A Taste of Magic Read online

  “Everyone is dead, Eri!”

  Except her. I noticed then that there wasn’t a mark on her, save where my chain had reddened her arm. Her dress was soiled slightly at the hem, which brushed across the ground, but it was obvious she’d not been touched in this assault. Her long black hair was clean and shiny, as if she’d just combed it.

  “You! It was only you they wanted! In all of Nar, only you! And had you been here, they might have slain you or took you away and left everyone else alone. One life—yours—for all of these.”

  Alysen glared at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she sucked in gulps of air. “The men … they said she…” She gestured at Lady Ewaren’s corpse. “They said she warned you that they were coming. That she sent you away to keep you safe.” She released the pillar, only leaning against it now. “The Lady argued, said she hadn’t sent you anywhere. But they didn’t believe her.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Who didn’t believe her?”

  “He … he told them to take her fingers. One by one, her left hand, snapping them like twigs until she passed out from the pain. When she came to, they started on her right hand.”

  I stared at the girl, then dropped my gaze to Lady Ewaren’s corpse, trying not to imagine what she had felt, trying to wish all of this away.

  “This man, Alysen, the one who ordered this, who is he?”

  Alysen didn’t answer me, just continued to glare, her eyes trying to pin me in place.

  “Tell me the name of this man, Alysen.”

  “They killed everyone, you know, save two servants and a few children who ran toward the lake. They might have got the children, too, I didn’t see. Two men with swords rode off in the direction of the lake. Two more took toward Mardel’s Fen and…” A pause. “When the killing was finished here, they went searching with swords drawn.”

  I reeled at the news, her words pummeling me. All this death …

  “The bodies are in the houses, some in the barns, Willum and his family are all in that barn. Butchered and covered with hay. Lady Ewaren … they didn’t give her even that bit of respect. They left her for the carrion beetles and the crows.”

  All this death because of me …

  “Where were you, Eri? Why couldn’t you have died instead?”

  There was a longer pause, and in it I again heard the buzzing of flies drawn to Lady Ewaren’s body. There was another swarm of sound, a soft, constant drone that came from the nearest house.

  Because of me! I would eagerly have died to keep these people safe.

  “They killed Willum and Sela and everyone,” Alysen said. “And all they wanted was you, Wisteria. Where were you?”

  My mind swirled. I’d left the village long before dawn, not telling anyone I was hunting so early, and not telling them where in the forest I intended to go. I’d planned to range far, and so needed to leave early so I would have the time for travel. Had I been closer to the village I would have heard the horses, the men, and the desperate screams that must have filled the air.

  “Purvis,” she said at last. “The men called him Lord Purvis. He’s the one who ordered her fingers broken, and then ordered her killed.”

  The village dead, Lady Ewaren dead, before that the Emperor and my father—if what Alysen said rang true. I dug my fingernails into my palms, the pain helping to keep me from swooning. My father …

  My only contact with my father had been more than a year ago. He’d sickened from a summer fever. They’d called me to his side in the great southern city, and he ordered me to hold myself ready to take his place as taster at the Emperor’s board. My brother was summoned, too, but he was several years older and serving in some lord’s army. He never came. My father had written me a letter, which he’d pressed into my hand. It was the only thing he’d ever given me. A single sheet, it said he hoped that if I were called to my life-duty, I would serve the Emperor well. I returned to this village, without the letter, and weeks later I’d received news my father had recovered. Now here came news of his death, and the Emperor’s.

  “Lord Purvis,” she repeated, the words spit out like they were pieces of spoiled meat. “He ordered all of this, Eri.”

  I’d never heard of Lord Purvis. A chill passed down my spine and the intense tragedy of this day finally settled deep, deep in my soul. My knees buckled and the darkness claimed me.

  2

  I awoke with an intense sourness in my mouth. Until this day it had been an unfamiliar taste to me. Loss, grief, utter despair—that was the taste, and it radiated from me and from Alysen, who hovered above me. Most of the hysterical fury had faded from her face, and she stared at me in puzzlement. Then, she repeated slowly, as if I might not have heard her the first time, “Wisteria, are you listening to me?”

