Fyne Sisters - The Star Witch Part 21

She knew that another dose of Panwyr would likely kill her. According to Thayne and Rikka, she would surely be addicted. And if she died... would she become a part of the Isen Demon, the sad ent.i.ty she had pitied moments earlier?

Franco reached the halfway point on the ladder and then dropped the rest of the way. Nelyk gave the man a swift glance. "This does not concern you, boy."

"You hold a blade on my captain. It very much does concern me," Franco insisted. "Cease now, and I will allow you to escape with the others."

"I will cease when Isadora takes her medicine like a good girl." He handed the Panwyr to her and placed both hands on the hilt of the sword that he held to Lucan. "Take it, and I will let him live. Refuse, and I'll run him through."

"Fine." She uncapped the Panwyr. Her initial addiction had not entirely gone away, and her heart sped up in antic.i.p.ation. She knew that taking this drug into her body would be the end of her, and at the same time... a part of her craved it. A part of her remembered the colors and the euphoria that came with the Panwyr that would tingle as it traveled up her nose.

A deep and dark part of her, the Level Thirteen of her soul, wanted the Panwyr.

"Isadora, don't," Franco said softly. "I can take care of him."

"Not before he kills Lucan." She looked squarely at the young warrior. "Once I take this drug I won't be of much use for a while. If this man so much as scratches Lucan, I want you to kill him."

Franco nodded.

Isadora closed her eyes and lifted the vial to her nose.

SOPHIE SAT BACK against the log near last night's cold campfire, studied her stomach, and frowned. It was not time for this baby to be born, not yet, and still, something within her was changing. She'd had no labor pains, thank goodness, but unless she was mistaken, the baby had turned.

It was too soon. She knew the baby was well and healthy, but it was much too soon. Not only would the child be small and weak if she came this early, her birth would sap Sophie's powers.

Sophie's magic was always much greater when she had a baby growing inside her, and she needed all her magic in order to break the curse.

She had tried to break the curse. For months, she had tried everything. And yet, the knowledge that it still threatened Kane weighed heavily on her heart. She needed Isadora to end this curse. Juliet, too, if that was possible. But time was running out. Even if this daughter came late rather than early, there was no guarantee that she would find her sisters by then.

She heard men coming long before the rebels around her became alert and readied themselves with their swords, just in case those arriving were not who they should be. As expected, it was Myls and Kane who approached.

Not as expected, they were not alone.

A fair-haired man dressed as an emperor's sentinel walked between Kane and Myls, moving slowly and favoring one side. Sophie rose clumsily to her feet; a nearby rebel moved quickly to a.s.sist her with a steady hand.

"Who is this?" she asked, moving forward before any of the rebels dared to do so.

"My spy," Myls said with a grimace. "Former spy," he added sourly. "Apparently Ferghus is no longer welcomed in the palace."

HIS HEAD HURT. First there was the knowledge of pain. Then voices came to Lucan, then light through barely opened eyelids. Shadows danced above and around him, and in an instant he cleared his fogged mind and evaluated the situation.

"Hurry up," the ragged prisoner commanded.

Isadora stood above him, eyes closed and an object held to her nose. A drug, he could tell, and she was about to put it into her body because this ragged man held Lucan's own blade to his chest.

Lucan's arms snapped up and he caught the flat of the blade between his palms. The prisoner, who had been watching Isadora closely, was surprised by the move, and his astonishment caused a deadly hesitation. Lucan whipped the sword from the prisoner's grasp, burst to his feet, flipped the sword in the air and caught it by the handle, and thrust the blade into the heart of the man who had dared to hold Lucan's own sword on him. The prisoner looked almost surprised as he dropped to the ground, crumpling to the dirt floor.

What happened next caused Lucan to start in surprise. A dark shadow that hovered low to the ground darted from the stone wall and enveloped the prisoner's body. In an instant, the body was pulled into the darkness by the dark cloud.

Isadora had not moved. She still stood there with the vial poised at one nostril. One sniff, and the powder in that vial would travel up her nose and into her system. Even when the prisoner was well and truly dead, gone from their sight and no longer a threat to anyone, she did not drop her hand.

Lucan laid his hand over hers and drew it down, away from her nose. "Did you ingest any of the drug?"

She shook her head, very slowly.

"Good." He took the vial from her and threw it into the darkness, where it belonged.

Isadora slipped an arm around his waist. "That was Nelyk, the man I asked about. He was a priest." Dazed wonder made her voice sound almost childlike.

"Something took him," Lucan said softly. He knew much of magic; he had seen it at work many times. And yet, whatever had taken Nelyk's body away was a truly bad magic-he felt it to his very core.

"Isen Demon," Isadora said as she glanced into the darkness. She quickly cut her eyes to him. "You're bleeding."

