“Love is many things,” Gillian pointed out.
“Yes,” the tree agreed, and showed her a cascade of images: a mother holding her newborn babe with mingled wonder and joy on her face; men going off to war and their wives passionately kissing them goodbye; and a small boy playing with a dog, and laughing as it enthusiastically licked his face.
But then the images changed, to show the other side of the coin: the woman, older and pale, screaming in a bloody bed; the men who had left home to protect their families lying in a field as crows picked their bones; the dog attacking a man to save the boy, and being knifed for its trouble.
“I already know love is pain!” Gillian said angrily, wanting to turn away from the gruesome images, yet having no way to do so.
“It can be,” the voice agreed. “But there are not two sides to this coin, but many.”
The images returned, and they were different once more. Gillian saw a screaming infant taken from the dying mother, who held it for a moment before she passed; saw the communities that the men had died to defend surviving and growing strong; saw the boy running downhill to his parents, his guardian having spilled its blood to buy him time to escape.
“Is this supposed to teach me something?” Gillian asked.
“No. To remind you.”
And abruptly, the old images were replaced by new ones. Or no, Gillian thought, realization spilling through her. Not new.
She had seen them a thousand times in her dreams.
“No!” she screamed, watching her husband fall, as clearly as she had done the first time.
His face was a rictus of pain as his legs collapsed beneath him, his final curse having taken everything he had. She saw herself running up to him, the horror and pain she had felt then returning to her now. She couldn’t see this again!
“Yes, that is where you always end it,” the voice said. “But there was more to the story, was there not?”
The scene changed again, to show her and her coven getting away; her bathing her baby daughter, kissing one of the tiny feet and smiling through her tears; her laughing with Kit at the Tower as he tossed a nut to one of the monkeys, only to have it swing over and grab the whole bag.
“And yet still the story is incomplete,” the voice said, and the scene switched to the prison, where she and her daughter had almost died, before being rescued by a curly haired vampire who barely knew how to be one.
She saw herself take the hand of the Great Mother she had met there, who had been disguised as an ordinary witch. Saw the old woman immolate herself, using the last of her strength to burn a hole through the floor and allow everyone a fighting chance to escape. Saw the triskelion tattoo, which had slowly etched itself onto her arm as she risked her life again and again to get her people out of there.
“Many love their coven,” the voice said. “But far fewer would die for it. But a Mother must love it enough to sacrifice herself, and a Great Mother . . .
“Must be willing to sacrifice others, to the good of all.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Gillian whispered.
“I think you know.”
The scene in front of her eyes changed again, to show her the Great Mothers of her people, standing in a circle on the edge of the cliffs, their unbound hair blowing in the great gale they were summoning. Some were young, so much so that it was hard to believe that they led a coven; likely replacements for those who had fallen in the war. Others were old and bent, with hair as white and thin as the foam on the waves crashing below. Yet together . . .
She had never felt such power.
“But they will not use it to save themselves,” the voice said. “They will soon make a great sacrifice, and they know it. Their time is almost at an end.
“But before it is, the spell will be loosed. The last thing they see will be it shooting off like an arrow at the enemy menacing their lands. They are giving everything they have for this realm, for their people, for the ones they have shepherded all these years . . .”
“Whilst I have been looking for my husband,” Gillian choked.
“It is difficult,” the voice said, and it was full of compassion. “To lose a loved one so young; it is harder to think that his death was meaningless. But it wasn’t, for it preserved your life, brought you here. And gave you, the last Great Mother remaining . . .
“A choice.”
* * *
Kit knew immediately that something was wrong.
He burst into the little glade and stopped, the smell of burning wood confusing his nose. But it wasn’t the fact that half of the forest seemed to be on fire that was worrying him. But rather the woman, as solid as he was, who was standing there.
It wasn’t Gillian.
“Morgan?” he said before he thought, and she turned on him, with blood in her veins and fire in her eyes, and he understood nothing as he was levitated off the ground by a mere gesture.
