Mist-Torn Witches 02:Witches in Red (19 page)

“We’re not taking up any space,” I argued. “This wagon belongs to us. And we do have men working in the mines, my cousin Mikolai and my second cousin Micah.”

“Those men aren’t part of your household, and your father’s dead. You’ll need to clear out. Take your wagon if you can buy a horse somewhere.”

He walked away. I couldn’t believe it. He was ordering Mariah and me to leave.

When I told Mikolai and Marcus, of course they came to our defense, and Mikolai went to speak with the captain, to tell him that Mariah and I were part of his family. He came back grim faced and said that the captain had told him that since he was not a husband or father to us, he didn’t count, and we would have to leave.

We had no horses, and we could not take our wagon. With the possible exception of Marcus, I didn’t think any of our men would go with us—and even he might not leave his father. What would become of us?

I spent the next two days in fear, thinking that soldiers might come at any moment to drive Mariah and me out of camp, but they didn’t.

Instead, Mariah came in late, opening the door to the wagon and slipping inside long after dark.

“We don’t have to leave,” she said.

“What?” I asked in confusion. “I don’t think that captain will change his mind.”

“I’m not going
anywhere
!” she spat at me, and then I could see that she was upset, her small hands trembling. “I’ve made a bargain with the captain. You and I
can stay, and in exchange, Marcus will give him wild game for his table, and I will give him . . .” She trailed off.

I went cold. “You’ll give him what?”

She turned away, and reality hit me. This was what he’d been after all along. This was why he’d threatened to banish us: to place her under his power.

I should have been outraged. I should have taken a knife and gone after him. But I didn’t.

“We can stay?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I wasn’t even relieved. I didn’t feel anything.

That day blended into the next.

S
omehow, Amelie drew her hand away. She couldn’t watch any more of the events that led up to the state of Mercedes and Mariah’s current life. While doing readings, her targets were not normally actively involved, but this one had been different. She’d felt Mercedes with her, almost speaking to her, all along.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I couldn’t watch anymore.”

Mercedes just sat there with bleak eyes, and Amelie realized what it must have cost her to relive all that.

“So . . . ,” Amelie said, “not long after that, the first attack happened? The soldiers started turning into wolves?”

Mercedes nodded slightly. “Mikolai was killed the first time it happened, and Captain Keegan threatened to make his father complete his contract . . . if we wanted the wages. Uncle Landrien’s joints are too painful to work in those mines, so Marcus signed on to take over for Mikolai, which is exactly what Keegan expected to happen.” She sighed. “But then the attacks continued . . . and this last one that occurred inside the mines proved
too much. Even desperate men will refuse to work if they fear something more than starvation.”

“You left those mushrooms for Keegan, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.”

“Why now? If Keegan has been at Mariah for months, what made you decide to try to kill him now?”

“Your sister,” Mercedes answered quietly. “She woke something inside of me. Right after she left me last night, I went out and picked the mushrooms and ran them to the cook. He was just finishing the stew, and he knows the captain likes mushrooms fried in butter. But I made sure that neither you nor Céline would be sitting at the captain’s table last night. I’d never do anything to hurt one of my own people.”

“What about Quinn? Or Jaromir? Did you ask about them?”

“I don’t care what happens to them. I just want Keegan dead.”

Though Amelie didn’t blame her for hating Keegan, she could not condone Mercedes’s callous disregard for Jaromir or Quinn.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I’ll do something about Keegan. I’ll make sure he leaves Mariah alone and that you’re both allowed to remain with your family. But you need to promise me you won’t try anything else. You have to trust me.”

“You won’t give me away? You won’t tell your lieutenant?”

“No. I won’t tell anyone but Céline. She and I don’t keep secrets. Do you swear to stop, to let me handle this?”

Mercedes nodded again.

Amelie stood up. “I need to get back.”

Though she had established who’d poisoned Keegan, she was no closer to resolving the true reason she and Céline had come here—to find out why these soldiers were turning into mad wolves one by one. But she didn’t believe Mercedes had anything to do with it or knew anything about how it was being done.

Still, there was much to consider.

After heading out the door, Amelie walked through the miners’ camp back toward the path leading into the trees, and a single word from Mercedes’s story rose in her mind. Several times Mercedes had referred to Marcus as a “shifter.” He’d always before been mentioned as a hunter, but this designation as a shifter seemed to give him importance. The word was vaguely familiar, and Amelie thought she’d heard it somewhere before.

Could it be a Móndyalítko reference to one born with a special ability for hunting? Or did it mean something more?

Stopping, she turned and looked at Mercedes’s wagon, wondering if she should go back and ask. But . . . she’d already put Mercedes through too much today and thought it best to just find out on her own.

