Bloodwitch

by Susan Dennard

  But I can’t hear you! she had mentally screamed a thousand times in the past two weeks. Twice, she had even slipped up and barked it aloud.

  Her only relief came from Pin’s Keep. The boisterous bustle of the crowded main room, where the homeless and hungry came for food. Where all that noise could, for a time, drown out the maddening whispers. But only in the under-city did Stix feel truly at home.

  There, the whispers shifted from furious to cajoling. Come, they seemed to say in words that had no meaning. Come this way, keep coming.

  Every night Stix followed, knowing tomorrow she would regret it. Tomorrow, she would be exhausted with her head pounding and the whispers returned. But the call of the city was always stronger, and every night, she gave in.

  Even now, when Stix should have been helping families move in or overseeing dam reconstruction, she wasn’t. It was her father’s birthday too, and she’d promised him a trip to the Cleaved Man. Instead, here she was, standing in front of this door to nowhere. Again. But there were no more answers here than there had been last night or any other night before it. Only the faint hum of Come this way, keep coming.

  “I can’t,” Stix told them. Then she rubbed her eyes—by the Twelve, they burned—and turned away.

  * * *

  Stix was in the Cisterns, tracing the same path Vivia would have taken to reach the surface, when she passed a marking on the limestone wall. It wasn’t new; she’d seen it a hundred times before today.

  For some reason, though, today it gave her pause. For some reason, even though water thundered this way through the tunnel, Stix’s feet slowed. Her gaze raked up and down the image.

  It was a relief of Lady Baile, patron saint of change, seasons, and crossroads. In one hand, she held a trout, and in the other, wheat. The limestone saint stood as tall as Stix, so worn by time that her fox-shaped mask was missing. Actually, most of the head was missing.

  But not the eyes, and it was the eyes that had hooked Stix’s attention. It was the eyes that were causing the voices to rustle and churn.

  This time, though, they spoke in a language she knew—and this time, they were telling her where to go. Telling her how to come and keep coming.

  “Hye,” she said, the sound lost to the waters rushing this way. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Abruptly, the choir in her skull silenced. Then the Cistern tide reached her. Frothy, violent, and bound to the magic singing in Stix’s veins. She let it carry her away, because there was no reason to retrace Vivia’s steps now. No reason to return to Queen’s Hill or travel to the dam.

  Stix needed to go south.

  Come this way, keep coming.

  SEVEN

  Aeduan awoke, confused. There had been pain and fire and impossible dreams—dreams he could not quite remember. Iseult had been there, though, while they slept within a pyre beside a spring.

  When his eyelids scratched up, soft light seared into them. He was in the cave that Owl had made, where the mountain bat’s stink overpowered all other smells. But not his magic. He sensed Owl nearby, the rosewater- and wool-wrapped lullabies that thrummed inside her veins. And if she was still here, then Iseult must still be here too. Not just in dreams but in waking.

  He had no explanation for why Iseult had remained, nor could he deny the relief seeping through him that she had.

  Clearing his throat, Aeduan twisted sideways—only to find Owl squatting beside him, her big, teardrop eyes unblinking.

  “Breakfast,” she declared, thrusting a wooden bowl at Aeduan’s face. Earthworms wriggled within, and it took all Aeduan’s self-control not to recoil. Instead, he sat up. His blanket fell back; cold air swept against him. For some reason, he was missing his shirt.

  “Blueberry’s favorite,” Owl explained, and as if to prove the point, the beast ducked out from the back of the cave, where shadows reigned. The musty bat stench rolled over Aeduan. His breath steamed into Aeduan’s face.

  The worms continued to writhe.

  Owl shoved the bowl in closer. “Eat.”

  Aeduan accepted the bowl, which set Blueberry to snuffing right in his ear. Hot, damp snuffs. He waved Blueberry back and glanced toward the sliver of daylight that marked the entrance. “I … need water first, Owl.”

  The girl seemed satisfied with this, and after watching Aeduan stumble to his feet, she snuggled into the still-warm blankets and Blueberry settled down behind her.

  Rock scraped Aeduan’s chest as he slid outside. Gooseflesh prickled down his exposed skin. The air here was much colder, even with sunlight to warm the midmorning fog. He shivered and forced his feet to move away from the cave and to the edge of evergreens. Once there, where undergrowth and moss clotted thick, he dumped the bowl of worms. Three days since Owl had started speaking again, and already she’d become a wealth of trouble.

  Aeduan placed the empty bowl atop a stone for later retrieval, yet as he stood there crouched over, an ache stung at his chest—like a dagger between the ribs. Without warning, he coughed. And coughed. And coughed. The onslaught would not subside, until eventually, a soft hand came to his back. Cautious. Concerned. Startling enough to give him pause. Then the Threadwitch’s inscrutable face swung down to peer into his. “Are you all right?”

  Aeduan did not try to straighten. Shadows crossed his vision. Frustration throbbed in his chest. What was this weakness? What was this ailment? His magic should have healed him by now. “What … happened?” he asked from a throat made of acid.

