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“There is another coming,” Nelda said, although it hurt to say the words. They pressed on her chest, and she wondered how she had survived this long isolating herself from her true self. She opened her eyes and stared at the young woman before her, hands still tight in hers, eyes closed, long blonde hair loose about her shoulders. Although not knotted, it contained twigs and leaves. The younger brother hovered too close while the other sat back against a tree, watching.
“Is he younger than you?” she asked Frayne.
He looked a little perplexed for a moment, then looked to the worried face of his brother and nodded once. She wondered if that were actually true—if they knew which had been birthed first. For she doubted with every moment that they were the twins they claimed to be, or at least had been told they were. Their father came to mind and the lie she had felt in their cottage.
“What do we do about the other?” the girl asked, opening bright green eyes.
Nelda shook her head, and Frayne climbed to his feet with a sigh.
“She is only a child,” the girl pleaded. Nelda wondered then at her age.
“We cannot return,” Nelda said. “They will keep her as a pet, as they intended to do with you. There will be time.”
“A child?” Frayne asked, although Heath’s gaze was fixed solely on the girl still holding tight to Nelda.
“I will not stay by the camp any longer,” Nelda said. She had done as they asked, saved the girl, and she felt stronger for her company—but they would be caught if they remained. And the cardinal would be returning with the child. She wondered if he had heard the news. She looked up into the sky but could see no sign of smoke and thought he must be far away still.
The girl nodded and climbed clumsily to her feet. Heath reached forward quickly to help hold her steady. She gave him a small smile, but her gaze moved too quickly to Frayne. Nelda understood there was more there than the young man wanted. The girl held out her hand to Nelda, who shook her head as she climbed to her feet on her own. She was a little lightheaded after so long in prayer and with so little food. The days of fasting and travel were taking their toll.
“He is not what he thinks he is,” the girl whispered.
“No,” Nelda agreed, “he is not.”
“Who?” the brothers asked as one.
But Nelda kept her focus on the girl before her. “Your name?”
“I thought you would have guessed it,” Frayne said. Nelda glanced towards him, and he blushed a little.
“I cannot read minds,” she said.
He looked down at the ground.
“Sister Grace,” the girl murmured.
“And your name before that?” Nelda asked.
“I cannot remember,” she said, her gaze focused on the ground. She appeared somewhat desperate. Nelda looked over the girl’s dress, very similar to her own although it was too large for her, as though she had put it on in a hurry. She wondered just what this girl was and where she had come from.
“You were raised in the convent?”
She shook her head.
“Then where did you come from?” Heath asked, but Nelda held up a hand.
“It does not matter. If it is Sister Grace you would prefer to be called, then that is what it shall be.”
The girl nodded once, looking a little lost, although she did not shed a tear. She glanced at Frayne again. “Where do we go?” she asked.
Did she understand just what Frayne was while Nelda didn’t? There was a sense about the young man, yet she couldn’t place it.
“Will we let him keep the child?” Frayne asked.
“Do you care enough to risk your life for her?” Grace asked.
“I risked it for you,” he said.
“But you knew the outcome before you entered the camp. They would be waiting this time, and you understand what would happen to all of us.”
Frayne bowed his head to her and turned his back to them all. “We go north,” he murmured. “Although, we should move around so the returning soldiers don’t find us.”
Nelda shook her head.
Despite having his back to them, Frayne looked at the ground and sighed.
“I don’t know the outcome,” he whispered.
“For what?” Heath asked.
“If we go south.”
“Why would we go south?” Heath asked.
“Because we need to.”
Nelda smiled. She didn’t want to go that way either, but he was right. They had to head south, towards the world she had run from and the king still determined to kill her.
“How do you know it is the way?” Heath asked, and Frayne gave him a dark look as though he shouldn’t question him in front of the others.
He glanced at Nelda and then shrugged.
“You always know, don’t you?” Heath continued, looking at him as though for the first time, as though he didn’t know the taller brother at all.
“And you have always trusted that,” Nelda said. “You wanted to go into the camp and save Grace, and so he did. We will follow where he feels it is right to go.”
“Don’t you know?” Heath asked her.
Nelda smiled. She had an idea, but she didn’t want to say. She wasn’t sure if she was leading these boys into trouble or if they were leading her. She trusted Jamie, despite knowing he had lied to her. She would allow the boys standing before her to decide.
“South,” Frayne said, his voice more determined this time, confident.
He turned in that direction as Grace looked over her shoulder. And then, with a small sigh, she took Nelda by the arm and they walked behind him. Grace held her dress up so that she wouldn’t fall over the hem, and Nelda wondered at her bare feet. But as she studied them, a path appeared in the leaf litter before them, as though the forest understood her need. She smiled at Nelda and squeezed her arm.
“Will he follow?” Heath asked. “The general.”
“Yes,” Frayne and Nelda said at the same time, and she watched him continue unfaltering in his path. He didn’t turn to her and, despite his concerns at where they were going, there was a confidence in the way he walked.
The temperature dropped as they walked, despite the rising sun and the increased light. The trees grew thicker around them as though protecting them, in a way. It had been a very long time since Nelda had the opportunity to talk to someone like herself, another witch. There must have been others like her who had passed through the convent during her time there, but it was never something she could discuss or even hint at. The mother might have known what she was, but no one else could. Although she wondered then how many had understood what she was.
“It isn’t fire,” Nelda whispered.
“No. I thought it was plants, but it is the earth that gives me my... strength,” she said, her voice soft.
