Mist-Torn 01 - The Mist-Torn Witches (11 page)

But sleep would not come to Amelie. Her body was too tired and her mind was too busy, which was never a good combination. Doubt often came to her in the night, and she couldn’t help wondering what she and Céline would do, where they would go, if they failed here.

Time crept by, and she still couldn’t sleep. She just lay there, thinking and worrying.

It must have been halfway to dawn when the sound of a loud cry down the passage made her shoot up from the covers, looking toward the door. The cry was followed by shouting and pounding.

“Céline,” she said, but her sister was already awake.

Diving from the bed, Amelie grabbed her breeches. She was pulling them on while Céline ran out door wearing nothing but her white cotton shift.

“Céline!”

Buttoning her breeches, Amelie ran, and they both came upon the sight of Jaromir unlocking the door of the room where he’d placed Sybil. He had two soldiers standing guard with him, but Amelie didn’t recognize either one. The pounding from inside continued.

As he got the door unlocked and shoved it open, Inna came rushing out, gasping for breath. “She’s dead! Dead!”

Jaromir ran past her into the room, and Amelie followed with Céline at her heels.

There, lying in the bed, was the dried husk of what had been Sybil. Her lovely brown hair was spread on the pillow, but her face was nothing more than shriveled skin adhered to bones.

“Oh, no,” Amelie whispered.

None of this made sense. Céline walked to the bed and looked down at a yellow-and-red-checked quilt.

“Inna!” she nearly shouted. “Where did this come from?”

Amelie blinked. The quilt? Why would Céline care about that?

“What is it?” Jaromir asked, his eyes moving to the quilt.

“This wasn’t here before,” Céline said. “Where did it come from?” She sounded brittle.

One of the other soldiers dragged Inna back inside, and she simply pointed at a chest across the room. “We were cold. I took it out.”

Céline closed her eyes. “It wasn’t here before,” she whispered.

Jaromir turned on Inna, his expression dark, almost threatening. “What happened? No one could have entered this room.”

Frightened, dressed only in her shift, with strands of her grayish blond hair sticking to her face, Inna raised a hand, as if in defense. “I don’t know. I was asleep and then I just…I felt something
was wrong, and I turned up the lamp and I…saw her!”

“The door was locked,” Jaromir answered coldly, “and there is no window. You were the only one here.”

“I was asleep!” Inna cried. “I heard nothing.”

“Look for a pair of gloves,” Céline said quietly. “A pair of long black gloves.”

Perhaps realizing he’d get nothing sensible out of Inna, Jaromir called in another of his men, and they began searching the room.

The next half hour or so followed with a mix of confusion and activity. Céline stood at the end of the bed, staring down at the quilt, while the room was searched—revealing no black gloves. Soon, Master Feodor arrived. Amelie was surprised to see him still dressed in his silk tunic from dinner. He also seemed vaguely displeased to see Céline there, nothing overt, just a flicker of distaste passing across his features when he walked in.

“Well?” Jaromir asked, but the question was unnecessary.

Feodor conducted a brief examination of Sybil’s body and sighed. “Yes. Just like the others.”

“Someone should wake Anton,” Céline said, her first words in quite a while.

“No!” Inna cried.

Feodor glanced at her and said, “Inna’s right. My lord needs his sleep and should not be disturbed. This can wait until morning.”

Jaromir put a hand to his mouth, as if thinking, and then he nodded. “I’ll go inform the girl’s parents myself.”

“If not Anton, then the Lady Karina should be the one to tell them,” Céline whispered. “It should be a member of the royal family.” She looked up at Jaromir. “You promised to…protect Sybil. This isn’t your fault, but the girl’s parents should be told by Anton or Karina.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and Amelie realized Céline was right.

Jaromir nodded once, tightly. “I’ll wake her.”

A guard in the doorway approached hesitantly. “Sir, what should be done with the body?”

If possible, Jaromir stiffened further. “Put it in the cellar with the others.”

Deciding that enough of this was enough, Amelie steered Céline toward the door.

Out in the passage, she asked, “How did you know?”

“I couldn’t change it,” Céline whispered. “I should have changed it. She was kind. She wanted more out of life than to marry a stranger her parents picked out.”

