Free Daughter of Witches: A Lyra Novel by Patricia Collins Wrede Page A

Ranira heard a key turn in the lock.
    No one spoke as the muffled sounds of the guards retreated up the stairs. Ranira reached out and gingerly in the darkness, trying to touch a wall, a person, anything to give herself a sense of direction. She found nothing. Behind her, she heard a rustling sigh, then a sudden, startled exclamation. “Mist!” Simultaneously, there was a flash of light inside the cell. Ranira whirled, blinking against the sudden brightness.
    “It is all right, Jaren. No one is watching us, and I would see this place,” said the dark-haired woman.
    Ranira’s eyes cleared, and she saw Mist standing near the door of the cell. Her left hand was clenched around something at her breast. The right was outstretched, and on her open palm was a globe of silver-blue light.
    Ranira watched, in horrified fascination. “Lykken was right. You are witches!”
    Jaren turned his head to look at her. “Not all of us, and certainly not as you mean the word. Have patience; we have no choice now but to explain.” He looked back at Mist.
    “She will not betray us,” the woman said with serene confidence. Ranira felt a sudden, irrational dislike of her.
    “How can you be sure?” the third member of the group, the “sick boy,” demanded. “She is frightened enough already to call in one of those Temple people, if they could hear her.”
    “Arelnath, you are too suspicious. But if you wish, and she permits, I will use truth trance after we have explained,” Mist said. “Will that content you?”
    “You won’t!” Ranira burst out before the other could reply. In her mind, remembered screams sounded in an old dream of terror. “Anything’s better than burning! I won’t have anything to do with witchcraft. You can’t make me!”
    There was a shocked silence. The silver-blue light in Mist’s hand wavered. “They burn witches in Drinn? No, I cannot believe it,” Mist said at last. “Surely you are mistaken, child.”
    “They burned my parents.” Ranira flung the words at that soft, reasonable voice. “They burned my parents.”
    She turned away, shaking with sobs. From far away, she heard Jaren’s low murmur, “It is no wonder she is frightened.”
    “And it is no wonder the Empire of Chaldreth does not wish to be open about itself,” Mist responded with anger. “I knew the Temple of Chaldon did not approve of magic—but this!”
    “There is worse, I fear,” Jaren said grimly. “I tried to warn you, but you insisted.”
    “On staying? But it was the only way to find out what we need to know,” Mist said.
    “What good will knowing do us, or your Temple, if we don’t survive?” Arelnath asked.
    Ranira jerked around. “Survive? You’re dreaming.” Suddenly she was shaking uncontrollably, and her voice began to climb. “We are all going to die. Die!”
    “She’s hysterical,” a voice said beside her.
    “No, Arelnath, I will see to her,” Mist said just as Ranira was seized in a strong grip. For a moment, she fought back; then the silver light flared once, blindingly bright. Ranira fell back as if she had been slapped, and the hands loosened their hold. Ranira found herself staring into the face of Arelnath.
    “I’m all right now,” Ranira said. “Just leave me alone.”
    Ignoring Arelnath’s raised eyebrows and Mist’s look of hurt, Ranira turned away. She had to clench her hands to keep them from trembling. None of these foreign fools seemed to realize what was going to happen to them, she thought. Were they so ignorant that they expected to be released at the end of the Festival?
    Jaren’s voice cut across her reflections, shaking her back into present reality. “What is it you fear?” Ranira did not respond, but the voice came again, insistently. “As the Bride of Chaldon, you surely will not share our fate, whatever that may be. What is it you fear?”
    Ranira turned slowly to face him. A cold calmness descended on her. The only way to stop these stupid questions and