“Where is she?” she demanded, her voice echoing louder than the flames.
“You’re human,” Kit said stupidly, because it was all he could think of. “How?”
Because that wasn’t a new body that she had found for herself. It was the same dark hair whipping in the wind, the same features, the same everything that the ghost had had. It looked like the spirit had somehow been made flesh.
And then he understood, before she even replied, and screamed a warning to those behind him.
“Don’t hurt her! She’s back in her body—”
“Not for long,” the dhampir’s voice said, and a smear of blue passed Kit too fast for him to stop her.
But not too fast for someone else. The girl suddenly froze, so abruptly that she toppled over, writhing and cursing, against the ground, fighting the control that someone was exerting. Kit didn’t have to wait long to see who.
Mircea appeared, walking carefully into the glade, his eyes as bright as the fire ringing them and his focus on Morgan. “That was you on London Bridge,” he said. “You were in your own body there, as well.”
“How clever,” she sneered. “When the truth is right in front of you!”
“And that was your coven we fought, then?”
“The same that you’ll be facing now, should you defy me. I have them looking for Gillian, but they haven’t found her.” She looked back at Kit. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know—”
“Liar! You went after her—”
“And lost her in the chaos! You’ve seen it out there. It’s madness!”
The witch did not appear to be convinced, but Mircea dragged her attention back to him before she could respond, speaking as calmly as if they weren’t in a haunted forest that was busily burning down.
“You took a new form in 1595, for you had no choice,” he said. “You were dead by then. But in this era, you still live. You therefore possessed your own body—”
“Why do you care, vampire? Care about your friend, who is going to die if he doesn’t give me what I want!”
“—in order to command your coven to search for Mistress Gillian. But why? Why do you need her so badly? You have the ring—”
But the golden tongued master had made a mistake, for that question seemed to infuriate Morgan. She snarled, and her power tightened around Kit, to the point that he would have screamed if his chest wasn’t currently being crushed. And her eyes flashed blue fire.
“The ring was useless, as you well know!” she threw it on the ground where it lay, gleaming softly. “But you needn’t have bothered switching it out, vampire. The real one would have done little more.
“I spent so much time breaking witches out of Circle confinement, to try to find someone who knew where the four rings were. Only to have one finally tell me the truth—that it didn’t matter. They never used them!”
Mircea looked up at the boiling cauldron above them, which seemed to argue against that assertion. “They never used them?”
“No. Perhaps they couldn’t find the damned things, either! So many of the coven leaders dead already, and half the time taken unawares; others in hiding. Who knows where the rings ended up?
“I couldn’t find them all, and without them, my plan would never work—”
“And what was your plan?” Mircea asked. “You stole the Ring of Water before the Armada came anywhere near these shores. If you expected to take over the Mothers’ spell, why deliberately weaken it by removing a quarter of its power?”
“I wasn’t taking it over,” Morgan spat. “The Mothers needed all of the rings to call the storm, but I had extra power from my ally; I could do it alone. And I didn’t need the covens here to protect me—I had a demon! The idea was to use the rings to leash the power of all the English covens, putting it under my command—”
“And use their power to obliterate the Circle.”
“Yes! But without sacrificing the covens to do it! But I needed the rings, or so I thought, only to find out that the Mothers used something else!”
“And what was that?” Mircea asked, why Kit didn’t know.
He had the air of someone walking a tightrope above a pit of ravenous wolves, yet he kept doing it. If he thought he was distracting the witch, giving Kit a chance to save himself, he was delusional; her power had not abated one whit. He was risking himself for nothing—
Or perhaps not for nothing, Kit realized, noticing that the little dhampir wasn’t on the ground anymore.
She wasn’t anywhere that he could see, even in his peripheral vision which was all he had, for he couldn’t turn his head. She must have crept away while Mircea talked to the witch. But why would he risk himself for her?
