THE MOON WITCH Jill Gregory To Ky Willman— gentle hero, warrior prince, Braveheart. His courage, goodness, and strength stirred the admiration and touched the hearts of all who knew him. Chapter 1 “PRINCESS Gwynna, come quick!” Else, the serving girl, burst into Gwynna’s bedchamber as luminous pink dawn broke over the rolling hills of Callemore. Tears streamed down her face and her voice was frantic with terror. “It’s the queen,” the girl sobbed. “She’s . . . she’s . . .” “What? What is wrong with my sister?” Gwynna popped up in bed, her rose velvet pillows scattering around her. She stared at the white-faced servant who was shaking from head to toe. “Tell me!” Gwynna ordered. She sprang from the bed, her heart hammering with a terrible foreboding. She felt it now, the heaviness, the darkness. Fear crackled through her. “What has happened?” she demanded again, even as she snatched her blue silk dressing gown from its hook and flung it over her bedgown. Else chased after her as Gwynna raced into the hall. “Devils and demons are afoot, Princess. The queen . . . oh, it’s too terrible for words. What is to become of us?” Even as she darted down the chilly hall toward her sister’s apartments Gwynna felt a piercing spear of dread. There had been no hint, no sign or premonition of this, of whatever had befallen Lise. Not even a quiver in the air, a chill upon her flesh. What manner of evil had come—and how could it have struck so suddenly? She ran faster, finally reaching the queen’s quarters. She burst into the bedchamber past the servants and guards who stood in frozen shock. A figure lay in the high bed, Lise’s lovely high bed with its gold and white silk hangings and green-tasselled pillows. Gwynna’s steps faltered. She approached slowly, the shadow of fear deepening in her eyes. “Lise?” she whispered. And then she saw. It was a . . . thing. Not Lise, not her wise, beautiful, raven-haired sister with eyes like blue stars and creamy skin. The figure in the bed was a shriveled, ugly thing. Its strawlike hair and sunken colorless eyes stared blindly, its bones poked through the pale lavender gown her sister had worn to bed. It was alive . . . but only just. The thing—her sister?—was breathing ever so slowly, each breath rattling in its spindly chest, and the wrinkled layers in its ancient crone’s neck fluttered with each labored gulp of air. On the sticklike finger of the figure’s right hand shone the Royal Ring of Callemore, a half-moon of rubies surrounded by a circle of gold. For a full moment Gwynna could do nothing but stare in horror at the grotesque figure on the bed, the figure in her sister’s clothes, wearing her sister’s ring. She tried to breathe, to think, to understand, but finally she could only whisper, “Get me Antwa at once. She will know . . . what has happened to the queen.” The chamber emptied and Gwynna knew the servants and guards were only too eager to escape the room where some great evil had come and still lurked. She herself trembled as she turned slowly away from the figure in the bed and began to pace around the corners of the room, pausing at the window, staring at the heavy draperies. Here. It had clung to the shadows here, she realized. Hiding, waiting for the castle to grow still. For the life and light and voices to fade. Waiting for the night. But what manner of creature had it been? What had it done to Lise? And why? In answer to her silent questions, a rich soft voice behind her spoke. “I know what has happened, Gwynna. I wish I did not. The legends tell of this, but I have seen it only once in my time here. I never wanted to see such a thing again.” As the princess turned slowly to gaze at the elderly woman wrapped in a shawl the color of autumn leaves, Antwa shook her head sadly. “I particularly never wanted to see it happen to as fine a woman as your sister.” A chill rushed through Gwynna. Antwa sounded so hopeless. “Tell me what it is and how we can fix it. How do we bring Lise back to us?” Antwa’s somber brown eyes rested upon her. “We cannot, my child. You do not understand.” “Then explain it to me,” Gwynna snapped and was immediately shocked by her own tone. She had never spoken sharply to Antwa, not once. Antwa was her nurse, her teacher, her friend—the closest thing to a mother or a grandmother she’d had since her parents had passed. She had learned so much from Antwa, for Antwa was wise, far wiser even than Lise. She knew of things that Gwynna, a seer since childhood, was only beginning to understand. Antwa could cast spells, concoct charms, use magic as easily as most women could spin upon a loom, and Gwynna shared many of the same gifts with her. But she had nowhere near Antwa’s expertise and would not for many years, decades even, if ever. So why now did she feel this burning impatience and anger because Antwa told her there was