  I gave her a nod.

  “Lord Purvis of Elderlake. He’s the foul demon-of-a-man who ordered everyone killed. Didn’t even have the nerve to do any of the killing himself. Lord High-and-Mighty Purvis of Elderlake.”

  Indeed I heard her, but I couldn’t build the image of a man from the name. I was still consumed by the disbelief that the Village Nar was dead … and I was the root of it.

  “Lord Purvis of Elderlake, Eri.”

  Elderlake sat in the country Rhinardrelle to the southwest, the largest country on our island continent. Elderlake was in the narrowest part by the coast, where the villages were large and where the seat of the Rhemra Empire wrapped itself in tall buildings and a fortified wall. Lord Purvis had quite a ride from there to our Village Nar. But he would ride to hell if I had my way.

  Alysen helped me sit up and repeated the name twice more.

  “Purvis. The demon-of-a-man is—”

  Abruptly I stood and pointed a trembling hand toward an open doorway.

  “Lord Purvis. I heard you, Alysen. The cloak stand within.” I caught at her shoulder and turned her a little. “The cloak stand. Get whatever you can find there. And hurry.”

  The stare Alysen had locked upon me finally broke, but she made no move toward the door. Instead, she dropped her gaze to Lady Ewaren’s corpse.

  “Do it now, Alysen. The cloak stand.”

  Numbly, she nodded, then she ran to the main door of the manor house. After she’d disappeared inside I grabbed up the torn dress and spread it over our House Lady. Then I resumed my prayer in the old, old words, barely finishing when Alysen returned. She held two weather cloaks, one forest green that had been handed down to her from me, the other mist gray that had been Lady Ewaren’s favorite. She helped me wrap both around the broken body, then watched as I picked it up and carried it inside the manor house. Alysen followed closely on my heels as I went to the great hall and laid the body in the center of a long table.

  “Where did they go?” I asked her.

  Again, she’d lapsed into silence.

  “Where, Alysen? The men and Lord Purvis?”

  She stared at the bundled form, then after a moment shook her head slowly. “Lord Purvis and his men?” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “There came a speaker bird, a summoner, I think. It landed on Lord Purvis’s shoulder and spoke so softly I couldn’t hear. But when it was done and flew off, they all rode away in a great hurry. They took the two servants they hadn’t killed, and—”

  “And they left you here. Why? Why in the name of the Green Ones did they leave you alone? Why leave you and kill everyone else?”

  Her eyes, so like the huge ones of a tree-cat, even down to the golden coloring, would not meet mine. But at least this time she answered me without pause.

  “I was with Nanoo Gafna when the raiders came.” Alysen ground the ball of her foot against the hard-packed dirt floor. “She—she put a ward spell upon me, a no-see and—” She hesitated, and then ended in a rush of words. “It worked! By the Favor of Ostare, the ward spell worked. Nanoo Gafna slipped away, probably to the fen. I didn’t see them catch her, didn’t hear her scream. She must be safe, right? Safe like me. The riders looked straight at me and did not see me. The Moon
sons did not know I was standing in the doorway. They could not see me, but I saw them. By all that’s holy, I saw everything they did!”

  I swallowed hard. “Moonsons. You said Moonsons rode with this Lord Purvis?”

  “The demon-of-a-man.”

  The confusion must have been evident on my face. “Moonsons, but—”

  “Some of them were Moonsons, they had the symbol on their shields and helms. I recognized the symbol from Bastien’s shield that hangs above the fireplace.” She gestured to the shield, gloriously battle-pitted. “And from the shields of the Moonsons who’ve come through the village before. The rest of the men, I guess they were Lord Purvis’s household guard. They were wearing the colors he wore, green and black with a lion on the shield laying down and looking over its shoulder.”

  “The Moonsons?”

  “They stood apart, and I do not believe they took part in the killings.”

  “But they did not stop it.”

  “No. They didn’t stop any of it.”

  “Was one in charge?”

