Witch's Reign Read online

  I grabbed the flail from my bed, rolling it over once so the lion’s eyes glinted up at me. At least it was light and wouldn’t add much to the weight Balder had to carry. That was the only thing I figured it had going for it. “I think you’re just ornamental, but if you really are special . . . let’s see what you can do.” I rigged up a leather sheath that strapped the flail diagonally against my back, the handle sticking up over my right shoulder. I barely felt the weight. I looked over my shoulder to see the twin spiked balls also tight against my back, but I’d not tied them there. They didn’t bump against me as I tested out walking around with it. “You really are magic, aren’t you?” I muttered. Of course, the weapon didn’t talk back. I mean, talking weapons, even I wasn’t that far gone.

  But still, the line of the handle against my back seemed to heat in response to my query. Yeah, that was what I thought and that made me nervous, because if Marsum had made the flail, it would be bad news.

  I had no more time to waver on the choice. I was packed and ready to go. I didn’t go around to the outside to get to the stable, but crawled through the window right into Balder’s stall. I still had half an hour before Maks was supposed to meet me at the stable. Half an hour and I’d be long gone.

  Balder gave a grunt and a snort as I woke him.

  “Sorry, friend. Let’s get you saddled up before that human shows up.” Much as I wanted Bryce to feel he was in charge, he was out of his mind. I wasn’t taking no stinking human with me. We’d sneak out now, because there was no way the human would be ready to go before I was off and running.

  I brushed Balder down, currying his coat and loosening the sweat stains from the ride in. His wound was completely healed and I knocked the last of the dried hacka paste from his hip.

  A scent curled around my face that was not hay, horse, or anything else that belonged in the stable. Musk, the scent of musk that didn’t belong on any supe, which meant only one thing.

  “Damn it,” I grumbled.

  Maks was here.

  Chapter Five

  Maks was a big guy, especially for a human. If he’d been a supernatural, I could see why Darcy would have been interested in him—physically, at least, seeing as he was the most passive guy I’d met. He didn’t fight, just let people roll right over him like a doormat.

  His shoulders were almost as wide as Bryce’s, and he was fit, athletic, and moved with an easy grace that came with being comfortable in one’s own skin despite the submissive behavior. He had dark blond hair streaked with lighter strands from working in the sun all summer. Blue eyes and a scar along the edge of the left side of his jaw gave him an interesting face. In the six months he’d been at the Stockyards, I’d not spoken more than a few words to him.

  That was about to change on an epic scale.

  “Thought you’d leave without me?” he asked.

  I tightened Balder’s girth and then looked over my shoulder at him. “Yes. And I still am.”

  “No, you’re not,” Maks said, his voice confident in a way no human had a right to be, not here, not on this side of the wall they’d had Merlin create to keep the rest of us in.

  The telltale squeak of Bryce’s wheelchair made me grind my teeth for only a moment. Without words, Bryce’s presence meant that his previous command came home to roost on my shoulders. “Maks, get Batman and saddle him up,” I said.

  Maks laughed. “I don’t take orders from you.”

  Now that was unexpected. “Fine, you stay behind and play with Steve, entertain him while his wound heals and I’ll get Darcy myself.”

  Maks disappeared and Bryce grabbed the edge of the door and hauled himself up with an ease that showed how much he worked his upper body. “Work with him. Please.”

  It was the please that slowed me. Bryce never asked nicely, not for anything or anyone.

  “I love her too, Bryce,” I said softly. “She’s family.” No matter what history had passed between her and Steve while I’d been married to him.

  “I love her best,” he said.

  I laughed and turned to see his face. He was smiling, but it was pained. “Okay, you love her best. I’ll bring her back. I swear it.”

  “And . . .” he grimaced, “I love you too, little sister. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole.”

  I bit my lower lip and gave him a quick nod, not sure I could trust my voice. How long had it been since he’d told me he loved me? Was it a way to make sure I went after Darcy? Was it a form of manipulation? Possibly. Which made the sting in my eyes that much worse—that I doubted him.

