Bloodwitch

by Susan Dennard

  Safi wiped her mouth with the collar of her dress and hauled herself upright. The world swayed, and she briefly wished at least one of the Adders would meet her gaze. Then Rokesh finally did.

  “This isn’t what I wanted,” she told him, even though she knew he did not care. Still, she felt the need to make him understand. So she repeated, louder and with a throat burned raw, “This isn’t what I wanted.”

  Then Safi stumbled the rest of the way to her room, blood and sickness trailing behind.

  FOUR

  Beside a towering waterfall, Merik Nihar picked his way up a cliffside. Spindrift misted his sun-soaked face.

  “Another hour,” Ryber had said at the bottom of the cliff. “Then we’ll reach the Sightwitch Sister Convent, and I’ll guide you through the glamour that protects it.”

  Always, Ryber had guided Merik and Cam, steady and true. Since leaving Lovats two weeks ago, she had led them through the Sirmayans, ever closer to her childhood home—the long-lost Sightwitch Sister Convent, a place Merik hadn’t known existed. And he certainly hadn’t known that Ryber was a Sister from their ranks.

  Water caressed Merik’s face. He was tired, he was parched—so parched, he’d already imagined dumping his face into the waterfall and gulping whatever he could before it dragged him down.

  He glanced at Cam behind him. Then glanced again.

  “I’m fine, sir,” the boy groused. He had to shout to be heard above the falls. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “I’ll stop looking,” Merik countered, “when your hand is fully healed.” He knew Cam was sick of the fretting. Overprotective hen was his phrase, but Cam also couldn’t see how pale his brown, dappled skin had become since leaving Lovats. Since the Nines had cut off his pinkie.

  “At the top,” Merik called, “let’s stop and change the bandages.”

  “Fine, fine, sir. If you ins—”

  A great rip tore through the earth, stealing Cam’s words and tossing Merik against the cliff face.

  It tossed Cam right off.

  Without thought, Merik’s magic snapped free. A whip of winds to snatch the boy before he hit the rapids. A coil of air to launch him straight into Merik’s arms.

  Then he clutched the boy close while aftershocks rumbled through the stone. While they panted and heaved and hung on. It felt an eternity before the quake fully faded, leaving dust and water thick in the air.

  “Sir,” Cam breathed against him, eyes bulging and terrified. “You used your magic.”

  “I know,” he said at the same time Ryber coughed out, “Everyone all right?” Her umber black skin was streaked with dust from the tremor as she clung to the ledge above.

  “Hye,” Merik called, even though that might not be true. Two weeks, he had stayed so diligent against his witchery’s call. Against the Nihar rage too, for they were connected. He could not stop his winds when the anger took hold.

  And he could not stop Kullen when the winds awoke.

  “Just a bit farther,” Ryber said. She scrabbled down slightly and grabbed hold of Cam’s good hand. Then, with Merik to push, they got Cam onto a higher ledge.

  “Maybe,” Cam called as he climbed, “the first mate didn’t notice the magic.”

  Not the first mate, Merik thought, wishing yet again that Cam would stop calling Kullen that. The first mate was gone. Kullen was gone. He had cleaved in Lejna. His magic had reached a breaking point, then it had burned through him and turned him into a monster. Yet unlike other Cleaved, who died in minutes from the boil of corrupted power, Kullen had stayed alive.

  And somehow, Kullen’s mind had been replaced by a shadow beast that called himself the Fury.

  Merik was just about to resume his own ascent when a voice split his skull: THERE YOU ARE.

  Merik clutched at his head.

  I AM COMING.

  “Sir?” Cam blinked down at him. “Is it the first mate?”

  “Hye,” he gritted out. “Move.”

  This time, Merik did not resist his magic. Kullen had found them; they were already damned. He drew in his breath, clogged as it was with dust off the mountain, and let the hot air spiral close. Fragile strands, but enough to push them faster. Enough to send him, Cam, and Ryber skipping straight up to the top of the cliff.

  When at last they reached the final ledge, they scrabbled to their feet and ran. No one looked back. They could hear the storm approaching, sense the cold on its way.

