Witch's Pyre

by Josephine Angelini

  “Enemy,” hissed the bushes all around. The rest of the Pride glided forward, surrounding Lily, Rowan, and Spike.

  “My enemy, too. Fight her,” Lily replied, looking at each member of the Pride in turn.

  The largest female came forward. She looked infinitely bored, like only a cat can, but her agitation was betrayed by the twitching of her tail. She sat down in front of Lily.

  “My pride,” she purred, as if daring Lily to take it away from her.

  Lily nodded in agreement. “Yours. But I can make it stronger.”

  Lily fought her fatigue and filled Rowan’s willstone with as much strength as she could.

  Her newly claimed Pride members watched as Lily and Rowan jumped up onto Spike’s back and he clambered up the trunk of a tall tree and took flight from the topmost branches.

  Find more lions, Lily told her Pride. Bring them back here.

  They rose, stretched, and rubbed their faces against one another languorously before melting into the trees.

  Lily let the drake circle to find the best updrafts in the early morning chill. They soared over to the next valley and found what they were looking for. Three enormous raptors were riding the air currents, scanning the ground for something to eat.

  “Get above one,” Rowan said.

  Lily directed Spike to fly up, and he beat his wings and stretched out his neck, climbing a ladder into the sky.

  When they were high enough and the raptor was just a dark shape beneath them, Rowan put an arm around Lily and swung his legs over to one side of the drake’s neck. Lily felt the hot and cold surges of terror as she took her feet out of the stirrups.

  “Are you sure about this?” Rowan asked.

  “No,” Lily shouted over the whipping wind. Her voice came out choked as it tried to get around her stomach, which was now lodged in her throat. “But it’s the only way.”

  Rowan looked over the side, his face serene as he timed it. Lily saw his willstone pulse as every sense in him sharpened, and he pulled her tightly against his body and launched them off the drake’s neck into thin air.

  Lily shrieked uncontrollably, clutching at Rowan desperately as they fell. Rowan spread his other arm out to the side like a rudder to steer them and slow them down. His willstone pulsed again as he changed the air—thickening it until it was almost as viscous as water. By the time they hit the raptor’s back, Rowan had slowed their descent enough to land gently on the Woven.

  Startled, the raptor tucked its wings and barrel rolled. Rowan pressed Lily flat against the Woven, holding them tightly to it. Lily scrabbled through its feathers, trying to get her hand up to its forehead, like she had with the lion.

  “I can’t reach,” Lily yelled.

  Rowan inched them around while the raptor plummeted to the ground. Lily stretched and strained, and as she neared the raptor’s head she started talking, hoping that the raptor could understand.

  “I need your help!” she yelled. The raptor shrieked in response. Lily grabbed handfuls of feathers and finally got close enough to lay her hands on the raptor’s head. She concentrated on sending images of Grace’s face, and a fantasy of Lily’s army fighting the Hive.

  The raptor kept diving.

  “Please!” Lily screamed desperately.

  The raptor cupped its wings and pulled out of the dive just in time to land softly on the ground. Lily and Rowan were thrown off the raptor’s neck and tumbled across the ground under its enormous beak. Lily stood and looked into a big yellow-and-black eye that was the size of a car windshield. She stared at the Woven and threw all of her will behind showing it what she intended to do. Her willstone wove a glowing mist around her and she strained to make contact with a creature that was not her claimed. The raptor laid its wings across its flanks.

  “I don’t think raptors have any language at all,” Rowan said.

  “I’m trying to fight the witch in the west, but I need an army,” Lily said. “Grace Bendingtree. Do you want to fight her?”

  The Woven cocked its head to look at Rowan, and then trained its eye again on Lily. Rowan started drawing Lily back.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

  The raptor fluffed the feathers on its chest. Lily saw a gently glowing chip buried in the down. She stepped forward, hoping that this was an invitation.

  “I don’t know if you understand, but I’m not here to make you my slave,” Lily said. She reached out and touched the raptor’s willstone.

