ORIANA EMBRY LISTENED to the muffled roar of the storm as she finished preparing her conjuring potion. During her brief service as Ana she’d spent much time exploring the many dark, cold cellar rooms deep below the McAra stronghold. The topmost level, crammed to the rafters with winter stores, provided ample food for her now. She’d also discovered that beyond that crowded warren of grains and smoked meats and salted fish lay other, older spaces reserved for less pleasing storage. That was where the laird had directed his men to put the washed and wrapped body of young Wynda, the maid found strangled in her bed. She would have been kept there, frozen until the thaw, when the earth softened and she could be buried.

Oriana had not murdered the nosy wench, however, just to let her rot.

She hummed under her breath as she finished her preparations for the night’s work. She had brought the herbs with her to the castle, and then carefully concealed them. She’d even made up the purge potion to sicken Lady McAra in the kitchens, right under Cook’s nose. But the conjuring bones and other necessities she’d had to slowly retrieve from the caches she’d hidden outside the stronghold. With but one afternoon to herself every sevenday that had taken far too long.

Patience had always been her gift. Why now did it elude her?

Now she had to skulk in the shadows, unable to move freely through the castle. Expecting Bhaltair Flen’s body to be brought down to join Wynda’s, Oriana had waited in vain too long. Last night she’d dared to leave the cellar, only to see the druid riding off in the direction of the Sky Thatch settlement. She’d nearly followed him, but on foot in the rising wind and bitter cold she knew she’d freeze long before she caught up with him. Still, she would find him again. The Gods had always delivered his wrinkled arse to her on a platter. The next time she would drive a dagger into the bastart’s heart while he slept.

The old ways of killing were ever the best.

“Yet I shoudnae have attacked the Skaraven, Gwyn,” she murmured to herself as she blended the last of the new potion’s makings. “’Twas selfish to take such pleasure, my love. I admit it freely. ’Twas only that I looked up and saw his eyes. He has his brother’s cursed, demon-black eyes. Eyes of the abyss.”

Gwyn did not answer her, or ever once speak from the beyond. He could be very stubborn that way, her sweet lad. He feigned indifference when she knew he felt every beat of her heart. He denied her what he himself craved. All to punish her, of course, for he did not understand what they shared. She had tried to explain once, but he had been young, and could not accept such a love.

“No matter, my darling.” Satisfied with the mixture, she picked up the bowl and carried it over to the corpse. “When ’tis finished, then you shall ken the depth of my devotion. You shall see into my heart at last, and find yourself there.”

He would even forgive her alliance with Hendry and the famhairean. They were but tools, after all. Though they would have to die for what they had done to Gwyn, she would use them to the full. It only made her vengeance more complete.

Oriana took hold of her ritual blade, and held it over Wynda’s remains as she allowed her power to envelop it. The spell took a long time to cast, and one word misspoke would ruin the magic, but she felt no concern. She had done this so many times now she might as well have engraved the enchantment on her own heart.

“To this flesh return the spirit,” she said as she finished the spell. “Mine to command until I be done with it.”

The blade grew cold and heavy as she thrust it through the wrappings into the maid’s still heart, and made the aperture. Into it she then poured the contents of the bowl, which disappeared into the dark hole. She then scored her wrist with the blade, and let her blood drip down to join the potion. Finally, she added a piece of the wench’s bone, cut from her smallest toe, to complete the seal.

Oriana sat back on her heels, and watched as the aperture closed, and the body began to convulse. Curiously, when returned to the flesh, druid kind did not resist as mortals did. She wondered if that was due to the expectation of reincarnation. Her kind always returned, while few mortals ever did.

Wynda opened her blood-red eyes and turned her head to regard Oriana. “Yours to command.”

Her voice sounded almost as it had in life, a pleasing boon. If a mortal’s remains lay too long before resurrection they spoke as if through a throat filled with rocks. The worst-rotted could manage only liquid, hunking sounds. Oriana inspected her as she stood over the revenant, looking for any visible flaws. The pallor of her flesh would seem unremarkable, for Wynda had been pale before dying. Thanks to the cold she hadn’t swelled. Oriana might even keep her after she left the castle. The blood bloom in her eyes could be removed with clearing tincture, and her body would not begin to rot for tenday or more.

“You’ll do very well. Rise, now.” Oriana did the same, and retrieved the other potion she had blended earlier. “You’re to go to the kitchens, Wynda, and use this.” Once she’d given her instructions, and had the maid repeat them, she put the bottle in her cold hands. “You mustnae be seen by anyone.”

“Mustnae be seen,” Wynda said, her voice flat. “Gouge out their eyes.”

Oriana sighed. “No.” Revenants obeyed every command so exactly that once seen Wynda would then go through the entire castle blinding everyone. “If you are seen, kill the one who beholds you.”