  “Of the Moonsons? None I’d recognized from their visits here. And no officers that I could see. No braids or medals or finery to mark one above the rest. And none of the Moonsons wore officer plumes. But they all seemed to answer to Lord Purvis.”

  She raised both hands to push back long strings of inky black hair from her face. Suddenly she swayed, and I moved to catch her. I set her on one of the chairs by the table, turning it so she couldn’t look at the wrapped body. Her breath came unevenly, as if everything had finally caught up to her, and her anger started to fade, taking her strength with it.

  “This bird messenger,” I prompted. “The summoner.” Alysen needed rest, but I needed more answers, among them why Nanoo Gafna would cast a no-see ward on the girl before she would do so on Lady Ewaren. What could be so special about this child?…

  “I am of the House of Geer.” Alysen’s words shattered my musings.

  Was the child able to work her way within my skull and read my thoughts?

  The girl stared beyond me and at the wall, and she spoke deliberately, as if she fully expected some sort of startled reaction from me.

  “Only Nanoo Gafna and our House Lady knew me as a firstborn from the House of Geer. That’s why she gave me the ward spell.”

  House of Geer—indeed, no wonder Nanoo Gafna had spun a protection spell for her. The Nanoo, who for the most part lived reclusively in Mardel’s Fen, claimed no kin of this world and embraced the House of Geer’s otherworldly ties to arcane power. The House of Geer had long supported the Nanoo, but the House’s members had dwindled through the decades, many of them dying of disease or various maladies that were whispered to be acts of murder. The dwindling House’s surviving members, known to be in disfavor with the Emperor, had a rich history dotted with seers.

  And those seers were all firstborns.

  Nanoo Gafna would have recognized any power within the child Alysen, and she could have convinced Lady Ewaren to hide the girl here as a simple apprentice. Lady Ewaren had certainly helped me, and had nudged me to Bastien for teaching.

  So the girl had been protected because of her blood, placed by Nanoo Gafna before Lady Ewaren. Saved when Lady Ewaren was brutally murdered.

  I nodded to the girl and took a chance. “Lady Alysen, strong be the wyse.”

  She smiled. “La yulen t’ Korus. You and I may be two of a kind, Eri. But that is yet to be proven.”

  “And now is not the time, and this is not the place to prove anything.” I would learn more about her later.

  The Emperor, a man obsessed with individuals possessing arcane talents, was dead. My father, who had been forced to serve because of his wyse-sense, was dead, too. I prayed my brother, wherever he lived, was safe.

  “Is safe,” I whispered. My brother lacked wyse talent, and so might be spared. But me? The wyse flowed in my veins.

  A force had come to this village looking for me. Why? Because of my wyse abilities? Because of my blood? And why kill everyone here? I looked at the wrapped form of our House Lady, and again the bitter tastes of grief and confusion settled strongly in my mouth.

  Did they truly seek me because of my father? Did they want to use my inherited wyse-sense for their own dark purposes? Or did they want to make sure—with my death—that the magical ability from our family tree ended with this last feeble limb? There were those in this world who wanted magic to die.

  “Eri, do you think they will come back here looking for you?”

  I shrugged, my gaze still locked on the covered body. If the men thought I might return, they could return as well. And why wouldn’t I come back here? It was home. A great part of me had a strong desire to wait here and see, to fight all of them. Bastien had trained me well.

  But the wisest part of me knew I couldn’t take on any sizeable group of men alone—not if I wanted to protect this girl.

  “We cannot leave our House Lady here, like this.”

  “Do you, Eri? Do you think they will come back?”

  Alysen and I were making a habit of not readily answering each other’s questions. However, I suspected she could pull the answer of yes from my mind if she tried. I picked up Lady Ewaren and carried her to the kitchen. Alysen washed her body while I searched for something presentable to dress her in. I returned with one of her court robes, a miracle of color with tiny gems sewn into the braiding along the neckline and sleeves. Our House Lady suitably attired, we brought her body to a great carved bed and laid her in the center. Then Alysen sprinkled dried flowers and herbs around her, as was a wyse custom. She was about to draw a gauzy curtain over the still form, but I signed for her to wait.

