The Last Witch (Incenaga Trilogy) (2 page)

Changing direction
, Emmeline crouched behind an old, gnarled tree, its branches twisting into the night sky. She would keep her promise as soon as she was certain her father was alright.

Smoke curled
its way into her nose, but she ignored the acrid smell. The voices were clearer and her father’s was frighteningly absent. Gritting her teeth, she peered around the tree.

A d
ozen soldiers cloaked in red surrounded their house, flickers of light dancing across their faces. Something captivated their attention, but Emmeline couldn’t take her eyes from their faces to discover what they saw. Their expressions were hard, their eyes hungry.

Her father
shuffled into view. “I don’t know where she is,” he said.

A man
stepped forward. He held himself strong and confident, exuding his position as leader. “Do you back down on your word, Orrin?”

“Harskell
changed things,” her father said. “The danger is too great for her now.”

“
Danger has always been a reality for her kind.”

“But she is the last! The
risk is greater now than it ever was before. I won’t let you take her.”

“We had an agreement!”

Her father squared his shoulders and set his jaw. “Do you forget who I am? I forbid this.”

The leader
stepped forward and brought his face inches from her father’s. “I have not forgotten who you
were.
”

“I am still that man.”

“Don’t be a fool.” He straightened. “We can protect her.”

“You will use her
.”

“No more than she can handle
.”

“We’ll leave.
Find a deeper forest. I can keep her safe.”

The leader
barked a laugh. “You can’t hide her forever, Orrin. She has reached maturity and you know as well as I do that without the backing of Dolmerti’s army she will end up enslaved like the rest of them.”

“I won’t let that happen
,” her father said. “She won’t suffer the same fate as her mother.”

Emmeline
stifled a gasp, her fingers pressing into her cheeks. She turned away and shrunk into the far side of the tree. Suffer the same fate as her mother? She had always believed her mother died from the fever.

“You are a fool,” the leader said.
"And the girl’s mother was a fool for taking her own life. She had power beyond comprehension, and she threw it away.”

“She protected it.”

“Regardless, the girl will have the same gift within her. I’ll make certain it is used properly. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

The crack of a heavy hand on soft flesh echoed through the air. “Tell me where she is!”

“Never.”

Emmeline trembled against the knotted trunk, her breath hitching in and out. Fear rooted her to the ground as if she were connected to the great tree itself. She wanted to slip into one of the many gnarled holes and hide within its protection, but the reminder of her promise pounded its way into her thoughts. She had to run. She had promised to run.

Emmeline
took a hesitant step away from the tree and cringed. How could she leave her father after what she had just seen? She took another step forward and a twig snapped under her foot. Pausing, she listened to the thrum of her heart. She couldn’t run, she reasoned. The thick trees covered her from sight, but the dry forest floor would announce her retreat. With a twinge of guilt, and a flood of relief, she crept back to the tree and bent low to the ground.

Several soldiers
positioned themselves near her father while the others threw torches. Angry flames burst to life on the roof, the windows shattered and black smoke filled the air. Emmeline’s legs buckled. She slid to the forest floor, dry needles pricking her arms and legs. Her mouth went dry as she watched the fire swallow the timbers and reach toward the sky for more to consume.

T
he leader scanned the tree line, his eyes narrowed in calculation. Emmeline pressed herself against the trunk. Heat flooded her body, leaving her breathless. She reached a hand to her chest just as another surge of warmth spread through her, filling her with an urgent energy she had never felt before.

Her father
turned toward their home and winced. He fisted his hand and pressed it against his open mouth. He didn’t notice the leader pulling his gaze from the forest and raising the hilt of his sword near the back of his head. Emmeline opened her mouth to call out a warning, but a sickening thud filled the air and sucked the breath from her throat. Her father fell to the ground, motionless.

Emmeline
pulled herself off the ground and fell against the tree, her fingers trembling as they gripped whatever they could find. Everything spun in front of her.

“Pick him up,” the
leader shouted over the crackling flames. “We’ll have need of him later.” His eyes narrowed and scanned the forest once again.

Emmeline
held her breath.

“Find the girl,”
he said. “She can’t be far.”

Eager h
ounds bayed as they clamored from their confined spaces. With dogs on the hunt, Emmeline knew she had only moments before they discovered her. Taking a quick breath, she unplanted her feet and fled into the forest, leaving everything she had ever known behind her.

The hounds clamored in pursuit of a scent scratching at their noses. Despite the small distance she had managed between them, Emmeline could almost feel their hot breath chasing at her ankles. Behind the hounds were mounted soldiers urging their horses through the underbrush. Emmeline’s ebony hair whipped behind her as she scrambled deeper into the forest. She thrashed through shrubs, leapt over fallen branches, and scraped by trees, yet she couldn’t seem to run fast enough.

Emmeline
glanced over her shoulder, regretting the motion almost at once. More than a dozen torches illuminated the forest behind her, their flames held high and strong. Echoes of snapping jaws and cracking whips gave her little hope of escape. She looked forward just as her skirt caught on a branch. The sound of ripping fabric announced her location. Ignoring the sting in her leg, she yanked hard on the dull gray fabric, tearing a large section of her already patched dress. She pressed her lips together and pushed her legs faster.

