Free The Dark Remains by Mark Anthony Page A

throat.
    Breathe, sister. It was merely a dream, nothing more
.
    With conscious effort, she forced her lungs to function, drawing air into her body and moving it out again in shuddering breaths. She reached beneath her nightgown and pulled out the bronze spider that hung from a cord around her neck. She stared at the Mournish charm; it lay still and lifeless on her palm.
    Lirith slipped from her bed, shivering as the dreamsweat dried from her skin. The chamber’s window glowed with colorless light. It was not yet dawn; yet she knew furthersleep was impossible after the dream. It had been horrible. Although, in some ways, it was better than the others she had been having. The dreams of the past. The dreams of dancing.
    But what did all of it mean? She had never been prone to nightmares. Why, of late, had she been possessed of so many?
    One thing is certain, sister. No more
maddok
before bedtime for you
.
    Or was there something else to it? She had not seen the tangle in the Weirding again since that morning after visiting the Mournish. Perhaps it had simply been her imagination. She had listened, but she had not heard any of the witches in the castle mention seeing such a thing.
    But it
hadn’t
been her imagination. She could still feel the sickness that had filled her at the sight of the abomination. No amount of
maddok
was enough to induce that. She wished Grace Beckett were there; somehow Lirith knew her friend would have understood. Except Grace was far beyond her reach now. Perhaps if she glimpsed the tangle in the Weirding again she would know better how to find it, and she would be able to show another. Perhaps Tressa, or Ivalaine.
    Lirith hesitated, then before she lost her nerve she closed her eyes and reached out with the Touch.
    A loud thump shattered the predawn air.
    Lirith gasped, the shining threads slipping from imaginary fingers as her eyes fluttered open. This time she remembered to throw a robe over her nightgown before she answered the door. However, it was not one of the castle’s guardsmen.
    “Sister Lirith,” the girl said in a serious and slightly lisping voice, “Mistress Tressa wishes to see you.”
    The girl could not have yet passed her twelfth winter. A novitiate then; she would not be able to glimpse the Weirding until after her first blood. Sometimes Lirith envied the young ones, like this girl, who would learn touse the Touch from the first moment possible. When Lirith was twelve winters old, she had not yet even heard of the Witches.
    Sulath blast you, you little grackle. Couldn’t you have waited another year? Now there’ll be no work from you tonight, nor tomorrow I warrant
.
    I’m sorry, Gulthas
.
    Sorry! The little bird is sorry? Well don’t that fill my coffers. Now you listen here, grackle. You’re going to have to watch yourself now. No bastards are made at my house—that’s what I promise all my lords. Minya will show you how to clean that mess up, and how to keep anything from taking root in you. She’s too old and worthless to do anything else
.
    “Sister Lirith?”
    The shadows vanished, and the room snapped back into focus. Lirith pressed an unconscious hand to her abdomen, as if she could still feel the warmth of the sparks that had once dwelled there, however briefly.
    “I will be there at once,” she said.
    Minutes later, clad in her favorite gown of russet, she hurried through the corridors of Ar-tolor. What did Sister Tressa want of her? Perhaps she wished to discuss the happenings at the opening of the High Coven last night.
    It had not gone as Lirith might have guessed.
    She knew there was growing discord among the Witches. It had been many years since village hags who spoke the name Sia were burned upon piles of sticks or pelted with stones—but not so many that such things had been forgotten. Some in the Witches wished to distance themselves from those old images, and nor could Lirith entirely blame them. Yet the Crone was a facet of who the Witches were.