  Fast, impossibly fast with all that dark, wretched power coursing through it. A journey that had taken days for Merik, Cam, and Ryber would take mere minutes for the Fury to complete.

  They ran faster. Or they tried to, but waves of dizziness crushed against Merik—and Cam, judging by the boy’s yelps of alarm.

  “Ignore it,” Ryber commanded. “It’s part of the glamour’s magic. You just have to trust me and keep going.” She took hold of Cam’s forearm, and Cam took hold of Merik’s. They ran on.

  They reached a forest. Trunks striped past, prison bars to hold them in and nowhere to go but forward. Green needles bled into red bark and melted into hard earth. Everything spun and swung.

  Ryber never slowed, though, so Merik and Cam never slowed either.

  Then the creatures of the forest began to flee. Spiders rained down and tangled in Merik’s short hair. Then came the moths—a great cloud racing not toward the sky but simply ahead. Away from the Fury.

  I never thought you would leave Nubrevna, the Fury crooned in Merik’s mind. All this time, I thought you would return to the Nihar lands. After all, do you not care about your own people?

  Birds launched past Merik. Mice and rats and squirrels too.

  “Faster,” Merik urged, summoning more winds. Cold winds. The world might be unstable, but if he had to, he would fight.

  “We’re almost there!” Ryber shouted from the fore, while beneath their pounding feet, the earth quaked yet again. Merik couldn’t help but imagine each lurch as one of Kullen’s steps booming ever closer.

  “Where are we even going?” Cam panted. “If he can follow us through the glamour—”

  “He can’t.”

  “He already did.” As Merik uttered those words, he slowed to a stop and looked back. Black snaked across the forest floor. So fast, there was no outrunning it. So fast that before he had even turned forward once more, the darkness swept across him.

  He still had hold of Cam, and Cam still had hold of Ryber.

  They kept running.

  Soon, no sunlight penetrated. The darkness moved and shifted around them and Merik had never known there could be so many shades of gray. Then hoarfrost raced across the forest, a crackling that froze creatures as they fled.

  Where are you, Merik? Where has my Heart-Thread taken you?

  Merik couldn’t answer, even if he wanted to. The dregs of the glamour’s magic fought to disorient him …

  Until he saw it: a haze of gray stone amidst the shadows. Hewn from the mountain itself, a chapel coalesced before them, its high doorway blocked by saplings and sedge.

  Ryber slowed, releasing Cam and grabbing for the knife at her hip. There was no time to hack through the brush, though, so Merik thrust his winds straight at the overgrowth. Raging air ripped the plants up by the roots.

  A dark doorway yawned before them.

  In moments, they were inside, and what little light they’d had vanished entirely. The chaos followed, though. As did the bellowing of winds, charging ever faster their way.

  “Ignite!” Ryber shouted, and a weak torch lit among the endless shadows.

  Merik and Cam skidded to a stop. “Keep your hand elevated, Cam!” He didn’t know why holding Cam’s bloodied hand aloft seemed the most important thing when death chased from behind.

  Ahead, Ryber’s hands slammed against a stone wall. “Why is this here?” she screamed. “Why are you closed to me? I am Ryber Fortiza, the last Sightwitch Sister—why have you closed to me?” She smacked her hands harder against the granite. “I’ve only been gone
a year! Open up! You must open up!”

  Nothing happened, and she jerked back toward Cam and Merik. “This shouldn’t be closed. I’ve never seen it closed!” Her hands clutched at her heart, at her face. Then back to her heart again. “It must be because he follows—” She broke off as the hoarfrost slithered into the chapel’s space.

  The pale lantern light guttered out.

  The Fury had arrived.

  Merik shoved Cam behind him. “Stay with Ryber,” he ordered, and to his vast relief, the boy actually obeyed. Then Merik stepped back through the door and advanced on the shadows.

  “Let them go!” His voice sounded stretched, as if cold had sapped it of all dimension. “It’s me you want, isn’t it?”

  “No.” The word whispered against Merik’s face, plucking at his skin. Then the Fury stepped from the shadows. A thousand dark ripples moved around him; the evergreens crashed and waved. Somehow, though, Kullen looked as he always had. Tall, pale haired, paler skinned. Only his eyes had changed: black with small lines radiating along the temples.

