She braced. ‘I will.'

‘You are not to see your child again if peace between our kingdoms is to hold. Now you have broken the bonds of peace with your ... actions,' he cleared his throat and glanced away, ‘you must give up your daughter.'

A rough wind shook the eaves of the stable, threatening to freeze her face with an expression of shocked misery on it forever. ‘Must I?'

‘I am sorry,' he said.

‘A child should be with her mother,' Rose said, her pulse hammering in her throat. ‘It is the natural way of things.'

‘Will you pass this message to your sister?'

Rose swallowed hard. Licked her lips. ‘Yes,' she said softly. And may Bluebell bring her entire army down to Netelchester to punish Wengest for it.

‘I wish you well,' he said, nodding once.

She turned back to her horse, tightening the saddle. When she looked back, he was gone. She mounted and urged her horse forwards, out of the stables, down to the road and out of Netelchester, hoping with every nerve in her body Bluebell would see things her way.

Bluebell tried not to notice the twinge of pain in her side when she set off riding that night. If anything, she was glad it kept her from falling forwards in her saddle into sleep. The night passed in a blur of movement and shadows, and the twinge became a throbbing pain, pulling sharply if she moved too suddenly. Rain came, but it didn't slow them. Bluebell's tunic grew soaked under her byrnie. With a hot sense of alarm, she started to believe the moisture she could feel dribbling down her side might be blood. There was no chance to stop and take off her clothes to see, so she kept her eyes ahead and kept going. At first light, while Yldra dug her hole in the muddy slope under an ash tree, Bluebell gingerly pulled off her byrnie, wincing as she stretched. She pulled up her tunic to see a cut about the length of her outstretched hand, curving around from under her rib. It wept blood slowly.

‘Have you hurt yourself?' Yldra said, peering at her.

‘It's an old wound that's reopened.'

Yldra looked at her sharply. ‘The one the Horse God healed?'

Bluebell nodded.

‘Curious. Perhaps he's not as powerful as he thinks, eh?' She smiled smugly.

‘Perhaps.' Bluebell didn't tell Yldra about the old magician for fear she would know Bluebell had been asleep on the job and not trust her enough to continue. She suspected Yldra might be mutable, flighty. She didn't want her to refuse to come the rest of the way.

‘It doesn't look too bad. Do you want me to dress it?'

Bluebell thought of the sleep she'd miss, and sighed. ‘I suppose you should.'

She sat while Yldra cleaned and dressed the wound, then waited under the tree in the rain while Yldra put herself into the ground for the day. Her side throbbed and throbbed. Pain was nothing to her. She had felt pain before and would no doubt feel it again. But pain laced with fear of magic was different, because she didn't know what to expect. It could get worse, stay the same, get better, or kill her ... she had no way of predicting the outcome.

So she paced to take her mind off it, and reassured herself that within a few days she would have brought Yldra to Æthlric, which is what she had set out to do. In fact, it was all she could do. If Yldra couldn't heal him, then Bluebell would have to accept it.

The day passed in a blur. Her brain was a whirl of birds' wings, no thought settled long enough for her to think it through properly. The weariness and pain sapped the strength from her limbs, so she could barely pull herself onto Isern that night.

Yldra, her clothes caked with mud but otherwise well and limber, narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you well enough to travel?'

‘We can't stop,' Bluebell said.

‘That's right.'

‘Then let's go.'

The night unfurled, as the nights before it had. The dark woods blurring past her, the thunder of the horses' hooves as they sped supernaturally forwards. But tonight, the searing thorn under her ribs was different. Breaking into the rolling rhythm of movement was an insistent, wretched pain. She felt a trickle, wondered if it
was sweat or blood. Her head pounded, the road unfolded — grey with grim shadows — beneath her ...

She wasn't aware she'd lost consciousness until she regained it, brittle as crushed glass in her mind. Yldra's face was above hers, her lips pursed so dark furrows formed around them. Eerie night shadows gathered on her brow. Bluebell's heart hammered.

‘What has happened to me?' she said.

‘You fell. Don't move.' Yldra inched up Bluebell's heavy mail byrnie, then the tunic, and gasped.

‘What is it?'

‘This wound,' Yldra said.

Bluebell struggled to sit up, caught a glimpse of dark gore, and was pushed back down by Yldra. ‘No. Don't look at it. How has this happened?'

‘A magician, on the beach,' Bluebell said. ‘He must have undone the spell.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘He got close while I was ... sleeping. I didn't mean to sleep.'

Yldra shook her head gravely. ‘We can travel no further tonight. I will have to use what magic I have in me to heal you.'

‘You can heal me?'

‘With the amount of power I have pulled from the ground today, I can undo the second spell, so the first will hold. But be warned: these two magics do not mix well. You will be sick for a few days. And every magician for miles will smell you. You'd best never return to Bradsey.'

