“Oh!” Nina turned in surprise to see an old woman standing just behind her in the forest. She had a kindly, wrinkled face and very unusual eyes—they seemed to be a bright yellow. Of course, maybe that was normal for some Tarsians, Nina had no way of knowing.
“I’m sorry, did I startle you?” The old woman gave her a kindly smile and tucked a wisp of gray hair back into the thick bun at the back of her neck. A large ring she wore on one of her fingers flashed in the sunlight as she did, blinding Nina momentarily.
“Oh, no,” she said, blinking. “I just…’
“I thought I heard you asking for a guide, and you look like a stranger here.” The woman smiled again.
“I am a stranger,” Nina confessed. “I’m…not for around here at all. I just, uh, flew in last night, and I was wishing I knew more about the local flora and fauna and customs…really just everything.” She returned the old woman’s smile. “For instance, how old are these trees? We have some like them back where I’m from, and they’re some of the oldest living things on our planet.”
The old lady nodded thoughtfully. “Well now, these trees are ancient and very beautiful, but we have something even rarer farther in, toward the center of the forest—near the swamp.”
“The swamp?” Nina’s heart began pounding for some reason. “Did you say swamp?”
“Why yes, of course. It’s a very fertile area. Some of the most beautiful flowers on all of Tarsia bloom there. Would you like me to show you?” As she spoke, she pushed another wisp of white-blonde hair out of her eyes.
Nina frowned. Hadn’t she had gray hair before? And why were her fingers so long? She tried to examine them more closely without being obvious about it, but the flashing of reddish sunlight on the pink jewel in the old woman’s ring kept getting in her eyes.
“What do you say, my dear?” The old lady smiled at her again, showing extremely white teeth.
“I…” Nina shook her head. For some reason her thoughts felt sluggish. “I guess so,” she said at last. “Only I can’t be gone too long—I have to be back for the gathering tonight.”
“But that’s hours and hours away,” the old woman said soothingly, her ring flashing again as she spoke. “Plenty of time to see the sights of the swamp.”
“I…suppose.” Nina blinked her eyes. Why did she feel so sleepy all of a sudden?
“Come.” The old woman wrapped her surprisingly long white fingers around Nina’s wrist and pulled her forward, deeper into the woods. “Let’s go see what we can find.”
* * * * *
“For the last time, I do not want to be joined to you.” Reddix crossed his arms over his chest and sighed wearily. Tilla was like an animal, reluctant to let go of a bone she wanted to chew—only in this case, he was the bone. Her stubbornness gnawed at him with blunt, grinding teeth.
“I don’t care what you want,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “You promised—you swore I would be your bride.”
“If and only if I became the OverChief. That may not even happen now—Saber is back.”
“Right and he brought that little tzeeba-haired Lissa with him,” she scoffed. “Who ever heard of a clan leader who joined with his amalla? No one, that’s who—it’s disgusting. Face it, Reddix, you are going to be the next OverChief, and I will be there by your side when it happens.”
“You don’t want to be with me any more than I want to be with you, Tilla—you just want the status that goes with being the OverChief’s wife.”
“That’s not true,” she protested.
Reddix sighed wearily and rubbed his right wrist which wouldn’t stop itching. “You can’t lie to me about how you feel. Your loathing for me is almost as strong as mine is for you. You’d rather find a half-eaten grubba bug in your meal than touch me.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. We could have a very good joining—a very amicable partnership if you’d just be sensible. I’ll even let you…touch me when you want to. Until we finally get a child, that is.”
“You’re too fucking kind,” Reddix growled. “But what makes you think I want to touch you any more now than I did before? I’d rather put my hand in an open flame than make love to you, Tilla. At least with fire the pain is clean.”
Tilla’s face went from red to white. “How dare you insult me this way?”
“I’m not trying to be insulting—well, not much,” he amended. “Just trying to get my point across. I don’t want you. And if you’d just admit it, you don’t want me either.”
Suddenly, the itching in his wrist intensified until it was a sharp pain he could no longer ignore. Doubtless the swamp witch was calling him, reminding him of his obligation.
