“It’s Alfrick. Here, hold the light. I need to lift him. No, hold it closer,” Britomart added in exasperation as Smudge took the remaining fungus and backed up to give her room. He hastily stepped back towards her. He couldn’t see much, but he could hear a great deal of muffled cursing and clanking as Britomart tried to heave the sleeping man onto her back. With a final clang and a grunt, she slung Alfrick over her shoulders. Britomart winced as she took a step and Alfrick’s armor dug into the back of her neck. Knights who went around rescuing princesses had it easy.
“Let’s go,” she whispered to Smudge. They stepped onto the path of scattered light that stretched back along the line of sleepers, a softly glowing ribbon in the dark. She could not help glancing towards each slab that they passed, though she could no longer see the sleepers in Smudge’s dim light. I’ll be back, she promised them silently. I’ll find a way to wake Alfrick, and then I’ll come back to wake you too. She hoped it was true.
Smudge sped up as they neared the place where their path dead-ended into the cavern wall that they would follow to the entrance. Britomart thought about calling for Smudge to wait as she trudged slowly onward, but she did not want to stir anything else that might be lurking in the cave, particularly not when they were so close to getting out with Alfrick. She was relieved when Smudge paused to wait. His light wasn’t of much use at this point, but she didn’t want him to get so far ahead that she wasn’t close enough to protect him if something went wrong.
Britomart found Smudge waiting for her at the slab with the first sleeper. There were tiny crumbles of the glowing fungus on the slab near the sleeping woman’s shoulder. Britomart hid a smile. Smudge must have been leaning in close to get another look at the woman. She was beautiful in her own way.
“Okay,” she whispered, and Smudge took off again. Britomart suppressed a grunt as she readjusted Alfrick across her shoulders and followed.
They reached the cavern wall, and the mouth of the tunnel loomed ahead, an arch of pale light cut out from the darkness. The darkness thinned as it grew nearer, until Britomart could see the texture of the cavern floor and the rising shapes of occasional stalagmites. It was odd to think that the cavern’s entrance had seemed so dim when she first entered it.
A wave of relief hit Britomart as Smudge placed his foot on the first step up to the tunnel. He had gotten a ways ahead of her again, but she could see him perfectly silhouetted against the tunnel’s light.
Then a voice loud as thunder cut through Britomart’s relief.
“Seek not to take what is not yours.”
The command resonated off the cavern’s walls until it seemed to come from everywhere and to reach everywhere, even to the very marrow of Britomart’s bones. Britomart hardly had time to register that it was a woman's voice before she was spinning on the spot, trying to locate its source, but she could see nothing but darkness deeper into the cave. She nearly stumbled as Alfrick’s weight threw her off balance. If only she could draw her sword. But she could not wield a sword and carry Alfrick too. She would not abandon him. She would not.
“Run!” she shouted to Smudge. Britomart tried to run, but her legs did not move. She tried again, tried forcing herself forward, but it was as if her legs had turned to stone. She looked down in panic. The stone of the cave floor had grown up around her legs, encasing her to the thighs. She fought to force her legs onwards but felt only the screaming of her muscles as they pushed against an immovable barrier.
No way out.
She tried wriggling, looking for some sort of leeway that would allow her to slip her legs free. Not even a hair’s breadth of room.
No way out.
And Smudge wasn’t running either.
“Smudge,” she cried out desperately, “you need to run!”
“Can’t! Stuck!” His voice held a shrill terror that Britomart had never heard in it before, not even when they were being chased by the Rivensfeldt guards. She looked up and saw that stone had grown up around Smudge’s legs too. He was trying to pry his way out and having no more success than she was. His movements were as frantic as a mouse caught in a trap.
“Hold on! I’ll get us out of here!” she called. But how? How? She glanced down and saw that her sword belt and scabbard were still free. As long as I’ve got my sword, we’ve got a chance, she thought. She swung Alfrick down from her shoulders, wincing as he hit the cave floor with a clang. There was no time to be gentle. Then her sword was in her hand, and she was raising it, raising it high above her head, preparing to bring it down with as much force as possible on the stone that encased her legs, hoping that it would be strong enough to break the stone. Hoping that she would be able to stop the blade before it sheared into her leg.