  He nodded at me as if he understood, then lowered himself into his chair so I could no longer see him. I dashed a hand against my pooling eyes. Crying, there was no crying on this side of the wall, that’s what my father always said. Crying was for the humans, for the weak.

  The door swung open; Bryce held it for me and Balder. I walked out, Balder followed. Maks and Batman were ready, and I noted his bedroll and saddlebags were at least as full as mine. That much was good, I supposed, at least he was prepared. Or what he thought was being prepared. He’d not left the Stockyards in all the time he’d been here. Maks had no idea what he was getting into.

  There were no more words from Bryce, nothing but a salute. I gave him a wobbly one back, then flipped him off, which left him laughing in the courtyard of the stable. Sibling bonds were weird at the best of times. But more so when the roles reversed and the protector became the protected. I wanted to believe everything he said, the younger sibling in me wanted to trust him . . . but I just couldn’t. Not again. Not after everything that happened.

  Maks and I walked beside the horses, and with each step of their hooves on the old pavement road that led out, I expected Steve or Ish to come flying toward us, telling us we couldn’t go. Then again, Ish had said she wanted me to go to Dragon’s Ground to check things out, so I could always cover with that. But there was no one, and just like that, we were on the hard-packed dirt road that led north, away from the Stockyards and the Caspian Sea, toward the Witch’s Reign and all that lay in wait for us.

  “Are you familiar with where we’re headed?” Maks switched sides to the left of Batman, closer to me.

  I gave him the side eye. Part of my distrust in the human was simple. Maks didn’t remember anything before he’d come stumbling out of the desert and all but fell into the horse’s water trough, sucking back water like he’d not drunk in days. He knew only that when he’d been in the desert, he was being chased and running for his life. The other part of my distrust was simpler yet. He was human—cut from the same cloth as the people who thought it a good idea to pen all the supernaturals into one area and let them slaughter each other. Ish had told us the full story when our father had only given us bits and pieces.

  My father had always said the wall was meant to protect both kinds of people, human and supernatural. Ish had shown me the truth—that it had been a powerful political move to contain the dangers of the supernatural world so the weaker humans could thrive and pretend none of us existed.

  Penning us inside the walls, there was hope we would all slaughter each other eventually. Or maybe that the emperor would massacre us all. I shivered. That was one story I hoped I never had to face in real life.

  Finally, I answered Maks’s question. “I’ve not been into the northern clime, no. But I know of it.” Over the years, Ish had drilled us on the areas we would go into one day to reclaim the different jewels.

  “Tell me what you know so I can at least grasp what we’re dealing with,” he said. I waited for him to continue with a please, but none came. Humans—seriously, they had zero manners.

  I drew in a breath of cool air and held it for a moment while I thought where to start. “Dragons hold the middle part of the wall and we have to get by them before we even touch down on the Witch’s Reign. The dragons protect the wall from both the humans and the supernaturals who would work to tear it down. Far as I know, there are ten varieties of the lizard brains. Hopefully we don’t
run into any of them and can head straight on through to the Ice Witch’s territory. She protects the northern portion of the wall for the same reason the dragons do.” That and power. The guardians of the various points of the wall were all about power. The jewels they held helped them in that respect, too, boosting their strength and magic.

  “Details, what kind of details have you got on the dragons we could face?” he asked, and I glanced at him. His face had gone thoughtful and I realized he truly wanted to know what I knew, and maybe it had to do with loving Darcy and wanting to be able to understand her world better. Not that loving her was hard. She was sweet and kind and treated everyone with care. She was our peacemaker, and I knew why Steve had gone to her. In theory. I sighed and stepped around a hole in the hard-packed earth. The moonlight lit our path. We had that going for us at least.

  “There are ten kinds of dragons. The largest four hold a connection to the four elements. Fire, wind, water, and earth. But they aren’t the ones we have to worry about. We’ll be skirting the edge of the forest, so we have to watch for the sap suckers.”

