Treacherous Witch

Smoke burns her nostrils. The courtyard has become a battlefield. Drakonian soldiers cut down acolytes and priestesses alike, a blur of robes and blood. And standing ablaze, illuminating the dead and the living in awful silhouette—

*

Valerie woke up in a coffin.

Narrow walls boxed her in. The cushioned floor pressed against her back. Above, a vaulted ceiling created a strange sense of vertigo. She looked from side to side, disoriented, a little flare of panic quickening her breath. Where was she? How had she gotten here?

Roses… She smelled roses.

A bouquet pricked her clasped hands, the petals matching her scarlet gown. She had made this dress for the queen, imbued with her power.

The memories came flooding back. She’d worn the gown in her meeting with Prince Bakra, the last surviving member of the Maskamery royal family. He’d come to the royal palace to set a trap for the Drakonian Chancellor, Lord Avon, and asked Valerie to help him oust the Drakonians from the capital.

But Avon had been one step ahead of him. She’d led the prince into the palace temple where he and Avon had come to blows…

“James!”

A girlish voice with the punctuated vowels of a Drakonian accent.

Ophelia.

Valerie sat up, dislodging the bouquet, and braced her hands against the rim of the casket.

Two shocked faces met hers: Lady Ophelia, Lord Avon’s sister, and Avon himself. They both wore black, Ophelia’s blonde curls covered by a veil, her small hands clinging to her brother’s arm. And they weren’t the only ones present. Other visitors in black sat on the pews with their heads bowed or waited at a respectful distance.

Were they… mourning her?

Her breath caught. She recognised this place: the palace temple, with its pillars carved into the shape of the silvertrees, the great stained glass window depicting Maska standing before the goldentree, and the worn stone steps that led to the chamber and the sealed door beneath.

That door had been sealed by the queen. Bakra had forbidden Valerie to open it. Avon had wanted to claim the chamber’s treasures for himself.

Instead, Valerie had stepped through the door alone. Through it, she had encountered the royal family’s greatest secret: the goldentree, the source of the queen’s magical power.

But she hadn’t been alone.

The queen, she thought. I met the queen, and then I ran and she possessed me, and Avon… he…

Her heart shuddered. She remembered the pain of that final stab, the cold steel that had pierced her chest…

“You killed me!”

She meant to shout it, but her voice came out as a shocked whisper instead. Ophelia’s hands flew to her mouth.

Avon had turned as pale as a ghost. “Guards!” he said hoarsely.

People were starting to notice. Gasps filled the temple. Those closest to the coffin backed off, handkerchiefs aflutter. One of the ladies fainted.

Then someone screamed, and panic let loose.

“Everyone else leave!” Avon’s voice cut through the noise. “Now!”

Two of the guards, the cowards, approached her from behind and grabbed her by the shoulders. She protested as they hauled her out of the coffin, and meanwhile the lords and ladies were fleeing the scene, Avon hurrying his sister away…

“Take your hands off me!” she hissed, and one of the guards let go as if he’d been scalded, which surprised her.

The other yelped. “Hey! What are you playing at?”

“Throw her down,” the first guard said. Unlike his companion, he was Maskamery. “She—she’s resurrected, you don’t want to mess with that.”

“Oh, come on,” said the other guard, but she looked at him and he seemed to think better of it, shoving her forward.

Her knees hit the stone floor with a painful thud. She clutched at her neck—the pendant—but found nothing. The Kestrel’s Eye was one of three crown jewels that Valerie had used to open the way to the goldentree. It held the power of restoration. But she no longer had it, nor the other two jewels, so she would have to heal herself.

Doing just that, Valerie got to her feet, a little shaky.

Avon had returned. The guards brandished their muskets. Empty of mourners, an ominous quiet descended over the temple.

“Please,” she said. “I’m not—”

“Who are you?” Avon interrupted her.

He wasn’t armed. No sword at his hip. Perhaps the Drakonians considered weapons inappropriate for mourning attire. And he would be missing it, she knew, because Avon’s sword was no ordinary blade. It could deflect magic designed to cause harm. Without it, he was vulnerable.

“I’m Valerie,” she said. “It’s me, my lord, I swear it. I’m not the queen, and I’m not here to fight. Please don’t kill me.”

She held up her hands for whatever good that might do her. She’d cheated death once, but Valerie wasn’t at all confident that the spell which had saved her before would work again. Nor did she fancy a bullet to the head.

“You were dead,” Avon said. “You…”

“I’m alive,” she said quickly. “I… What happened?”

A muscle in his face twitched. In the time she’d spent imprisoned in the palace, she’d become adept at reading him, but right now his eyes were fathomless.

A long moment passed. Sweat clung to her brow. Avon stared at her and she gazed back, praying, hoping that he would spare her.

“Put her in the cellar,” he said at last. “Strip her down, put her in irons. Take everything off—down to the last hairpin. And fetch Captain Doryn.”

She couldn’t hide her dismay, a full blown shudder running through her body. “No, please—”

The butt of one of the guard’s muskets jabbed her in the shoulder. Valerie stumbled forward.

As she passed by Avon, as his cloak stirred the air when he turned away, she felt the urge to lash out, or reach out—something. As if her touch might convince him that she was Valerie, she was alive, and she meant him no harm.

The pain of his blade burned deep in her heart.

He’d done that to her. Killed her. And he hadn’t known that she would come back.

Tears smarted in her eyes.

She let the guards take her away.