“Reddix,” Tilla said, but he ignored her.
“All right, witch,” he muttered, looking down at the blood red lthss on his right wrist. “I’ll be there to deal with you soo…” The words died on his lips as he saw what had happened to the tiny creature Xandra had imbedded in his skin.
Reddix had expected the thing to have grown again—that it would have completely encircled his wrist by now. Instead, it was…shrinking. Already it was half as big as it had been. What the hell was going on?
“How dare you call me a witch?” Tilla’s shrill, demanding voice pierced through his contemplation. “And look at me when I’m talking to you, Goddess damn it!”
“It wasn’t you I was talking to.” Reddix kept studying the lthss. It was shrinking even as he watched, growing smaller and thinner every moment that passed. There was no way it should be doing that until he had fulfilled his obligation to Xandra, which he most certainly hadn’t. No way she would ever free him of his debt…unless someone else was paying it.
Reddix felt his heart clench in his fist. “Nina,” he muttered. “Gods, no…what did you do?” Pushing past Tilla, he bolted for the door. He had to get to her before the witch did something awful to her.
Before it was too late.
Chapter Thirty
Nina blinked as the old woman led her into a gloomy little hut in the middle of the vast swamp. She felt she’d been walking for hours, but it couldn’t have been that long—could it? Looking down at herself she saw that her shoes— the little blue slippers Lissa had loaned her that went with her gown—were soaked with stagnant water and stained with purple mud. The bottom of her gown was in a similar state. Why had she agreed to let the old woman take her through such a messy, hot, unpleasant area? It reminded Nina of the Everglades back home—that miserable area of swampland past the vast urban sprawl of Miami that was crawling with snakes and gators.
“Well, well, dearie—let’s just get you comfortable, shall we?” the old woman said. Taking Nina by the upper arm, she bustled her over to a three legged stool right beside a large, bubbling caldron.
Nina wanted to protest that it was too hot to sit by a fire and a huge boiling pot, but to her surprise, the pot wasn’t hot at all but cold. In fact, it was so cold she felt like she was sitting right next to an AC unit blowing full blast. Inside of a minute she was shivering.
But it wasn’t just the weird variance in temperature that bothered her. The smell coming out of the thin, bluish broth in the pot was perfectly indescribable. It both disgusted Nina and made her hungrier than she’d ever been in her life. Her mouth watered even as her stomach rolled—what was going on? She wrapped her arms around herself and moved away from the pot. She wanted to get up and get away from it altogether, but she suddenly felt weak…like she couldn’t even get off the stool. What was wrong with her?
“Now, then,” the old woman said facing her…only she wasn’t old anymore. Her gray hair was completely white-blonde now, and all of the wrinkles in her ancient face had been magically been smoothed away. Her pale yellow eyes were large and luminous and wrong somehow. It took Nina a moment to realize that her pupils weren’t round but vertical, like a cat’s.
“What are you?” she breathed, shrinking back from the strange woman. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Come now, dearie.”
The woman’s yellow eyes flashed. “We’re in the middle of the swamp, and I’m sure Reddix told you of the little deal he made with me. Therefore it’s logical to assume that I must be…”
“The swamp witch!” Nina tried to make a run for it, but once again, something seemed to be sapping her strength. She barely got off the stool before she sank to the ground, panting like she’d just run a marathon instead of taking two steps.
“Now, now, none of that.” The swamp witch wrapped extremely long white fingers around her arm—this time Nina was able to see that each finger had an extra joint—and placed her effortlessly back on the three legged stool. “Yes, I am the swamp witch, but no, I am not going to kill you. Although I will require some of your blood.”
“Reddix said you needed my blood,” Nina said in a voice that trembled more than she liked. “But…he didn’t say how much of it you needed.”
“Because I didn’t tell him, my dear.” The witch smiled, the vertical pupils of her eyes narrowing greedily. “But I can tell you it’s a lot. I need a lot.”