Bluebell lay back on the cold ground while Yldra raised her hands and began muttering her incantations. She closed her eyes. No, she would never return to Bradsey. She could happily live her whole life without seeing another undermagician.

She thought about Ash, and sighed. Ash would become one of them, with shadows on her brow. Would she smell Bluebell and
shun her? She listened to the wind in the trees while the hot pain cooled in her side, then withdrew altogether. When she opened her eyes, Yldra sat, head bowed, next to her.

‘Yldra?'

‘Sleep. We can travel no further tonight. I am spent.'

And although she longed to get back to her father, the idea of a full night's sleep was sweeter than honey to her. She rolled out her blanket and remembered nothing more until morning.

It had become clear to Ash that Unweder did not like the rain. Cooped inside on grey days, he wandered from one side of his tiny house to the other, growling about the weather and peering repeatedly out the shutters with his bottom lip pushed out. On fine days, he was gone with his hessian bag full of clattering pots in the morning until late afternoon, when he would return with a rabbit or a pheasant or pockets full of wild mushrooms for their meal. Ash would cook while he tidied up his things, and then they would eat together and talk. Every time Ash asked Unweder what she should be doing to develop her skills, he told her simply to rest and think and recover from the loss of her old life. ‘Until your mourning is complete, you won't be able to access the full extent of your power.'

She understood this was one of the tenets of undermagic. Earthly attachments interfered with the craft. So many undermagicians lived alone, and yet Unweder had taken her in, seemed keen to share his knowledge. She understood the logic of his statement, but she didn't tell him she thought her mourning would never be complete.

Two days of rain cleared to sunshine on her seventh day with Unweder, and he woke her early with a gentle nudge of his toes.

Ash looked up, blinking sleep from her eyes. He had opened the shutters and a cool morning breeze stirred in the branches outside, making the sunlight move on the wooden floor.

‘Come,' he said. ‘I want to see what you can do, and there's no better time than early morning.'

Ash propped herself up on her elbows. ‘You want to see what I can do?'

‘Yes,' he said, fixing her with his good eye. ‘The elementals.'

Her heart picked up its rhythm and she fought a smile of pride. ‘Then let me show you.'

She threw back her blankets and found her shoes, tied them on and climbed to her feet. Unweder had gathered his hessian bag and waited by the open door. She joined him and they stepped out into the dew-soaked morning. Birdsong, crickets, the sounds of animals in the woods finding breakfast. Her own stomach rumbled but she had to catch the dawn, when elementals were most active. He took her up his front path, then around the back of his land, down a slope thick with slippery, damp leaf-fall, then through crowded elm trees and down to the overgrown edge of the stream where they drew their daily water supply. The sun filtered through the trees and made diamonds on the water. Ash removed her shoes and left them by the side of the stream, tucked up her skirts and waded in up to her ankles. The water was cold and clear. She could see the rocks in the bottom, the bright green weed pulled softly on the current, tiny fish darting around. She looked up at Unweder, who stood on the bank with his arms folded, smiling.

She smiled back, then closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. She could feel them around her. The air teemed with invisible movement. Rather than opening her eyes and trying to see them, she found one with her mind — a muscular movement in the air. It communicated with her wordlessly, tensed against her hold but not struggling.

‘What is it you want from me?' Its words were not words, but a shape in her head. She understood it with the hindmost part of her mind.

Ash thought about what Unweder had said. This was her gift. She didn't have to concentrate so hard, she didn't have to exert herself so much and make herself sick. Now she had stopped trying to develop her ability to prophesy or heal or any other thing, she could allow her body to do what it had been born for. To control elementals.

She felt her lips moving, but no words came out. Her thought was enough. The water began to swirl around her ankles. She pushed her toes in among the cold stones to anchor herself, and the water shot up around her, surrounding her but not touching her. She stood inside a funnel of swirling water. Then, merely by dropping the thought, the water dropped, splashed loudly, then was still again.

She opened her eyes. Unweder was looking at her, mouth agape.

‘Well?' she said.

Still he didn't answer, the expression of astonishment frozen on his face. Ash wasn't sure whether to be proud or frightened. Her pulse thudded past her ears. She had done it so easily. So easily. Was the fact that she was away from her family already making her power stronger? Or was it simply that she had the focus and confidence she lacked before she met Unweder? A mild swirl of nausea pulsing in her belly and joints was the only after-effect. That and the tiny cool finger on her heart, but that was surely only fear of the unknown. Soon, undermagic would be known to her, and that would stop too. Elation swelled inside her.

‘Ash,' Unweder said at last, shaking his head, ‘I had no idea.'

‘It was easier today than ever,' she said, knowing she sounded young and over-enthusiastic, but not caring to check herself. ‘I only had to think and the elemental moved.'

He moved down to the water and offered her his hand to help her out. She came back to the bank and sat down in the grass to
let her feet dry, noting that her knees shook a little. He crouched in front of her. ‘What does it feel like?' he said.