The Lark Taps Twice

Chapter 33: The End is Only the Beginning

"You! You're the one who started me on this path, the night of my birthday!"

The hag's mouth, the only part of her face illuminated in the firelight, curled into a smile. "Indeed, my dear. I must say, your success exceeded even that of my vision. Well done. Did your beloved explain who I am?"

Said man settled back into his place beside her on the couch, his arm gathering her close to his side once more. Ignoring his overtures, Miriam answered, "He called you Seer Muriel and claimed you had served multiple generations of his family, yet by your appearance you could be my great aunt or grandmother."

Miriam nodded once. "All true. Did he tell you anything else?"

"He said you foretold the mutiny of the magic weavers and the aftermath. He might have told me more, but his memories of this world pained him. While I comforted him, we were interrupted and never revisited the topic."

The mouth grimaced. "I don't suppose you remember the question I asked you when we first met?"

"I think," Miriam spoke slowly, "you asked me if I recognized you. You gave me no time to answer, just told me I'd figure it out in time."

"And have you, dear?"

Miriam wracked her fuzzy brain, and her own words from a minute before echoed in her thoughts. The memory of an overheard conversation of her mother's snapped forward, and she spoke her answer before she second-guessed it.

"You're my great-great-great grandmother Dorothy's older sister Muriel who went missing during the American Civil War. My mother was fascinated with your story. She found your diary while cataloging vintage books at the library when I was little, and every spare moment she had, she contacted experts around the world about it. She verified details you mentioned and searched for information about what happened to you. She stopped her research at the behest of a bad boyfriend, or at least, she did before–"

"Before you used the stone to erase one key event in your mother's life?"

Miriam had the odd urge to blush and apologize for the action. Instead she snarled, "And I'd do it again. That man–"

"Was a truly bad egg." The cloaked figure dismissed Miriam's outburst with a wave of her gnarled hand. "I would have done the same. But your action did more than preserve your mother's sweet personality. Without his interference, she eventually acquired my aunt's diary and in your current absence, she has read it and knows I met a strange man who claimed to be my soulmate right before my disappearance.

"Women in our family have great intuition, even before a soulmate bond awakens unearthly powers. As we speak, she will be matching my disappearance with yours and formulating all sorts of dangerous questions. Questions that will only double in number when Requiro arrives at her doorstep."

"What are you talking about?" Miriam sputtered, mind buzzing with all this new information. "He is to track down the traitors and ensure their threats are rendered useless. None used the portal here in the fortress, and it is the closest–"

"Distance matters not to their kind, for their ability to weld magic travels with them to your world. What does matter to them is revenge and leverage, both of which may be obtained through the possession of one woman."

Miriam gasped. "You think they mean to kidnap my mother, to influence us by threatening her with harm?"

The older woman threw back her hood and flung her arms into the air. "Worse than that, my dear. I've had a prophecy!"

She closed her eyes and hummed for a moment before chanting:

When the warrior is a ruler no more

And the kingdom led by two,