Mist-Torn 01 - The Mist-Torn Witches (26 page)

“But my hair is too short for her to dress,” Amelie said, turning away from the open window.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what a lady like Karina can do with—”

A soft knock sounded on the door, and Céline froze for an instant. Then she hurried over to crouch down behind the dressing screen, completely hidden from sight.

This was part of the plan, too.

Still uncertain about the entire strategy, Amelie walked across the room. It was too late to turn back now. She opened the door.

Céline’s instincts must have been right, as the Lady Karina stood on the other side, and she smiled at the sight of the midnight blue gown. “Oh, my dear, how beautiful you are. Let me do your hair, and we’ll walk down to the hall together.”

She swept inside, wearing emerald green silk that rustled gently. Her own hair was elaborately dressed…but she had so much of it. Amelie
thought when it was down, it probably reached the small of her back.

“I brought some pins,” Karina said. “Come and sit.”

“How is Anton?” Amelie asked, moving to the dressing table and sitting down.

“Weary, but on his feet. I did object to this banquet tonight, but he is determined.” She looked down at the table. “Will you hand me that brush?”

Looking into the mirror, Amelie studied Karina’s reflection, her lustrous hair, her glowing skin. She looked exactly as she had in the vision from so long ago.

How was that possible?

Céline had counseled Amelie to wait until after Karina had finished with her hair, ensuring that she was relaxed and pleased with her own work, but Amelie decided not to wait another moment.

Turning in the chair, she grabbed Karina’s hand and gripped it tightly.

Karina’s slanted green eyes widened in surprise, and she tried to jerk away, but Amelie was stronger and held fast while focusing all her internal energy on Karina’s past, on how she had not aged.

She felt for the spark of Karina’s spirit.

The jolt hit her as before, but this time the experience was different. Karina was fighting her, fighting to break free, and Amelie fought back. Within seconds, Amelie’s spirit began overpowering
Karina’s, but as a result, she could feel their spirits mingling and meshing together.

The room around them vanished.

Another jolt hit, and then Amelie was rushing backward through the mists, only Karina’s spirit was still with her. Their spirits sped along, blending together until Amelie couldn’t separate them. She thought Karina’s thoughts and saw what Karina saw.

She
was
Karina.

And then the mists began to fade…

S
OUTHEASTERN
P
ROVINCE
N
EAR THE
E
VERFEN

T
WENTY-SIX
Y
EARS IN THE
P
AST

T
he summer after Bethany left for her marriage and new life as the wife of a prince in the west, Karina’s sorrow and disappointment with her own life came to feel like a weight around her neck. She was not remotely sorry that she’d never married. No one worthy had asked her.

She was only sorry that her father had not been able to arrange a great match for her, as he had for her youngest sister. Oh, he was in the process of making “acceptable” matches for their other two sisters, but nothing on the scale that he’d made for Bethany.

And Karina would accept no less.

For women of their class…youth, beauty, wealth, and land were the only bargaining chips to be offered. Her father possessed abundant land, and she was well aware that she still possessed
beauty, but at the age of twenty-nine, she was considered on the edge of losing her youth—possibly over the edge.

Father was nothing if not honest, and he’d told her that if she wished, he might able to arrange a match with a noble widower; an older man who’d lost his wife might agree to take Karina if a sweet enough dowry was offered.

But she did not wish this.

She wanted to run a great household. She wanted fiefdoms with fat rents under her charge. She wanted to be the beautiful mistress to one of the most powerful houses in Droevinka, to be worshipped by her peasants as kind and generous, to be valued by her husband as indispensable in helping him with decisions of state.

She wanted to be the mother of princes.

It cut like a sharp knife that her silly younger sister had been handed the opportunity for all these things…only because she was so young.

Karina considered herself to be clever, but she cursed herself that she’d never before realized the absolute importance of youth in a woman.

