The Warlock's Daughter Read Free Page B

tentative, almost reluctant.
    “Indeed,” she answered with her head held high. “The man who spoke to you of me happens to be a warlock.”
    “Ah,” he said, a soft sound it was impossible to interpret.
    “And I,” she said with mingled pride and despair, “I am the warlock's daughter.”

~ CHAPTER 2 ~
     
    Renfrey surveyed Carita slowly, from the shining silver-gilt hair under her small hat of felt and feathers to the beautifully symmetrical shape of her body and down to the gray-silver hem of her skirt that swept the ground. In the moonlight, her features were pale perfection, as remote as the carved angel on the tomb behind her. The wind shifted his cape, brushed it against her so the silk-on-silk made a soft, whispering sigh. It seemed he felt the contact with every last fiber of his body.
    “If you are the daughter of a warlock,” he said in trenchant admiration, “what does that make you? A witch?”
    “I wouldn't call myself so.” Her gaze met his without evasion.
    “But you are not like other women?”
    “No, I have never been as they are.” The moon sailed behind a gray wraith of cloud, leaving her face in shadow. The light faded, as if with the dulling of her spirit.
    He summoned a smile. “If you are trying to engage my attention, Carita , you have succeeded. Though I should tell you, since we are being fair, that you already had it.”
    “You don't believe me?” A small frown pleated the skin between her delicately arched brows. From some distance away there came a low rumble of thunder. A rise in the wind shivered the leaves of the live oak that guarded the cemetery gate.
    “Is it likely, do you think?” he asked. “You are lovely and intelligent and I admire you. Still, you are plainly just a woman, no more.”
    The wind gusted as if with some elemental annoyance. The rush of it carried the tall silk hat from his head and sent it bowling along the path.
    She said, “I promise it's so.”
    “Promises aren't necessary; all I require is honesty.” He glanced at his hat but made no attempt to chase it. Standing straight and tall, he watched her while the rising wind whipped his dark hair into ruffled waves and tore at the ends of his white silk cravat.
    Thunder grumbled closer. Black clouds boiled upward into the night sky from the southern quadrant. She said, “You don't seem to recognize the truth when you hear it.”
    “I recognize that you think you are something apart. But that isn't the same thing, is it?”
    Directly above his head, lightning crackled in silver pitchforks, striking earthward to outline the tombs around them in blue fire. Marching toward the cemetery fence, it sparkled along its iron length with a sound like ten thousand angry bees.
    “What will it take to convince you?” she said in musical tones, while her cloak lifted like wild wings around her and lightning shimmered in the fathomless deep-sea darkness of her eyes.
    “You claim to be the cause of all this?” he said on a reckless laugh. “Then give me rain. No, wait. Give me sleet here where it's seldom seen.”
    “If you like,” she said, and smiled with hard purpose.
    The sleet pelted down in balls of silver ice so cold they shattered on the ground like crystal. They filled the air until it was white with their mass. Frozen white marbles, the balls pounded his uncovered head and his shoulders, crackled around his feet, mounted in piles against the nearest tombs.
    Opposite him, within reach of his arms, Carita stood untouched. The hailing ice parted above her head, rolled harmlessly down the bell of her skirt. She held his gaze, and so clear and purposeful was the look in her eyes that he was forced to steel himself to sustain it.
    At the same time, he ignored the stinging, bruising punishment, letting it roll over him. Gathering his strength, he concentrated it while his smile remained affable and admiring.
    The balls of ice turned to smaller beads, began to lose their chill. They splattered into slush