  The kettle of raptors that Lily had claimed flanked them as she and Rowan sailed over the Woven Woods outside Richmond astride Spike.

  Fan out, she told her raptors, picturing what she needed from them. They had even less language than the Pride, and the concept of individual will was beginning to get blurry. Lily sensed that she might have been able to take their willstones without their consent, but she chose not to. She wanted her raptors to want to fight. The kettle broke their tight formation. They were intelligent enough to understand that she was hunting nests of insect Woven, and that they had flown this far east because she wanted the biggest nests they could find.

  There were so many things about the Woven’s behavior that hadn’t made sense to Lily before she’d understood their origin. One of those things was how the wild Woven clustered just outside the Thirteen Cities. Unlike normal animals that avoided cities, the greatest numbers of insect Woven were always to be found right outside the city walls. Lily understood it now, of course. Grace positioned their nests outside the densest populations, like a line of pawns on a chessboard, to keep the people from ever wanting to venture out.

  One of her raptors found what Lily was looking for. His keen eyes showed her a startlingly bright and clear image of a very large hill of sticks and twigs. The shape and size of it reminded Lily of an English barrow.

  Keep searching. Find all of the big ones, she commanded.

  Lily signaled for her drake to land and, as Spike crashed through the branches of a stately old black walnut tree, Lily could sense Rowan’s hesitance.

  “Whoa, boy,” he said to Spike before they reached the ground.

  Spike obeyed and stopped. He wrapped his tail around the central trunk, clasped the thick lower branches with the hand-like appendages that stuck out of the leading joint of his wings, and hung upside down like a bat. Lily and Rowan clambered awkwardly onto a branch to dismount the upside-down drake.

  “What’s the matter?” Lily asked.

  “Just stay here in the tree for a second, okay?” Rowan snapped. His forehead was furrowed with worry and Lily could see the pulse in his neck throbbing fast. His willstone flared and he jumped out of the tree. He landed silently and stole away toward the nest.

  Lily waited in the tree next to Spike. She reached out and petted his iridescent scales, more to soothe herself than him, until she saw Rowan reappear and signal for her to climb down.

  I don’t like this, he told her in mindspeak.

  Lily knew why. These Woven were not like the Pride and the Pack, or even like the less-organized raptors and simians. These Woven were the most alien, both in looks and behavior. Rowan had been fighting them his whole life and he still didn’t understand them. These particular Woven—the hodgepodge ones that were the odds and ends of insects and reptiles and mammals and birds all thrown together without rhyme or reason—these were the creatures that had chased him in his nightmares since he first learned what it was to fear.

  I don’t think you’re going to be able to communicate with them at all, he said in mindspeak.

  I don’t think so, either, Lily admitted. But I won’t need to. She took his hand and made him meet her eyes. Find the one that laid the eggs. I’ve got a plan.

  You can’t reason with these Woven, he argued.

  I know. That’s why I need the queen. If I claim her, I claim all of her offspring.

  Rowan gave her a questioning look. How do you know that?

  Lily thought for a moment before answering. Grace started with wolves and ape
s and lions because they work in groups and they instinctively follow a leader. They aren’t fully human, and they don’t have self-awareness exactly like we do, so she could bend their will to hers.

  Invade a willstone without shattering it, Rowan thought.

  Yes. But remote claiming forms a weaker bond, and they started breaking away from her. Even if they weren’t human, these kinds of Woven still had wills of their own. Grace had to go to the insect kingdom to get what she needed.

  And what’s that?

  Total, unquestioning obedience. Lily looked at Rowan. Ever wonder why she doesn’t have a human coven?

  Because mechanics argue too much with witches?

  Lily shook her head. “Because you have minds of your own and you can leave us,” she whispered.

  She felt Rowan wanting to say that he would never leave her, but of course, he already had. His face fell when he realized that the complete honesty of mindspeak wouldn’t allow him to make that vow.

  “It’s okay,” she said, “I don’t need you to say that. If I don’t treat you right, you should leave me. All of you. Caleb, Una, Breakfast. Even Juliet.”