  Black lines like Merik wore across his chest. The foul taint of the Cleaved.

  A bolt of pity cut through Merik. Ryber loved Kullen as much as Merik did. But unlike Merik, she had not yet seen this monster Kullen had become, and he hoped she would never have to. He hoped she would not turn back this way.

  As if following Merik’s thoughts, Kullen smiled—a taut, inhuman thing that stretched at his lips but did not reach his eyes. “I know my Heart-Thread is with you.” He sang the words, and his steps bounced closer, almost jaunty. “And is that also young Leeri I see following?” The smile spread wider. “He always was so loyal. But no one is as loyal as I am, Merik.”

  Wind burst out, a wall to knock Merik back. He hit the ground. Pain tore through him and Kullen laughed and stalked closer.

  But Merik drew in the Fury’s own winds, enough to attack, enough to distract. Then he charged upright, and as he flew, he swung out a leg and aimed for his Threadbrother’s knees.

  Kullen was already skipping back by the time he reached him, but it was enough. They had moved away from the door, and Merik had—for a flicker of a moment—gained the advantage. He unsheathed his cutlass; he swung. No magic, just brute force. It was the one thing he had always done better than Kullen: swordplay. And though Kullen tried to sweep at Merik with magic, his attempts were dull. Halfhearted.

  For of course, they were bound by cleaving magic and Threads. If Merik died, then Kullen died with him. And while Merik might not understand how, there was no denying that truth he had faced in Lovats two weeks before.

  He was faced with it again now as Kullen skipped and slid, avoiding Merik’s blade yet scarcely fighting back. “You won’t kill me,” Kullen declared, spinning left.

  “I will.” Merik darted, his blade aimed for Kullen’s neck. “I would gladly die if it meant saving the people you’ve abandoned.”

  “Always so brave, our Prince Merik. Always so holy. But remember: the holiest have the farthest to fall.”

  “SIR!” Cam shrieked, tinny and distant. “The door!”

  Kullen heard those words too. As one, he and Merik turned. As one, they flew for the chapel. It was no different from the hundreds of races they’d held as children in Nihar, and just like in those days, Kullen was faster. Yet Merik had meant what he’d said: he would die to protect Cam and Ryber.

  As the chapel zoomed in close, Merik swung one last time at Kullen. He missed Kullen’s neck, but not Kullen’s ear. The top sliced off. Kullen screamed, a sound that exploded in Merik’s brain. Mental fists that punched away all thought, all consciousness.

  The shadows roared over Merik. He fell.

  * * *

  Merik awoke in the middle of a storm.

  He tried to stand—wriggling left and right, straining to rise as dark rain flayed his skin. I’m bound, he realized at the same instant that lightning pierced the skies. Thunder crashed, against his skin and inside his skull.

  Merik rolled left. Mud slid over his cheek. Grass swept and writhed around him, and rainwater pooled. If he did not at least sit up, the water would rise. He would drown.

  That wasn’t what frightened him most, though. No, that was Kullen’s voice cracking through the storm, buzzing in Merik’s brain.

  Just in time, Threadbrother. You will get to see exactly what I came here for.

  Digging his shoulder into the sodden soil, Merik drew in his knees. His wrists were tied behind his back, and his ankles looped tight. But with several grunts, groans, and popped joints, he managed to get his legs beneath him. He managed to sit up.

  A meadow surrounded him, broken up by eight massive stones in three rows. Crudely-shaped columns, they towered twice as high as a man, twice as wide, and over the nearest one, Kullen flew. Lightning sizzled into him, winds spun and flew.

  A thousand years, these have stood. A thousand years, the Sightwitches have hidden their treasures from the world. But no longer. Once this glamour falls, I will lead the Raider King’s forces to this place. Electricity ruptured outward, blinding in its brightness. And we will claim the sleeping mountain.

  Just before Merik’s eyes seared shut, unable to fight the heat or the light or the noise, he saw the magicked lightning hit one of the stones. It fractured, a sound that ripped across the sky, ripped into Merik’s exposed skin.

  A boom of energy tore through the earth. It dragged Merik down, back into the mud, where rain hammered against him and shadows took hold once more.