* * *

Jaromir remained sitting at Keegan’s bedside, by himself, well into midafternoon. He’d told Quinn to leave, instructing him to get some rest. The captain groaned and rolled a few times in his sleep, but Jaromir took that to be a good sign, suggesting that Keegan had not fallen into deep unconsciousness.

Footsteps sounded from the front section of the wagon, and he looked over in annoyance, prepared to order Quinn to bed if necessary, but the visitor was not Quinn. Instead, Céline came into view from around a hanging tapestry.

Her hair was damp and hanging loose down her back. She wore her red cloak, but he could see a shade of dark pink beneath the opening in the front.

Smiling tiredly, she lifted the hem of her cloak a few inches to let him see the skirt of her evening gown.

“I feel ridiculous walking around camp in pink silk, but my tan wool is spattered with everything the captain ate yesterday, and it smells terrible. I took it off and washed my hair, and I had nothing else to put on.”

He couldn’t help smiling back.

She looked around. “Is Amelie not with you? I thought to find her here.”

“She’s not in your tent?”

“No, I woke up alone . . . and I can’t believe I slept out so much of the day. But I’m sure she’s not far. Perhaps she’s gone to the provisions tent. I’ll take a look at the captain and then check there.”

However, she didn’t move. Instead her mouth opened once and closed again.

“What is it?” he asked.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, and we’ve had no time. It could be nothing.”

Growing annoyed again, he half turned in his chair. “Tell me.”

“Yesterday afternoon, when I was coming back from having tended to the miners, I ran into Corporal Quinn,
and we had a rather . . . frank conversation about Captain Keegan.”

Jaromir sat straight, at full attention now.

“Apparently, Prince Lieven had trouble getting any of his officers to take up a position as commander here. The last captain died, and the prince could find no one willing to replace him. Quinn told me that Keegan ran into difficulties over a gambling debt and was coerced into volunteering as a result.” She walked closer, looking down at the sleeping captain. “Quinn’s exact words were, ‘He views this assignment as an insult and a punishment, and he feels he’s paid his dues.’”

“What are you suggesting?” Jaromir asked, but he already knew . . . He’d already had his own doubts about Keegan.

“Quinn says that he’s requested a replacement several times, but no action has been taken.”

Jaromir put his hand to his chin, thinking. Keegan had also staunchly refused to allow either Céline or Amelie to read any of his soldiers, and as he appeared to care little for his men, perhaps this reticence was due to the fact that he was hiding something.

“Do you want to read him?” Jaromir asked.

“I’d like Amelie to read him first. Whatever he’s protecting, I think we’ll think find it in his past.”

A groan sounded from the bed. Keegan rolled and opened his eyes. He looked up at Jaromir blankly for a few seconds, and then moved his gaze up to Céline.

“Water,” he croaked through dried lips.

“Of course,” Céline said, hurrying toward a basin and filling a mug.

“Give that to me,” Jaromir said, standing up. “I’ll take care of him. You go and find Amelie.”

* * *

Céline checked the provisions tent first, and upon not finding her sister, she headed back to their own tent, thinking perhaps Amelie had already returned there. As Céline walked up, she saw her dark-haired sister coming toward her from the direction of the miners’ camp—wearing a pensive expression.

“Are you all right?” Céline asked.

“Let’s go inside.”

“Jaromir sent me to get you. He has a task for you.”

“Soon enough. I need to tell you something.”

Concerned and curious, Céline passed through the flap into their tent, and Amelie followed.

“Mercedes poisoned Keegan,” Amelie said as soon as they were inside and alone.

“What?” Céline gasped.

“It’s true. Listen. She let me read her.”

And with that, Amelie began to spill out a story of hardship that became increasingly difficult to hear, the story of what brought Mercedes and her family not only to live here, but to end up trapped here. Putting off Jaromir for now, Céline didn’t interrupt or rush her sister. She listened to everything Amelie had to say.

“And after Keegan threatened to banish Mercedes and Mariah,” Amelie finished, “Mariah sold herself to him. That’s why they’ve been allowed to stay.”

“He’s a monster.” Céline furrowed her brow. “And so Mercedes just tried to poison Keegan now?”

“She says you woke her up.”

Thinking back to her last conversation with Mercedes, Céline felt an unexpected wave of guilt. Had she induced Mercedes to try to murder Captain Keegan?

“You can’t tell anyone,” Amelie said. “I made a promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone but you, not even Jaromir—especially not Jaromir—and that I’d think of something to help Mariah. Mercedes says she won’t try it again, and in the end, not too much harm was done. Will you help protect her?”

“You know I will.”

“There’s something else,” Amelie continued, her eyes growing more thoughtful. “Mercedes referred to Marcus several times as a ‘shifter.’ I know I’ve heard that word before, but I can’t remember where.”

“It was Helga.” Céline remembered the speech. “Inside our guest room at Castle Sèone when she was telling us about our heritage. She said that Móndyalítko don’t have wealth or power in the same sense as the princes and lords. She said, ‘But they have their own bloodlines of power, the shape-shifters, the Mist-Torn, and the like.’”