“I have fire,” Nelda said. A strange feeling overwhelmed her, as though she was safe to say the words. She had only said them to one other, and she too had the fire within her. Nelda had sensed it. Frayne glanced over his shoulder towards her. She turned her hand, and a small flame grew in the centre of her palm. The girl’s eyes grew wide, and Frayne turned back. Nelda let it go out.
“There was something of you about him,” Grace murmured.
“Nuris is my brother.” Nelda said the word carefully, as though giving it some power might hurt her.
“Something of you lingers with him,” Grace said.
Nelda pulled her to a stop.
“He seemed confused when we started the fire,” Heath said, and she was reminded that he had walked behind them for some time. She studied him then. Two women, two boys. Could they defend themselves if the soldiers caught up to them?
The boys wore swords on their belts, Frayne’s quite large, but she didn’t know what skill they might have. Would two swords be enough against that many of the king’s soldiers?
“You can burn them, and Grace can grow an alternative to unsettle them.” Frayne said as though understanding her silent question, still making his way forward between the trees. He only stopped when they didn’t reply. “What did you mean there was something of Nelda with her brother?” Frayne asked.
“You are twins,” she said, looking at Nelda who nodded once. “Something lingers. Something of one is still with the other.”
“He is not a witch,” Nelda said, sure of it. “And he didn’t know I was until I walked from a fire. I didn’t know I was until that day.”
“He knew you started the fire in the camp,” she insisted. But Nelda wondered if that was true, because he would then have understood that she hadn’t started the fire she was accused of all those years before—and he wouldn’t be so determined to kill her.
“That is why I trust Frayne,” Heath whispered, but there was something in the way he looked at him that made Nelda doubt it was true.
“Because you are brothers?” Grace asked.
“Because we are twins,” he said, an easy smile forming on his lips.
Grace shook her head before Nelda could suggest it was a bad idea. She too sensed something about these boys, that they were not as they thought they were. And as a twin, Nelda knew that they were not. But she hadn’t guessed that Nuris might sense her in some way.
She stared at the man before her, his earlier certainty slipping away. Grace’s hand slipped around her wrist and held her tight. They glanced at each other without saying anything, but she knew it then—he was or had been connected to another, a witch. He had his senses and understanding from a twin, but that twin was not the boy behind him. Not that they were boys—they were at least twenty summers old.
Something tugged at her like a long-lost memory, a cradle and flames licking the wall. She closed her eyes, lost to the memory that she couldn’t quite hold on to. Jamie appeared in the haze. And then it was gone, and strong arms closed around her. She blinked into the light as she was lowered to the ground.
Frayne’s hold was tight as he helped her while Heath made some fuss behind her.
“I’m not what you think,” Frayne whispered.
“You are something.” She looked into his deep brown eyes, sure she had seen them before. Safe eyes, ones she shouldn’t have stared into, ones she should never have tried to hold on to.
She bit down on her lip. The features were similar, and she reached out and traced along his strong jaw. He didn’t flinch away, something sad as he looked at her. She shook her head. She had to be wrong. She had to be mistaken. But now that she had seen it, she couldn’t unsee the similarity. He released his hold and stood up, rolling his shoulders. His fists clenched and unclenched. The air left her lungs in one long sigh. How could this be? How could Jamie have done this?
“You know the sister,” Grace whispered.
Is that why he was sent away—a sister, another child, a witch?
Nelda cried out at the overwhelming crushing sensation that threatened to take her last breath. Heath put his arm around her, but she shrugged him off. “What is it?” he asked, too close.
The sob escaped before she could stop it. Her whole life running, and here he stood before her. A man. Alive.
“Who am I?” Frayne asked, his voice calm despite his tense body and clenched fists. Didn’t his father do that?
The words wouldn’t form. Panic closed in around her. It was harder and harder to breathe.
Don’t breathe, a voice whispered in her mind. One she didn’t know and yet did. Hold your breath.
Nelda focused on the voice chanting inside her mind, and calm settled over her. She found her feet. Frayne still stood before her, his gaze fixed on her.
“Who am I?” he asked again.
“Frayne?” Heath’s worried voice threatened to break the calm that had settled on her.
“I know you,” he said, taking half a step forward, as though he wanted to stand with her and yet couldn’t move. “Are you my mother?”
Nelda released the breath she’d been holding and shook her head. “But I was there as you grew in her belly. I sang to you before you were born.”
“And then?” he asked, a waver forming in his voice for the first time.
She shook her head. “I was blamed for your death,” she whispered. She shook her head again, the strange smoky image of Jamie returning. “Why did he take you?”
“Who?”
It didn’t make sense. She was sure there was only one child. Could he have had a twin? If he had, what had happened to her?
“You think I have a sister,” he said, turning his focus to Grace for the first time. “Where is she?”
“Dead,” Nelda said, looking beyond him into the trees, seeing the same smoky scene that didn’t make any sense.
He shook his head.
“A witch,” she said.
“Then what am I?” he cried, snapping her out of her dazed state.
“You are...” She didn’t know how to say the words. What if she was wrong? What would it mean for him, and for her? She stepped forward slowly as a tear ran down his strong cheek, and she put her hand to his face again.
“You know me, and I know you,” he whispered.
“I do,” she returned, putting her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest. If the world had been different, she would have known him even better.
“Nelda,” he pleaded, his arms closing around her shoulders.
“You are the prince. The prince who was burned by a witch at birth.” She pulled back then and looked up into frightened eyes as he shook his head. “I didn’t start the fire. But I fear it was started to kill your sister.”