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Nuris leaned against the horse, trying to calm his thoughts by focusing on the coat beneath his fingers rather than the rustles of the forest behind him, the call of the birds, the movement of animals. None of them were the girl he chased after, nor his sister.
He had allowed the horse to chase the image, understanding that it wasn’t her. He had known what she had done the moment he’d looked back into the tent. It had been surreal. As though he thought it was her while knowing it was not. It was more of a feeling, but he had trusted those feelings. It was the same as with the brothers, if that was even what they were. He’d known there was something about them, and yet he had allowed them into the camp.
He had thought they were working with Nelda, and yet he knew it wasn’t her in the moment the fire started, understood that they were not her flames. The frustration at that knowledge had fuelled his running towards it and left the witch unprotected—or was it unguarded?
How could he distinguish Nelda’s flames from any other fire? He hadn’t known that before, hadn’t understood it; and now that he knew, it ate away at him. All these years trying to find her, to kill her, and she wasn’t the cause of the fire they had chased her for. But he had to push that aside. She was a witch, as was this girl. He wondered at the young men working with her. Had they been there to find the girl?
The thought that this girl might be her child niggled at him, despite his shaking the idea away previously. Or the boys. There was something about one of them that pulled at him—both of them, if he was honest with himself, but for different reasons.
Nuris shook his head and looked up at the man stalking towards him. This was not going to go well. Even if he answered to the king only, there were still many demanding answers from him.
“Your Grace,” he said before the man could open his mouth. “I see you no longer regard your king as you should.”
The cardinal glanced towards a cage at the edge of the camp’s remains. It contained a child and was guarded by a brooding soldier. He had refused to move, refused to allow anyone close. Nuris wasn’t sure whether it was because the soldier doubted the child to be a witch or feared she was one. He looked back to the cardinal, wondering what skill he had for determining who was a witch and who wasn’t. No matter what skill he might have, it didn’t stop him from killing everyone in the convents he entered, witch or not.
“I need a way to learn what they are,” he said, as though understanding Nuris’s unasked question.
“And yet you claim to know that she is one.”
“How did you know your sister to be what she is?”
“I saw her walk unharmed from the flames consuming the castle.”
“Unharmed?”
“And unmarked,” Nuris murmured, running his hand absently over his cheek where the fire had so clearly marked him.
“The girl you took from the stake?”
“I didn’t see anything of her skill,” he lied. “Although I hoped to use her as you did. Once the fire started, I was distracted.”
“Was it started by your sister?”
He shook his head, looking back towards the child in the cage.
“How do you know?”
When Nuris looked at the cardinal, he held a golden figure of the God before him, as though to ward off any evil that might surround him.
“She isn’t here. She was never here.”
“Is that so?” the cardinal asked, a cruel look creasing his features. And then he scowled at the statue in his hand. Was he as angry with his God as he was with his king?
“What do you get from this?” Nuris asked.
“The pleasure of knowing I do the God’s work,” the cardinal said with a smile, although the look was far more frightening than his scowl. Nuris suspected he gleaned a different kind of pleasure from the work he did than a monk of the God should.
“We will return to Sunsong.”
The cardinal puffed out his chest. “I have work to—”
“I do not care what you think you have to do,” Nuris interrupted. “Your king requires you at Sunsong Castle. You shall return with your pet. I will follow to ensure you do as you are told.”
“Does the king not have wishes you should be carrying out?” the cardinal asked, the smirk still too comfortable on his face.
“I am doing as he wishes. He has not had reason to question me.”
“It is not for him to question my decision-making either.”
“And yet you openly defy him. Killing his subjects, working against him.”
“It is the God’s work,” the cardinal growled.
The man wouldn’t admit that he was at fault. And it didn’t matter what Nuris tried; he would not listen to reason. He would continue doing as he did while he could. Nuris only hoped the king had another way to remove the man. Not that he begrudged what the cardinal had undertaken until now in the name of the God. In many ways, he had helped—yet there were too many innocents lost along the way.
“I see you have already ordered the camp packed,” the cardinal grumbled.
“The king insists,” Nuris replied. “You may see me as outside your chain of command, but I am a general in this army, and I can direct as I see fit. It is also my place to ensure the commands of the king are followed. These are the king’s soldiers, not yours.”
“I have the monks of the God throughout the kingdom.”
