One heartbeat, two. Before ten, and she knew the mist would gather as it drained and psyched every bit of fluid it could detect. All the tears and sweat from these women—Alaysha could already taste the salt. Edulph's blood drying in his veins, Gael's. But first the most available: the water skins filled and bloated on the beasts' backs. The water from the well as it rose from the crack Gael had managed to create as he'd hefted the stone lid.
Fury had hold of her, and it wanted—no, needed—to see the mist gather. She wanted these women to dry to leathered husks and drift on the wind like dried brush at the weather's whim, and she could care less what happened to their seeds as they fell from their sockets, unliving forever, never to be released. Never to take root and inhabit any other savage world ever again.
She thought she heard her name, but it didn't matter. The woman standing next to her fell, not dead—not yet, but the skin was already drying. Alaysha looked past her, thinking to let the rain burst over Gael when it bloated to its limit, thinking she'd give him back the fullness of his flesh after she'd taken it so he would still be beautiful, so his eyes could stay where they belonged. His eyes. So gray green, so filled with the soul of his body.
His eyes. Open. Staring at her, reminding her he wasn't dead, that it wasn't time for vengeance.
Alive. Alive, Alaysha. Let it go, let the power go. She forced herself to think of nohma again, the love she felt for the gentle woman seep into her being and fill her hands, her feet, her moisture as it raced through her veins. Nohma. Aedus. Saxa: all those she loved without question or doubt or fear. She pictured their faces; reached out to them with her mind.
And the power went. She felt it evaporate and leave her panting, sobbing, from the effort to control it. The water she'd psyched from the well, from the skins, the minute amount she'd gathered from the dead around her, the living too, all burst with all the power of the fury she'd used to drain it. She couldn't stop herself from weeping in relief. The shivering made her thighs quake as she knelt, and she couldn't stop herself from collapsing.
The leader squinted at her suspiciously and motioned to the others next to her to truss up the man she'd scored with her blade. The she stood to Alaysha and fell to her haunches, grabbing Alaysha's chin and twisting her head this way and that. Her thumb pressed painfully into the tattau.
“You are a witch,” she said flatly. Alaysha sent the woman a scathing look.
The warrior seemed unaffected even with the new flush of rain running down her cheeks and pooling on her breastbone.
“This man was yours?”
What did she mean 'was'? Surely Gael still lived, she'd seen his eyes. She knew he was alive. He had to be.
“That man killed several of my best.” The woman looked backwards over her shoulder, then she twisted back to face Alaysha. The eyes she'd thought were black as mica stones were dark, deep green. There was the unmistakable air of respect on the Enyalian's face. She grunted thoughtfully.
“He will be well fought over, little maga,” the Enyalian said. “We thank you.” She stood, then, and with a quick motion, the rain sluicing down her body unheeded, she had the remaining warriors heft Gael onto one of the strange beasts. Edulph was lifted and deposited onto another.
Two women hoisted the cover of the well and peered in. Alaysha could tell by their reaction that it was empty.
The leader glared at Alaysha. “It will take at least three moons to refill even with all this rain.”
Alaysha shrugged but said nothing. She knew the warrior understood what had happened to it by the way she'd called her witch. There was no need to answer with words. The woman broke into a grin.
“I could leave you here to enjoy your downpour, little maga.” Her gaze trailed to the horizon where Alaysha could make out a huddled bulge on the horizon that she knew were the others lying flat. She hoped the Enyalian would see it as a shadow and no more.
Alaysha tried not to let her face give away her fear of losing Gael to these women, and as she worked to appear composed, she realized what the woman meant by asking if Gael was hers.
Was hers.
But no longer. He was theirs now, and Alaysha understood all at once that the warrior knew she'd unleashed her power only when she'd thought him as good as dead. This woman, this cunning woman understood the crux of the power all at once, that she'd not use it if the ones she wanted to protect were alive. She knew Alaysha posed no threat as long as they had Gael.
It seemed once again she'd given herself away. They knew how to manipulate her even as Edulph had, as Yuri had. And then she understood the silent message in Gael's eyes—it wasn't for death or for salvation. It was begging her not to use her power because then they'd understand the most important thing about it, that she had a weakness that could be exploited.
And now she'd done it—she'd shown these warriors the same thing she'd shown Yuri, and in his turn, Edulph. That she could be manipulated by her love for others.