A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) Page 24

  ‘At last, the fight became too violent to be hidden and the enemy realized what this man was and his intention. He was betrayed. He was struck down. Even then he did not die. Three times they killed him, by poison, and with bullets, and with drowning. At last they burned the flesh from his bones and his followers were imprisoned.’

  She stopped, her eyes blazing with a fanatical love.

  ‘But they did not forget him, his followers. They did not forget the man who had showed them the truth and a better way of life. They did not forget his dream, for a world that was pure and cleansed, where his people could live in peace without fear of persecution. They gathered his bones and took them deep beneath the ground to wait for better times. To wait for the coming of one who could return him to his throne.’

  She took my hand, her fingers sharp as claws, and my heart leaped into my throat, choking me.

  ‘Little Ah-na, do you know why you have been sent to us?’

  ‘No,’ I said. That one word was all I could manage.

  ‘You have been sent to end the war. You have been sent to raise him, to raise our Master.’

  She turned her skull-white face and we both looked at the pile of bleached, charred bones in the centre of the hall.

  ‘There was a time when our people did not have to hide, Ah-na. That time will come again.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’ I said. My voice was a whisper.

  ‘With our Master at our head we will scour the world clean.’

  ‘Clean? Clean – of what?’

  ‘Clean of traitors, those of our kind who betray their own. And clean of Cuzestranec.’

  For a minute I didn’t understand. Then I remembered her words on the beach: ‘Cuzestranec – one not of our kind.’

  My face froze. My heart froze. Something inside me seemed to break.

  ‘Clean of outwith, you mean?’ I managed.

  Tatiana nodded.

  ‘Then it will be time for a new kind of empire: the empire of witches, with our holy Master at its head.’

  ‘You’re mad.’ My voice was small, so small it barely echoed in the great chamber. Tatiana shook her head, her face pitying and pitiless at the same time.

  ‘No, little Ah-na. “Mad” is the word the Cuzestranec use when they talk of those who see the truth behind the veil. We are a different kind to them. For centuries we have tried to live in harmony with the Cuzestranec while they burned and persecuted and imprisoned us. No longer. Enough is enough. There is room for only one kind of being on this earth; it is a choice, us or them?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It is they who have forced this, Ah-na. We never chose the war.’

  ‘And you want me to raise that … that …’ I couldn’t speak – I just pointed at the pile of gnawed bones in the centre of the room, surrounded by the offerings of decades.

  Tatiana nodded.

  ‘It is what your mother knew, little Ah-na. It is what you were born for. It is your choice whether you die for it also.’

  ‘No!’ I shouted. The echoes bellowed the word back at me from around the chamber: No, no, no, no, no … A dying fall of denial.

  Tatiana stood, releasing my hand. She was quite still, but I had the impression of a huge fury rippling out from her like a wave.

  Then she turned.

  ‘Very well,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘If I cannot persuade you, perhaps there is one who can.’

  And then she was gone.

  For a long while I sat, shaking with fear and anger as the witchlight guttered and wavered in my palm. Where was Seth? How could I find my way back to him in the maze of tunnels?

  I thought about running – trying to find him, breaking us both out of this hell-hole and not looking back. I crossed the hall to the exit Tatiana had taken and stood poised in the doorway. But I didn’t know which way to go. I didn’t even know if this was the right exit from the hall – there were five or six, all identical to my eyes. Beyond that, we’d walked for maybe ten minutes last night, taken ten or twenty turnings until we reached the cave where we slept. I’d never remember them all.

  I’d been so stupid, allowing us to be separated. How could I undo my mistake?

  ‘Seth!’ I called quietly, with the pathetic, impossible hope that he would somehow hear me and call back. Nothing answered me. ‘Seth!’ I cried a little louder. I stood listening, trying to quiet even the pounding of my heart to listen for any sound at all.

  Footsteps. Soft, halting footsteps that paused as if the walker was gathering their strength. They were coming from a different exit, one across the room from me. It couldn’t be Seth – could it?

