Sorceress

Chapter 1-1

Sorceress

By K.L. Noone

The knock at the door came, of course, at precisely the wrong time.

Lily had been mixing rosemary and angelica, a small blessing spell for a farm family down in the valley. The noise broke her concentration just as she whispered the final words to the small knot of herbs, infusing each phrase with a touch of her own power. Simple spells, simple magic, but even those drained her, requiring that she give of herself each time.

Sometimes she found herself thankful that her powers were not more—she could only imagine the terrible draining joy the great magicians of years past must have known—and sometimes she hated that even a momentary loss of concentration dissolved all her bindings, making the spell fall into tiny fragmented bits.

Sometimes: like now. The baby had been sleeping, the rain had been soothing against her window, and she’d been hoping for an afternoon of peace for once.

Clearly the afternoon had not been informed of this plan. Neither had her visitor, who thumped at the door again.

“Do you have to?” Lily said, and set down the crushed herbs on her workbench, and glared at the door.

The pounding redoubled; someone obviously was desperate to see her. She could hear the muffled sound of a voice calling, but the heavy wood of the door made the words indistinguishable; she supposed that if she were a better sorceress she would’ve heard them regardless.

But that annoyance was old, even as it stung; she yelled, “Coming!” over Merry’s sudden screaming—the noise had woken the baby up—and yanked the door open without ceremony. “What do you want?”

For a minute they gazed at each other in silence; her visitor seemed thunderstruck by this abrupt collision. Lily could imagine what he saw: a sorceress with hastily thrown-on glamor, through which tangled hair and patched breeches flickered dimly, amid the detritus of spell work and single motherhood; she scowled preemptively.

For his part, the tall man with amber eyes—and dripping dark hair—regarded her curiously, one hand still raised to knock. He wore Court dress, all crushed velvet and gold embroidery; the rain-spots would never come out without magic. His face was familiar, though it took her a second to place it, and when she did she couldn’t quite believe it.

“I know you. You’re the Bastard.” Too blunt; but then again, magicians could do as they liked, couldn’t they? Lorre had taught her that.

She refused to think about Lorre—yet another man—and glared more at the present man, instead.

One corner of his mouth quirked up, a wry acknowledgement of old pain that surprised her. Perhaps the king’s half-brother was more human than all the rumors made him out to be, then. “So I am.”

He added, even as she observed the marks of worry and sleepless nights around his eyes, “I need your help, Sorceress Liliana.”

“Everyone does,” Lily said. “It’ll cost you.” She stepped back to let him in, inwardly wincing, knowing what he saw. The dusty cottage, strewn equally with magical paraphernalia and baby-related items; the burned bread on the stove; herself, rumpled and unkempt and smudged with smoke and berry stains under what she suspected was a pathetic attempt at disguise. Hardly the kind of place any Court noble would frequent, much less the decadent and depraved hedonist William the Bastard, about whom rumor said that he slept on gold-embroidered sheets and paid his lovers, both women and men, with rubies.

Of course, rumor also said that he rewarded his assassins—again, both women and men—similarly, though none of them had yet managed to kill the king.

She thought, with the clarity of razor-wire: the Bastard can afford to pay, but he can also afford to have you killed.

And he’d followed her in, ducking his head to avoid the low beam of the doorframe. The velvet of his shirt caught briefly on the splintery wood. He ignored it.

“I imagined it would. How much will it take for you to come with me to the palace?”

He had to raise his voice for the last few words. Merry, who’d paused for breath, chose that moment to start shrieking again. Lily, whose mind was still stuck on coming to the palace, took a second to move. Before she could, William walked over to the crib, picked up Merry, and settled her comfortably in one large arm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Merry went silent, wide-eyed. Lily could sympathize.

William met her eyes across the baby’s head, with an expression akin to a shrug and a smile.

Lily let out the breath she had been holding and said, “Thank you.”

“I like children.” He kept his voice calm and soothing, and Merry snuggled up against him. “I used to look after Henry. When we were boys…” That flicker of pain intruded into his voice again, and again she wondered why he was allowing her to see it. It might have been on purpose; she believed him, as difficult as that was in the face of all she’d heard, but she also suspected that he would be willing to use every means at his disposal to convince her to do what he wanted done.

And then he said, in the voice of a man knowingly grasping at straws, “That’s why I need your help. Henry is dying.”

Lily stared at him in shock. “The king—?”

“We think it’s something magical. The physicians have tried everything. I thought you could help. Maybe. I know you worked with Lorre; I thought—I don’t know.” He exhaled. It sounded genuine. It sounded like anguish, broken as a mirror.

Lily ignored the casual mention of Merry’s father, though as always the name sparked a deep-seated anger in her bones. Memories like the fleeting intoxication of strawberry wine and summer sun, eaten up by winter.

Outside, beyond the dirty glass windowpane, the rain tumbled and splattered and mourned.

And the king was dying, and Lorre was gone, and she was all they had left. She heard herself say, without conscious thought, “Of course I’ll come.”

The bleak amber of his eyes warmed slightly at that.

Lily hesitated, moving past him to find her bag, the one she kept packed for emergencies, all the things she knew to try and the things she hoped she wouldn’t have to, and touched his shoulder briefly. His arm was solid and well-muscled, even through the damp velvet and gilt threads; for no reason at all, her hand wanted to linger, to curl closer around the muscle beneath the fabric.

The Bastard, rather astonishingly, didn’t move away. Only looked down at her, eyes a bit confused, as if he’d not realized himself how much he wanted to be touched.

Lily moved the hand. Quickly. “I don’t know what I can do.” And then, seeing his expression, unable to not try to help, “I need to know more. About what happened. Why you think it’s magical. Anything you can tell me.”

He nodded, accepting this. “I’ll tell you on the way.”