A Jewel for Royals. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ arrived. Perhaps she would be able to send for Will, although with the war that might be difficult. And she would find their parents. Yes, that seemed like a good thing to do. Sophia wasn’t going to be able to wander the world looking for them as her pregnancy progressed, but Kate could.

      “First, I have to find where I am,” she said. She looked around, but there were still no landmarks that she recognized. There was, however, a woman working a little ways away in a field, bent over a rake as she scraped away weeds. Perhaps she would be able to help.

      “Hello!” Kate called out.

      The woman looked up. She was old, her face lined with many seasons out there working. To her, Kate probably looked like some kind of bandit or thief, armed as she was. Even so, she smiled as Kate approached. People were friendly in Ishjemme.

      “Hello, dear,” she said. “Will you give me your name?”

      “I’m Kate.” And, because that didn’t seem enough, because she could claim it now, “Kate Danse, daughter of Alfred and Christina Danse.”

      “A good name,” the woman said. “What brings you out here?”

      “I… don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I’m a bit lost. I was hoping you could help me to find my way.”

      “Of course,” the woman said. “It is an honor that you have put your path into my hands. You are doing that, aren’t you?”

      That seemed an odd way to put it, but Kate didn’t know where they were. Perhaps it was just how people spoke here.

      “Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “I’m trying to find my way back to Ishjemme.”

      “Of course,” the woman said. “I know ways everywhere. Still, I feel that one turn deserves another.” She hefted the rake. “I don’t have much strength left these days. Will you give me your strength, Kate?”

      If that was what it took to get back, Kate would work on a dozen fields. It couldn’t be any harder than the tasks set in the House of the Unclaimed, or the more enjoyable work at Thomas’s forge.

      “Yes,” Kate said, holding out her hand for the rake.

      The other woman laughed and stepped back, pulling at the cloak she wore. It came away, and as it did so, everything about her seemed to shift. Siobhan stood there in front of her, and now the landscape around them changed, shifting to something far too familiar.

      She was still in the dream space of the ritual.

      Kate flung herself forward, knowing that her only chance lay in killing Siobhan now, but the woman of the fountain was faster. She flung her cloak, and somehow it became a bubble of raw power, whose walls held Kate as tightly as any prison cell.

      “You can’t do this,” Kate yelled. “You have no power over me anymore!”

      “I had no power,” Siobhan said. “But you have just given me your path, your name, and your strength. Here, in this place, those things mean something.”

      Kate slammed her fist against the wall of the bubble. It held.

      “You wouldn’t want to weaken that bubble, Kate dear,” Siobhan said. “You’re a long way from the silver path now.”

      “You won’t force me to be your apprentice again,” Kate said. “You won’t force me to kill for you.”

      “Oh, we’re past that,” Siobhan said. “Had I known that you would cause such trouble, I would never have made you my apprentice in the first place, but some things can’t be foreseen, even by me.”

      “If I’m such trouble, why not let me go?” Kate tried. Even as she said it, she knew it wouldn’t work like that. Pride would compel Siobhan to more, even if nothing else did.

      “Let you go?” Siobhan said. “Do you know what you did, when you plunged a blade forged with my own runes into my fountain? When you carved apart our link, with no care for the consequences?”

      “You didn’t give me a choice,” Kate said. “You – ”

      “You destroyed the heart of my power,” Siobhan said. “So much of it, wiped out in an instant. I barely had the strength to hold to this. But I am not without knowledge, not without ways to survive.”

      She gestured, and the scene beyond the bubble shimmered. Now Kate recognized the interior of Haxa’s cottage, carved on every surface with runes and figures. The rune witch sat on a chair, watching over Kate’s still form. She’d obviously dragged or carried it up from the ritual space deeper in the caves.

      “My fountain sustained me,” Siobhan said. “Now I need a vessel to do the same. And there happens to be a conveniently empty one.”

      “No!” Kate shouted, slamming her hand against the bubble again.

      “Oh, don’t worry,” Siobhan said. “I won’t be there long. Just long enough to kill your sister, I think.”

      Kate went cold at the thought of that. “Why? Why do you want Sophia dead? Just to hurt me? Kill me instead. Please.”

      Siobhan considered her. “You really would give your life for her, wouldn’t you? You’d kill for her. You’d die for her. And now none of that is enough.”

      “Please, Siobhan, I’m begging you!” Kate called out.

      “If you didn’t want this, you should have done as I required,” Siobhan said. “With your help, I could have set things on a path where my home would have been safe forever. Where I would have had power. Now, you have taken that away, and I need to live.”

      Kate still didn’t see why that meant Sophia had to die.

      “Live in my body then,” she said. “But don’t hurt Sophia. You’ve no reason to.”

      “I’ve every reason,” Siobhan said. “You think masquerading as the younger sister of a ruler is enough? You think dying in a single human lifetime is enough? Your sister carries a child. A child who will rule. I will shape it as an unborn thing. I will kill her and rip the child clear. I will take it and grow with it. I will become all I need to be.”

      “No,” Kate said as she realized the full horror of it. “No.”

      Siobhan laughed, and there was cruelty in it. “They will kill your body when I kill Sophia,” she said. “And you will be left here, between worlds. I hope you enjoy your freedom from me, apprentice.”

      She murmured words and it seemed that she faded. The image of Haxa’s cottage didn’t, though, and Kate found herself screaming as she saw her own body take a breath.

      “Haxa, no, it isn’t me!” she yelled, and then tried to send the same message with her power. Nothing happened.

      On the other side of that slender divide, though, plenty happened. Siobhan gasped with her lungs, opened her eyes, and sat up with Kate’s body.

      “Easy, Kate,” Haxa said, not rising. “You’ve had a long ordeal.”

      Kate watched her body feel around itself unsteadily, as if trying to work out where it was. To Haxa, it must have looked as though Kate was still disoriented by СКАЧАТЬ