While her apprentice took solace with Leo, Victoria sat in a field outside the village, not afraid of the night as the peasants were. She looked into the sky and wondered if perhaps the fact that neither Kelsie nor Falkroy seemed to like her might have something to do with her own behavior. No, she decided. It was not she who was in the wrong. It was they. And the world with them.
Times were changing. Sorceresses were no longer respected. In truth, respect itself seemed to be dwindling as a concept. Even kings could be cursed by peasants these days if they failed to please the lower classes with sufficient bread and mead. Samilton's fields were lying fallow long past the point where they would usually have been planted, the local farmers instead relying on the ration carts from Englred to keep the populace fed and watered.
They did not seem to know or care from whence the food and drink came. They only cared that it came without the curse of labor. The tavern was full every night, and yet coin was dwindling. She saw the early signs of ruin among the people who were drinking what little remained of their cares away. Weakness was infiltrating the kingdom. She saw it everywhere she looked. And now her own apprentice and lover were weak too. Demanding “niceness”, as if it had ever been the responsibility of a sorceress to be nice.
Victoria did not intend to be cruel, but she was a product of her time. A hundred years ago, being a sorceress meant being practically untouchable. Leo used to understand that. Now he seemed to expect her to be like every other Englred lady, just waiting for a man to cross her hearth and make her whole.
Falkroy. Always bloody Falkroy. Their fates were inextricably intertwined and yet they could never seem to get along for long. From the very beginning, their association had been fraught with life and death dramatics. A soft smile played across her lips as she recalled the day fate had bound them for eternity.
***
Many, many years earlier...
“Give us your money and let us rut you and we might let you live.”
A much younger, more tender Victoria forced a laugh as a stinking man breathed the foul words far too close to her face for any kind of comfort.
He looked back at his comrades, somewhat disconcerted by her response.
“You think we're joking, whore?”
“No. I think you're stupid. Very stupid.”
Deep in a forest far from any kind of lawful patrol, one might easily have mistaken young Victoria Varys for easy prey. The bandits surrounding her certainly had, at first at least. Now they shifted uneasily, put off by her haunting smile that reached nowhere near her eyes.
“You think I came here alone for a walk for my health?” She smirked softly. “No, gentlemen. I came here to gather supplies.”
“And what supplies might they be?”
“Eyeballs, tongue and liver,” she said, her gaze cold. “That is to say, human eyeballs, tongues and livers. It looks as though I have found myself quite a crop. I shall eat well tonight, gentlemen.”
The bandits stared at each other, mouths open in stricken horror as they realized that they were not the hunters in this little forest tableau. They were the prey.
“Witch! She's a witch!”
Some of them gripped their blades tighter, while several of them simply turned tail and ran. They would be the only ones to survive the coming minutes. The others, six or so, decided to fight. Six brawny men against one slim sorceress.
The odds were not in Victoria's favor.
She had lied about being out to gather human organs. Her presence in deep woods far from the king's settlements was a matter of very unfortunate necessity. She had crossed a monarch far more powerful than her and now his troops were beating bushes and questioning peasants up and down the Manatiki River.
Knowing stockades and perhaps even gallows awaited her if she were to be caught, Victoria had seen fit to make herself scarce. Unfortunately, that inevitably took her into the territory of other lawless people, most of whom were men starving for female company. She had avoided them as much as she could, but she could avoid them no longer.
Her vocal gambit had failed miserably. She had hoped to make them all flee, but far too many had stayed to fight and where they had simply wanted her money and sex before, they were now determined to kill her.
She had never seen such brutal vicious intent in the eyes of men before and though she put on a brave face she could not help the fear that overtook her - a fear so deep and complete it froze her entirely. As the men began their attack, that fear would not allow her to use her voice or twist the magic from deep within. She was as stunned as any doe caught in unexpected torch light.
This was the first time she had ever encountered true aggression. The first time she had ever been on her own, and her native arrogance had taken her as far as it could. A sharp tongue was no match for sharp steel.
The bandit's sword cut through the air in front of her, missing her by a mere hair. It swept back and she knew that next time it would not miss. There was so much she could have done to protect herself. Charms, spells, wards, incantations, but she could not find the words and none of them came between her and the blade as it swept through the air once more, its edge dulled and chipped from hitting wood and stone.
For the first, and last time in her life, Victoria screamed. It was a thin, piercing, feminine, weak cry of desperation.
And she was saved.
Something out there heard her fear. Something dark and powerful, something that came through the trees with a swiftness that blurred her vision as it passed in front of her. Suddenly the battle was no longer hers to fight. Someone had taken it from her.
A dark haired young man clad in falcon marked leather moved through the bandits like a scythe, his sword flashing as he cut down two of them almost instantly. The bandits cried war and fought back. Victoria considered retreat, but the fear still had her in its grasp, keeping her still like a rabbit and it was the swordsman's artful movements drawing her attackers away that kept her safe.
The stranger protected her ably with everything he had and within two minutes, all the bandits were lying dead. He slumped down, exhausted from the battle, then took a knee and collapsed onto the ground. He may have been victorious, but he had taken more than one stab through his leathers. As was common knowledge, in a sword fight the winner often only lasted a few hours, or even minutes longer than the loser.
Victoria ran to his side and knelt down in the bloody mud, her dress soaking in sanguine muck as she attempted to help the stranger. The fear had now evaporated and she had her senses back. Perhaps it was still not too late to save him.
Turning his head gently, she looked into his eyes. They were the most beautiful slate hue and they looked at her with a wealth of intellect and valor, quickly slipping away.
