The Gate of Bones by Emily Drake

FireAnn?” Jonnard asked, with more than a touch of mockery in his tone.
    â€œWhatever it takes,” the red-haired woman replied tartly, “to get rid of a pestilence like yerself.”
    Jon grinned in spite of his anger, and leaned against the doorjamb. “She takes good care of you, Eleanora, but are you sure she isn’t dosing you to death?”
    The seated woman lifted her face to him. She had been beautiful, once, but now care lined porcelain skin with deepening wrinkles, and silver streaked her lustrous brunette hair. “Even over this smell, I could catch your stench, Jonnard. Been rolling with the wolfjackals again?” Her voice, still low and pleasant, nevertheless held a stinging tone.
    â€œWolfjackals make excellent household pets. Perhaps I should send one or two up to bunk with you.” His grin widened as FireAnn shrank back a little, in spite of herself. “How delightful to come and trade barbs with you. Too bad it will end someday. Not today, of course. Your men rode up to the gates, and looked, and left.”
    â€œLeft?” Before he could see the expression on Eleanora’s face, FireAnn whisked the towel over her charge’s head and shoved the basin under her nose, and the only response he could read to his word was that of a muffled sneeze from under the towel. But he could see the surprise on FireAnn’s face before she turned away and continued fussing over Eleanora, the redhead’s hands swollen and distorted with the painful symptoms of acute arthritis. Their time in Haven had not been kind to them, nor had he intended it to be.
    Magick was not a renewable source, despite what they had been taught by Gregory. It did not flow in every being or in every living thing about them. It could not be tapped or restored, unless from another Magicker, and that only with great difficulty. It came from one source, from within themselves and when they burned it out, that was it. It could be banked, like a smoldering fire, or stoked till the blaze reached the skies, but when all the timber was burned, it was nothing more than ashes, and these two women were part of a movement that squandered the precious commodity that gave them superiority. He could not forgive them that.
    If they but knew it, they would thank him for cutting off their use of their Magick now, saving it for the years to come. But of course, his mother’s and his work on the fortress hadn’t damped all magic use, not entirely. He could smell it here in these rooms. FireAnn, no doubt, using that part of her that came from her background in herbcraft and witchology, and healing. There was Magick in every move she made on behalf of her charge although very little now, yet some seeped in. She could help it no more than he could. He wondered if Eleanora even knew or, if knowing, was grateful. He doubted it. She would believe, as she had been erroneously tutored by her father, that Magick renewed itself, like wind, air, water. . . .
    Jon’s face settled into a grimmer expression. He steepled his fingers, watching FireAnn carefully. She looked the Irish witch, with her fiery hair all in curls, captured but not tamed by the kerchief she always wore, and her dress with its over apron of many pockets. Even with her back now to him, he could see the stiffness in her posture, the sign of her hatred for him. He made no attempt to hide the disdain he felt for them either.
    â€œYes, left. No rescue being plotted today, I fear.” He paused, after drawing his words out, then added, “Oh, forgive me. I did not mean to put a damper on the news.”
    â€œYou meant exactly such a thing, you little shit,” Eleanora muttered, her voice muffled by the towel about her head. “I hope to be around when someone wipes that smirk off your face.”
    â€œI hope you will be around. Alas, you seem to grow ever weaker, even with the tender care of FireAnn.”
    A loud, less muffled curse answered