Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

In the forest the bare trunks and branches stood stark black against the blanket of new snow like hairs on a miller’s arm. Soon the real storms would come and choke the roads and trails until spring. The keep was well stocked with provisions and fuel, but how would a barefoot little woman, even a witch, survive? How had she survived so long here already?

And where was she right now?

He stretched his arms out over his head, trying to ignore the fresh thrill of guilt-tainted longing that coursed through him at the thought.

Instead, he leaned far out the window, letting the cold air deal with the sudden flush that suffused his cheeks.

From here he could hear the clatter of cooking pots echoing from the kitchen and the muffled staccato of hooves on the road behind the keep. Arkoniel covered his eyes with one hand and sent a sighting spell up the mountain road. He was nearly as good at this spell as Iya now, and could see over a distance of several miles for short periods of time.

Looking down from a hawk’s height, he spotted Tobin and Ki galloping for home, cloaks billowing behind them. They were still some distance away and riding hard to get home before sunset. They’d come in late a few weeks earlier and moped like caged bears when Nari had kept them inside the walls for two days as punishment.

Arkoniel smiled to himself as he watched them. As always, Ki was talking and Tobin was laughing. Suddenly, however, they both reined in so abruptly that their horses reared and wheeled, throwing up white bursts of snow. A third figure entered the wizard’s field of vision and he let out a gasp of surprise.

It was Lhel.

She was wrapped in a long fur robe, her hair loose over her shoulders. Both boys dismounted and went to her, clasping her hands in greeting. Arkoniel did not have the power to hear their words at such a distance, but he could see their faces clearly enough. This was not a meeting of strangers.

The witch smiled fondly as she clasped hands with Ki. Tobin said something to her and she reached to touch his cold-reddened cheek.

Arkoniel shuddered, remembering those same fingers cutting, stitching, weaving souls together.

They talked for a few moments, then the boys mounted again and continued homeward. Arkoniel kept the sighting on the witch, but he could already feel the power of the spell waning. He pressed his fingers into his eyelids, straining to keep her in sight as his ability to focus slowly faded.

Lhel remained in the road, watching them ride away. He would have to break it off soon, but he wanted desperately to see where she would go. Just before he gave up, she raised her head slightly, perhaps looking up at the rising moon. For an instant she seemed to look directly at him.

Arkoniel knew he’d held the vision too long. Suddenly he was on his knees under the window, head pounding, and colored sparks dancing dizzily before his eyes. When the worst of it had passed, he pulled himself up and hurried down to the stables for his horse. Not bothering with a saddle, he climbed astride the sorrel and galloped up the road.

As he rode, he had time to wonder at the pounding of his heart and the furious sense of urgency that drove him on. He knew beyond all doubt that Lhel would not harm the children. What’s more, he’d seen them part. Yet still he urged his horse on, desperate to find them—

Her .

And why not? he asked himself. She held secrets to magic he had only dreamed of. Iya wanted him to learn from her, and how could he do that without confronting her?

And why would she still be there, standing in the cold road with night coming on?

Tobin and Ki came around a bend and reined in to greet him. He pulled his gelding around so hard he had to cling to its mane to keep his seat.

“You met a woman on the road. What did she say to you?” He was surprised at how harshly the words came out. Ki shifted uneasily in the saddle, not looking at him. Tobin met his gaze squarely and shrugged.

“Lhel says she’s getting tired of waiting for you,” he replied, and for a moment he was again the dark, strange child Arkoniel had met that summer day. More than that; in the failing light, eyes shadowed to near black, he looked eerily like his demon twin. The sight sent a shiver up Arkoniel’s back. Tobin pointed back up the road. “She says for you to hurry. She won’t wait much longer.”

Lhel. She. Tobin was speaking of someone he knew, not a stranger encountered by chance on the road.

Lhel was waiting for him, would not wait much longer.

“You’d best get home,” he told them, and galloped on. He grasped for words to greet her with and found only demands. Where had she been all these months? What had she said to the child? But more than that, what magic had she used the first time she’d come to Arkoniel in the forest?

He cursed himself for not noting any landmarks in his vision, but in the end it didn’t matter. A mile or so on and there she was, still standing in the road just as he’d last seen her, her shadow lying blue on the snow. The failing light softened her features, making her look like a young girl lost in the forest.

The sight drove every question from his mind. He reined his horse in and slid down to face her. Her smell came to him, hot on the cold air. It took away his voice and pulled a powerful ache of longing through him. She reached to touch his cheek, just as she had with Tobin, and the caress sent a jolt of raw desire through him, making it hurt to breathe. All he could think to do was to reach out for her, pull her close, and crush her warm body against his. She moaned softly as she pressed against him, rubbing a hard thigh against the answering hardness between his legs.

Thought fled, leaving only sensation and instinct. She must have guided him, he realized later, but at that moment he seemed to be moving in a dream filled with hands and warm lips moving over his skin. He wanted to resist, to summon the rectitude that had guided his life to this point, but all he could think of now was Iya’s oblique permission to do exactly this; give Lhel what she wanted in return for the promise of knowledge.

Lhel wasted no time on niceties. Pulling him down on top of the fur robe, she dragged her skirt up to her waist. He fumbled his tunic out of the way, then he was falling onto her, into her, and she was pulling him deeper, so deep that he could scarely comprehend the hot grip of her body around his before he felt something like lightning strike him, pulling a raw cry of amazement from his throat. She shoved him over onto his back, and he felt the soft snow cradle him as she rode him beneath the first stars of evening. Head thrown back, she keened wildly, clenching his member with whatever strange inner muscles women possessed. Lightning struck again, harder and more consuming this time, and Arkoniel went blind, listening to his own cries and hers echoing through the forest like wolf song.

Then he was gulping air, too stunned to move. She leaned forward and kissed his cheeks, eyelids, and lips. His throat was sore, his body cold, and their mingled fluids were trickling in a chilly, ticklish stream over his balls. He couldn’t have stirred if a whole regiment of cavalry had come thundering down the road at them. His horse nickered softly nearby, as if amused.

Lhel sat back and took his hand. Pressing it to one full breast through her rough dress, she grinned down at him. “Make spell for me, Orëska.”

He goggled stupidly up at her. “What?”

She kneaded his fingers into her firm, pliant flesh and her grin widened. “Make a magic for me.”

The stars caught his eye again and he whispered a spell in their honor. A point of brilliant white light sprang to life above them, radiant as a star itself. The sheer beauty of it made him laugh. He spun the light into a larger sphere, then split it into a thousand sparkling shards and placed them in her hair like a wreath of frost and diamonds. Bathed in their ethereal light, Lhel looked like a wild spirit of the night masquerading in rags. As if reading his thoughts on his face, she grasped the neck of her dress and tore it down the front, revealing again the marks of power that covered her body. Arkoniel touched them reverently, tracing spirals, whorls, and crescents, then shyly reached down to where their bodies were still joined, flesh to flesh.