"Yes, I know." He scowled and touched a hand to his temple.

She laid her hand over his and rested it there.

"Excuse me?" Franco said in a testy tone of voice. "Can we please get out of this awful pit? Women and wounded men first," he added, gesturing to the rope ladder in a gentlemanly fashion.

Isadora gladly climbed the ladder, and Lucan was right behind her. He could not wait to get her out of this place.

In the hallway of Level Twelve, only the prisoners who had been with the wizard remained. The others had run. The sentinel Lucan had wounded lay on the floor, eyes closed, his chest barely moving. Isadora glanced down at the soldier.

The wizard apparently saw the direction of her eyes. "The guard was wounded before we arrived, and many of the prisoners felt compelled to deliver a kick or a punch before they made their escape. He did not fare their attentions well."

The soldier was in much worse shape than he had been when Lucan had left him-perhaps near death.

"You could have protected him," Isadora accused.

"He was not innocent," the wizard answered without emotion.

Franco climbed out of the hole in the floor, and Isadora once again slipped her arm around Lucan's waist. It felt good to have her close again, to know she was safe.

With Isadora caught up against his side, Lucan turned to the wizard. "We have not met, yet I believe I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude that will not be easy to repay. I am Lucan Hern, First Captain of the Circle of Bacwyr."

Bedraggled and dirty, wrinkled and weakened, the hair on his head and his face growing wildly in all directions, the wizard gave a shaky bow that might've once been courtly. "Sinnoch Fiers Camalan Thayne, former wizard to the Emperor of Columbyana."

Isadora tightened her hold on his waist, and then she wobbled and leaned toward the old man. "Sinnoch?" she all but shouted. "Are you..." And then she backed away, her hold on his waist remaining firm. "No. It's just a coincidence," she said in a softer voice.

The wizard's old eyes sparkled, but the set of his mouth remained firm. "Isadora, my dear, nothing in life is a coincidence. All that happens is carefully planned in a way that makes sense only to the powers of the universe that we do not dare to understand. To answer the question you are afraid to ask... Yes, I am your father."

WHEN THE RAGGED prisoners of Level Thirteen had made their way to Level Ten, they'd met the resistance of the sentinels. Many of the escapees had been killed, but quite a few had slipped past the guards and into Arthes, just as darkness of night fell. The sentinels had divided their ranks; some headed up to protect the emperor, as well as the ministers and the priests, while other soldiers chased the escapees beyond the palace walls.

For this reason Lucan and Franco, who led the way for Thayne's group, met little resistance as they escorted their party out of the palace, into Arthes, and beyond the city limits. Many times, Isadora wanted to stop Lucan and tell him that she had to go back. What had happened to Liane and the babies? What of Mahri? She could not run away and leave them all behind.

But she continued on with the party, hurrying away from the city and into a countryside of gentle hills and thick stands of trees, with a softly shining moon to light their way.

Since she could not yet return to save Liane and the babies-or baby, if only the firstborn had survived-she allowed her mind to wander to other important and startling matters. Thayne was her father. After all these years of wondering and ultimately dismissing the man who had sired her, he had been dropped into her life. Well, she had been dropped into his, more literally. She looked at the old wizard who walked with a slight limp to mark his age, and tried to see the man he had been more than thirty years ago, when her mother had chosen him to be her first daughter's father. Perhaps he had been handsome then, more st.u.r.dily built and more apt to smile. His years in Level Thirteen had aged him, and even though wizards lived unusually long lives, his had been shortened by his time beneath the palace.

While Franco set up camp for the night and Lucan went into the wooded area nearby to hunt for the evening meal, Isadora sought out the wizard and drew him aside, so no one else could hear their conversation. Bannon and Laren had built a small fire, and Thayne had already cast a protection spell that would keep the soldiers away-at least for tonight. The other men, the prisoners who had been in Level Thirteen for such a long time, were no stronger than the empresses, and were no help at all in securing the camp.

Tonight they could all sleep in peace, under the stars and in relative safety. The air was cool and wonderfully fresh, and the night was not too cold.

"What do you wish to know?" Thayne asked pragmatically.

"Did you love my mother?" It was not the question she had intended to ask, but it was the one that sprang from her mouth.

"I cared for Lucinda very much, and she liked me well enough. Even if we had been so inclined, love was impossible, due to the curse."

"You know of the curse?"

"Of course. Lucinda told me all about it. Have you broken it yet?"

Her heart thudded. He asked the question so casually. "No. Can it be broken?"

Thayne waved his hand dismissively. "Curses are low magic, easily broken. I told your mother as much, but she shook her pretty head and rejected my advice. She wasn't ready." He turned dark eyes to hers. "I suspect you are, daughter."