  Rowan dropped his gaze in thought. For a moment it looked like he was going to say something.

  “What?” Lily asked. “I know there’s something you’ve been wanting to tell me.” But he shook his head, unwilling to answer.

  “The queen should be close,” he said. “This nest is fresh. Let’s give her a reason to come back and defend it.” Rowan took Lily’s hand and brought her to the top of the mound. “That should get her attention.”

  Rowan had Lily stand tall at the very top while he lay flat against the mound and covered himself with some of the mulch. It wasn’t long before Lily heard something coming through the trees, hissing.

  The queen was enormous—fifteen feet tall, and twice as long. She had eight spidery legs attached to a bony body. Her head was triangular like an alligator’s, but it was her mouth that terrified Lily. As she stalked forward, she hissed another sinister warning and the pincers on either side of her mouth opened to display rows of needle-like teeth as long as Lily’s forearm.

  Lily looked at the queen and deliberately kicked the nest.

  The queen darted forward, her eight legs a blur as she mounted her nest. Lily fought the urge to run and planted her feet. When the queen was just inches from tearing Lily in half, Rowan sprang up from the mulch, jumped astride her back, and wrenched her head back, exposing the queen’s neck. Lily lunged forward, her gorge rising in revulsion, as she placed her hands on the queen’s pebbly skin and searched for the willstone.

  As Lily claimed the queen, she saw as if through neon facets. The world had grown another color around the edges as if a new wavelength of light were now visible. Moving shapes left tracks across her eyes and chemicals lit up the air like dancing motes of information. Fear was not fear—it was extra energy to spur on action. Hate was not hate—it was nails on a chalkboard that needed to be silenced. There was no self. No conscience. No memory. There was only on or off, stop or go, attack or stay.

  Lily separated herself from the exchange and looked at Rowan as he climbed down off the now-docile Woven’s back. She recalled him telling her a story about a little girl from his tribe who had tried to make a pet of one of the insect Woven. A shudder went down her back at the thought of a little girl cuddling up to something like the queen.

  “You were right,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “These Woven are nothing like us.”

  Rowan nodded, also remembering the little girl who had been eaten by her pet. “Do you control the whole nest now?”

  Lily searched inside and felt the web of creatures now bound to her by chemicals and scents. There were thousands spawned by this one queen. “Yes,” she said dully. It was not a pleasant feeling to share mindspace with these unfeeling creatures. “Unfortunately.”

  He took her hand. “Where’s the next nest?” he asked gently.

  Lily reached out to one of her raptors. “About twenty miles from here,” she replied, her gaze far away and eagle sharp.

  Lily heard Lillian calling out for her and allowed contact.

  Breakfast just told us that Red Leaf is teaching Grace how to spirit walk, Lillian said in mindspeak. Red Leaf told him that Grace is learning fast. Our time is up. We need to attack.

  Wait, Lillian. Please. We’re dead if we go with as few fighters as we have now.

  We can’t wait. If Grace learns how to teleport the Hive, the Thirteen Cities will be destroyed in a matter of hours. It’s now or never.

  Don’t use that bomb, Lily pleaded. Give me more time.

  Lily felt Lillian cut her out.

  “What is it?” Rowan asked. Lily shared the exchange with him and he broke into a run, pulling her along behind him.

  Lily heard what sounded like the flapping of a huge sheet and the drake’s talons raked the ground in front of them as it landed. Rowan pulled up short, surprised.

  “I told you they were intelligent,” Lily said. Rowan didn’t argue as they jumped on Spike’s neck and flew to the next nest.

  The hour when Toshi was supposed to have met his contact had long since come and gone, and still, he was stuck tending to Grace. Now he had no way of knowing how the tests for the sting antidote had turned out. He hoped Ivan was having better luck with the pesticide.