“I would not do that if I were you,” said a voice from deeper in the cave. “You will merely dull your blade.” Britomart recognized it as the same voice that had thundered out earlier, a woman’s voice, rich and clear, though quieter now. She ignored it and brought her sword down with all her might. The impact clanged through Britomart’s arms with such intensity that she nearly dropped the sword. Her whole body felt like it was ringing. She stared down at the stone around her legs. It was unmarked. She looked at her sword. There was a notch in the blade. She swore.
“As I said, you will merely dull your sword.” The woman’s voice was amused now, and it was coming closer. “You had as well tell the Shadowed Wood to march at your command as free yourself from this cavern’s stone with a sword.”
Britomart twisted to look over her shoulder, her back nearly cramping with the effort. Two cloaked figures were walking towards her from the back of the cavern. Light spread out through the stone at their feet, rippling across the cavern floor. It was as if the stone had soaked up years of sunlight and was gently radiating it back out. The light remained in the figures’ wake, spreading through more and more of the stone until the cavern was filled with a soft auroral glow.
The figures paused so close to Britomart that only a thin ribbon of twilight remained between her and them. She held her sword at the ready. They stood and regarded her. When they made no move to attack, Britomart paused and regarded them too. She let herself really look at them this time, not just checking for weapons as she had when frantically summing them up (none on the woman; possibly a sword under the second figure’s cloak). The woman’s hood was thrown back to reveal a face with a strength and elegance that would have quailed even the formidable Marquess of Blinkensop, whose raised eyebrow had been known to reduce a courtier to tears. Her dark hair was winged with gray and swept back to an elaborate knot at the nape of her neck. She reminded Britomart of a hawk.
The second figure kept his hood up, but Britomart thought she had been right to suspect that he carried a sword. He walked with the assurance of a warrior. Britomart glanced at his boots and wondered if it had been him whose tracks they had followed. At least he seemed like the sort of person whom she knew how to fight. She did not think it was he who had made the stones glow with sunlight, nor cast the sleepers into slumber. She could not fight that: fight magic. But she would have too. She felt her sword tremble and firmed her grip on it.
Britomart met the woman’s eyes. Her voice was even as she said, “Let the boy go. I am the one who has taken a sleeper; he has done no harm but to accompany me. Let him go, and fight me.”
A smile quirked the corner of the woman’s mouth. “I have no intention of fighting you, my child, and neither does Danbar. But, alas, I cannot let the boy go. You are wrong to say that he has done no harm.”
Britomart wondered how the woman knew about Smudge’s past. “He has done harm before, that is true, but he has done none here. I alone took the sleeper.” Britomart set her jaw and added firmly, “And this sleeper is mine to take. He belongs to my sister.”
“You may take Sir Alfrick if you wish,” the woman answered in measured tones. “You have a true claim on him, although I cannot say that he ‘belongs’ to anyone except himself. Perhaps your sister will even be able to wake him. There are tales of true love’s kiss removing such a curse. I think you are too young, though, to know how rare a thing true love is, even among those who believe they possess it. Are you willing to bet Sir Alfrick’s restoration on it? Both parties must love truly, you see, and I do not think Sir Alfrick has known your sister for long, from what Danbar tells me. He would not be the first to mistake infatuation for true love; nor would your sister, though I do not doubt her sincerity. Better by far to take a surer path. I am certain it is what Danbar would prefer, and he has known Alfrick for far longer than you.”
Britomart’s temper flared. “Willa’s love is true. She is the truest…and they’ve known each other for months…and…” Britomart could feel herself losing ground “...and this has nothing to do with letting Smudge go.”
“It does and it does not. You see, while you have a true claim on what you have taken, the boy–”
There was a yelp, and Britomart turned to see Smudge trying to wriggle away from a tendril of stone that seemed to have come alive. It was reaching for the small leather bag tied to the ratty rope that served as Smudge’s belt. Britomart strained towards Smudge until she thought her muscles would burst, but it made no difference. The woman’s voice went calmly on.
“–the boy has no claim but greed on what lies in his purse.”
Smudge grabbed hopelessly for the bag as the tendril of stone jerked it loose from the rope and upended it over the cave floor. There was a soft clink as a golden brooch hit the stone. The jewel at its center winked in the light. Britomart recognized it immediately as the brooch that had clasped the first sleeper’s mantle.
Britomart stopped struggling. So did Smudge. They both fell so silent that the sounds of the sleepers’ breathing suddenly seemed loud again. A small part of Britomart’s mind registered that it must be magic slumber indeed for the sleepers to have slept through the light and the noise. But only a small part of her mind. The rest was occupied with fuming at Smudge. She now had a very good idea of why Smudge had paused to wait beside the sleeping lady on their way out of the cave.
