HIS HEART POUNDED HARD and fast. He hadn’t felt like this in the three years since he’d first seen her, since she’d gotten away from him, the damnable witch, furious because she’d heard of his upcoming marriage to Lillian. He’d tried to hold her, tried to explain, but she’d managed to escape. He’d yowled with fury, tried desperately to forget her, but couldn’t. He said easily, drinking her in, “Callas brought me.”
“He would never allow you anywhere near to me, particularly here in my own grove.”
His wizard’s wand lay calm and smooth against his forearm. He could feel it faintly pulsing, making his flesh warmer now than it had been just a moment before. He knew he had to go carefully, knew in his gut that he couldn’t let her suffocate his magic, not again. He couldn’t allow her once again to reduce him to a mortal man’s lust, a mortal man with no brain at all, no sense of himself and who and what he was, reducing him to just his pounding, hard sex, wanting beyond reason to be inside her.
The prince said, “Callas did bring me. Sufficient proof, even for a witch, since I am standing in front of you.”
“You must have threatened to kill him to make him bring you here.”
“No. I made him itch.”
She stared at him. He knew she wanted to laugh, but she managed to hold it in. Slowly, she stepped off the dais and began her lazy walk toward him. The white wool swung at her ankles, as if there was a slight breeze teasing the fabric, showing golden sandals. But the air was stone still. Where were all her priests, all her servants? Where were those bloodless lurking ghosts with their naked feet?
She stopped a good six feet away from him. She seemed taller to him now than she did three years before, taller and more stiffly proud, arrogant in her own power. He would change that soon enough. Or maybe she was afraid of him now that he’d found her, had actually come into her sacred grove, proved that her power wasn’t inviolate.
Ah, just to look at her. He watched as she slowly raised her left arm, the white sleeve, full and billowing. Smooth as magic, which it was, in her hand was suddenly her witch’s wand. It was more like his wand than like the keshas carried by Callas and all the other Karelian priests throughout the world. It was elegant, finely carved, just like his, no more than ten inches long, gleaming with gems so old they seemed to carry the finger marks of the gods who had flung them to earth at the beginning of time.
Where were her other priests? Why was she seeing him alone?
“You are here, prince. What do you want?”
He looked at her face to see some sign of what she was thinking. He said nothing, just kept studying her. As always, a shield was firmly in place in front of her mind. He couldn’t penetrate it, and that infuriated him.
She came closer. She pointed her witch’s wand directly at him.
He said, “Don’t point your ridiculous stick at me, woman.”
“A stick? You arrogant, black-brained bastard.”
“I am not a bastard. I was born as the result of a hallowed joining. As for you, what can you claim as your antecedents?”
“I had no beginning and will have no end.”
He laughed. “That is nonsense and you well know it. You come from good wizard stock, only it is different from mine. Your sacred grove, all these oak trees that rustle in the night breeze, this fortress that you’ve spun from fancies in your mind, none of it means anything to me. No more than those ridiculous ghosts hovering outside by those puling campfires, their feet dangling in the air above the ground.”
“Ghosts? Why do you think they’re ghosts?”
“Don’t mock me, woman. They have no substance, no presence.”
“Ah, so you mean you cannot sense them.”
He hated it, but he had to nod.
“Aye, they are ghosts. It’s hard for anyone from outside the oak forest to sense them. Callas will become a ghost sometime in the future. Ghosts all live and breathe and worship and ply their crafts. Eventually they grow so old that they begin to fade—the last part to fade is their feet. They finally fade into the very roots of the oak trees, becoming one with the oak. It is an ancient, revered ceremony.”
“I have heard that the ghosts exist in all times.”
“Yes. They are my people, past, present, future. They are my closest followers.”
“All your followers are ancient? Nearly faded away, all of them?”
“No. Many of my people dwell in
the forest. The old ones—the ghosts—feel uncomfortable in the forest. They feel threatened, they are always cold. They like to remain close to me, and thus all the fires with the magic flames. They are so very old in their power, their strength beyond what either of us can imagine. As for my people who live in the forest, they will remain hidden until I tell them it is safe.”
“It sounds like all your followers are as insubstantial as this fortress you’ve conjured up.”
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand, prince. That is stupidity that even a wizard can’t afford.”