Looking into the mirror every night, she saw a lovely face staring back, with smooth skin, slanted green eyes, and glossy hair. The nobles who visited her parents here and the people of her father’s villages and the household servants still gazed at her with admiration when she entered a room or rode down the streets, but how long would this last? Next year she would be thirty.

Thirty.

How long before the glow of her skin faded and her hair grew dull like her mother’s and she woke up one day to find creases around her eyes? The prospect filled her with a dread she couldn’t bear. Once that happened, she’d have nothing to place on the bargaining table but her father’s land.

Worse, no one would gaze at her in admiration when she floated into a room. How could she live without that? It was all she had.

Her sorrow and fear of the future continued to grow.

Thankfully, she had one comfort and refuge to which she sometimes escaped, for some peace from her own thoughts. Her father had felt his girls should be accomplished in more skills than proper taste in gowns and hairstyles and good manners, and he’d encouraged them to pursue talents or interests. Bethany had proven herself quite skilled at the lute, and she’d chosen to study music.

Karina found joy and solace in painting. She loved to do a sketch of an object or a person and turn the sketch into an oil-painting likeness. Her father said she had skill, and he didn’t offer his favor lightly.

He displayed some of her better work, and it was admired by all.

Karina needed to be admired.

So in the months after Bethany’s departure toward a future of power and admiration, Karina
took to her own room more and more, where she’d set up her easel and brushes.

One afternoon, she was in her room, working on a still life of a flower arrangement she’d put together herself—with short-cut roses and white pansies—and she was so absorbed in the work that it was too late before she remembered that she’d forgotten to change out of a new gown.

Father had paid quite a sum for the gown, a sky blue satin, and with some alarm, she saw that she’d spotted the sleeve with white paint. After a few moments of panic, she decided to go down to the kitchens and see if Martha, their head cook, could help. Martha had once managed to get every drop of spilled red wine out of light pink silk. It was possible she might be able to do something with few spots of paint.

Karina had no idea that this one small accident would alter the course of her life. But as she approached the kitchens, she heard a number of female voices and the word “Móndyalítko,” and she stopped outside the open archway, not allowing herself to be seen.

The paint on her sleeve was already dry, and a few more moments would make no difference. She loved to hear the kitchen gossip, and she knew that if she walked in, the women would cease talking.

“Wagons with houses built on top?” someone asked. “I should like to see that.” Karina didn’t recognize the voice, but she was familiar with only a few members of the kitchen staff.

“Well, they’ve set up camp just outside the village.” This was a voice she did know: Eveeta, a beautiful scullery maid of about sixteen. She had red hair and a charming smattering of freckles at the top of her breasts.

“You can go and have your fortune read or buy baubles or watch the entertainments,” Eveeta went on. “I was just down there. They have a man who can swallow fire if you pay him half a penny. Oh, and they have one of the Mist-Torn in their company.”

“What’s a Mist-Torn?” Martha asked.

“You know, one of their women who’s born with some sort of power,” Eveeta said.

Martha snorted. “Good gods, girl, you’ll believe anything. You can’t listen to a thing those Móndyalítko tell you. They’re born tricksters and liars.”

The chatter went on, but Karina drew back from the archway, forgetting all about her ruined sleeve. For the first time since Bethany had left, she found herself interested in something outside of her room.

The Móndyalítko.

She’d heard stories of them…that women among them often carved out positions of power in the community through skills or abilities. Yet they were surrounded by mystery—perhaps self-created mystery.

Karina wanted to see them.

Perhaps she would go and have her fortune told.

*   *   *

About an hour past sunset, Karina arrived at the Móndyalítko encampment with four of her father’s men riding beside her.

Her entourage made its entrance among the quaint wagons with brightly painted houses built into their beds. Campfires seemed to be glowing from the ground near every wagon, but as she dismounted, she heard music and looked to see a girl singing a haunting tune for a small crowd.

The girl’s waving black hair hung like dark cloud around her glowing ivory face. More than merely pretty, she was exotic and alluring. No one could take their eyes from her. Karina felt a rush of envy worse than anything she’d ever felt toward Bethany, but she couldn’t explain why.