She fell silent again, and Amelie was nearly overwhelmed by a wish that they could go back to the day before, and Céline could tell Rhiannon to marry Damek, and the Lavender and Thyme would not be burned, and she and Céline had never come here.

*   *   *

An hour past sunrise, Jaromir woke up naked in his bed with Bridgette sleeping on his chest.

Looking down at her closed eyes and her breasts as they rose and fell, he was almost ashamed of having called her to him in the night, but after the painful task of telling Lady Karina the news of Sybil’s death—and then giving her the task of informing Sybil’s parents—he could not face the thought of going to bed alone, of lying there thinking on all he’d seen in that small, windowless room.

So he’d sought oblivion in Bridgette’s body, using her as a method of release.

It hadn’t helped.

She was lovely, with creamy skin and even features. But they had little in common and even less to say to each other. He couldn’t tell her what he’d been through—and she certainly wouldn’t be interested in hearing it.

Now he wished he hadn’t called her here.

Carefully, trying not to wake her, he slipped out from under her head and crawled from under the covers. The floor was cold on his bare feet, and he put on his discarded clothing from the night before, as if he couldn’t get out of his own room fast enough.

He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, with his own self-recrimination.

Once out in the passage, he shut the door behind himself and took a long breath. He’d failed Anton last night. He had failed to save Sybil, and
in doing so, he’d made Anton look like an ineffectual leader—someone who could not protect his own people.

Jaromir would do anything for Anton. No one could possibly understand what he owed Anton…no one.

Jaromir did not like to view himself as a man who ever needed or wanted to be saved.

But Anton had saved him.

Standing there in the passage alone, outside his room, nearly shaking from a mix of helplessness and unwanted guilt, he couldn’t help his mind from slipping back to a place he’d much rather have forgotten…

C
ASTLE
P
ÄHLEN

F
OUR
Y
EARS IN THE
P
AST

J
aromir stood at attention in the great hall of Prince Lieven. He wore the deep brown tabard of Lieven’s castle guard, but the tabard was a lie. He wasn’t one of the prince’s soldiers. He was just a hired sword, engaged for a week to help exaggerate Lieven’s show of force for a “family gathering” at the castle.

No one in the hall spoke to Jaromir or even noticed him.

He was nothing.

Yet he couldn’t believe his good fortune at having achieved even a week’s worth of employment here. His wolfhound, Lizzie, was pressed up against his leg. His sword, his chain armor, and his dog were all he had left in the world.

Looking around the great hall, he thought on how most he’d seen before were rectangular, but
this one was an enormous square. Heavy chairs, tables, and benches were haphazardly strewn around, but a fire burned in the hearth, and he reveled in the comfort of being warm. He wished he’d been able to borrow a razor from someone to shave his face. Beneath his armor and clothing he was filthy from having slept outdoors for too long, and he knew that his appearance was not working in his favor.

Prince Lieven sat in a chair on a dais at the top of the hall. A stocky man with a graying beard, he was in his midfifties but as yet showed no signs of slowing down. Jaromir was desperate to impress him, to find some way to gain a permanent place among the Castle Pählen guards, even if it meant standing night watch for the rest of his life.

Lizzie whined, and he reached down to stroke her back. There were at least twenty other soldiers in brown tabards placed around the hall, but still, no one glanced Jaromir’s way. They didn’t believe he’d be here long.

He hoped they were wrong.

Once he’d thought himself far too proud to grovel for a humble position as a night watchman, but pride was a tenuous thing that could be worn down bit by bit over a period of years.

Looking back at the dais again, Jaromir thought on everything that had brought him to his current state.

Five years before, at the age of twenty-two, he’d already achieved the rank of lieutenant by serving
among the military forces for the House of Hilaron in the eastern provinces. His lord was an older prince named Phillipos, and Jaromir was loyal. Something about the aging prince stirred his sense of protection.

But tired of waiting to be the head of the house, Phillipos’s son raised a contingent of men and waged war on his own father. Prince Phillipos himself was killed and his soldiers were nearly decimated. Jaromir survived…his horse did not.

In his mercy, the victorious son offered any surviving soldiers a place in the new military for the House of Hilaron. Most of them gratefully accepted.