  FIVE

  Today was the day.

  Two weeks of preparation, of cleaning and assembling, of organizing and arranging and pestering the High Council for help, donations, people—anything really, the stingy bastards—and now the underground city was finally ready for refugees.

  Vivia Nihar, however, Queen-in-Waiting to the Nubrevnan throne, was not ready at all.

  Her heart seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere behind her esophagus, and she had rubbed so much at her left coat cuff that she’d actually snapped off the gold button.

  Whoever found it would be very happy, indeed.

  Vivia stood before the Pin’s Keep main entrance, crowds thick before her. Squalling babes and frantic fathers; lone, lost teenagers; and coughing grandmothers, too. But none were the faces Vivia wanted—the two faces she’d expected to see when the chimes had rung in the ninth hour.

  Come on, Stix, come on. This wasn’t like her. Stacia Sotar, Vivia’s former first mate—now elevated to full captain—was always on time, always early. Yet nowhere in the thicket of hungry faces did Vivia spot Stix’s white hair, so bright against her black skin.

  Nor did she spot the man Stix and five other guards were meant to escort: her father, Serafin Nihar, former King and former King Regent.

  “You’re sure they aren’t inside?” Vivia asked her own nearest guard for the fourth time since the chimes had clanged. And for the fourth time, the woman shook her head. “There’s no one inside Pin’s Keep, Highness. As ordered.”

  The shelter had been completely cleared out. All its volunteers now waited in the cellar where the tunnel to the under-city began, or else they waited in the under-city itself. Fifty soldiers also stood sentry, while another two hundred were dispersed throughout Lovats, as insisted upon by Vizers Quihar and Eltar. Riots are a possibility, they kept chorusing, and loath as Vivia was to admit that they were right …

  Well, they were right. Vivia’s lottery system might have worked thus far without protest, but once families saw others being escorted into a new, underground home, such reactions might shift like a fickle tide.

  And Vivia could hardly blame them. Lovats had been in shambles since the seafire attack two weeks ago, and it had hardly been pristine or whole before that. Which was why Vivia had had her Pin’s Keep volunteers spend a week telling any and every person they met that this lottery system was Only step one in a much larger, longer-term plan to house the city!

  Admittedly, Vivia had yet to sort out the re
st of her plan, and the sudden ending of the Twenty Year Truce—as well as the resuming war that the Truce had paused—now kept the High Council too distracted to help her. Once her coronation finally came, though, and once she finally wore the crown that was hers by birth, then she could take matters into her own hands. She wouldn’t need the approval of a bunch of men who never agreed on anything.

  Vivia cleared her throat. She couldn’t wait any longer; Stix and her father would just have to miss the opening. She gave a final swipe against her shirt front. Then patted the edges of her face. A movement she had done so often as a child, and had thought she’d grown out of as an adult.

  Until two weeks ago, when they’d named her Queen-in-Waiting.

  When you are with others, her mother always used to say, the Little Fox must become a bear. Now, is your mask on, Vivia?

  Yes, Mother, Vivia thought. It’s on. Her lips parted, and the crowds nearest her quieted—

  Then there they were. Stix at the fore, shoving through the fray and half a head taller than the rest. Behind her, surrounded by soldiers in the same navy uniforms Stix wore, marched Serafin.

  And Vivia realized the people hadn’t quieted for her at all. They recognized the former King; they gawped and whispered and waved. Serafin waved back, grinning. His cheeks bore more color than Vivia had seen him wear in almost a year.

  She should be happy about that. And she was—she really was. Yet there was something else knotting in her belly. Something she didn’t like that she wished would stop immediately. And it did stop the instant her eyes met Stix’s. The instant Stix smiled, dazzling and bright.

  Heat fanned up Vivia’s neck onto her face, an inescapable blush that happened every time she saw her best friend, and likely would continue until Vivia finally worked up the courage to mention the kiss from the under-city.

  Nothing had been the same since that kiss—a mere brush of Stix’s lips on Vivia’s cheek. And nothing had been the same since Vivia had been labeled Queen-in-Waiting … yet not truly labeled at all, because although the power might have passed from her father to her, the “waiting” part seemed more important to the High Council than the “queen” part.