nothing to be done? Because my heart tells me otherwise, Gwynna thought in surprise. Even despite the expression of sorrow and sympathy she saw upon her mentor’s face. She straightened her shoulders. “I will banish this evil, I will bring Lise back,” she said. “Once you tell me what this all means and how it came about I will find a way to fix it.” Antwa shook her head and pity shone from her gentle eyes. “This is Ondrea’s doing,” she whispered in a hopeless tone. Ondrea the Terrible? The legendary sorceress? Gwynna had heard the name and she knew that some great evil was associated with it. Ondrea the Terrible was a name used to strike fear into common folk and children, but Gwynna had thought the sorceress’s time had long passed. “What makes you think Ondrea did this to Lise?” she asked, flinging a glance over her shoulder at the shriveled thing in Lise’s bed. “Because this is what Ondrea does. What it is whispered she has done since the days of Merlin and Arthyr. She has sent the elf demons who do her bidding to steal your sister’s beauty.” “Steal her . . . beauty? But . . . how . . . and where is Lise?” “Lise is there.” Antwa pointed solemnly at the motionless figure wearing the Royal Ring of Callemore. “She is somewhere within that poor creature, but she’s scarcely alive. Ondrea has taken everything—her youth, health, beauty and even her spirit. She feeds upon them to restore herself. Lise, as she lies there, will soon die. She will wither like a leaf in the waning days of autumn, and Ondrea will live for years on the beauty and youth that were once your sister’s.” “She will not.” Gwynna clenched her fists, her amethyst eyes darkening. “I won’t let her.” “Child, you don’t know the powers of Ondrea.” Antwa pulled the shawl more tightly around her shoulders, her mouth twisting sorrowfully. “For you, she is merely a name out of legend, but I have heard tales, tales told to me by the high-sorceress Mervana, who taught me in the ways of magic when I was even younger than you.” Gwynna’s chin jutted out. “I don’t care who Ondrea is, or what powers she possesses. She will pay for what she’s done to Lise and she will return my sister to me—with every drop of her beauty, health and youth intact.” “Listen, my child,” Antwa went on, shaking her head. “According to the legends, once every hundred years, Ondrea chooses a young woman of extrordinary beauty and strength—and sends her elf demons to steal them from her. She is a powerful sorceress, Gwynna, who long ago should have passed on from this earthly life, but she has preserved herself in this way, at the expense of others. She takes goodness and beauty and turns them into evil and ugliness. She is allied with all the demons that walk the earth and she takes delight in the pain of others.” “Then it’s time she was stopped—and destroyed.” “Do you know where legend says that Ondrea lives?” Antwa asked, her sad, gentle gaze fixed upon Gwynna’s pale, set face. The princess shook her head, but the resolve in her slender frame seemed to tighten. “She lives in the Valley of Org, beyond the Wild Sea. A land where your magical powers for good will not serve you.” Antwa watched Gwynna’s eyes widen at the words and knew that the intense young princess whose fey powers were not yet entirely developed was shaken by the knowledge that Ondrea could live in such a place. The Valley of Org was the home of all evil creatures, the cruelest dragons and the most hideous demons. Ghosts and vampires prowled amidst outlaws of the most vile sort, and it was said that nothing good or beautiful could long survive in the foulness of that dark, fetid land, where even the moon was lost in the shadows. “But . . . they say no one has ever returned alive from that place, except one man,” Gwynna whispered. Her heart had fallen into her stomach. “Isn’t it true that Keir of Blackthorne went to Org and came out alive?” “That is what some say.” Antwa shrugged her shoulders beneath the heavy wool shawl. “No one knows for certain if it is true, my child. And even if it were, the Duke of Blackthorne is unlikely to be of help to you. They say he has no use for anyone west of his own lands, and that since his brothers and father were killed he trusts no one—man or woman. And he particularly will have no love for a princess of Callemore,” she added. “If you remember, he offered for Lise’s hand when she held court and chose a husband. She rejected him in place of William, you recall.” “She rejected everyone in place of William!” Gwynna burst out. Lise had fallen instantly in love with the golden-haired prince of Merfeld. For her, there had been no other man in the crowded hall once she had set eyes on William, once he had bowed over her hand, knelt upon one knee and gazed at her with those glorious brown eyes that w...
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