  Toshi rolled the cluster of extra serum vials in his pocket between his fingers, unable to tell if they could protect him and Red Leaf during an escape attempt or if it was suicide to try. He played a little game with himself. If more of the vials were facing up than down he would risk it. He pulled them out of his pocket and looked.

  Half up, half down. He’d have to make his own luck.

  “Are you ill?” Grace asked.

  “Tired,” he replied immediately. Respond fast and be as honest as possible.

  “You’ve been working too hard,” Grace said, almost as if she cared about him.

  Toshi couldn’t figure out why she was still acting like everything was normal between them. He knew what she was, and she knew he knew. There didn’t seem to be any purpose to it, and then it occurred to him. Maybe this was normal for her.

  Grace took the long silence as an invitation to bait him some more. “Or is it Mala keeping you up at night?” she asked with a tilted eyebrow.

  “Mala?” Toshi repeated, and then he remembered. They were supposed to be engaged. He hadn’t seen Mala in days, and he was quite sure that Grace knew that. “I wish,” he said playfully. “But, no. I’ve just been working.”

  Grace studied him with hard eyes, her teeth grinding together faintly. She wanted him to confess. That’s why she was playing this game. She wanted to hear from Toshi that his involvement with Mala was a lie. Red Leaf stirred and Grace turned her attention to him.

  “Give him another dose,” she said.

  “I don’t think keeping him unconscious is—”

  “Give him another dose,” she ordered. “I don’t want him contacting anyone.”

  “You’ll kill him,” Toshi said quietly.

  She huffed, as if Red Leaf’s death would be nothing more than an annoying inconvenience for her. “Fine,” she said. “I may as well go under again, then. I’ll keep him in the overworld myself.” She lay down next to Red Leaf on the floor, laughing. “I know I’m getting close because he keeps insisting that he won’t show me any more,” she said excitedly.

  Toshi looked at Red Leaf in sympathy, wondering what kind of emotional damage Grace was doing to him in the overworld. Grace slipped into cold stillness and the Warrior Sisters guarding her grew anxious. To them it seemed as if Grace were dying, and even though Grace had explained it to them, they still got frantic when she left her body.

  One of them prodded Toshi with the handle of her whip, indicating he should attend to Grace. Toshi held up his hands, signaling that there was nothing he could do. At least he hoped that’s what he was signaling. He had to get out of this room. He had
to get to the lab.

  He stood up and crossed to the door. Two Warrior Sisters barred his exit, their wings buzzing.

  “I have to go get medicine,” he said, overenunciating his words. Little good it did him. He picked up an empty dose of the drug he’d been using on Red Leaf. “Medicine,” he repeated, pointing to it.

  One of the other Warrior Sisters picked up one of full doses that were left on the table and showed it to him as if to say you still have more. They weren’t stupid, but what they understood and what they didn’t was still a mystery to him.

  He took the medicine from her and pointed at Red Leaf, nodding. Then he pointed at Grace and shook his head dramatically, still holding up the vial. “Bad for her. Need different medicine,” he said.

  The two Warrior Sisters by the door twitched their heads atop their stalk-like necks and stepped away from the door. Toshi made for the door as if walking on a tightrope. Three Workers attached themselves to him, one of them positioning her stinger right over his jugular. She clung to him tighter than usual, as if in warning.

  As soon as he was out the door, Toshi walked to the lab. He had no idea how long Grace would remain spirit walking, and when she woke it was possible she’d decide that she’d had enough of toying with him and order the Worker to kill him. He took one of the vials out of his pocket, twisted it open, and tipped the few drops inside onto his tongue, figuring the illusion of safety was better than nothing.

  As Toshi approached the lab he saw an orderly line of people snaking through the hallway. He glanced out a window and saw that the line went outside and all the way down the street. At the head of the line Mala was calmly distributing vials of the antidote.

  “Where’s Ivan?” Toshi asked.

  “Inside. Making more,” she answered. “We thought you were keeping Grace occupied.” Her eyes were wide and staring with fear, but she was breathing slowly, forcing herself to keep it together. “We need you to keep her occupied,” she stressed.