Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(5)

“Doesn’t know.” Onal lifted her chin to peer at me from beneath her spectacles. “Nobody knows about this except the people in this room. Of all of us, you should be the last to take issue with the use of a little witchcraft.”

I chewed my lips. Everything I’d ever done, I’d done alone. The consequences if I were caught would be mine and only mine. “It isn’t worth it,” I said. “Not for one person.” Not for me.

“I need a piece of cloth,” Simon said. “Something that is tied to Aurelia. Do you have a kerchief, my lady? A scarf??”

“Can you use this?” Mother went to her desk and pulled out a square of silk, bordered on one side with a silver, embroidered vine. It was fabric from the cuff of my wedding dress. With a guilty pang, I realized she must have taken it apart after the hundredth time I’d told her I hated it.

“That will do.” He spread the fabric out in front of him and slowly began tracing a pattern across it with his finger.

My curiosity got the best of me, and I sat down next to him at the table. “What kind of a spell is this?”

“It’s a binding spell,” he said, continuing the pattern. “A spell to connect our three lives—?Queen Genevieve’s, Onal’s, and mine—?to yours.” His golden eyes were solemn. “After it is complete, our lives will shield yours.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It means,” Mother said, “that you cannot die until we also have died.”

Kellan was taking short, impatient strides across the room. He probably hated this; he had no love for superstition. Kellan didn’t believe I was a witch. He didn’t believe in witches at all. He was solid and practical, possessing a deep trust in the things he could see and touch but naught else. So it surprised me greatly when he burst out, “Can there not be a fourth? If this spell puts lives before the princess’s, would it not be even better protection to add one more?”

“Only three,” Simon said. “Three is a sacred number; the only way to strengthen it would be to add multiples of three. Six, or even better, nine. Are there more out there we’d be willing to trust with this secret? Who’d tie their lives to Aurelia’s?”

“No,” Kellan said, looking at me. “There’s nobody else.” It was true, but it hurt to hear him say it. He considered me for a moment before continuing, “But I am strong, and I know Aurelia. It is my job to protect her. Couldn’t I take your place in the spell?”

“I follow a very strict set of rules when I practice magic. I must be a part of the spell; drawing blood from others is permissible only with willing participants and when the executor of the spell shares the bloodletting. Were it not for that, I would let you take my place.” He was thoughtful. “But as you said, you are young and strong.”

“Onal already has many years behind her—?”

“Are you calling me old, Lieutenant?” Onal asked shrewdly, drumming her long, brown fingers against her weathered cheek. “I may not have as many years ahead of me, young man, but I don’t live a dangerous life. I may live a hundred years; you may die in combat tomorrow.”

“Kellan,” I added reluctantly, “you don’t even believe in these things. In spells and witchcraft.”

“He doesn’t have to believe,” Simon said. “The magic exists whether he believes in it or not.”

“I don’t believe,” Kellan said, “but I want to do it. For you.”

“So sentimental,” Onal snapped. “Fine. You can have my place. Not as if I wanted to die for Aurelia anyway.”

“Die for me?” It was such a ridiculous notion, I almost laughed. “No, no . . . Simon didn’t say that. He just said you’d die before me. So as long as you are all alive, so will I be, too . . .” I trailed off, marking their solemn expressions with growing dismay.

Simon said gently, “If we do this spell and you are at any time injured to the point of death, one of us will die in your place and their drop of blood will fade from the cloth, until we are all gone.”

My chest began to constrict. “I don’t want you—?any of you—?to die in my place. My life isn’t worth all three of yours. And why do we have to keep this treaty anyhow? It’s been two hundred years. Nobody cares anymore.”

Mother spoke first. “Fulfillment of the treaty is the only way to get you to Achleva.”

“Renalt is my home. My people—?”

“Want to kill you,” Mother finished.

“They wouldn’t,” I argued, a bitter taste on my tongue, “were it not for the Tribunal.”

We’d had this discussion many times before, but never to any avail. To my mother, the Tribunal simply was; implying that it could be dismantled was like calling for the sky to be pulled down from the heavens, or begging for the dispersion of all the water in the oceans. It could not be done.

“Achleva needs you, too, Princess,” Simon said. “There are many forces at work against the monarchy. Domhnall may be petulant and prideful, but we have to keep him on the throne until the prince can inherit. For now, we at least have a tentative balance. But I’m afraid that if Renalt reneged on the treaty now, there would be little to keep the steward lords from making plays for the crown at the expense of people’s lives.”