Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

He whipped back to her. “And why not? Am I such a blackhearted beast that I cannot aid?”

“You are a destroyer, nothing more. And if this man who stands before me is real…then you cannot be the Minotaur. A simple problem. Either you are the Minotaur, who has nothing for a heart save black ice, or you are an impostor, who pretends to be the Minotaur for his own purposes.”

He came very close to her. “A simple problem, eh? Have I no ability to change? To feel? Tell me, are you still that shrieking harpy of a girl you once were, shallower even than the rivers of happiness that run through Idol Lane, or have you grown into something else?”

She was silent, and her eyes dropped away from his.

“And if you can grow,” he said, “why not me?”

There was a long silence, Weyland staring at Noah, she looking at the ground. About them the warm breeze wafted, gentle and caressing.

Eventually, Noah looked up and spoke words that were part prophecy, part bewilderment. “Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop? How can we stop?”

Twelve

Whitehall Palace and Idol Lane, London

As she lay on the floor of the kitchen through that long night of the 29th, Jane dreamed that she stood in the fields outside the Tower of London.

Ariadne was not here now. But the fact that Jane was here made her realise something that had niggled at her while she and Noah had talked with Ariadne. The ancient witch had used vast power to pull Noah and Jane to her—her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth.

Jane stood in Tower Fields and frowned: Ariadne had used her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to pull Noah and herself to this spot. Jane knew there was something about this fact she should grasp, but just before she actually managed it, she heard a soft footfall behind her.

She whipped about, sure it must be Weyland.

But it was a man, tall and brown-skinned, dark hair shifting slightly in the breeze, dressed only in a pair of leather breeches and wearing a crown of twigs and red berries on his head.

Jane knew who he was instantly, although she had never, in any of her lives, met him. Still, she had once been MagaLlan, and she knew who he was.

The Lord of the Faerie.

A vicious chill swept through Jane.

Was he here to murder her? What other reason? She took a half step away, then halted as he spoke.

“I thought you were Noah,” he said. “I felt…I wanted…I thought you were Noah. It was why I came.”

Pain swept through Jane. She’d suffered terribly at Weyland’s hands, but nothing he had done to her, not even when the imp had torn itself free of her body, had wounded her this deeply.

Everyone always wanted Noah, never her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then his head tilted slightly. “Ah. You are Jane, yes? Weyland’s sister?”

“You well know who I am.”

He smiled. “Always the same Genvissa.”

She frowned. Why speak of her as if he knew her?

He walked towards her. “Don’t you know me?”

He was upon her before Jane saw through the aura of power that encased him and recognised his features. “Coel!”

She would have spun away—now she was more certain than ever that he would murder her—but he seized her arm. The instant his flesh touched hers his face softened, and she saw real sorrow in his eyes. “Oh, gods…Weyland hurt you, as well as Noah. Tell me, Jane. Are you still alive?”

“Are you sure you are not asking if Noah lives?”

“I ask for both of you.”

“I live. She lives. Barely.”

His face relaxed. “That pleases me.”

“That Noah lives, surely, but not that I—”

“I am pleased also that you live.”

“I cannot believe that.”

His hand moved from her arm to her shoulder, and then to the back of her neck. “I have had my revenge on you, Jane. We are even.” Then he looked about. “What are these fields to you? Why stand here in your extremity, gazing at the Tower?”

“I do not wish to speak of it to you.”

She thought he might object, but he didn’t.

“I felt a great need to come here. Why, Jane, do you think?”

“I don’t know.” His hand was very warm on the back of her neck, and she wished he’d move it.

“The Faerie sent me here,” he said. The Faerie, the power that underlay everything connected with the magical creatures of the land. “I thought it was to meet with Noah. I had hoped—”

He laughed as he saw the expression on her face. “But I have found you instead. It is not my day for luck, eh?”

She felt like spitting at him, and then, to her amazement, realised he was teasing her. She gave a small, unconvincing smile.

The hand at the back of her neck moved about the side of her face, to her forehead, sweeping back the wing of hair away from her sores.

“Ah, Jane. I am sorry.”

His fingers slid over her poxed cheekbones, and she wished she had the strength to turn aside her face.

“The Faerie sent me to meet you,” he said. “Why?”

“To murder me? What else?”

The fingers were still working on her cheeks, then they slid back to her forehead.

“This disease has deep claws,” he said.

She gave a nod.

Then suddenly she gave a yelp, and sprang back from his hand.

He laughed merrily. “Not any more!” he said.

Jane had halted a pace or two away from him, staring. Slowly she reached up her hands to her face, and felt her forehead.

Her sores had closed over. Her brow was not quite smooth, for there were ridges and lines where the sores had closed…but it was healed.

Indeed, Jane felt well. Every bit of pain that had plagued her—not merely that which Weyland had visited on her over the past day, but every ache—had gone.

She opened her mouth, and then closed it, unable for the moment to comprehend what had just happened.

Suddenly there came the sound of beating wings. Jane flinched, and the Lord of the Faerie lifted his face. “Look,” he said, and Jane reluctantly lifted her own face.

A magpie, all deep blues and blacks, hovered above them and, as they watched, slowly descended until it sat on Jane’s shoulder. She tensed, but before she could move the Lord of the Faerie held out his hand.

The magpie jumped from Jane’s shoulder to his fingers, trilled a short phrase of some melodious, magical song, and then flew away.

Within a moment it had vanished.

“Aha,” said the Lord of the Faerie. “Now I know why the Faerie sent me here. Well, well, Jane. Here’s a turnabout for you and me.”

“What do you mean?”

He answered with his own question. “Will you be coming back to the fields?”

She blinked at him, still disorientated by all that had occurred over the past few minutes.

“Yes,” he said, “I can feel that you shall return. This place pulls you for some reason. Well, when next you come, meet me by the scaffold.” He pointed to a spot at the northern extremity of Tower Fields. There several man-high posts stuck up from the grass, half rotted with age. A scaffold had once stood there, not used in generations.

“But—” she said.

“Meet me by the scaffold, Jane.” There was power and authority in his voice, and so she merely nodded.

In the next instant he was gone, and her dream fading.

Jane roused very slowly from unconsciousness. She fought it because of the pain she knew would assail her the instant she came to her senses, and because of the further pain she was sure Weyland would inflict on her the moment he realised she was conscious.

She could not believe that what had happened in dream would follow her into waking.

But when Jane could fight it no longer, and when she did wake, it was to find that not only was there little pain, there was less pain than she had had to endure every day for the past several years. The constant ache of her legs and spine was gone. Her abdomen, torn apart by her imp, was merely aching slightly.

Gods, she thought, her eyes still closed, the Lord of the Faerie did heal me!

She could hardly comprehend it. Healed. Left without pain and the terrible humiliation of those sores. Jane had never thought to be healed of her pox. A life free of the pox had not once entered into her wildest wishes and hopes.

But it was not just the pox that had been healed. By rights Jane knew she should be dead—no one, surely, could have survived the terrible torture of that imp’s exit. At the very least she should be assailed with agony.