Black Moon Draw(33)

No answer.

“What do they call you where you are from?” he asked.

Her wide eyes were starting to tear up. He shook her gently to keep her focused.

“I don’t want to tell you now,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t possible!”

“What is your name, witch?” he hissed, patience thinning.

“Naia.”

Startled, he almost laughed. “’Twas the name of a great queen long ago.” Any doubt he had about her destiny being there disappeared. His anger settled, but he was unable to determine why the gods sent her to him without training her first.

Naia. His amusement faded. She bore the name of the last great warrior queen, the only battle-witch in the history of the realm to become a queen, whose immense secrets were passed through the generations. The warrior-queen foretold the arrival of another like her, bearing her name, appearing in Black Moon Draw in time to save his people from great disaster.

Darkly, he admitted that this same witch was the one to place the curse on his family that he sought to break.

His battle-witch’s eyes were wide, her body trembling once again.

“How can you be named after a great queen and claim this is not real? Nay, witch, your world is the one that is not real,” he said firmly. “At least, not now. Maybe when you left it, it was. But you are here now, and this – I – am real.”

She shook her head, dropping her gaze to his chest. “It can’t be.” Her protest was softer, scared.

He was unaccustomed to dealing with such vulnerability from women or men. As much as he did not want to admit the truth in the face of his conflict with Brown Sun Lake, his battle-witch was nowhere near being prepared for war. Denial was part of it, but her gentleness was more dangerous. She was a lamb lost among a field of wolves, a woman unlike any he had met in his travels. She was certainly not of his realm, where the fight for survival hardened the hearts of children before the age of ten. He began to believe she was telling the truth, however outlandish, about not being of his world. Her smooth golden skin had certainly never known the whip of the slave traders from the edge of the world, and the tears she shed for his enemies were too far out of place.

He did not have forever to wait for her to be ready for an enemy like Brown Sun Lake. Why did he feel more of a connection to a witch that was not a witch than he had shared with the other witches? What would it take for her magic to work consistently, and in a way that helped him, rather than slowed him down?

There had to be a way to convince her she belonged and to use her magic, before it was too late to save his people.

He titled her chin up to see her comely features fully in the moonlight. Her nose was red and there were tears on her cheeks.

“Battle-witches do not cry,” he said.

“I’m a tree-witch,” she replied stubbornly.

“Now a tree-witch is not real.”

“You-”

“Quiet.” For once, she heeded the note of warning in his tone. He considered her, aroused by the softness of her skin and her direct gaze. “Naia.”

“Yes. Better than witch. Why don’t you use names here?” she asked.

“If a sorcerer or witch knows a man’s name, he can put a curse on the man,” he replied, revealing half the truth about the custom. The other half he did not think her ready for, not after she had unknowingly given her name to him. The custom was not as binding on a witch or sorcerer, but he took no chances by revealing the truth.

“Oh. So no one here knows your name?” she asked.

“They do not.”

“You have no family or friends?”

“Family, no. This notion of friends is not our way. I am the knight, the lord, the master to every man and woman in my kingdom.”

She nodded, though she appeared bewildered as well. He almost asked what her world was like if not ruled by knights but stopped himself, not wanting to strengthen her connection to a place that did not exist any longer. His own confusion ran deep; he had not known other worlds existed before her.

“Can I be a knight?” she asked, calming.

He laughed. “You cannot hold a sword. How would you be a knight?”

She sighed. “I don’t understand why there’s so much death.”

“Battle is for a purpose. Each death must be necessary. If it is not, it is cruel.”

“I think killing anyone is cruel.”

Each life taken, each kingdom conquered – he regretted none of it, because there was a much greater evil he fought. “You do not fully understand my purpose,” he said.

“There can be no reason great enough for what I saw. And yet, I understand why you did it. I don’t know what to think about it.”

With some regret, he realized he might not have the aid of the battle-witch in his final days of battle. He would still fight until the very last breath in his body, with or without her help.

Her trembling had ceased, but the shimmer of vulnerability remained. It was unusually appealing, the unguarded way she looked at him with her heart in her eyes and her plump lips parted.

“’Tis a shame you are a battle-witch,” he murmured, eyes on her mouth.

“Why? Because you can’t sell me like a horse?” she retorted.

He liked her spirit as well and only wished it was directed towards his enemies. She was often fearless with him, or at least, she was unusually candid. On the battlefield, she was terrified of everything. It was another contradiction about her he found intriguing, if vexing.