“Smudge,” she said through gritted teeth, “you made a promise.”
“Meant to keep it,” Smudge mumbled.
“Promises are not an issue of ‘meant to.’ You either keep them or you don’t. How am I supposed to take you back to Boemapolis if you keep stealing? I can’t apprentice you to someone when I know you’ll rob them blind the first chance you’ve got.”
Britomart heard the swish of skirts as the woman walked past her towards Smudge. She bent gracefully to pick up the brooch, then studied it for a moment before closing it in her hand. “It is not just in Boemapolis that thieving comes at a cost, little one,” the woman said. “The Shadowed Wood has its own laws, and those who break them may suffer worse than a mark on the flesh.” Her eyes lingered on Smudge’s branded hand. He hastily hid his hands behind his back. Britomart thought that the woman’s steely gaze would have pinned Smudge in place even if he hadn’t already been locked in stone.
The woman took a step back, and the tension broke. She gave a slight smile, and Britomart was surprised to see that it reached her eyes. “For now, however, I judge that the fright you have suffered is punishment enough. You may go if you wish.” Her eyes flicked to Britomart. “Although I hope you will remember what I said. If you wish to wake Sir Alfrick, you would do better to take a surer path than true love. I can help you on that path. You need only ask.”
Britomart gave a bitter laugh. “And I’m supposed to trust you? You’re a…a…” She could not bring herself to say it. And what would she have said anyways? ‘You’re a blood witch?’ But there had been no blood. ‘You’re an Old One?’ But the Old Ones were dead. Truth was, she had no idea what this woman might be, only that the stone seemed to obey her in a way that was definitely not natural.
“I am what I am,” the woman replied calmly. “You may choose to trust me or not. I think you know as well as I do, however, that I could leave you as you are, and you would wither and die, for humans are not half so permanent as stone. Instead, I have chosen to let you go.”
Britomart stumbled as the pressure around her legs released, the stone melting back into the ground. She heard the patter of running footsteps as she caught herself, and she let out a breath of relief. Smudge had gotten out. She straightened to see Smudge sliding to a stop beside her. Her relief turned to exasperation.
“Going to help,” Smudge said.
“I’ll handle this,” Britomart growled.
“Like I said, I’ll help.”
Britomart recognized the mulish expression on his face. She’d seen it in the mirror more than once. “Fine. Keep an eye on them while I lift Alfrick.” She darted a glance at the woman, who was still standing serenely near where Smudge had been, then sheathed her sword and bent to heave Alfrick over her shoulders. It was much harder without the slab to help. Her muscles protested as she straightened. But she had him. “Now we go.”
The cloaked man stepped forward from beside the strange woman as Britomart reached the stairs to the tunnel, and Britomart thought for a moment that he would try to stop her, but the woman laid a hand on his arm and shook her head. He stepped back and let them pass. They made it down the tunnel, one step at a time, Smudge watching for an attack from behind that never came. The sunlight opened out before them, streaming through the waterfall. Britomart laid down her burden and half-collapsed beside him. For a moment, she basked in the sheer, beautiful relief of having gotten out of the cave alive. Of having gotten out of the cave with Alfrick. Then, her eyes fell on the slick stone ledge that led back to the banks of the stream. She groaned. She glanced up at Smudge, who was keeping a worried watch on the tunnel. “We’d better get him out of this armor.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The Alfrick that Britomart deposited in their camp half an hour later was scuffed, dirty, and slightly sodden. He was also very much asleep. Britomart looked down at him in something much closer to dislike than she had ever felt for him when awake. Nobody had ever told her rescuing was so hard on the back.
She and Smudge tried everything they could think of. Britomart poured a waterskin over Alfrick’s head. Smudge tickled his nose with a piece of grass. Brititomart fanned cold air over Alfrick’s face. Smudge tickled his feet. Britomart spoke softly to Alfrick of Willa’s love. Smudge shouted surprising noises in his ear. Britomart upended another waterskin over Alfrick’s head. Smudge wafted cheese under his nose. Britomart demanded that Alfrick wake up on his honor as a knight. Smudge insulted Alfrick’s mother. And still Alfrick slept on.
