Page 41 of Time's Fool

And she was one of the lucky ones.

She had lost her husband, her clan, almost her life. Yet there were those who had lost more. And even those who survived had been changed out of all recognition.

Gillian divided her life into two parts these days—before and after the Great Storm. Before, she’d been a young bride, her belly swelling with her first child, so in love and so optimistic for the future. After . . . she wasn’t sure that she knew the answer to that, even now.

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know.

Kit had obtained for her a position at court, which she had tried to use for good. To help those of her kind who remained to rebuild what they could. But there were days, when she passed laughing mages in the halls, when she felt their hostile eyes follow her down a corridor, when she saw them tightening their control over her land . . . well.

She thought that perhaps Master Dee wasn’t wrong to worry about her.

Wasn’t wrong at all.

“The Armada?” Mircea said, his voice suddenly sharp. “The fleet that the king of Spain sent to invade your country and raise a rebellion against your queen?”

“You know of another?” Gillian wrapped her arms around herself, and turned away. She would have paced, if not for the damned floor. As it was, she just didn’t want eyes on her for a moment. Anyone’s eyes.

But she could still feel Kit’s on her skin, like a physical touch.

“Play nice,” he had said, and Gillian had agreed. She just hadn’t expected this. But if she was going to represent her people, and what they’d endured, she had best get used to talking about it. However difficult that might be.

“The covens were holding our own for a time,” she finally said. “We had more people, knew the land better, and were fighting for our ancient rights. But the Circle knew magic we didn’t, collected it in talismans and through donations from those who could not fight. And bottled it, storing it up in potions and vials and animated weapons, whereas we rode the power of the natural world as the fey had taught us to do.

“Their method was . . . stronger.” It hurt to admit, but it was the truth. “We thought our numbers would win the day, before we faced them in battle. And discovered that each of their war mages, as they call them, carried the power of dozens more.

“We fell in the hundreds, and then in the thousands. But we learned, adopted some of their ways, adapted some of ours. And held our ground. We’d even started to regain some territory, to free our people and make the invaders pay for what they had done. But then word came—the Armada was coming with an army said to number more than fifty thousand men, an impossible force. And there were many of the old, Catholic faith in England ready to join them and raise their banners in rebellion as soon as they landed.

“Our elders had a decision to make.

“Combine our power and raise the winds as a shield around this land, or continue to fight with the Circle while the country burned. They knew the risks, but they chose to defend instead of attack. The Great Mothers assembled their forces to send our magic into a towering storm to drive the invaders out.”

She stopped, her husband’s face shimmering in front of her eyes. “Randall was a coven wizard, a term no one uses anymore. It is mage this and mage that these days, but he was a wizard of the old type, a Druid priest and a sky summoner. He was powerful; I can still see him, his arms raised, his power thrumming through the air around him, the rain lashing and the lighting scrawling everywhere as he called to the skies.

“’Save us, save us, save us all!’ And they did, putting not only Wind, but Water, too, at our command, allowing us to lash the invading ships, to send towering waves to scupper them, and to call Fire from the heavens to burn them. Eventually the Spanish were driven northward, to crash onto the beaches of Scotland, where the survivors were met with pitchforks and scythes and hate.

“But we were met with even worse.”

Her arms tightened about her, her fingernails digging into the skin hard enough that it would have bled, had there not been fabric in the way. As it was, there would be bruises tomorrow. She should know; she’d had them often enough, yet they didn’t help.

Nothing did.

“The Circle lay in wait until the danger was gone,” she finished harshly. “Until the land was saved and our magic was all but spent, then attacked. Killed almost all of the Great Mothers, decimated the covens, and systematically hunted the rest of us down when we were scattered and leaderless. Like the cowardly dogs they are, they—”

She swallowed. “They butchered us like animals. Some on the very cliffs where we’d fought, and fought for them, for their lives as well as our own! Others perished in their fortresses, where they let us waste away, while using us as bait to encourage attacks by the few covens who remained. So that they might kill them, too.”

She looked at Kit and her vision blurred. “You found me in one such, but there were dozens more. So many of us are gone now, dead or fled abroad. There are virtually no more covens in England.”

“I am sorry.” He looked genuinely appalled, his hand reaching out to cup her elbow. “I didn’t know—”

“No covens?” the vampire queen said, her voice a sibilant whisper. Which would have been bad enough, as it carried a tinge of amusement in it, as if she found the plight of Gillian’s people humorous. But it was followed by the acid sting of her power, pushing at Gillian’s passive shields, testing her strength.

As if she thought her weak!

A tide of pure fury swamped Gillian, because they hadn’t lost to the Circle because of weakness! And she was a true daughter of her line. She was a coven witch, and the Mother of more than they knew!

Kit’s hand tightened as if in warning, but Gillian shrugged it off. She didn’t need his protection; she could protect herself. Which she did, muttering a spell to fling the woman’s power back in her face, because that’s what she was, no matter the strange trappings of the room, or the fluttering fans of her servants, or the dark floor that was meant to disorient and confuse.

She was a woman, just like Gillian, and if she wanted respect, she could damned well show some!

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