Why should she envy some gypsy girl?

“How might we serve you, my lady?” asked a voice from behind her. “A love potion perhaps? Or would you like to hear your fortune?”

Karina turned to find a quite different woman, late middle-aged, with skin ravaged by disappointment and time, deeply wrinkled. The woman’s hair might have once been long and glossy, but now it hung in dried-out lanks going gray.

“Who is that?” Karina asked, turning back toward the singing girl surrounded by enraptured admirers.

The hag didn’t answer at first but then finally said, “My sister, Jaelle.” Hatred and venom dripped from her voice.

“Your sister?” Karina repeated, unable to keep the surprise from her voice. This woman looked old enough to be the girl’s grandmother.

“She is Mist-Torn,” the hag answered simply, as if this would explain everything.

Then Karina remembered Eveeta mentioning something about this…something about a gypsy born with power.

The girl, Jaelle, was so lovely, so fresh, with her flawless skin and warm smile as she sang.

“What is your name?” Karina asked the hag. Her stomach felt tight. Somehow, she knew that she was standing at the crux of her life. She didn’t know how she knew this, only that she did.

“I am Lucrezia.”

“And
that
girl is your sister?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Again, Lucrezia did not speak for a moment. Hatred and envy emanated from her eyes. “She does not age. Her body draws small bits of youth from any girl around her, just bits, but it keeps her from aging a day.”

At those words, Karina almost couldn’t breathe. She fought to maintain her noble demeanor.

“That is the truth?” she demanded. “She’s not just some girl your people use to lure in villagers? And don’t lie to me. I can find out if you’re lying, and my father can have your entire company banished from this province.”

Lucrezia didn’t react to the threat. “’Tis true,
my lady. She stopped aging over thirty years ago, a gift from the line of the Mist-Torn.”

“But you are her sister, and you received no such gift?”

Lucrezia’s expression closed up, and Karina could see the scars of jealous poison deep inside her eyes. If there was one thing Karina understood, it was jealous poison.

“Is there something I might do to serve you?” Lucrezia asked.

But Karina was reeling and needed time to think. Calling to her guards, she rode back to her father’s manor.

There, she spent a sleepless night.

*   *   *

The following afternoon, she returned to the gypsy encampment. As she dismounted, a handsome young man holding a violin looked her up and down without bothering to disguise his interest.

“Can I be of service, my lady?” he asked. His tone was insolent, almost suggestive, but inwardly she could not help being pleased at his clear approval of her beauty.

“Which wagon belongs to Lucrezia?” she asked coldly.

With a flourishing bow, he pointed. “That one.”

Without bothering to thank him, she moved away from her contingent of guards toward the wagon.

“Hello?” she called.

The bed of the wagon was covered by what appeared to be a small house. The door opened, and Lucrezia looked down in surprise. “My lady…what did you…Do you wish to have your fortune told?”

Wishing for a more private discussion, Karina nodded and then turned her head. “Wait out here,” she told her guards. After that, she made her way up a few steps and stepped inside a tiny dwelling with two bunk beds attached to the walls and a cushioned bench behind a table. Crystals hung from the ceiling, and balls of colored glass lined a makeshift window.

“Please sit,” Lucrezia said.

But Karina did not. Instead, she reached into her cloak, took out an emerald necklace, and dropped it on the table. Lucrezia couldn’t hide her shock. To her, the emeralds in the necklace would bring a fortune.

“My lady?”

“I’m not here to have my fortune told. I seek information…knowing you might not have it but are able to attain it.”

To Karina’s joy, Lucrezia’s eyes narrowed in cunning, in the light of opportunity. “However I might help, my lady.”

Karina wasted no time mincing words. “This power of your sister’s. You say she was born with it, but can it be stolen, can it be taken by another?”

Again, Lucrezia could not contain her shock.
“Stolen? Given to another? No,” she said emphatically. “The power of the Mist-Torn is sacred. It cannot be used by another.”