“Not even a snore,” Britomart said in disgust as she sat down with a thump beside him some time later. She sprang up again as the residual wetness from the upended waterskins seeped into her thin woolen leggings. It took a moment before she noticed Smudge smirking and realized that she had been patting the seat of her legging to check how wet they had gotten. She dropped her arms to her sides in what she hoped was a dignified manner. “We’d better get a fire going to dry us all out before night falls. Willa will never forgive me if Alfrick dies of pneumonia halfway to Boemapolis.”
“Then she wouldn’t get her kiss,” Smudge said sagely.
Britomart rolled her eyes and bent to dig the flint and steel from the saddlebags. “It’s not all about the kissing, you know.”
“You’re only saying that because it didn't work when you kissed the sleeping lady.”
Britomart felt her cheeks burn. “The lady you stole from. And that wasn't my fault: It needs to be true love’s kiss, not just any kiss will do. Find some kindling, would you?” Her hand closed around the flint, and she straightened. “Wait, I’ll come with you. I don’t want you getting lost again.”
“I didn’t get lost. You just got worried.”
Britomart did not deign to reply.
They moved companionable silence through the undergrowth, Smudge collecting kindling, Britomart looking for larger branches that would serve as firewood. After a while, she asked, “Do you think that woman is right about true love?”
“The witch, you mean?” Smudge asked.
“If you want to call her that. I don’t know what she was. But what she said about true love being so rare–do you think she’s right?”
Smudge gave the problem his full consideration. He studied the forest floor intently as he thought, occasionally bending to pick up twigs. Finally, he shrugged. “Can’t say as I’ve ever seen it, but it’s in all the tales.”
Britomart swallowed. “So Willa and Alfrick…Willa might not be able to wake him. I know she loves him,” Britomart rushed on, “but what if it’s not true love. Or what if Alfrick doesn’t truly love her. I know he wants to marry her, but what if it’s just affection? What if it’s infatuation?”
“Or lust,” Smudge volunteered helpfully.
“We’re talking about my sister,” Britomart said indignantly.
“Might be lust though.”
Britomart thought of a certain talk that her mother had once given her about men and their intentions. There had been something about the way that her mother had said ‘Intentions” that had made Britomart picture it with a capital ‘I’. She pushed that talk out of her head. “The point is, Willa loves Alfrick, and Alfrick almost certainly loves her, but…”
“But if he really just wants to get in her smock, then he’ll be sleeping just as soundly as ever, no matter how much she kisses him.”
“Smudge!”
“Well, it’s true.”
“But it might be true love.”
“It might.”
“It’s almost certainly true love.”
“Could be.”
“It's definitely true love.”
“Won’t say it’s not.”
Britomart let out an exasperated sigh and shifted the firewood in her arms. “We need to find that woman again, don’t we?”
They did not need to seek far to find her. When Britomart awoke the next morning, it was to the sight of the cloaked woman standing beside Arthur, feeding him small, tart apples from her hand.
Britomart scrambled to her feet, sword in hand. “You.” It came out as an accusation.
“Indeed.” There was something about the calm, arch way the woman said it that made Britomart feel embarrassed for her lack of courtesy.
Britomart lowered her sword. “Err…welcome. My lady.”
Arthur gave a soft whicker of protest as the woman turned away from him to face Britomart. “You have not left. Am I to take it that you have decided to ask my help? The path I told you of still waits, and it holds the power to wake Sir Alfrick, should you be successful. And I am no lady. I am simply Rowena. You may address me as such.”
“‘Should I be successful?’” Britomart asked warily, echoing the woman’s phrase. She thought of all the sleepers in the cave. “How many people have tried?”
The woman–Rowena, Britomart reminded herself–shrugged nonchalantly. “Some.”
“They died?”
“For the most part, no. Mostly, they sleep.”
Britomart suppressed a shiver. “What happened to them to make them sleep like that?”
“Most did not make it across. Some did, and were…insufficiently persuasive.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“No, I simply speak of things you do not understand.”
“On that, at least, we can agree. I thought you said you would help.”
The woman gave a slight smile. “And so I shall, but not, I think, here. There is much to explain, and we will be more comfortable in my home. It is not so far away. Wake the boy, pack up your things, and I shall take you there.”
Britomart stopped a retort on the tip of her tongue. She was not used to taking commands, and her pride smarted at it. She gave a curt nod and went to wake Smudge, taking comfort in the knowledge that it was traditional for knights to bear indignities for the sake of their quests. Even Queen Boemia had become the slave of the Blood Witch in pursuit of her mission.