  I was not a Moonson—only men of noble birth were allowed that. But because of Bastien’s teaching I had long lived by their covenants. The two knives Bastien had passed to me on his deathbed rested in sheaths at my waist. I pulled one free and held the tip even with my eyes.

  “What are you doing, Eri?”

  I leaned over Lady Ewaren and set the blade to the back of my left hand.

  “Wisteria … what are you doing?”

  I sliced my skin and recalled the words I’d heard Bastien utter only once. I hoped I had them correct.

  By salt and bread, water and wine

  By steel and rope, hand, foot, and breeze

  By the ancient and the elder, master, and man

  This bloodoath I so swear.

  There was no Moonson to hear the oath and vouch for it and me, but it didn’t matter. As blood dripped down upon the bed and the body, I committed myself physically and spiritually. I would never stand free until the blood price for Lady Ewaren was paid … until the man responsible for her death was slain by my hand.

  Lord Purvis.

  Alysen pulled the gauze over the body, and I repeated again the prayer in the old, old words.

  “Nesalah dorma calla aloran se. The world holds its breath at your passing. Nesalah dorma entare se ren salma. The world holds your memory for all time.”

  “May your spirit be at peace,” Alysen added. Then she turned from me and the body, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

  3

  According to Alysen, the only Nanoo in the village at the time of the attack was Gafna, and I could not find her body. She didn’t live in the village, and she only came on the middle days of every other week to see Lady Ewaren. She lived in the fen, as nearly all the Nanoo did, and it was a good distance on foot. Alysen thought perhaps Gafna had escaped the carnage and fled to her home.

  I agreed to search for the old woman, as she might provide more information about the raid and about the vile Lord Purvis. Too, I intended to leave Alysen with Nanoo Gafna while I pursued my bloodoath, though I did not tell the girl this. I needed to be rid of the child to pursue my bloodoath.

  It was not in my nature to be motherly.

  A sharp thought pierced me—Alysen said the riders had searched for and chased down those running away or at the very least looked for those w
ho had fled. Had the men caught and killed Nanoo Gafna? Would my search end in one more friend to mourn? Had the searchers traveled into the dark heart of the woods and found the homes in the fen?

  When we ranged from this village, would I find her body as I had found Lady Ewaren’s? One more to mourn, I thought again.

  No! I held tightly to the knowledge that Nanoo Gafna knew the fen and magic and that both would keep her and her kind safe. Still, the fear burned in my belly that some ill had befallen the old witch. And from the look on Alysen’s face, I could tell she was reading my thoughts and wondering the same thing.

  I knew I could not return here, certainly should not if I wanted some time to think things through and to properly grieve for the slaughtered villagers. Alysen couldn’t stay either—little more than a child, she couldn’t make her way alone in a village of the dead. Her eyes were fixed and glassy, and I wondered what thoughts twirled in her head … she’d witnessed all the villagers slaughtered. And cloaked by a no-see spell, she could do nothing to save them.

  “There will be no open door for me at the Geer House, Eri. I would bring danger to my family, and likely they would turn me away.” She paused. “They sent me away before.”

  Gave you to Nanoo Gafna and Lady Ewaren.

  She nodded.

  She was indeed picking through my mind. A firstborn and strong in the wyse, I knew she wasn’t safe even with her own people; this village had been a good hiding place for her.

  “Do you have distant kin, Alysen, or friends in a far village who you might…”

  She shook her head, eyes still glazed. “But I believe in the Nanoo to keep me safe. Whatever course Nanoo Gafna chooses for me, that I will accept.”

  “Then we must find her, eh?” If she lives.

  I wanted to bury all of the villagers or burn the bodies, the latter being the custom of some of the families. But that would take time, a few days likely if we took care of all of them, and we could not risk the chance the men would return during that time. Oh, a great part of me wanted to face Purvis and his men as soon as possible. But again I reminded myself that now was not the time for revenge.