  “Sap suckers?”

  “Yeah, they eat the sap from the trees and then turn it into acid that can eat through anything—flesh, bone, metal . . . It’s nasty shit. And while the bigger dragons are bad, those sap suckers are friggin’ deadly.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him pale.

  “How do you deal with them?”

  “You talk to them. And give them a gift they might like.”

  “Like what?”

  I patted my bedroll. “Something I grabbed from the giants’ stash. I was going to keep it, but I can use it here.”

  He was quiet a moment, thoughtful.

  “Steve is going to be pissed that we took his horse,” Maks said.

  I shrugged and then smiled, flashing my canines at him. “Yup, he is. But you’re big enough you need him to carry you. Steve can always shift and use his own damn legs to reach Witch’s Reign.” Because there were no other animals big enough to carry the two-hundred-plus pound shifter. I grinned again at Maks, and miracle of miracles, he grinned back.

  “I like the way you think, Zamira. Steve is . . . not my favorite person.” At least on that, we agreed. No doubt Steve had been a right bastard to Maks too.

  “Just Zam,” I corrected him. Zamira was what those who could boss me around used. The name my father had growled every time he caught me red-handed stealing from the cookie jar, as it were. The name Steve, Bryce, and Ish used to corral me into doing what they thought best.

  I turned to see Maks talking softly to Batman, sliding his hands over the big horse, rubbing his neck then lifting the horse’s head so he could breathe into his nostrils, giving the animal his scent as they walked.

  “They’re going to be on us fast,” Maks said. “We should hurry.”

  I shook my head. “First off, Ish wanted me to scout the Dragon’s Ground so we’re covered. We’ll go slowly on foot the first few days. Both horses need the rest after that last run in. Steve will take at least two days to heal, possibly three.” It wasn’t much of a rest for Batman or Balder, but the movement would help them keep from stiffening.

  “Even with the hacka paste?” he asked.

  “Yes, even with the hacka paste. My knives are designed to cut deep and do serious damage to supes.” I didn’t feel like elaborating more, like how Ish had dipped the blades in a vat of something that made them deadlier than any other blade.

  Maks and I walked through the last of the night, heading due north. The terrain was not particularly hard, and we were able to use the old roads the humans had built years before.

  “You ever wonder what it would be like if the wall came down?” Maks asked me sometime around noon on that first full day.

  “No.” I didn’t elaborate, but apparently, Maks was feeling chatty. Yippy skippy, a chatty human, just what I wanted on a six-week round-trip journey.

  “You mean you never wondered what it would be like to live side by side with humans?”

  I looked at him across Balder’s back. Batman had cozied right up to him, bonding with him so quickly, I would have sworn he was a true horse whisperer. Then again, it could be the treats he kept slipping the horse too. Mints, if the flash of white, sound of crunching, and whiff of peppermint I caught now and again was on point.

  Exasperated by his foolish question, I sighed. “Seeing as we’re going to be riding together for a long damn time, I’ll explain. My father thought the wall should come down. I was raised on the idea that the wall was a blight on the world and should have never been built. Ultimately it cost him his life, and Bryce his body, and me most of my family. So, no, the wall can stay up until the fucking end of time for all I care.”

  “You’re not like the other supes,” he said. “They all want to be free of this place. To be free of the threat of the emperor.”

  He had a point. I decided to turn the tables on him. “Don’t you want to go back to your home, wherever that is?”

  “America,” he said. “I’m from the West Coast near a little town called Seattle. I remember it in bits and pieces. Not my family or what I was doing out here, mind you. But old memories, like when I was a kid. I think my family traveled a lot or something.” He frowned and rubbed at the scar on his face with one hand.

  My heart twanged. “My father was from America. New York.”

  “Nice town that, biggish, full of people and action.”

  I looked at him again. “You’ve been?”

  “Few times. I think. I mean, I’m guessing because again my memories are full of holes and gaping chunks of time.” He nodded, frowning again. “But you’re avoiding my question. You’re different from the other supes, why? Why wouldn’t you want the wall to come down?”