They reached Rowena’s house in what felt like no time after their long days of riding. Britomart marveled at how the woman walked with utmost certainty through the unmarked wood, following no discernable path but always, it seemed, perfectly aware of where she was.
Britomart had half-expected the house to be as fantastical as the cave: a structure of seamless stone that had grown out of the hillside, or a damp underground lair with an ominously large cookpot. Instead, it was a quaint cottage nested among the trees. Smoke rose lazily from its chimney, and a few climbing roses twined up its whitewashed walls. “A gift from an old friend,” Rowena said when she saw Britomart studying the roses. “Do not worry, they are not dangerous.”
Britomart exchanged a glance with Smudge. Who had ever heard of roses being dangerous? He seemed as perplexed as she was.
The cottage was as cozy inside as out. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, and earthenware jars lined the shelves beside the window in orderly rows, each labeled in a flowing black script–not Galbrican, Britomart realized, but the old language of the North, which seemed to be composed primarily of y’s and w’s. The morning sunlight shone through the window onto a large oaken table with four chairs pulled up around it. A stool sat beside the hearth, and a fire burned merrily beneath a perfectly-normal-sized cookpot. There was something about the careless position of the stool that gave the impression that it had been recently vacated.
Rowena hung her cloak on a peg near the door, smiling when she noticed the stew boiling in the pot. “Ah, I see Danbar has anticipated us. He hoped that you would come. He is one of the Duke of Svernhold’s guards, you see, and was charged with Sir Alfrick’s safety.”
Britomart went cold with shock. “But if he’s a Svernhold guard, and he's just left Alfrick like that, left him when he should have stood between Alfrick and danger, he’s a–” Something about Rowena’s expression stopped Britomart from finishing her sentence. Stopped her from saying the word on the tip of her tongue: traitor.
Rowena cooly raised an eyebrow. “Danbar is a loyal man. He is simply not a foolish one. He did not fall into the same trap as Sir Alfrick and his other companions did, but he was too late to save Alfrick from the consequences of his own actions. He has stayed in the Shadowed Wood rather than return to the comfort of Svernhold because he knew that staying here is the best chance that the boy has got. Danbar can no more wake Sir Alfrick with a kiss than you can. He could have bundled him onto a horse and taken him to your sister, true, but like me, he is old enough to prefer a surer remedy than true love. He would not risk taking the boy out of the Shadowed Wood when the only certain cure for Alfrick’s slumber lies here.”
“You mean you have a cure? Here? Why didn’t you say so?”
“Not here in the cottage. Here in the Shadowed Wood. Patience, child. Sir Alfrick has been sleeping for some time; it will not hurt him to sleep a little longer.”
A door at the back of the room opened, and a man stepped in. This must be Danbar, Britomart realized. He had shed his cloak, and she could see him properly for the first time. He reminded her of her father’s Arms Master, a grizzled old fighter who had learned his trade through selling his sword in the Corsinian wars during his youth. Galbrica had been peaceful for so long that it was an unacknowledged but accepted practice for those who wished to gain military experience to do so in foreign wars, returning to serve their king when they had gained the skill to fight on behalf of their homeland should the need ever arise. The Arms Master had been a hard man, but a fair one. She felt ashamed for having been on the verge of having called Danbar a traitor.
Rowena smiled when she saw him. “Good, we are all here. Stew, I think, and then we can get started.” Rowena’s attention turned back to Britomart at Britomart’s impatient movement. “Yes, stew first, my child. As I said, Sir Alfrick shall come to no harm from slumbering a little longer. In the meantime, there is much for you to learn, and you will need your strength for what is coming. You may leave your weapons by the door. You are my guests; you will come to no harm here.”
Britomart recognized the woman’s invitation for the order that it was. Hesitantly, she unbuckled her sword belt and hung it on a peg beside the cloaks.
The stew was good: earthly and salty with a thick broth and root vegetables. Britomart’s impatience subsided in the sheer pleasure of eating something other than hardtack and cheese. At last, Smudge, who had been busily working his way through a second bowl of stew long after everyone else had finished, gave a final slurp and set his empty bowl down on the table with a contented sigh. Silence descended over the table–not simply the lack of talking that went with determined eating, but the electric silence of expectation.
“The surest path to break a spell,” Rowena began, “is for the spell’s caster to reverse it. And Sir Alfrick’s slumber is a spell, make no mistake.”
