The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (32 page)

Truths, possibilities, might-have-beens and would-bes mixed in a flurry of visions.
The Book of Lost Words
revealed whatever it wanted. Nigella was powerless against its magic.

She no longer had any doubts. The book was magical.

Once in a while, she would glimpse a line that meant something to her, something that seemed familiar or that would tickle her intuition. She never ignored those. And sometimes, she knew she had just read a future riddle that involved Calemore.

Like asking a blind man to describe color
, she thought. Still, even though the book’s descriptions were like a ghost of smoke and heat, she could feel them now; she could touch them. She was slowly piecing together the future that the pale-eyed man wanted from her.

It did not feel like a future she wanted for herself, for her son.

There was nothing substantial in her visions to point out a certain threat, a certain truth, just a miasma of solid dread.

“You must outrun the wind,” she blurted, recalling her last reading. “You must not forget your face. You repay the worthy.”

Calemore touched his cheek with a long, sharp fingernail. “What does that mean, woman?” he growled.

Nigella lowered her gaze. “I do not know. But I know you
must
know.”

Calemore inclined his head. “This is not helping me,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.

There’s more
, she thought. But she would not tell him until she was certain he deserved the information.

“Where do I go next? Where are my allies? Where are my enemies?” he insisted.

The witch woman pushed the spectacles up her nose. She must give him more. “There’s…danger coming. Water. From the sea. You must stop them. They are two. A man with a sold soul. And the other, he rides the tides of vengeance.”
No more
, she swore.

Calemore was silent for a while. Then he brightened up suddenly. “What do you want from life, Nigella?”

She looked behind her to make sure Sheldon wasn’t listening. “I want the best for my son.”

Calemore snatched a butterfly from the air; it was one of the last before the autumn set in. “I told you already, I can make him into a prince. You can be a queen. Would you like that?”

Nigella imagined herself surrounded by hundreds, thousands of people, looking up at her, bowing, looking up
to
her. She shuddered. “No.”

“You will stay here forever?” he taunted.

Nigella cast a brief glance at Marlheim, hidden by a soft mist. A city that was a good solid distance from James and Rob. “If I must.”

Calemore sidled over to her, and she felt her heartbeat accelerate. She could smell him, although he didn’t really have a smell. It was the essence of ice and fresh snow and cold metal; that was how she thought of him. But she could feel the heat from his body. She could feel her own muscles responding to his presence, tightening. She hated being so weak, so easily manipulated.

“If you do not have a vision for yourself, how can you have a vision of greatness for me?”

Can he read my mind?
she wondered. But if he could, he would know she was hiding things from him, and he did not look like the forgiving type. Still, despite her terror, she liked it when he was around. She felt safer, more complete. She found herself imagining the two of them together in another lifetime, in one where she wasn’t an ugly and skittish witch woman hiding her talent from the world.

No! No
. She emptied her mind of idle fantasies. Calemore was dangerous, ruthless, unlike any other man she had ever met. There could be nothing good about pursuing her wild fancies.

He was grinning, ogling her like some bird of prey. Inexorably, her eyes were drawn to his perfect teeth, and a flash of self-worthlessness flashed through her chest. She wished she were more beautiful, more confident in herself. She wished she could provide for Sheldon on her own. She wished she were not dependent on the world around her, and its evil people.

She wished she had never met Rob or James and fallen for their lies. And now, she was doing it again, selling her soul to this lethal man. And yet, he cared for her cooking, and he liked bedding her, and he had just given her son a gift. It had to mean something.

What do I want?
she thought.

Calemore sat up and stretched back, leaning on his elbows. “A danger coming from the sea? What does that mean? Damn prophecies.” But if he were angry with her for failing to interpret the book, or with the book itself, or life’s share of secrets and twists and turns, she could not tell. His face remained impassive, lethal and handsome and frightening.

I should have run away. I should run away
, she told herself. But Sheldon…

“Nigella,” he said with emphasis, staring at her with those pale, unsettling eyes. “Your prophetic skills are valuable, but the information you give me is not. Soon, I might lose my patience. I need solid truths. Precise details. Exact locations, dates, names. Not just symbols or riddles.”

She brushed a lock of hair away. “I am trying. It’s not easy. But it is getting better.” True, the more she read, the more vivid, the more persistent the details of her visions became, the more she understood what she was reading. Although it still felt like she was trying to remember an elusive dream the morning after and all she had was a sensation of memory instead of a real one.

It really mattered how she tried to perceive the writings. For herself. And for him. With enough time, she felt she might be able to unravel the future for herself, learn what she must do. But that was a luxury she might not have.

What happens when he loses patience?
she thought.
I’m a fool for meddling in this. No going back now
.

“Try harder,” he insisted with a small, wicked smile on his perfect lips.

She closed her eyes. Flickers of images strobed on the inside of her eyelids, in jarring purple and sick yellow, a glimpse of some future that may or may not manifest, snippets of worlds and uncertainties that stretched around her. Each time she read the book, more of those came to life. But there was a pattern
emerging there. From the bubbles of mud sliding over rocks, from raindrops hitting the pond, from sparks of flames, wisps of mist, ghosts of swirling air, and the odd scent that budded in the back of her mind. Some of the faces and places and feelings, they came more often, sharper, somehow more real.

For a moment, she wondered what an ordinary person might see in the book, someone without her magical talent. Would they just be reading long lines of cryptic text? Or would they start feeling or seeing future truths? What did Calemore see in the book? Did she dare ask him?