Amelie’s body tensed. “I remember that now. Shape-shifters? Do you think Marcus has some natural-born power like ours but that lets him change his shape?”

Céline sank into a chair. “Oh, Amelie . . . I forgot to tell you something. I swear I wasn’t keeping it a secret. With all that’s happened since, I . . . forgot.”

“What?”

“Our first night here, Marcus was standing outside the tent. I was so tired, it almost didn’t seem real, more like a dream, but he let me read him, just for a moment,
and I felt the strangest sensation. Instead of observing, I seemed to be inside another body, and I was running swiftly through the forest . . . on all fours.”

“On all fours?”

“Keep your voice down. Someone outside could hear.”

“Céline, if Marcus can change himself into something that runs on all fours, he just made it to the top of our list of people to investigate. He hates these soldiers, and he certainly has a motive to get rid of them.”

“So what are you saying?” Céline asked. “That he’s somehow infecting them with his own natural ability—if he even has one? We’re only guessing here. Do you think you or I could pass our gift to someone else and then twist it so the person goes mad?”

Amelie frowned. “I just think we need to pursue this.”

“Agreed. And we will. But right now, Captain Keegan has moved to the top of Jaromir’s list.”

“Keegan?”

“Yes. Come with me. I’ll tell you on the way.”

* * *

As Amelie walked into Keegan’s tent, the afternoon sun was already sinking, and she was disturbed by how much part of her wanted this corrupt captain to turn out to be guilty of the crimes here. She was hoping to do a reading and expose him as a false leader who was somehow destroying his own men in order to get himself relieved of an unwanted command.

While she didn’t view herself as a vindictive person, she wanted to see him punished. Thankfully, the better
part of her fought against such instincts. She needed to keep her mind clear to be able to focus on the reading, on seeing the critical scenes of his past.

As she and Céline approached the bed, she looked down, and a different part of her wavered briefly. Corrupt or not, the man looked so . . . ill.

Worse, Jaromir stood there with his arms crossed, and she still couldn’t manage to meet his eyes. During the crisis last night, he and she had worked well together, but they hadn’t looked at each other, not after what she’d said to him in the tent. How could she have said such a thing? Why did such terrible things come out of her mouth every time he made her feel backed against a wall?

Captain Keegan’s bloodshot eyes were focused on Céline. “I’m told I have you to thank for my life,” he said hoarsely.

“I’d have done the same for anyone,” she answered. “But you’ll be in bed for weeks, possibly longer. Mushroom poisoning takes a toll.”

He didn’t argue. Perhaps he felt as bad as he looked.

“I’ve assumed temporary command,” Jaromir said, “in the absence of another officer.”

Keegan’s eyes rolled toward him. “Have you sent a messenger with a request for a replacement for me? Surely you can’t remain until I’m fit again. Your own prince must need you.”

“I will remain as long as I’m needed here and until I complete the mission for which I was sent,” Jaromir answered coldly. “In that regard, I’ve authorized this
lady to do a reading of you.” He motioned toward Amelie.

Keegan’s eyes widened. “No. I refuse.” He tried sitting up and failed.

“You have no choice,” Jaromir went on, “and unless you allow her to touch you, I’ll hold you down.”

The captain’s greenish skin went pale. “Where’s Quinn?”

Jaromir ignored the question and closed the short distance between himself and the bed. Without any hesitation, he leaned over and pinned Keegan’s arms. “Amelie?”

“You can’t do this!” Keegan cried weakly. “I order you to stop.”

Amelie hated doing readings like this. Jaromir had once ordered Corporal Pavel to hold down a traitorous court physician at Castle Sèone and then told her to read the man in order to gain evidence to prove his guilt. It had been . . . uncomfortable.

But she wasn’t about to turn back now. Kneeling by the bed, she tried to shut out Keegan’s weak protests. Touching the back of his hand, she closed her eyes and reached out for the spark of his spirit. On the walk over here, Céline had related that Jaromir wanted to know Keegan’s secrets, his reasons for having volunteered to take this command—something more specific than gossip about a gambling debt.

A simple gambling debt wouldn’t be enough to coerce a man like Keegan into overseeing what he would consider a pack of shabby miners. It had to be more.
And if so, how far would he go to be relieved of this unwanted position?

With her eyes closed, she cleared her mind and continued focusing on Keegan’s spirit, reaching back in time to whatever had brought him here to Ryazan. The first jolt hit, and she braced herself. The second jolt hit, and the tent around her vanished. She was swept backward through the white-and-gray mists. This time, she kept herself carefully separated from Keegan. She needed to view only as an observer, to see what was happening to him and around him—not to mention she was sickened by the thought of being inside his head and seeing through his eyes.