He tried to speak and a little trickle of blood escaped his mouth, a sign that his wounds were internal and grievous. His pallor suggested that he did not have long to live, and yet he was not crying for his life, or begging for her to save him. He was stoic. Staunch. Brave. Such a brave, stupid boy.
She felt for his pulse. It was weak. Working swiftly, she staunched his wounds as best she could, but she knew the outcome could not be good. He had been skewered in the back. She had seconds left to decide if saving his life was worth...
His eyes closed. Victoria felt a tear trickle down her cheek, totally unbidden. There was something about this man, something that set him apart from others. He was handsome, but that alone was not the total of it. Battlefields were strewn with the corpses of handsome men who had not been saved by merit of their appeal. Without knowing him at all, she knew that his character was a rarity in the world. He had laid down his life for her without knowing who she was or whether she even deserved to have her life preserved.
Whoever this man was, he had proved that he deserved life. Before he took his final breath, Victoria took a sapphire from her pocket and pressed it into the dying man's hand. Then she cast the one spell she had promised her mother she would never, ever cast.
***
“I'm alive,” he said the next morning when his eyes opened.
“Of course you are,” Victoria replied. She was very weak from the spell, for it had almost drawn the life from her in its casting, but she knew she would survive. Hot sweet tea, that was what was needed for both of them. She had brewed a pot over the open fire and dragged the bodies of the bandits far enough away that scavengers would not bother them at the little camp.
Victoria pretended to attend to the tea, sneaking the occasional little glance at him as he tried to understand the circumstances of his survival. He was indeed one of the most handsome young men she had ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on.
“Then you have saved my life, for I know death was upon me,” he said, his voice hoarse with surprise.
“You exaggerate,” she said, waving his comments away. “Dramatic boy.”
He sat up, his expression one of total confusion. “I don't have any pain...” He checked his body quickly, slapping himself where the blades had bit deep. “My leathers have been breached, but I don't have any wounds. What did you do to me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I do not bleed.”
“You want to bleed?”
He was still checking himself, a look of horror and then anger contorting his face as his fingers found bare skin. To his credit, he worked out what had happened swiftly. To his shame, he was not the least bit grateful for it.
“My heart does not beat,” he snarled. “My skin is cold. What have you done? Why did you steal my death from me?”
“You would prefer to be rotting now?”
“Tell me what you did!” He shouted the demand.
She rose to her feet and he rose to his. He was frightened, she could see that in his eyes. He had expected to die and now he found himself alive in a very strange way. She could understand his fear, but she did not like his tone.
Not at all.
She snapped her fingers and he fell to his knees before her, his flesh responding to her command. Standing over his fiercely angry form, she told him precisely what she had done to him.
“I set a charm upon you. I gave you my heart. As long as mine beats, your body shall draw breath. And do not worry, your skin will warm. The first days of the charm are difficult but soon you will be practically indistinguishable from every other mercenary wenching his way across the land.”
He cut his eyes at her with suspicion. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. You saved my life. I attempted to preserve yours.”
“But you didn't,” he said, speaking through gritted teeth. “Because I am not a man anymore. I am a... thing.”
“You still have your soul,” she said. “I did not take that. You have your tongue, with which to abuse me.”
“But I do not have a heart that beats, or blood that flows...”
“Ah,” she smirked, casting her eyes toward his crotch. “I see the source of your anger. You fear that it will not function. Do not fear, your manhood will respond to your intention just as your sword arm or your whining tongue do.”
She made a gesture that drew him to his feet, stepped forward and kissed him. His lips were cold at first, but as their mouths joined and his lips parted, not only did they warm, but the heart in his chest began to pound once more, just as she had said it would.
“What... what are you?” He stumbled back when she broke the kiss, still stricken with fear. A half dozen men with swords had not scared him for a moment, but he looked at her as if she were the most foul beast he had ever encountered.
“You know what I am. I will tell you what you do not know. Your heart beats in time with mine. I have not taken anything from you. I have given you something of me. You have no idea how fortunate you are. I could have made you my thrall. I could have made you my slave. I could be using you even now as a little fuck puppet. But I am choosing to show you mercy,” she snarled. “So go, boy. Go now. And hope that no bandit drives his blade through my heart at an inopportune time lest we both meet our deaths.”
***
Victoria drew a deep breath and looked up to the stars.
What she had not told him all those years ago... what she would never tell him, is that giving him her heart had changed her too. She loved him as if he were part of her own body, for in effect, he was. The charm did not have the same effect in reverse. She had some limited control of his flesh, but not his thoughts or feelings, and so he was free to hate her – which, for a very long time, he did.
Later they had reconciled, but that recollection was too painful to think of in the moment. It seemed they were now back precisely where they had been on that very first day. The ego of a man was not strong enough to withstand being the toy of a girlish sorceress, or a grown one it seemed. His resentment still burned after all these years.
And now Kelsie was learning to hate her too, for much the same reasons. They both thought her cruel and arrogant. Perhaps she was, but she was also loving them into new being. Leo would have been a pile of moldering bones if not for her, and Kelsie would be languishing in a pigsty.
What happened to gratitude, Victoria wondered. What happened to respect? What happened to understanding that actions mattered more than words? She had saved both of them from various hells and their response was to loathe her. Perhaps she deserved their contempt. She could not understand it, nor could she deny it.
At any rate, she had business to attend to, and moping about was not helping in the least. If Leo wanted to take responsibility for Kelsie, so be it. They would no doubt be glad to discover her absence.
Her decision made, Victoria stood and walked into the night.