She opened her eyes, and the images went away, slithering back to the black recess of her mind. Calemore lurked there, too. He was a part of whatever the future had in store for her. A future that left her uneasy.
Does that mean if I help him, I make things worse?

A future she did not want for herself and Sheldon.

So how could she prevent it? What did it mean anyway? What would happen?

Nigella wanted the answers; she wanted them badly. But that meant staying, reading the book, wrestling its truths out. That meant Calemore coming to visit her, demanding his own slice of the future, making her feel terrified and excited. She liked making love to him. She liked when he praised her culinary skills. He had promised her anything for herself, for Sheldon.

She owed it to her son, at least.

Rob made me feel good about myself; then he abandoned me. James was all pleasant and nice, and then he betrayed me, too. Calemore is a madman, evil, ruthless, but he likes my pies; he likes me. Rob and James never cared for my cooking. They never cared for Sheldon
.

“I will try harder,” she promised.

Calemore stood up. “I will go now. There isn’t enough room in the cottage for all three of us.”

She scrambled up quickly and felt blood drain from her head. Slightly dizzy, she put a hand on his chest, trying to steady herself.

He was smiling, watching her. “I will return in two days. I will expect answers. And you’d better be alone.”

She felt lust creep down her gullet, into her stomach, warming her up.

Calemore turned to leave, then spun around. “One more thing. Do you have another slice of that pie left?”

CHAPTER 24

A
malia had visited the north of Athesia only three times in her life, each time accompanying Father on his tours. The first time, she had just been a child and enamored with the long ride in the carriage, counting bumps in the road and cows she saw in the fields. The second time followed the insurrection in Pain Mave. After Father had summoned the village elders to Roalas and explained to them the finer side of his mercy, he had led a small excursion north to see and to be seen, to make sure the distance and reports did not warp the reality. And the third time, she had gone just a year before Father’s death, to oversee a large commerce deal in Bassac, with both Caytorean and Eracian dignitaries present. It had been a lesson in economy, as well as diplomacy.

Now, it was the fourth time, and she felt stupid and useless.

The crowds were cheering, elated, but all of the attention was directed at her half brother.

Ecol had been liberated.

Four days ago, the five legions under his leadership had arrived before the city and delivered the worried citizens their freedom. The Seventh Legion, still in charge of the city’s defense, had surrendered peacefully once they had learned who it was
that rode at the front of the column. Well, not exactly the front, more like the middle and well surrounded by bodyguards.

Since, there had been nothing but joy in Ecol. The good news kept spreading like wildfire. First, Bassac, now Ecol. Both major towns in the north of the realm were his. The bandits had all been destroyed or repelled, scattered across the border into Eracia or sent into the jaws of death of the Parusite army farther south. The countryside was calm and safe once again.

As a token of gratitude, Ecol’s mayor had declared a week of celebration, offering his wine and ale for free. James’s foragers would go hunting every morning to return with their saddles heavy with game, birds, small deer, rabbits, even a wild piglet now and then. Every day, the city cooks would season the meat in spices and roast them in front of the city walls, with people dancing to the tune of pipes and drums. Everyone was invited, from beggars to rich merchants. Soldiers mingled with the locals, and Amalia wondered how many bastards would be born come the summer.

The feast had not skipped her or Agatha. Like everyone else, they were entitled to fresh meat and drinks. All they had to do was walk from their camp into the revelry area and stand in line at the nearby cook fire. The air was thick with a pleasant aroma of smoke and burnt wood. After the harsh, eye-stinging stench of war in Roalas, Amalia had never expected to smell good flames ever again.

Today, she had gained enough courage to endure the thick crowd.

Random sounds of musical instruments, bad singing, and coarse laughter drifted around. Everyone talked, but so many voices became a drone, a solid wall of noise that underlined everything. People mostly clustered in familiar groups, Ecol townsmen talking to their neighbors or customers, soldiers
retelling feats of battle from the recent weeks, refugees gobbling food down with urgency, daring to hope their lives would be better now. You could not tell Caytoreans and Athesians apart; they all looked the same. Almost a memory of her father’s rule.

Her bastard kin would come into the open every once in a while to smile, to pose and wave, to kiss maidens even while his bodyguards watched in alarm for knives hidden in the folds of skirts. Women praised his courage, promising to call their sons after him. Men nodded in appreciation, admiring his skill, his leadership, his good fortune. Everything was as it should be.

Only Amalia was dead. No one mentioned her, not once.

Agatha had secured a bowl of fresh carrots and poached, tangy-tasting sprouts, and the two of them were having a magnificent dinner. Pete stood nearby, chatting to a fellow officer, his hair combed and slicked, his uniform clean of mud. He almost looked timid, and when he glanced at her maid, his eyes lit with something approaching peace and adoration.

Amalia did not envy her, of course. She was glad for her. But the tight knot in the pit of her stomach was cold and hard.

Bonfires licked at the dark sky, the stars and the moon hidden under a veil of clouds. The Autumn Festival was only a week away, and she did not doubt her half brother would make sure the people of Ecol remembered it for years to come.

After conquering that first village, he had moved with ruthless speed into Athesia. He had sent prongs of his cavalry into the countryside to search for allies and enemies, to rout brigands, and to look for ambushes, likely camp spots, and natural resources. She had not seen the short campaign in Bassac, only heard the soldiers bragging. The city had been besieged by a sizable no-man’s army that had strangled the roads and rivers, making sure no one got in or out. They had just sat there, without any real ambition to storm Bassac, waiting for the city
to lose spirit and give up or just starve to death. They had not expected two legions to drive lances into their backs.