Her eyes shifted, fixing on the girl. “It was clear to me from the first that your magic was strong. It was clear that your potential for using it was virtually limitless. But possession of the magic is never enough. There are intangibles that limit the user’s success. Desire is one. Determination. Focus and a sense of purpose. Magic is like a great cat. You can harness and direct its energy, but you must never look away, and you must never let it see fear in your eyes.”
“I am not afraid of the magic,” Mistaya declared firmly. “It belongs to me. It feels like an old friend.”
Nightshade gave her a brief, small smile. “Yes, I can see that. You treat it as you might a friend. You are comfortable with it yet do not regard it lightly. Your sense of balance is very good.” She paused. “You remind me of myself when I was your age.”
Mistaya blinked. “I do?”
Nightshade looked through and past her into some distant place. “Very much so. It seems odd to contemplate now, but I was your age once. I was a girl discovering her latent talents. I was a novice in search of a life, in quest of my limits as a witch. I was younger than you when I first discovered I possessed magic. It was a long time ago.”
She trailed off, still looking away into the darkness. Mistaya shifted closer. “Tell me about it,” she encouraged.
Nightshade shrugged. “The past is gone.”
“But I would like to hear. I want to know how you felt. It might help me understand myself. Please, tell me.”
The strange red eyes shifted back into the present, fixing on the girl. They penetrated with such ferocity that for a moment Mistaya was frightened. Then the glare changed to something worn and faded.
“I was born in the fairy mists,” the Witch of the Deep Fell began, her tall, spare form as still as moon shadows on a windless night. She brushed at her raven hair with her slender fingers. “Like you, I inherited the blood of more than one world. Like you, I inherited the gift. My mother was a sorceress come out of one of the worlds that border on Landover, a world where magic is feared. She was very powerful, and she could cross back and forth between worlds through the mists. She was not a fairy creature, but she could walk among them comfortably. One day, while she was crossing between worlds, she met my father. My father was a changeling, a creature who had no true form but adopted whatever form he chose to suit his needs. He saw my mother and fell in love with her. He made himself into something that attracted her. A wolf, all black hair and teeth. In the end he seduced her and made her his own.”
Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion, but there was an edge to it that Mistaya did not miss. “He kept her with him for a time, then abandoned her and went on to other interests. He was a fickle and irresponsible creature, like all of the fairy folk, unable to comprehend the demands and responsibilities of love. I was born of that union, conceived in the madness of spring light when the second cycle rounds and the shards of winter spill into melting ice.”
Her gaze went away again. Her words, though poetic and lyrical, were nevertheless incomprehensible to the girl.
“My father took the shape of a wolf when he conceived me with my mother. My mother embraced him as a beast and was, I think, his equal in fury and passion.” She blinked once, dismissing some picture that formed in her mind. “I took from their coupling a part of each, beast and madwoman, fairy and human, magic of one world and magic of the other. I was born with eyes that could freeze you alive. I was born with the ability to transform myself into a beast. I was born with disdain for life and death.”
She looked at Mistaya. “I was a child still, and I was soon alone. My father was gone before I came into the world. My mother gave birth to me, but then she was taken away.”