A branch whipped across her face
, splitting the skin under her eye. She pressed her fingers to her cheek, hoping to lessen the sting, but she felt no relief. Her foot caught on an exposed root and she threw her hands out in front of her. With a painful thud she fell to the ground, her palms scraping against the packed earth, her chin colliding with an unforgiving rock.

Emmeline groaned.
Who were these soldiers and why were they so determined to find her? Given the many hours she had spent longing for visitors and the hundreds of questions she had wanted to ask, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was running from the answers.

The
mounted soldiers grew closer, and she began doubting her reasons for running. There was a chance they wouldn’t harm her and an even better chance they would have answers about her mother. Answers to questions she had never thought to ask.

H
er father’s strangled cry echoed in her mind and her chest squeezed. It didn't matter how many questions they could answer. Whatever caused such terror in her father's voice gave her reason enough to keep running. And she had a promise to keep.

Without looking back or wiping the blood
from her chin, Emmeline struggled to her feet and pushed forward. She leapt over fallen branches and smacked into others. She jumped over rocks and stumbled over many more. Her lungs burned for more oxygen. Her sides ached from breathing the cool night air, but she kept running.

T
he trees thinned near the bottom of a jagged cliff, its dark face rising straight and sharp a thousand feet into the sky. It was a daunting sight, especially illuminated by the night sky. Emmeline veered to the left and darted alongside the granite face, stumbling over the rock strewn ground. Her progressed slowed and yet her heart still raced. If she couldn’t keep up a quicker pace, they would be on top of her at any moment. She propelled herself over boulders and rocks, the unyielding stone scraping her legs as she passed.

Resisting the urge to
glance back, Emmeline focused her attention on the shifting stones beneath her. Her heart lurched with each slip, her hope for escape lessoning with every fall. She grasped at tender branches jutting from the cliff face, but they offered little, if any, support.

Emmeline
glanced ahead and her limbs stiffened. Not twenty feet away stood a wall of red-cloaked soldiers pressed against the cliff side. She whirled around and let out a gasp. Another wall of billowing cloaks blocked her from behind, their torches held high.

Restless hounds
rose on their hind legs, straining against thin leashes. The soldiers advanced. The hounds took advantage of the brief slack and snapped forward. Their slow advance seemed more threatening somehow, their grins of victory mocking her fear.

Emmeline
turned toward the forest, still determined to find an escape. Half a dozen soldiers stepped from behind the trees, creating another inescapable wall of red.

She was surrounded.

A hard lump formed in her throat and fell to her stomach where it settled uneasily. Torches shone in her face, the flame’s warmth flooding her body with a strange urgency. It seemed to fill her completely until even the cool night had no effect on her. A soldier stepped toward her and hesitated as he extended his arm. It was as if he thought she were the one who would bite, not the thirsty hounds at his side.

“Don’t touch m
e!” Emmeline shouted as she thrust her hands out toward him.

T
he soldier flew back, crashing into a tree and slumping to the ground motionless.

Emmeline dropped her hand
s, her eyes wide. Certain she hadn’t touched him, she looked around for her would be protector, for someone who had pulled the soldier back, or shot him from a distance. She saw no one.

Emmeline
glanced at the fallen solider. Bare of any wounds, his chest appeared caved in, unmoving and empty. A trail of smoke rose into the air. She wrapped her arms around herself and shuttered. Had she just killed a man? She shook her head and swallowed. She hadn’t touched him; it couldn’t have been her.

Se
veral soldiers backed away, terror flickering in their fire lit eyes. They looked from her to the dead soldier and then back to her. They never looked above her neck, however, their eyes darting between her hands and the soldier. She held up her hands, turning them back and forth to inspect in the dim light. The nearest soldiers flinched.

“I didn’t touch him,
” Emmeline said, the last word scratching in her throat.

A soldier
grabbed her from behind and twisted one of her arms behind her back. Crying out, Emmeline turned her body, pushing her hand toward his head. She knew her strength couldn’t compete with his, but she refused to give in. A rush of heat pulsed from her hand and the soldier shot back into the cliff wall, his body falling limp to the ground.

Emmeline’s mouth went dry.
Her head shot up, and she peered into the faces of the other soldiers. They took another step back. She searched the trees once again for someone helping her.

“You idiots!”
a man shouted from the forest. He raced toward them from on top a black mare, two more soldiers flanking him.

“Idiots! All of you!”
He dismounted into the light of the torches and barreled toward her.

Emmeline
backed up against the cliff–once a dreaded obstruction, now a steady brace. Blocked from the moon’s light she felt a small measure of comfort. A mass of clouds drifted across the moon, adding to the cliff’s shadow and the cold of night.

“
Extinguish those torches!” The man screamed as he hunkered down and raised his shield toward her.

The torches were
extinguished and a chill saturated Emmeline’s skin. The leader lowered his shield and straightened to his full height. With thin shoulders and a wiry chest, his angular body towered over the others.

“
Come into the light.” He said with a voice so soothing she might have obeyed had he not struck her father and burned down her house.

“
Are you an Incenaga?” he asked when she didn’t move.

“
Look at what she’s done,” a soldier said as he gestured to the two bodies.

Emmeline glanced at the dead soldier
s and cringed. How could they think she had killed them? She searched the surrounding area, hoping that whoever was helping her would show themselves. Perhaps her father escaped!

“Answer me, g
irl,” the leader said, his voice losing its cool. “We won’t harm you. Are you an Incenaga?”