A spell. Britomart suppressed a shiver. She knew the slumber must be magical, but hearing it said aloud made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She forced herself to keep her voice even as she asked, “Who is the caster? Do you know them?”
Rowena smiled, but there was sadness in it. “Yes, I know her. She is my goddaughter. It is an old spell, one that has run in her family’s blood for generations, but it is she who wields it now, and she alone who can undo it.”
“In her family’s blood?”
“You heard correctly, child. It is a blood spell, and she is a blood witch, as her mother was before her, and her mother’s mother before her.”
“The Blood Witch is dead.”
“I presume you mean Queen Morgwynna. Yes, she is dead, killed by your Galbrican queen long ago–although I suspect that you do not know quite as much as you think of the matter. ‘Blood witch’ was never just a title for Morgwynna, although the strongest blood witches in the North were always of her line. A line sadly dwindled now, for Amoret is the last.”
Britomart’s head was spinning. She latched onto the one stable thought that she could find. “So I need to find the blood witch and kill her.”
“Kill her? Have you heard nothing that I have said, child? She is the only one who can undo the spell that binds the sleepers. Kill her, and Sir Alfrick may never wake.”
“But if not kill her, then what am I supposed to do? Ask her nicely?”
“Persuade her,” Rowena said calmly.
“How?”
“With words.”
“I’m not good with words.” Hope filled Britomart’s voice as she added, “But you are. Couldn’t you try? You said you’re her godmother. Surely she would listen to you.”
“Do you think I have not tried? Amoret is stubborn, and she did not appreciate the interference of an elderly godmother. A bit like you, I imagine. I think, though, that she may listen to you where she paid no heed to me.”
“Why?” Britomart demanded.
“Amoret is descended from a line that once ruled the North. When Queen Morgwynna was killed and the North was conquered, her descendents were driven into the Shadowed Wood, as were all those like her, all those with powers that the Galbricans feared. The Shadowed Wood was a haven, but it was also a cage. Over time, our numbers shrank, and Morgwynna’s line dwindled. No wild creature thrives in captivity, and that is what the Shadowed Wood became to her descendents, for they cannot venture openly beyond its limits without forswearing all that they are. Galbrica has been content to rule the North with a light hand in recent centuries. It would not remain so if its people learned that a blood witch still lived.”
Britomart shifted uncomfortably under Rowena’s piercing gaze. She did not miss what the woman had left unsaid: that Britomart’s reaction to learning of a blood witch had confirmed just how hostile Galbricans would be; that Britomart could bring that hostility down on the inhabitants of the Shadowed Wood if she told her father of a living blood witch. Telling him would be the right thing to do, Britomart knew. The king should know of any threat to the realm, and it was her duty as a princess and as a knight to warn him. So why did it feel so wrong?
Whatever showed on Britomart’s face, Rowena seemed to be satisfied. She continued, “The Shadowed Wood has become a lonely place for those who cannot leave as its inhabitants have dwindled. Amoret’s mother Arundel ran away for a time to see the world beyond. She went all the way to Corsiria and the coast of Caspir sea before she returned. But she did return in the end, and she died before Amoret was old enough to have any travels of her own. Amoret has been given much in this life: powers most people could only dream of; a castle that provides all its owner could wish; even a realm, for in the Shadowed Wood, Morgwynna’s line rules still. Yet for all that she has been given, she has not been given friends. She has never had many companions her own age. That is why I think you will be able to persuade her. She needs a companion, and despite her best efforts, she will like you. You, I think, may like her too. If you let yourself.”
Britomart plunked her elbows down on the table and leaned her head in her hands. Like a blood witch? “Let me get this straight. You think that I will be able to convince this blood witch to take the spell off of Alfrick because she will want to be my friend?”
“If you want to put it simply, then yes.”
Britomart raised her head from her hands to look at Danbar. “And you think this will work?”
Danbar gave a stoic twitch of the shoulders that in another man might have been a shrug. “Can't rightly say. If it could get Alfrick back, I say we try.”
A bark of laughter escaped Britomart. She was not even sure what she was laughing at. Perhaps the absurdity of it all. She threw up her hands. “Alright. I'll do it.” She saw the tension ease from Danbar. “So where do I find the blood witch? You said she has a castle.”
Britomart saw Rowena’s eyes flick to Danbar before she answered. “That, you see, is the complicated part. There is the matter of the roses.” There was something about the woman’s voice that made Britomart suspect that the matter of the roses was going to be very complicated indeed.