Page 17 of Vow of the Undead
What they’d actually seen was her burning sage and whispering incantations for the enchantment that concealed my eyes. But they conjured a lie that skirted around the existence of witches.
I winced. Lies were the worst kind of offense, and I’d been as guilty as the executioners. I shoved the thought away, always trying to forget that I wasn’t really who I said I was. Parts of me would always be kept hidden.
And I may have become a killer, but I didn’t have time to let my darkness overcome me.
My mother was waiting.
And I knew she wasn’t dead. I just knew I’d have a vision if she’d died. I’dfeelit. She was still alive, but that meant she was also suffering. This long in the wasteland would have stripped everything from her—just as the king hoped.
I assumed he wanted a rough life in the scarred earth to strip the magic from the witches he banished there. Otherwise, why not just kill us?
The warm scent of baking bread filled my nose. My eyes stung with tears as I hurried past the hearth.
“Anna!” a small voice shouted.
I blinked the tears from my eyes. Through the blur, Ispotted Ragna’s youngest, a girl of only six years old. At three, Alva could not pronounce Silver, and since Ragna had once told her I was the spitting image of my mother who went by Anya, Alva had called me ‘Anna’ ever since.
I went by many names; Silver, Little Spider, but Anna was my favorite.
Alva stood in the doorway of her family’s longhouse. Only days before, I was in the dirt beneath their feet, sparring with Ragna to train our bodies for self defense, and now she was gone.
Rolf appeared behind Alva with an infant boy in his arms, the child Ragna swore would be her last.
She’d been right.
Alva hopped up and down at the threshold. It was as if she was waiting for me, though she was likely looking outside in wait for her mother’s return.
Tears sprang up again. My throat tightened as Alva ran out to me, her short legs kicking up dirt. “Mama is gone, Anna! Mama is gone!”
I could not stop the tears from spilling. Even with the scabbed skin, the wound still stung from the salty tears slipping down my cheeks.
Weak.Tears are the salt of the spineless. People cry when they cannot do.My father’s voice echoed in my head, but I focused on my breathing, slow and steady, until his harsh words faded.
The tears that trailed down Alva’s plump cheeks looked large and heavy, not at all weak. They were tears for her mother. And in this case, my father was right. Alva could not do anything about her mother’s disappearance and the pain of it needed to go somewhere, so it spilled out of her body with every tear that dropped.
She mirrored me all those years ago, but instead of running away and hiding, she was out in the open. Of course, she wasn’t the cause of her mother’s disappearance.
She hadn’t damned an innocent person to certain death.
Don’t think about it.
I finally allowed myself a full breath with the smell of bread in the air. I trailed my fingers over my braid, noting the feel of my smooth hair. I focused on the small child barreling toward me, the shine on her cheeks, the sadness and confusion swimming in her eyes.
When we reached one another, I crouched and wrapped my arms around Alva’s little body. I enveloped her and let my own tears fall until a thought struck me.
Alva could notdoanything about Ragna’s exile, but I could.
I could find that damn piece of missing history and prove to King Drakkar that witches were not a threat to his authority.
“Alva,” I said as I pulled back. I held her tiny shoulders in my hands and felt her body shudder with a long and desperate breath. Tears dried in tight lines across her pink cheeks. The chilled wind tossed her dark hair around her face. I brushed a thumb beneath her eye to catch another tear. “I’m going to find your mama, and I’m going to bring her home.”
You can’t promise that.Doubts thrashed in my mind.You’re weak, you’ve always been selfish. Think of what you did when you were Alva’s age. Think of what happened to your mother only a few years later.
Silver, Little Spider, Anna, Witch, Selfish, Killer.
Evil.
Evil.