Nina forced herself to stop trembling and lifted her chin. “And are you really going to use it to cure him of his RST?” she demanded.
The witch smiled. “Among other things.”
“Then take it.” Nina thrust out an arm. “Go on—I want you to.”
“Well, well…” The witch’s white-blonde eyebrows rose high above her strange cat’s eyes. “A willing victim…I mean donor. How strange.”
“It’s not strange. I care for him. I…I guess I love him.” Nina frowned, wondering why she was admitting such things to the witch. Were the fumes from the bubbling pot affecting her somehow? Acting like a truth serum?
“Love him, do you?” The witch’s slitted yellow eyes flashed gold for a moment. “Well then, this should be even more interesting than I thought.” She reached into the loose sleeve of her flowing black robe and pulled out a long, curving knife. “I’m glad you’re so willing to give of yourself, my dear. It will make the potion much more effective.”
Nina bit her lip as she watched the dim light from the fire glimmer along the silver blade. “Are you at least going to use some antiseptic?” she blurted. “I mean, do you have Betadine here? Or maybe even just some rubbing alcohol?”
“Your fears are groundless. This blade spreads no contagion although it gives much pain.” The witch nodded at her arm. “Hold your wrist over the pot. Your blood must season my potion to bring it to full effectiveness.”
“Fine.” Nina gritted her teeth and did as she was told. Holding her arm over the strangely cold pot was like sticking it into a vat of ice water, but she forced herself to hold still as the silver blade came closer and closer. It’ll be fine, she told herself. It’s probably just like a shot…it will only hurt for a minute…
And then the wickedly curved knife bit into the flesh of her wrist, and she started to scream…
* * * * *
“Nina? Nina!” Reddix roared as her screams echoed through the fetid swamp. It seemed like he had been searching for her for hours, slogging through the mud and algae, but he couldn’t find the witch’s hut. He thought of the old saying his people had, When you seek that which you cannot find, time bends around corners. It certainly seemed like that now—especially when he could hear Nina screaming in agony and couldn’t find her.
“Nina!” he shouted again desperately. “I’m coming, sweetheart, I swear it!”
“Reddix?” Her voice sounded faint and far away. He looked around in frustration. He was in the middle of the swamp, wasn’t he? Shouldn’t the witch’s hut be here, someplace? Where was it? Where was Nina?
“Keep talking,” he yelled, pushing his way through a tangle of yellow vines that had grown between the trees. “Keep talking so I can follow the sound of your voice.”
But his only answer was silence.
Nina’s voice was gone.
* * * * *
“I gave you my blood—you have to let me go to him.” Nina pressed the pale yellow cloth the witch had given her to the cut on her wrist. It still hurt, and it didn’t seem to want to stop bleeding, but the wound wasn’t nearly as bad as the cold fire of the silver blade slitting her flesh. That had been horrible—the worst pain she’d ever felt. “You have to let me go,” she said again. “I could hear Reddix shouting for me. He sounded frantic.”
“Most likely because he loves you too. So much the better.” The witch’s eyes gleamed. “Never fear, my dear—he will find you… in good time.” She gave Nina a cold smile which didn’t reach her slitted eyes. “But first, don’t you want to know the good your blood will do? Not only for your beloved Reddix, but for other, poor deserving souls who are lost in the universe?”
“I…suppose,” Nina said doubtfully. “I never thought—”
“No, you never thought beyond Reddix, did you?” the witch snapped. “But there are others who will benefit from my spell. Others you will set free with your oh-so-generous sacrifice once your lover drinks the potion, as he must. Look into my cauldron and see.”
Unwillingly, Nina leaned over the freezing cold cauldron and stared into the broth which was now a pale purple. As she watched, the boiling liquid became perfectly still, like the surface of a mirror. After another moment, a picture began to form.
To her surprise, the first thing Nina saw was the witch—but not as she was now. The witch in the cauldron seemed younger somehow. And she held in her arms a tiny adorable baby with eyes such a pale, piercing blue they were almost white. A thick shock of curly black hair topped the baby’s round little head.