"How can the curse be broken?"

The old man shrugged. "The question isn't so much how can it be broken, but why has it been kept alive for so long."

"What do you mean, kept alive?"

He took her arm and led her to an outcropping of rocks, where he sat tiredly on an oddly shaped boulder. When he indicated that she was to sit beside him on the cold rock, she impatiently did so.

"When a curse is first cast, it has little power. It's an annoyance. A flea. A bit of bad luck and ill wishes that take form and buzz about like a pesky fly."

Isadora felt her ire rise swiftly to the surface. "Many Fyne witches have buried men they loved, or watched them run away in horror. I buried my husband, whom I loved very much." And she was beginning to accept that she loved Lucan, in a different way but just as strongly as she had loved Will. He would walk away when he found a woman he liked better, or worse, when he learned she was a witch. "You dare to compare that suffering to a pesky fly?"

Thayne shook a bony finger at her. "I said a curse begins in that fashion. They can grow much stronger, and often do."

"How?"

"Fed by the fear of those who are cursed."

Her anger grew, and with it her worst fears. "Are you trying to tell me that my own fear is what keeps the curse alive?"

Thayne shrugged. "Yours. Your sisters'. Your ancestors'." His brow wrinkled as he puzzled over the situation. "There's more in this case; I can feel it. Was the curse penned? Did past Fyne witches write of their heartache and the power of the curse?"

"Yes."

"Where are those papers?"

"Burned," she said softly. Would they need those letters to break the curse? If so, then all was lost. "When the emperor's soldiers set fire to the cabin, the letters were inside, stored in a box."

Thayne tsked loudly. "In a special box, I imagine, feeding the curse the power of grief with every pa.s.sing year." He waved a hand. "It is good that they are burned. That is helpful."

Isadora breathed a sigh of relief. "Does that mean the curse is ended?"

"Oh, no," Thayne said. "You and your sisters still keep it alive. No three ordinary women would be able to feed the curse such power, but you and your sisters are extraordinary in the power you supply. The three of you will have to release the curse once and for all, together."

Her anger and fear did not disappear, but they were now mitigated with something new: hope. Did she dare? "I don't even know where my sisters are," she said.

Thayne looked at her squarely and took her chin in his hand. "I suggest you find them."

It seemed so simple. Too simple. Isadora shifted her head so that it was free of the wizard's grasp. Hope alone would not end the curse. She needed specific answers. "Once I find Sophie and Juliet, how do we go about ending the curse once and for all?"

Thayne looked up into the night sky, studying the stars that sparkled above. He seemed lost in the sight for a moment, and then he answered, "Before the curse is broken, what you believe to be impossible will become possible before your very eyes. One, two, three. Nothing stays the same forever, and sometimes a miracle is just the first sign of a coming change, but it seems like a miracle at the time because it is so rare and unexpected. One, two, three," he said again.

"We all must see these miracles, is that what you're saying?" "You and your sisters will each experience something you once thought impossible. When that is done you will clasp your sisters' hands and together the three of you will cast the curse into a faraway place of insignificance, where it belongs. To do this you will need fire, starlight, and the possession of those things which you believed to be impossible." He looked at her and smiled. "And hope. I see the beginnings of hope inside you, but it isn't enough. You must each have a steadfast belief that the end of the curse is not only feasible, but in your hands."

It sounded simple, and yet... not so simple. "You are a seer as well as a wizard."

"Yes," he said harshly, "for all the good it has done me."

"You told of the Emperor Sebestyen's fall after the sun touched his face. How long after?"

"Within hours, perhaps even minutes."

She wanted to believe the old man who told her that the curse could be ended, but how could she, when

he was obviously flawed in his predictions? "You're wrong," she said gently. "Sophie brought sunlight

into the palace months ago, and Sebestyen is still alive and well."The old man, her father, smiled. "I have never felt the need to explain my prophesies, especially not to aman as ungrateful and selfish and cruel as that paivanti emperor."

"What could there be to explain?"

"Sebestyen never needed to fear sunlight, Isadora." Thayne lifted a wrinkled hand to his own cheek andlet the fingers barely lay upon the skin. "His fall will follow the touch of his son."IMPOSSIBLE. NO ONE had ever escaped from Level Thirteen, and now the sentinels were telling him that the place had been emptied.

Sebestyen considered personally killing the guard who delivered the news, but he couldn't afford to lose a single man. Not now.

"Were there women among the dead prisoners?"

"No, my lord," the gray-faced sentinel answered.

It was always possible that Isadora had died in the pit. He could certainly hope that was the case, but she

had never struck him as the sort of woman who would die easily and quickly.

"How did they get past the armed guards on Level Ten?" Sebestyen snapped.