  I turned to face them, my heart beating so hard with hope that I thought I might be sick. A shadowy figure filled the doorway – and for a minute my heart leaped. But it wasn’t Seth. It was someone too slight, too short. A woman, hardly taller than me.

  I forced the witchlight in my palm to flare, sending its blaze across the shadowy space to illuminate her face.

  My gasp cut through the silence, the shocked echoes hissing and spitting.

  The person in the door was…It was…

  I stumbled across the rocky floor, tripping over stones and hollows, until at last I was standing just a metre or so away from the woman.

  Except it wasn’t just a woman.

  It was my mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  For a minute I didn’t speak. I just stood, frozen, drinking in her face. It was older than the woman in the photographs I’d seen, but eerily, unmistakably like. But even without the photos I wouldn’t have needed anyone to tell me. Her face – it was my face. My face twenty years on, framed by black silken hair so fine the threads floated in the still, unchanging air.

  I found myself gasping, gulping, struggling to hold back tears. And then I ran. Across the few feet that separated us, into her arms, feeling her body firm in my grip – no mirage, but real, solid flesh. Her bones were sharp – too sharp – and her ribs felt as if they might crack in my fierce hug, but she was laughing and crying, hugging me back, the tears running down her face, mixing with mine as our cheeks pressed together.

  ‘Anna,’ she said, repeating my name as if she couldn’t believe it, ‘Anna, oh Anna, oh my little Anna, my darling Anna.’

  ‘M—’ I stumbled over the word. I’d never said it – not like this. I’d never called that name out in the night, after a bad dream. It was Dad I’d called for – I’d always known she was beyond my reach, out of my grasp. Until now.

  ‘Anna,’ she breathed again.

  Then for a long time neither of us said anything, we just stood, holding each other, looking at each other’s faces.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said at last. She led me to the stones and we sat, side by side, my hand enclosed in hers.

  ‘Oh Anna, how can I explain?’ She put her free hand to her face, as if pulling herself together, pulling the threads of her story from the frayed, tangled mess of our lives. ‘Do you know why I left?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. There was a hollow feeling in my stomach. ‘Because of the prophecy. Because you thought … I might …’

  ‘I thought you were the one, the witch who can break the only law that binds us: death. And I was right, wasn’t I?’ She searched my face.

  ‘Yes.’ No point in denying it now. No point in refusing to see the truth among all the lies. ‘Yes, I think you were right. I should have died at least twice. Both times I came back. But that’s not the end of it, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not. Because your own life is only part of it. If I’m right,’ she squeezed my hand, ‘Anna, if the prophecy is right – you can raise others.’

  Others.

  I’d known it, but somehow hearing it in her voice made it real.

  Caradoc. Bran. Bill. Even Thaddeus.

  I thought of all the innocent people who’d died. All the people who’d laid down their lives to protect my secret. All the people whose lives had been taken in the fight over my power.

&n
bsp; And all the others. All the good, ordinary people who’d died over the years, leaving the gaping hole of their loss bleeding grief into good, ordinary lives. Seth’s dad. Abe’s Rachel.

  All gone, lost for ever, never to come back.

  Except – she had come back.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I asked desperately. ‘I don’t understand. Why did you go through all this to protect me and then stand by while they brought me here?’

  ‘Because I was weak, Anna.’ She sighed. ‘Because I was blind. And because I was wrong.’

  ‘Wrong how?’

  ‘I thought that your power could be hidden, or left unused. But it can’t. I tried to fight fate and I couldn’t. Fate brought you here, just like it brought me, though I thought I was acting to outwit it. I should have known better.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I tried not to let my frustration boil over into tears, but it was hard, impossible, as she sat there talking in riddles, while somewhere Seth lay alone in the dark, wondering where I was, trying to ease the pain in his leg. Pain she’d caused.

  She bowed her head as if trying to think, to work out how to begin. Then she drew a deep breath.

