“Leave.” Svelrik’s voice was a breath of ice.
“You’re out of your depth here, Murdo,” said Kaetha. “Dangerously close to drowning.”
There was a flicker of fear in Murdo’s eyes as he looked from her to Svelrik, then retreated into the shadows.
Svelrik leant down so that his face was uncomfortably close to hers. “I dislike people trying to deceive me, though they invariably fail. Remember I am your king and you are nothing. Your magic, witch, is nothing to my power.”
When the king signalled to Sir Jarl to hoist her up again, a gleam of gold inside his sleeve caught her eye. The fabric shifted, just for a moment, and then she saw it. The Water stone. The shock was like ice against her skin. It wasn’t Meraud who had the stone – it was Svelrik. She must have been in league with him but it was he who had killed all those people at Longmachlag Bay. He had never planned to let them live freely in another land.
The stones – the thought trailed a stream of panic within her – What if he knows I have them? No, she reasoned, surely he would have taken them already. However, she knew it was only a matter of time before they were found.
As Sir Jarl pulled her up onto the wooden block again and began turning the wheel, she wondered if she had any chance of overpowering Svelrik and escaping. The torch on the wall outside her cell was burning steadily and she tried to reach out to it with her Fire magic . . . but nothing happened. Neither could she probe Svelrik’s thoughts with Air magic. Were pain and exhaustion taking their toll on her or was her power inhibited by the iron cell as Tam had suggested? Was she like the elf-shot when Nannie had trapped it in an iron box, stopping its power?
At least she still had words.
She made herself smile, despite the pain and terror coursing through her. “They don’t know, do they?” she said as her arms slowly rose.
Svelrik’s brows drew together.
She let her smile fall and hardened her voice. “They don’t know that you have magic and that you used it to wreck the ships at Longmachlag Bay, killing hundreds of innocent people.”
“Lies!” Svelrik hissed, lunging towards her. It was the first hint of anything like anger she had seen break through his flinty countenance.
Sir Jarl paused. Her hands were level with her waist.
“No,” she disagreed matter-of-factly. “And I’m not the only one who knows the truth.” She would frighten him if that was all she could do now. “Sir Jarl, Murdo, look.” Before he knew what she was doing, she heaved her iron laden arms towards the king, pulled up his sleeve and grasped the band around his arm which bore the Water stone. At the same moment that her fingertip brushed the Water stone, the three stones hidden high up her arm jolted a shock of power through her. Svelrik flinched. Had he felt it too?
The ground shifted beneath her feet then and the air trembled around her. She was still in her cell – she could feel the iron clasping her arms and ankle, the wooden block rough against her bare feet – but she was also somewhere else. She no longer saw Svelrik or the others. The bars in front of her became branches and before her towered a great tree, black and silver like elf-shot. It towered over her, its knotted and gnarled trunk as wide as a house. Roots spread like a spider’s web, plunging snake-like into a still lake. Twisted branches, like many great arms, reached up and out above the surface of the water, decked in amber leaves.
Then she was right up close to the rough bark, as if she was a tiny creature scurrying up its trunk – now quick as an arrow – up to the end of a branch and up further still, she was flung high through a dark sea, strewn with stars. Stars that whispered.
Then she was in a room. Animal skins were hanging around curved walls, and ornaments of gold and silver gleamed in the cold morning light. A dog was cowering in a corner.
“And why do you think such failure should go unpunished?” said Svelrik, his voice icy and detached. She staggered backwards as she saw him and it took some moments to realise that he couldn’t see her. “You have few duties as a wife and yet you’ve failed, again, at this most important one.”
“Please, your Grace – husband,” said a woman in a trembling voice. “I will bear you a child – a son. It will happen. I swear. Please, don’t hurt her!”
“I can’t very well have my queen going about with broken fingers, can I?”
“Your Grace—” pleaded a second woman who stepped from behind the queen. Svelrik took her hand. There was a snap and a scream of pain.
I’m in a cell. In danger. I have to get back, she told herself. However, trying to get out of the vision was like fighting against a strong current.
She was in another room. A large fire crackled in a hearth making the gold thread and bright colours in the tapestries around the bedchamber sing with warmth. She turned. A woman stood by a window, looking out at a night sky.
Kaetha’s jaw dropped. “Morwena? Mother?”
Morwena didn’t respond. Kaetha’s eyes stung with tears as she took in those familiar features, the curve of her cheek, her large brown eyes and dark hair which fell in waves. Her gown was blue like an