And what was he planning instead?
“A staff,” Morgan said. “One that Gillian carries with her at all times. I need it and I need her to wield it, now that my ally is missing. And I will have what I want or I will burn this forest to the ground along with everyone in it!”
“I don’t believe you,” Mircea said.
“What?”
“You aren’t as ruthless as you appear. You left my men alive when you didn’t have to. At first, I took that to be self-preservation; you didn’t want to change the timeline and risk wiping yourself out of existence. But you were already dead, so no changes would have affected you. Therefore, you must have had another reason—”
“And you assumed that to be benevolence?” She looked at him in disbelief. “I didn’t want a number of dead master vampires catching the Senate’s attention, and putting even more annoyances like you on my trail! Nothing more!
“The war burned away whatever humanity I once had, vampire. You would do well not to trust to it. Give me what I want if you want to live. Or whatever passes for it with your foul kind!”
Mircea didn’t look upset by this, as Kit would have expected. He almost looked . . . distracted. As if he was waiting for something.
“It is over, Morgan,” he said. “You must see that. Your demon is dead, and a simple staff is never going to leash that—”
“It isn’t over! And there is nothing simple about it! That staff controls the rings. It is ancient and powerful and wasn’t even supposed to be ours. The fey made it in case we ever tried to use the rings against them, but a witch stole it centuries ago, and it was thought to be lost.
“But she has it! She wears it like a necklace, like an ornament, like nothing! And she is a Great Mother, meaning she can wield it. The storm may ignore me, but it will obey her—it will have no choice!”
“But I have a choice,” someone said, and Kit found that his eyes could turn, after all. To see Gillian, staff in hand, standing at the edge of the clearing.
There was soot on her gown and in a smear of dirt across her face, but her hair looked like pure flame in the firelight. She had never appeared so beautiful, or so vulnerable. She wasn’t even trying to hide.
“And so you do,” Morgan hissed, her face full of triumph and madness. “Give me what I want, and you can save not one lover tonight, but two. I will release this one, and will help you find the other. You can save your husband, have whatever you want—”
“Sounds familiar,” someone murmured, and Kit looked down to see the little dhampir on the ground beneath him.
She was wearing a witch’s cloak, although why and where she’d got it from, he didn’t know. Until he noticed—Morgan must have done something to recall her people, for dozens of witches were suddenly ringing the glade, wands out and ready. Their dark cloaks helped them to blend in with the night, especially with the firelight rippling over them.
Presumably, one was missing hers, although what the dhampir thought she could do with it he had no idea.
“What I want,” Gillian said, walking forward.
“Yes!” Morgan cried. “Help me; we don’t have to fight, sister—”
“But I am not your sister.”
“You could be. We worked together once; we could again—”
“I am Mother.” The staff came down, and although it had been a slight motion, with no force behind it, the ground shook and a storm of burning leaves rained down onto the ring of witches.
Some of them ducked and shielded, although there was no real danger; others stood firm, but clenched their wands tighter. This was shaping up to be a fight and they knew it as well as Kit did. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Mother, then,” Morgan said, not skipping a beat. “If you wish to lead, once this is done, we can discuss it—”
“I don’t wish to lead, Morgan. I don’t wish any of this. You asked me what I wanted? Peace. Security for me and mine. Hope—how long has it been since we felt that?”
“And you may have it!” Morgan said, glancing quickly at the sky, where the storm was reaching its apex. “Help me now and you will have whatever you want—”
“No, I won’t,” Gillian said, her voice full of pain. “For I am Mother, whether I wish it or no, and not in some future time that will never be, but now. I am the last of the Great Mothers, and I will die tonight along with the rest.
“And so will you.”
* * *
Morgan didn’t believe her. It was in her smile, which was friendly enough and yet condescending at the corners. It was in the gleam in her eyes, which had abated not one whit. It was in the confidence of her pose, which was not that of someone who’d just learned that she had lost.