Lieutenant Jaromir refused to swear fealty.

He decided he would rather live by his sword as a hired mercenary than serve his dead lord’s traitorous son. This seemed the only path of honor. So he headed west, on foot, with his wolfhound, Lizzie, for company.

To his shame, within a year, he began to regret his decision. Life as a hired sword in a nation like Droevinka turned out to be worse than he could have imagined—with him taking on jobs that once would have sickened him. He was often forced to keep company among men who were little better than animals, who understood only hunger and strength. He lived well sometimes and nearly starved at others. He and Lizzie often slept outside.

It rained a good deal of the time.

Upon deciding to better his situation, he found that because he’d relinquished his place with the House of Hilaron, it was nearly impossible to find a proper post with another lord or prince. They wanted only men they knew, men who had come highly recommended, or men they had reason to trust. No one had a reason to trust him.

The years passed.

Then, by sheer luck, one night he was drinking ale in a tavern, and he overheard that Prince Lieven of the House of Pählen was hiring extra men for a family gathering that involved his two sons. Jaromir didn’t need to ask a reason for the extra security—as both sons would be bringing their own men. The elder princes in Droevinka tended to foster competition and hostility between themselves and their sons. They viewed it as healthy for the future survival of the house—if not always for themselves.

Castle Pählen had been a two-day walk from the tavern, but Jaromir started off immediately.

Upon arriving, he’d been hired, and now…he counted his good fortune to have gained even short-term employment with the prince of a house, and a powerful one at that.

He was determined not to waste this chance.

He had no pride left.

So he stood at attention in the great hall of Castle Pählen while his mind mulled over how he might distinguish himself.

Conversation in the hall had been soft, but the
entire chamber fell silent as Sub-Prince Damek walked through the archway. He and his men had arrived at the castle the day before and had been taking their leisure.

“You called for me, Father?” he asked.

“Yes, your brother has arrived in the courtyard and will be joining us directly.”

“Good news indeed.”

Where his father was stocky, Damek was slender. He was pale and handsome and rarely said a word without meaning to land a verbal cut. But Jaromir no longer held illusions about the nobility. Damek was exactly what he’d come to expect from a typical sub-prince: cruel, greedy, brutal, and self-serving. His brother, Anton, would be just like him.

A servant entered the hall, and Jaromir expected Sub-Prince Anton to be announced. Instead, the servant called, “The Lady Karina, of the House of Yegor.”

A lovely woman with chestnut hair floated into the hall, walked to the dais, and bowed. “My lord. Anton will be in directly. I traveled with his entourage, and he is seeing to the horses.”

Lieven studied her for a moment, taken aback. “Ah, yes, Lady Karina. One of my late wife’s sisters? It is good to meet you. I’d been informed you had arrived at Sèone.” He continued his visual appraisal in a manner that bordered on impolite. “You bear little resemblance to my Bethany…just your hair.”

If Karina was offended, she didn’t show it and smiled. “No, I believe she took after our mother, but I was only a child when she was sent west to marry you. I look more like our father.”

Jaromir couldn’t help noting that this was the first time Prince Lieven had met his dead wife’s sister.

“It was kind of you to come all the way from the southeast provinces,” Lieven responded. “How fares my son?”

She hesitated. “He is bearing up. I will continue to be of assistance to him.”

“Perhaps you should come and be of assistance to me,” Damek said, sinking lazily down into a chair. “I’d no idea we had such an
aunt
in the family.”

She turned cold eyes upon him. “Your brother is in mourning.”

Jaromir had heard through conversations taking place around him that Anton had recently lost his wife, but Jaromir scoffed at the idea of a sub-prince in mourning. The poor young wife had probably come with too small a dowry, or she’d otherwise displeased him, and he’d had her poisoned or strangled.

“Sub-Prince Anton, of the House of Pählen,” a servant announced loudly.

At first, Jaromir barely glanced at Anton, but then something about the sub-prince pulled his attention back. Anton was young, maybe nineteen. Although pale like his brother, as opposed to
merely slender of build, Anton looked as if he hadn’t been eating. His eyes were haunted, and Jaromir was struck by the impression that he’d been ordered here by his father—and that it was the last place he wished to be.