  “I was going to ask you the same.” She helped him rise. Her hands were warm against his skin. “Do you not remember returning?”

  “No,” he admitted. Iseult was near enough for him to spot streaks of green in her eyes. To spot how cold had colored her nose to pink. It reminded him of his dream with gentle flames and serenity on her face. She had uttered his name, her eyes never opening, and her fingers had gripped at his hips and stolen his breath.

  She stole his breath now, and he had no breath to spare.

  He jerked away from her. The conifers dipped and bled. “Where is my shirt?”

  A flush swept up her cheeks. She motioned vaguely up the hill. “It’s drying. I-I … washed it.”

  “Oh.” He forced himself to straighten fully. It made everything hurt. “I will get it then.” He shifted as if to stride away, but either the movement was too quick, or his body was truly too weak, for the black rushed in once more. With it came coughing. Then the Threadwitch’s fingers were upon him once more, and when she guided him toward a low campfire and helped him to sit, he did not protest.

  He could not protest.

  A pot sat beside the dying fire, a damp cloth dangling from one side. Iseult scooped water into a cup. “Drink.”

  He complied, and though the warm liquid felt like broken glass against his throat, he welcomed the pain. It sent the black scampering away. The coughing too.

  “If you had let me come with you,” Iseult said while he drank, “then I could have helped you navigate the path.” It was an argument they’d had three times before: should Iseult join him or should she stay with Owl? If she came, then she could read the Nomatsi road and help Aeduan reach the slaughter sites uninjured. If she remained, she could prevent Owl and Blueberry from generating inevitable trouble.

  “The traps were mostly triggered when I arrived,” he said. A lie. Although there had been several corpses, dressed in what he now realized was Purist gray, the bulk of the road had been navigated without triggering any protections.

  Aeduan could only assume that the men who attacked knew what they were doing. The Nomatsi tribe had been killed without warning, just as the previous two had been.

  He finished the water before saying: “It was the largest tribe yet. All dead.”

  “Oh.” A mere sigh of sound, of resignation, even as Iseult’s face stayed impassive. “But if the traps were triggered, how did you get hit with so many arrows?”

  “I found someone still alive. A monk. But he was not trained to fight. I … ha
d to deal with him.”

  Iseult’s eyes widened. A fraction of a movement, yet enough for Aeduan to catch. Enough for him to add, “I did not kill him,” even if he did not know why he wanted to clarify. “He was wounded when I found him, and after he died, I stayed to bury him. That was when I triggered the traps.”

  Another soft sigh. Then she sank into a cross-legged position beside him. “Did he see who attacked them?”

  Aeduan nodded, though instantly wished he hadn’t. The world spun. “The monk,” he forced out, eyes wincing shut, “said it was the Purists.”

  “Not raiders then?”

  “I do not know.” Again, a lie, but he saw no reason to tell Iseult that he knew of Purists working with the Raider King. That he knew of one Purist in particular, working with his father.

  “Corlant,” she said, filling in one of the gaps on her own. “He was there, wasn’t he?” Without waiting for a reply, she tugged something from her coat pockets, then opened her hands for Aeduan to see.

  Two arrowheads shone black against her pale palms. Both bits of iron were bloodstained, but only one gave off any blood-scent—Aeduan’s own.

  “This one injured me in Dalmotti.” She furled her left fingers into a fist. “And this one I pulled from you at dawn. I think they’re cursed. No,” she amended, head shaking, “I know they are. Owl called it ‘bad earth.’”

  Bad earth. He glanced down at his chest, at the six old scars that marked his flesh and the four new puckers on his belly—puckers that should not be there at all, just as the seventeen holes in his back should not be there either. He’d had more than enough time to heal.

  “Corlant,” Iseult continued, “can do that. He…” She tapped at her right biceps. “He almost killed me with a cursed arrow in Dalmotti.” There was a strain to her voice now, like a fiddle pulled too tight. “I was unconscious for a long time. I-I almost died.”

  “That cannot happen to me. I am a Bloodwitch.”

  She shrugged as if to say How can you be so sure? Aloud, though, she said: “Why was he with this tribe? The Midenzis are on the other side of the Jadansi. Unless…” She trailed off, a tiny frown wrinkling her brow.

  Aeduan offered no reply. Lying did not come naturally to him, and he had already pushed his limits. Silence seemed his best option now.

  For a long moment, Iseult gazed at him, unblinking. As inscrutable as all Threadwitches were trained to be. Behind her, the fire popped, and a final burst of flame guttered upward. Smoke gathered. A soft breeze pitched across Aeduan’s bare skin.

  He wanted his shirt back.

  “We need a proper healer,” Iseult said at last, giving a pointed glance to Aeduan’s stomach. “We need better healing supplies, too, and we’re out of lanolin for our blades.”

  We, Aeduan thought, and before he could argue—before he could ask Why we? or even Why did you wait the whole night instead of leaving?—Iseult was on her feet and circling behind him. Trails from the movement streaked across his vision. Smoke and flesh and flame.