  ‘The Ealdwitan – Anna, they’re old, evil. You’ve seen their corruption – the way they fight amongst themselves for pre-eminence. They don’t work for their people any more, they work for themselves. I came to the Others quite cynically – offering secrets to sell in return for their help. I didn’t tell them the reason. I used them, just like the Ealdwitan used me, used you. I came expecting something even worse than the Ealdwitan – that was why I chose them, because they were the only people I could think of who might be even more unscrupulous and grasping and powerful. And afterwards, after I’d bargained away my knowledge, I was planning to leave, to run, to kill myself if I had to.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ I said. The fury was ebbing and I could feel the cold rock biting into my legs through my worn jeans.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She fell silent for a moment, looking at the floor. Then she ran her hand through her fine dark hair and I saw the white hairs that glinted among the black. ‘I didn’t have the courage to face death. Instead, I stayed. And I found that though they are fierce and sometimes cruel, they have …’ She stopped, struggling for the first time for words. ‘They have a purity of purpose which the Ealdwitan lack. They have a mission. And it’s that I think your gift is destined for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I dropped her hand and the cold shifted to the pit of my stomach, like a piece of ice twisting in my gut.

  ‘He was the last great leader of our kind.’

  ‘Not you,’ I said. I felt weak with horror. ‘They’ve sent you here to persuade me, haven’t they? How could you? After all you did to protect me!’

  ‘Anna, please, you don’t understand. There’s more at stake here than our lives.’ Her hand holding mine was soft, but her grip was strong and her face was pleading, cowed, desperate. How could I have ever thought she looked like me?

  ‘No,’ I said. My voice cracked. My heart felt like it was turning into stone. I would not cry. I would not cry.

  ‘Please, darling – please, for me. I don’t have a lot of power here. I’ll do what I can to keep you safe, but—’

  ‘No,’ I sobbed. It was all I could do, keep repeating it like a mantra, keep the soft, wheedling sound of her voice at bay.

  ‘Anna you must do what they ask! You don’t understand—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Listen to me, if you don’t do this thing voluntarily they will …’ She stumbled, unable, for the first time, to speak.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They …’

  ‘What?’ I shouted.

  A second voice spoke from the doorway.

  ‘If you do not give this to us, we will take it.’

  I turned, fast as my thrumming heart, to see Tatiana standing in the doorway.

  ‘They have ways, Anna.’ My mother’s hand stroked my cheek, soft as silk against my skin. I shut my eyes. ‘They have methods – extraction, excision. Please, darling – please. Resisting will only make this harder …’

  ‘Harder for who? For you?’

  My chest rose and fell and looked from Tatiana, proud and cruel and upright, to my mother, pleading, wheedling, pathetic. I had come so far. I had risked so much. For her. For this. For nothing.

  ‘You traitor,’ I managed. My voice was strange in my ears, a harsh croak. ‘Traitor.’

  Then something – something chinked inside me. A memory, struggling to get free.

  A memory of Marcus – no, of my mother … What was it?

  It came suddenly: hot, reeking with hate.

  A crow’s breath, scorching my cheek, laden with carrion stink.

  Your mother died a traitor and a fool – and so will you.

  It was like a slap to the face, waking me from a dream. I opened my eyes.

  ‘He said she was dead.’ I looked from Tatiana to my mother. I had the feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice; any false step could tip me into oblivion. ‘Marcus: he said she was dead. He said my mother died a traitor. Why would he say that? Why would he say that if she was still alive?’

  Tatiana’s eyes flickered to the woman beside me – to my ‘mother’. There was something there, some expression I couldn’t quite catch.

  ‘I …’ my mother said. Her eyes went to Tatiana – again that flicker. Consternation? Fear?

  ‘What’s my father’s name?’ I asked. My mother licked her lips. I could see her chest rising and falling.

  ‘Don’t answer her questions,’ Tatiana said scornfully.

  ‘No, wait,’ my mother said. ‘Wait. His name – I know this; his name is … Tim.’