  “I’m cursed, doesn’t matter where I go. Might as well stay here.” I touched the ring around my neck, the cool of the metal a comfort. As long as I wore it, I was safe. The people around me were safe.

  He laughed but I didn’t join in, and he slowly let the laughter die. “Shit, are you serious?”

  I shrugged. “I was cursed by the Jinn when they killed my family.” His eyes popped wide and his mouth hung open as he stared at me. Gobsmacked. The definition in the dictionary would have that face he was making next to it. Why the hell was I telling him all this?

  Because he was being nice to Batman . . . that was why, as stupid as it sounded. He had a soft touch with the horse and that meant something to me. Cruelty to animals—especially those who needed us to care for them—was not a quality I tolerated in other people. I’d seen too many people haul off and beat an animal because they’d had a shit day. People like Steve.

  So, for that I cut Maks some slack, and maybe a little because he was easy on the eyes. That, and he was human so he truly didn’t understand this world, or what resided in it. I supposed some answers were in order if he were truly going to live here.

  “What kind of curse? If I can ask?” he said softly, carefully, as if he knew it was a tender spot.

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. I have this.” I pulled the necklace out and showed him the ring that hung from it. Made of solid silver, it was crafted in the likeness of a roaring lion. When I was younger, I’d wanted to believe it was a perfect image of my dad, so I had something to remember him by. But now . . . I knew it was just a lion. Just like all the other lions out there. “Ish found me and Bryce after the attack. She took my father’s ring and blessed it to offset the curse the Jinn laid on me. Long as I have this, I’m good.”

  He was quiet after that, his eyes thoughtful. Thank the goddess he was, because just those few words had stirred up memories. Memories that Ish had helped me lock away so I could go on with my life. She’d always said the past was the past and that you needed to move forward with your eyes on the goals you made. She was right about that. Memories could cut you down and eat you alive if you let them.

  I knew that better than anyone.

  For a week, we headed north withou
t running into anything bigger than a few tiny supes that scattered as soon as we approached. Which was good, but also made me wonder what was going on. I knew the time of year was bad for dragon attacks, so it could’ve been as simple as that. But still, I wondered if it was something more. Our path just seemed to be miraculously clear and that made me nervous, especially as we rode through the steppes.

  The steppes were known for having good horses. The tribesmen who bred them were always on the lookout for more horseflesh and often would come to bargain, beg, or steal your horse if they thought they were worth it. I’d come this far north a few times. This was where I’d found Balder and had to give up a fair amount of gold to take him home.

  I patted his neck. While he was bred for speed, he was also bred from the hardy steppes ponies infused with blood of the desert breeds. Endurance, stamina, heart, speed, brains.

  That made him the best horse who’d ever carried me.

  Then there was Maks. He helped me make camp each night without being asked, hiking out to find water, carrying buckets back to our fire. He cooked most of the meals and made sure the horses were hobbled. All things that I’d done on my own before. I’d admit it only to myself, but it was nice to have someone around who didn’t make me do everything on my own. Not that I told him that.

  Maks was making it difficult for me not to like him.

  Especially when he bent at the waist to pick up wood for the fire. I grinned, thinking about that image as we began to turn northwest. The temperatures began to drop incrementally. I pulled out my thicker fur-lined cloak and pulled it on. Maks did the same, though his coat was shorter—but still lined with fur.

  “You said something back there that stuck with me,” Maks said. We rode side by side now and I looked across at him. Batman had fully recovered and was bouncing along, happy to have a rider who looked after him.

  “And what was that?” I asked. We’d barely spoken two words over as many days, the work to keep our camps going not needing much speaking. Pretty much “back there” could mean any number of things. I hated to admit it, but we worked well together, taking up the tasks needed to set up and take down camp. I didn’t have to tell him what to do, or even ask. He just did what needed doing. Bryce had been right about him. Maks was submissive, which meant there was no fighting, no arguing. He just did as he was told for the most part.