*Ella*
The healer is a very old, gnarled woman. She reminds me of Mystica based on the pictures Mom has scattered in her home in Maatua. The woman’s hair is bright white and wispy, and her shoulders are permanently slumped. She barely comes up to my breasts as she hovers around Hannah, who is lying on a cot in the center of a very warm room heated by an ancient wood stove in one corner.
I have to duck to walk deeper into the tight room. Bundles of herbs hang from the low ceiling. A kettle whistles on the stove as I kneel by Hannah’s bedside and take her hands in mine, finding them warm and soft. Her coloring is perfect, and she still has that smile on her face like she’s simply dreaming.
“You can’t spirit through time and space all willy nilly,” the old woman croaks, her voice wobbly but calm and motherly as she pours hot water into a large, metal bowl full of herbs. “She’s split between two worlds. Here, and with her mate.”
I look up at the woman, who has barely said a word to me and Amanda since we arrived. The latter lingers at the door, fanning herself and scowling at the deep, floral scent in the room.
“How do you know that’s what happened?” I gasp, tightening my grip on Hannah’s hands.
The woman’s eyes meet mine. Her eyes are totally white. I startle and suck in a breath of surprise.
“She’s sightless, Ella,” Amanda says casually, noticing my shock. “As a bat.”
“Is that you, Princess Amanda?” The old woman looks over her shoulder and narrows her unseeing eyes into cat-like slits. “You still owe me some coin for your last batch of contraceptive potions. Watch your mouth or else I’ll tell your father what you’ve been up to with the three sons of the Beta, hmm?”
Amanda goes red in the face, but the woman turns her attention back to where Hannah lays still and smiles down at her, her cheeks like two little red apples. “I have a different kind of sight, child. I don’t need my eyes to see things clearly.”
I glance back at Amanda, who rolls her eyes and gives me a playful, but slightly devious, smile.
“Your friend needs a different kind of healer than me, I’m afraid. She’s not going to wake up without the magical intervention I do not have the ability to provide.”
I stare down at Hannah as ripples of shock flicker over my body. I have a sinking, creeping sensation that these people already know too much about me and my situation. Amanda knows almost everything now. She knows I have power. I stupidly made that clear the very second I saw her. She knows Ryatt is my mate. Now, she knows Hannah and I aren’t from this place.
A quick glance over my shoulder confirms Amanda doesn’t care in the slightest. She heaves a breath as she inspects her fingernails, looking bored out of her mind.
“The Witches from the Moonrise Coven should be able to tend to her,” the ancient healer continues. “And you, Lady Darkness.”
“Lady Darkness?” Amanda chuckles. “That’s a good one. I’m using that.”
I exhale, nostrils flaring as I purse my lips into a tight line and turn back to the healer. “What’s wrong with her?”
“It’s like a curse, my dear.” She places a trembling hand on the very top of my head, and I fight the urge to flinch away from her touch. “You’re powerful, like your… mother, and her aunt before her, and the lineage of women who guard that sacred place on the other side of the veil between our worlds. How interesting is your mind? I see every truth so clearly. It’s all here, waiting to be unlocked.”
I have no idea what she means, and it’s only making me feel worse. How long have I been separated from my family? A day? Maybe less?
“I need to take her home. How? Is there a way back?”
“There’s one way to get back to your kingdom, but it’s guarded by the Alpha King of Eastonia. She cannot travel in this state, anyway. She needs to be made whole again, and I don’t have the magic to fix this.”
“So… we’re going to Moonrise?” Amanda steps forward.
The old woman nods to neither of us, looking directly between us instead. “They will have the answers you seek, I hope.”
I hope. Those words gut me as I turn my attention to Amanda. “Can you take me there?”
She nods. “I’ll round up the girls. We’ll leave tonight.” With that, Amanda turns away and disappears through the door leading back into the village.
Alone with the old woman, I look up at her as I continue to kneel by Hannah’s side. “Is she going to die?”
“I don’t have that answer.”
“But you can see–”
“You must reach out to your mate. He’s looking for you.”
“I don’t think so,” I reply, the words heavy as they leave my lips. Part of me believes he let go at the same moment I did, that this abandonment was preplanned. All he needed was for me to be here, in his own homeland, resetting the balance between our worlds.
The other part of me believes that he is, in fact, looking for me, and he’s pissed, so I’d rather not make my presence in this location known, especially when Amanda has yet to explain his role in their village.
“What is your name?” I ask the woman as I rise to my feet.
“Lumaira,” she replies, a soft smile touching her lips.
* * *
How she managed this without the permission of her parents, the Alpha and Luna of her small village, is beyond me. I walk beside her and a woman named Gemma, who is our age, no older than twenty-one, with dark, thick brown hair and glassy gray eyes that shine in the moonlight. Behind us, two wolves drag a sled over the dead leaves and moss coating the forest floor, Hannah lying in a bundle of furs on the sled that’s also packed with supplies.
I didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t protest when she came back to the healer’s cottage with three of her friends, the sled, and a heavy pair of boots, a thick coat, and mittens for me.
But it’s nearly morning, and we’ve been walking all night.
“Won’t your father’s men come after us?”
“When they realize I’ve gone, yes. But a group of friends visiting from another village showed up right as we were leaving, so we’re fine for now. We’ll be a day ahead of them by the time they realize we’re gone.”
“You have a lot of sway,” I say to her, still trying to figure her out.
“I explained that already,” she replies, giving me a look.
I have no idea why she agreed to do this, but I guess it has something to do with testing boundaries with her father.
She continues, “The coven is a three day walk from the village.”
“Why didn’t we all just shift? Wouldn’t that make it shorter?”
“You, me and Gemma are guarding the sled,” she says slowly, motioning to the dense forest all around us. “There’s more out here than wolves, Ella. Much more.”
Unease ripples up and down my spine, but I force it away and blink into the heavy darkness choking the forest all around us. Gemma, who’s barely spoken other than to introduce herself, pipes up, “Is it true you’re King Ryatt’s mate?”
I sigh, “Yes. It is.”
“Fated, or imprinted?”
I glance at her. “Fated.” Imprinted? I’m not even sure what she means by that.
Amanda’s brows raise, but she doesn’t look in my direction as we pick our way through the forest, trying to find the best route for the sled.
“Can either of you explain things now?” I ask with a hint of annoyance. “Amanda, you said he’s the Alpha King. The Alpha King of what, exactly? His father is the Alpha King of Eastonia–”
“Yes, he is. King Ryatt is the King of the Rogues.”
I stop walking, and with a heavy sigh, Amanda stops and turns to me, motioning for Gemma and the two women in their wolf forms to stop as well.
“Look, we know who you are, okay? We know you’re from Crescent Falls and a princess there. If you’re telling the truth, then you’re the royal princess. Sister to the Alpha King. We all heard about the war. Men from all the rogue villages fought alongside King Ryatt and his army to stop the Alpha King of Eastonia from annihilating your lands. Many didn’t come home, you know, and some were captured by the Eastonian King upon their return. But you–” she steps toward me, pointing a finger at my chest, “You have no idea how much danger you’re in right now, do you?”
I open my mouth, then snap it shut again when I realize I have no way to answer that.
She smirks, looking me up and down. “Do not use your powers again, not until we reach the witches and figure out a way to help your friend. Those powers are legendary here. Only a few people in the history of our kind have possessed them and the king is already looking for you, Ella. You stick out like a sore thumb, and the last thing we need is royal warriors on our asses, got it?”
I grit my teeth. Amanda is in control, that’s clear. She continues, “As for your mate bond… I don’t have much to say about it, but I get the feeling you’re not too keen on the match. Are you hiding from him?”
“I don’t–” I suck in a breath and let it out in whoosh. “I don’t know him well. But I needed to come here. I didn’t belong in my–my kingdom.”
“Well, I don’t know shit about that, all right? Why you, in particular, are here, and he’s not. Not here protecting you… putting me in the position to do so. I won’t have King Ryatt raining hellfire on my people if anything happens to you, regardless of how you feel about each other, so no powers, period, got it?”
Have I met my match in this woman? Her sass is equal to mine, if not more intense. I have a sudden, fiery ache in my chest as I think of Maddy and her gentle, caring friendship. That ache blooms into something more severe when I glance down at where Hannah, who I’ve known nearly all my life, lays prone and in a coma on the sled. My only real friends, both of them so far out of reach.
I’m alone. More alone than ever.
I have no choice but to listen, and obey, the rules set forth by Amanda.
“No powers,” I say, nodding. “I understand.”
“You have to trust us, Ella,” Gemma says, her voice soft and song-like. “We’re not going to hurt either of you, we promise.”
I glance between them. “How did you know who I am?”
“Your light,” Gemma beams. “When Amanda told me about your first encounter, I knew she was right in taking you both to the witches. You’re one of them. There’s a legend about someone like you having been misplaced, left on the wrong side of the veil. That’s you, I think.”
“Told you, you were a witch,” Amanda cuts in.
I glare at her. “Look, I’m tired. I haven’t eaten in over a day. Can we camp and continue this conversation in a little while? When my head is clear?”
“Not here,” Amanda says without a moment’s hesitation. “We need to get out of the Deadlands. We have another ten miles to go.” With that, she turns and walks ahead of us, her long golden hair braided nearly to her waist swaying behind her.
I glance at Gemma, who gives me a sympathetic shrug. “She’s not that bad when you get to know her.”
“I heard that,” Amanda snaps, but Gemma gives me a knowing smile, and follows her leader into the darkness.
I glance back at the sled, at the wolves waiting expectantly for me to start walking again.
‘If you can hear me,’ I say through the bond, sending the message through the fine, silver thread that unwillingly binds me to Ryatt, ‘don’t come for me.’