“Do they support you burning the sisters of the Goddess?”
“They understand the need to root out the evils of witchcraft.”
“Do they?” Nuris asked, and the man’s smile might have faltered just a little.
“You there,” the cardinal demanded, turning away and pointing to the soldier standing guard over the child.
“You are not to direct him,” General Graewyth said.
The cardinal scowled at him and moved towards what was left of his tent. The boys had actually completed a considerable amount of work before setting the fire that had nearly destroyed the rest of the camp. The soldiers worked to clean up what they could, pack down what was left and prepare the carts and horses for departure.
Nuris watched the cardinal go before approaching the soldier. “What do you fear?” he asked.
“That the God has left us,” the soldier murmured, watching the cardinal go and then turning back to Nuris. He bowed his head. “I appreciate your work, General. But I see little can be done. The people will hate us all.”
Nuris looked into the cage. The small girl—he couldn’t even guess her age—was dirty from being dragged all the way from the convent. He doubted they would have kept her in such conditions. Likely assumed her to be like any other orphan.
And she could very well be. The cardinal hadn’t tested her in any way, from what Nuris had heard. He just seemed to know. For the first time, Nuris wondered if the cardinal had any powers of his own, any ability to understand more than he should. But then, Nuris had more sensibility of the world than others.
It all came back to Nelda, his twin, his everything until that day. Could her magic have worn off on him in some way? Rubbed off during their time together, perhaps before their birth? He shook his head to dispel the idea, and the child’s bright brown eyes studied him.
“They won’t return for me,” she said.
“Who?” he asked, squatting down before the bars.
“The sisters who raised me. They are all gone.”
A fat tear ran down through the dust covering her face, and he realised she was very pretty. He stood up slowly as the soldier looked down over his shoulder at the child. He looked almost as frightened as she did. As though she had seen the end of the world. And to witness such things as a child, she might have. For her fate was sealed, and she too would be put to death—possibly before the king to prove the cardinal’s actions.
“How does he know?” Nuris wondered.
“Something in the statue,” the soldier returned. “Are you sure you should escort us?”
“Yes,” he said, then turned back towards his horse. Anything he needed was already in the saddle bags. And he had the nagging feeling that he had to return to Sunsong.
He was almost ready to ride ahead, but he doubted the cardinal would follow if left alone, despite the orders given. The child had sat back against the bars. She looked uncomfortable. The soldier glanced once more and then stood to attention. Nuris wondered if she had been fed at all. Or even if the cardinal was interested in her returning to the capital alive. But if she was a witch, she should have been put down the moment she was discovered.
The general used his instincts, which were usually correct, when hunting out witches. Although they hadn’t led him to his sister, despite his searching for years. He hadn’t considered the convents a refuge for witches, not once in all the years he’d searched. Part of him had feared her already dead, just as the cardinal had suggested. He had certainly inflicted enough damage that night to be almost certain she would die. And yet there was a small part of him that hoped she was alive, as a brother would hope a sister had survived.
His hand closed around the bread he had pulled from the saddle bag, and the soldier pressed his lips closed as he approached. He handed the bread through the bars. The child looked at it and then at him with more fear than he thought the offer warranted.
“You should eat,” he said, holding the bread still.
“So that I am healthy when I die?” she asked, her voice so small; and yet she’d had to grow beyond her years quite quickly.
“Eat,” he said, his voice firm. She hesitated further before stretching forward and taking the bread. She had to be starving, and yet she didn’t snatch it from him. He gave her a smile, one he hadn’t shared for some time, and she looked down at the bread in her hands. “Please,” he said. She lifted it slowly and took a bite. He stood up and turned away to allow her to eat without the pressure of his gaze on her.
It was as though he’d begun seeing the world through different eyes these past few days, and it had all started with the smell of smoke and a niggling feeling in his chest. He tried to shake the idea away, but it was almost as though he could smell it.
“You there,” he called to a soldier sliding a chest onto a cart. “How much longer?” he demanded as the man looked up at him and then stopped to salute.
“Another hour or two,” the man said, looking at the camp in various stages of packing. Some tents still stood and some were rolled up. There were empty crates and chests wherever he looked.
“Move faster,” Nuris growled, and the man snapped to attention. Although he looked tired, he raced towards a tent being dismantled by several others. It didn’t matter how tired these men were; they would be on the road before dusk and travelling through the night.