She didn’t look like she thought Gillian was bluffing, she looked as if she knew.
And she had cause.
Gillian saw herself again, bending over her dying husband, too shocked to sob, too dead inside to think. And felt him grasp her hand. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she’d asked, her lips numb. “We have to—we have to—” she hadn’t been able to think; didn’t know.
“Don’t . . . hate.”
“What?” she’d stared down at him, uncomprehending.
“Don’t—” he had grasped her arm, surprisingly tightly for one so close to death. “Don’t hate them. It will consume you. I’ve seen what it does to others.
“It fills your arms, so you can’t grasp anyone else . . . it fills your heart, so there’s no room if you could. It fills your life . . . until there is nothing left.
“They stole enough from me . . . they don’t get you, too. Promise me . . . Promise—”
It was the last thing he had said to her, the last request he ever made, and she had tried. She had tried so hard not to let her hatred of the Circle overwhelm everything else. Sometimes it had worked; sometimes it hadn’t. But she had tried, for him. She wondered if that was all that had kept her from becoming another Morgan, from having vengeance eat at the love in her heart until there was nothing left.
She thought it likely.
Even now, there was a part of her that wanted so badly to join her; to wreak bloody havoc on the Circle as they had done to her and her kind. Wanted to see them fall; wanted to see them bleed. And she could do it. She felt the wild power in the skies tonight, felt it call to her, felt its energy thrumming through the staff she clutched, the one she’d found in the prison storehouse and had had no idea what it was.
They’d stripped the witches they caught of their weapons and piled them up like worthless trash, not knowing how to fight with them and deeming them inferior to anything the Circle had wrought. But they hadn’t been worthless, and something in this one had called to her. Now she knew why.
It vibrated under her hand, ready to leash the power above, ready to throw it at her enemies. And she wanted that so much she could taste it. That was what Morgan knew, why she was trying so hard to convince her.
Not because she feared a fight, but because she knew.
“We’re not so different, you and I,” Morgan said, as if she’d heard her thoughts. “I’ve simply had more time to think on things.
“You teeter on the edge, have done so ever since this night. I felt the same. Even in the happy times, it was always there, in the back of my mind. A darkness that never retreated, a stain that never washed out. What I could have done; what I could have prevented, and yet, even then, I knew it was a lie.
“I could have done nothing. I was the leader of a coven already decimated by war. I was barely holding us together; I had no power to stop this, not then, not even now. But you do. You hold it all, and a single command could change everything.
“Oh, I know,” she said, coming closer, her eyes sad but her face compassionate. “I know. They taught us differently. To be better, to not give in to the fear, the hate. But it’s harder in practice, isn’t it?
“Harder to forgive, when the ones to be forgiven are still killing us!”
Gillian stared at her, trying to shut out her voice, but it cut through her defenses like a knife. She knew what she had to do, what her husband would want her to do, were he here instead of somewhere in this forest being hexed to death by the Circle! But she was not the kind and loving type that he had always been. Her temper matched her hair and her sense of compassion was tempered considerably by her sense of justice.
She wondered if part of her didn’t want Morgan to win.
And the other witch felt that.
Her hand closed over Gillian’s where she clenched the staff, but didn’t try to take it. “I’ve seen the future,” she said, her voice barely higher than a whisper. “The Circle will rule over us, over these lands, for hundreds of years to come. And if there’s an end to it, I haven’t seen it.
“We stop this now, here, or we never do.”
Gillian looked at Kit, suspended a dozen feet in the air, his body crushed as if held in a giant’s fist. At the ring of witches who probably didn’t even understand fully why they were here, but who would die all the same, more sacrifices on an alter already running with blood. And at the sky up above, the center of the vortex looking like a great eye, staring down at her.
Waiting on her choice.
And, finally, she made it.
She thrust the staff at the sky. “Tremolina!”