  ‘No,’ I said. I stood suddenly, my heart pounding hard in my chest, pounding as if it would break. ‘You are not my mother.’

  ‘Anna,’ she said, and there was a catch in her voice. She put out her hand towards me, pleadingly, and as she touched me a current went through me, like a jolt of static electricity, and I heard the unspoken words sizzle across the void between us: Damn you, you stupid bitch, you’ll get us both killed.

  ‘Marcus!’ I hissed his name between my teeth and at the sound of his own name he staggered back, ripping his hand away from mine. A spasm of pure hate crossed his face – my mother’s face – and then her image seemed to ripple in the air and it was Marcus standing there, his expression filled with utter loathing and contempt.

  ‘You bloody stupid bitch,’ he growled.

  ‘Muzciny!’ Tatiana spat and she drew back her hand and slapped him, a ringing slap across the cheek that sent him staggering across the cave. ‘Stupid? She was too clever for you!’

  Then she took my arm and yanked me out of the cave.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I panted as I stumbled after her. My witchlight faltered as the fear and weariness threatened for a moment to overwhelm me, but Tatiana’s step did not, even as we plunged into darkness. She led me unerringly along the dark maze of tunnels to a new chamber – one with nothing in it at all.

  ‘Where’s Seth? Take me to Seth!’

  Tatiana said nothing; she just slammed the heavy door of the chamber with a resounding thud and I felt the stifling weight of a magical charm slapped over the lock.

  God damn it!

  I slumped in the corner and let my witchlight burn out. Keeping it up near-constantly was shattering and I began to realize why the witches down here had learned to live without it. I also realized how stupid I’d been to keep mine burning throughout the conversation with Marcus and Tatiana, draining my power instead of theirs. Stupid. Stupid!

  My self-control broke and I began to sob.

  I had been so naïve, so gullible. They’d lured me in with the one bait they knew how to dangle. I’d followed the retreating shadow of my mother all the way into a trap. If it hadn’t been for Marcus it might even have worked. But he’d pushed too hard, his desperation too naked, too frightening. What had they promised him, if he suc
ceeded? Or – perhaps – what threats had they held over him if he failed?

  I shuddered. I understood, now, the strange pleading desperation in his voice. He was pleading for his soul, his magic.

  As I sat in the dark I began to think about Seth. Would they give him a fire or a lamp? I thought of him sitting for hour after hour in that barren cell, waiting for me to come back.

  What would happen to him, if something happened to me?

  I thought of Tatiana’s voice, cruel and slow.

  Nothing is wasted.

  I thought of her red gums and the strange, blood-tasting bread …

  Stop it – stop being macabre.

  I stood and went to the door, listening for a sound. None came, but I put my mouth to the crack and hollered, ‘Seth!’

  Silence: just the echoes of my own voice ringing through the tunnels.

  ‘Seth!’ I called again, straining my lungs to cracking. ‘Seth!’

  My voice broke. ‘Seth – please, Seth – if you can hear me, if you can’t speak just make a sound, any sound …’

  I stood listening, trying to hold back the sobs, trying to keep silent so I could listen. But there was no sound at all. Not even the long, throbbing scream of the night before. I might have been completely alone.

  I sat with my back to the cold stone of the cave wall and wrapped my anorak and Seth’s jumper around me as tightly as I could. Then I sent my longing flowing out of the cave, beneath the crack under the door, out into the tunnels, far and wide. I hoped that somewhere, wherever he was, Seth could feel the heat of it in this chill underground tomb. I hoped that somewhere, he was warm, and not in pain, and not in fear. I hoped.

  The hours passed slowly – I might even have slept or dozed. I had no idea what time it was. It felt like hours since Tatiana had woken me, telling me it was morning, but I was no longer certain whether it really had been morning, or just a few hours since I’d lain down at Seth’s side. I’d left my watch on the boat, but since I didn’t know what time zone we were in, it wouldn’t have helped anyway. I had no idea where we were – no idea if we were in Siberia, or one of the islands, or somewhere else completely.