Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3)(108)

He was mist, and the tears running down his face disappeared the moment they left his skin. But that did not stop the King from closing a hand on his shoulder. He handed Tristan a vial, waited until he’d drained the contents, then drew him back toward the tear. Back and back.

“Tristan, I love you,” I said.

Then he was gone.



* * *



They found me in a carpet of flowers, my anguish uncontrollable. Voices. Questions. Hands lifting me up and carrying me out. A tonic forced down my throat, and then nothing.

Even when the tonic wore off, I clung to that nothing.

Because I’d lost everything.



* * *



Days passed.

It wasn’t fair.

They took me home to the farm; to a familiar bed. Familiar sheets.

We’d fought so hard.

Joss and Sabine took turns forcing food down my throat.

We’d won.

I could still feel him, distant, but there. But not here.

We’d been happy.

Days passed.



* * *



Then one morning, I got up. On weak knees, I dressed in an old gown of homespun and tied back my hair. The kitchen was empty, so I went out into the yard and into the barn where I found my sister working. Her eyes widened at the sight of me, but she said nothing until I picked up a pitch fork and started mucking a stall.

Setting aside her shovel, she came over and gently pried it from my hands, meeting my gaze. “It will be a fall baby.”

“Yes,” I said, a tear running down the side of my nose.

“Gran knew, you know. She told me before she died.”

I bowed my head, not able to speak.

“Maybe he…” She hesitated, and I caught her hands, cutting off the thought. “Just give me something to do. Something to keep me busy.”

Joss nodded, but she didn’t give me back the pitchfork. Instead she said, “Perhaps you ought to do what you do best.”

For a moment, I wanted to refuse. To tell her that it was not in me to seek respite in something that had once given me pleasure. But Tristan wouldn’t have wanted that. And I found that I didn’t either.

So I sang.





Chapter Sixty-Four





Tristan





And I listened.

Time was different here, and it seemed I spent days with that song in my ears, sitting in silence while I watched through a fissure I’d torn between our worlds. It was all I’d done since my uncle had forced me here against my will, and if I had my way, it would be all I’d ever do.

Vines sprung from the earth, twisting up a web of green and brown, obscuring my view. I scowled, and turned. “Cécile’s pregnant. You must let me go back.”

“Must?” As always, his voice was amused. As though I were some minor curiosity providing a few moments of entertainment. “I fail to see why?”

“She did what you asked,” I snarled, tearing the vines away only for them to spring forth anew. “You have the lost bloodlines back in Arcadia, are gaining the ground you lost, are driving Winter from worlds frozen for millennia, and all because of Cécile. Yet you punish her for it.”

He cocked his head. “Do I?”

Questions answered with more questions. The fey were irritating, and he was the worst of all. I stared down at my hands, at the golden marks painted across my knuckles. Were they really still there, or were they only a reflection of what I wanted to be?

No, I decided. They were there. I could still feel her – a whisper of presence in my mind.

“There are worlds beyond count for you to explore, and yet you’d waste your time watching this mortal life?” he asked. “Why?”

“Because it is my life,” I whispered, forcing the vines to grow apart so that I could see once more.



* * *



Cécile remained on the farm in the care of her family and Sabine, her cheeks regaining their color even as her stomach took on a noticeable curve. Visitors came and went. Tips, whom Aiden had taken on as an advisor, came often, keeping her informed of the developments of the Isle as though she were queen. Marie and Zoé, whom Aiden was now courting, arrived with bolts of silk and velvet from the continent, regaling her with gossip from the city. Chris, who had returned to his father’s farm, took her riding often. And when she grew too large to do so comfortably, on carriage rides up and down the coast, Souris sitting at their feet. Everyone came together for her eighteenth birthday, the farmhouse filled to the brim with those who loved her.

For all of them, she smiled.

For all of them, she laughed.

For all of them, she pretended.

Only when she was alone, in the darkest hours of the night, did she unleash the hurt, curling in on herself. Soaking the pillow with tears. Muffling her sobs with a quilt. Every time it tore me apart, filled me fury, and sent me in pursuit of my uncle, where I begged, pleaded, and raged that he allow me to go back.

The answer was always the same.



* * *



Childbirth was not easy for her. Two days of pain, Sabine and Josette’s eyes filled with the fear that they would lose her, the marks on my fingers tarnishing and blackening at the tips as she labored and bled.