“Aww,” Nina couldn’t help murmuring. “Look how cute and chubby…”
“That is my son, Therron.” The witch sounded proud. “The image of his father—both his fathers.”
Nina looked at her uncertainly. “Both his fathers? But how…?”
“Look.” The witch directed her gaze back to the cauldron. In it, Nina saw the baby begin to cry. As he did, his pale blue eyes turned blazing red, and a sudden darkness filled the room.
The witch in the cauldron looked around fearfully and then back at the baby in her arms. The little boy had begun to wail and struggle as the darkness in the room grew. The witch tried to hush her child frantically.
“No, little one—no Therron,” she whispered, rocking him. “You’ll call to him. You’ll bring him to us. Hush, my darling…hush.”
Suddenly, the darkness filled the room completely, and there was a terrified scream. Then the cauldron went blank.
“What was that, and why did you show it to me?” Nina demanded, looking at the witch.
“That was when Therron was taken from me.” The witch looked down at her long white hands.
“But what did you mean when you said he had two fathers?”
“Exactly what I said. You see, before I lived out here in my lovely hovel, I had a place in the town. In fact, I came from some of the best blood. All the young men wanted to bond with me.” The witch smiled, as though remembering. “But what none of them knew was that I had a secret—a power no female should possess. I have a Touch Sense, you see, just like a male of my kind.”
“Um…okay,” Nina said doubtfully.
“What? Reddix never told you about the Touch Sense all the males of our kind possess?”
“Well, he told about his RTS…”
“No wonder he didn’t speak of the Touch Sense, since his doesn’t work.” The witch laughed nastily. “Never mind then, just know that it was considered wrong and abhorrent for a female to possess such a power. I dared tell no one—except the male I loved and chose to give myself to.”
“And who was that?” Nina asked in bewilderment.
“That would be Redan, second in command of the Clans of the Touch Kindred.”
“But if he’s second in command, doesn’t that make him…”
“Reddix’s father. And he is father to my son as well. Therron is Reddix’s brother—well, his half-brother, anyway.”
“But does he
know? Does anyone know you had his child?” Nina asked, fascinated despite herself.
The witch shook her head. “When I revealed my power to Redan, thinking he would love me enough to keep my secret, he cast me out instead. So I never told him of our child. And I’ve been living in this charming swamp ever since.” She smiled angrily.
“But…” Nina shook her head. “I still don’t understand how Therron could have two fathers. Unless you, uh married…er bonded again?”
“After my Touch Sense was revealed, no man of any clan would have me.” The witch lifted her chin proudly. “I had to make my own way. After my exile I determined to do whatever I could to get revenge. But other than my Touch Sense, I was powerless. In order to gather power—to gain my magic—I had to make a rather unpleasant bargain with a Shade.”
“I’m sorry—a what?” Nina shook her head—this was getting weirder and weirder.
“A creature of darkness—a demon which lives in the cold emptiness of space. I had to lie with this creature—to open myself to him in order to receive his power.” She shivered. “But the encounter…changed the child within me. Even as a baby Therron began to show traits no normal Touch Kindred baby should. And when my demon lover learned of this, he took the child from me. He took…took my son.” She looked so stricken as she said this that Nina felt sorry for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“Don’t be. After years of searching, I have found him—look once more.”
Nina peered into the cauldron again. At first all he could make out was darkness—a dark room with only one small light at the far corner. Then the picture became clearer, and she saw a stone wall with the statue of a man in chains in front of it. The statue was huge—larger than life—and the artist had depicted each massive muscle in loving detail. Nina would have almost thought it was alive except that it didn’t move, and it was as gray and dusty as the wall behind it.
At the statue’s feet flowed a tiny, clear stream of crystalline water. Nina could hear the tinkling sound of the water clearly in the magic cauldron mirror. She leaned closer, heedless of the frigid air drifting up from the cauldron…and that was when the statue opened his eyes. Pale blue with the same cat’s eye slit as the witch, they seemed to stare right through her.