The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [40]
The old woman vanished through a door. Aryn would rather have just waited, but one didn’t disagree with one’s elders. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t know the way to the gardens. With a sigh, she started down the corridor.
“Well, if it isn’t our new Maiden,” a cooing voice said.
“Maiden?” answered another high, clear voice. “More like half a Maiden, I should say.”
Fear drove a cold spike through Aryn, halting her. She turned, searching for the source of the voices.
“What? Can’t you see us?”
A shadow that had draped a nearby archway vanished like a cloth unraveling. Beyond was a knot of six young women in green robes. They stepped through, and Aryn recognized some of them as the witches who had stood with Cirynn at the first meeting of the High Coven.
“Look at her gape,” a golden-haired young woman said with a laugh. “You’d think she’d never seen a shadow spell before.”
Aryn managed to find her voice. “I have seen spells.”
Immediately she winced at the words; her voice trembled like a little girl’s.
“Of course you have. Deary.”
The other witches laughed at these words, spoken by a brown-eyed witch. Aryn knew her. It was she who had abandoned Aryn’s group to go stand with Cirynn. Since that night, Aryn had learned her name; it was Belira.
“That robe doesn’t really suit you,” Belira said, drifting forward while the others watched with keen gazes, smiles curling their lips. “But then, it was made for another, was it not?”
Aryn felt herself shrink inside the robe, like a turtle drawing into its shell. The white garment was heavier than the green robe she had worn previously, but it still did not cover her withered arm. She tried to move down the corridor, but Belira interposed herself.
“Why are you doing this?” Aryn gasped before she could stop herself.
Belira’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ll make it plain for you. We liked Cirynn, and we don’t like you. Understand?”
Aryn shook her head; she could not speak.
The golden-haired witch stepped forward. “What a simpleton she is. One arm and half a wit. How on Eldh did she get to be Maiden and not one of us?”
“Ivalaine chose me,” Aryn managed at last.
Belira curled her lip, and the expression marred what little prettiness her face held. “Yes, Ivalaine. But that only brings up another question—why is she Matron and not Liendra? Everyone knows Sister Liendra speaks for all the Witches.”
Aryn felt some of her fear transform into anger. Who were these young women to think they knew so much?
“You’re wrong, Sister Belira. Liendra doesn’t speak for everyone—she doesn’t speak for me. Now let me pass.”
She tried to take a step forward, but the others closed in around her in a circle. Aryn felt her lungs grow tight. She seemed to shrink, until she was a small child again, jeering faces whirling around her in a blur as remembered voices rose and fell like the harsh calls of birds.
Little Lady Aryn,
What is she wearin’ …
No, she would never feel that way again. Never. She had vowed it on Midwinter’s Eve when she slew Leothan with her magic. For so long after that night, she had regretted her action, had believed it made her evil. But she had been wrong; she was not the evil one. It was the others—the ones that laughed and jeered, the ones that treated people like objects to be used, scorned, and discarded. All her life, others had looked at Aryn like she was a monster just because of her arm; but she knew now that she wasn’t the monster.
They were.
Leothan had been an ironheart, a thing no longer human. And while no lumps of metal resided in the breasts of these young women, they were every bit as heartless. Aryn needed to endure such cruelty no longer. Not theirs, not anyone’s. Not when she had the power to stop it. She would show them what it meant to cast a spell.
Both fear and anger melted from Aryn. Instead a calm possessed her, like the stillness before a storm. She stood straight, then gazed at Belira with clear eyes.
“I must go, sisters,” she said, her