  “You’re bleeding again,” she murmured. Then her fingers were on him once more, warm and sure while she pressed the damp cloth to his back. He hadn’t even seen her pick it up.

  “No.” He reached around to take the cloth from her hand. “I can do it,” he tried to say, but the twisting in his ribs, the stretching of the wounds down his back, set his lungs to spasming once more.

  This time, the coughing would not abate. Even after two cups of water, he could not suck in enough air. So when Iseult tried a second time to dab away the blood that never stopped falling, he did not protest.

  Nor did he protest when she said, “We should go to Tirla, Aeduan. I know it is a Marstoki stronghold, but we can find a healer in a city that size. And we can get fresh supplies too.”

  We, we, we.

  The damp cloth felt like razors against his skin. Everything hurt in ways that it should not, and his shredded throat would soon bleed if he did not stop this coughing. He was weak; he hated it. Carawen monks were meant to be prepared for anything, and Aeduan had always prided himself on being doubly so. Yet over the last two weeks, he’d been ill-equipped and constantly unsteady.

  It didn’t help that Aeduan had never worked for free before. It was a nagging pressure along the back of his neck. Like words tickling: You should be getting paid. Each moment that passes is another coin lost. It was also another moment in which he had not contacted his father or pursued the coins owed to him.

  Two weeks ago, Aeduan would have followed the scent of clear lakes and frozen winters—the ghost who had stolen his coins and aided Prince Leopold in Nubrevna. Two weeks ago, he would have also returned to Lejna and claimed those coins from where Iseult said they were hidden. And two weeks ago, he would have looked at each passing massacre and felt nothing. After all, death was inevitable in wartime, and as his father always said: Life is the price of justice.

  But two weeks ago, he had not found Owl, bound and drugged by raiders claiming his father’s banner. Two weeks ago, he had not encountered dead Nomatsi tribes and recognized the scents of his father’s men amidst the slaughter.

  And two weeks ago, he had not been traveling with a woman to whom he owed more life-debts than he could keep track of, and with more life-debts stacking between them each day.

  Like right now. She tended him, and Aeduan did not know why—nor did he know how to tally such ministrations. He simply knew he was indebted. He simply knew he could not leave until he had paid her back.

  And there was still the problem of Owl’s missing tribe. Of the scent like summer heather and impossible choices, still alive. Still somewhere in the mountains ahead.

  “Yes,” Aeduan agreed at last, a ragged sound between coughs. “Let us go to Tirla.”

  * * *

  It had been raining on the day Aeduan learned his father still lived. Aeduan had gone to a Monastery outpost in Tirla for his next Carawen assignment. So many had requested him specifically in those days, and this time was no different. One mission, however, had caught his attention above the rest.

  He could remember the words exactly.

  Bloodwitch monk needed to find a hound named Boots

  Meet at farmstead north of Tirla, blue wind-flags above the gate

  Aeduan’s childhood dog had been named Boots. He had killed that dog; maybe he could save this one.

  Except that when he reached the dilapidated farmstead, there was only a man waiting to see him in a small house with a thatched roof.

  Aeduan drew a knife before entering. He did not sheathe it for many hours, even though the man seated on the stool beside the hearth was an unmistakable reflection of Aeduan—except for the lines around hazel eyes and a gray fringe that brightened his hair.

  “It is you,” the man had said in a gravelly voice that hummed deep in Aeduan’s chest. A voice that still told the story of the monster and the honey in Aeduan’s dreams.

  Aeduan did not put away his knife. He did not react at all, even as the man rose. Even as he said, “Aeduan, my son.”

  Ghosts, after all, did not return from the dead.

  “You’re alive.” The man spoke Nomatsi, a language Aeduan had not used in over a decade. “I … thought you were dead.”

  Aeduan had thought the same. He said nothing, though, and neither man sat. Both men stared.

  “Your mother,” the man began, a question in his tone.

  But Aeduan shook his head. A single hard snap. Dysi had not survived. Aeduan would not say so aloud.

  A pained inhale from the man, before he gave a curt, almost businesslike nod. “Twice I have loved,” he said. “Twice empires have taken everything from me.” Then he swallowed. He frowned, and for the first time in many, many years, Aeduan recalled that yes, his father had had another family. Daughters and a wife that had died.

  “So you must see,” the man continued, “why having my son returned to me … It is more than I ever dared hope.” He spoke so simply, as if commenting on the weather. As if des
cribing how best to evade an enemy’s blow.

  Such flat tones for such desperate words, yet somehow, this made their meaning cut deeper, and for the first time since entering the thatched-roof house, Aeduan spoke.

  “Tell me where you have been.”

  His father complied.

  Aeduan learned that in the fifteen years since the attack on their tribe, Ragnor had moved to Arithuania, following Nomatsis on the run and witches cast out by their empires. He learned his father had built an army meant to end imperial tyranny once and for all.

  And he learned that his father had a place for him at his side, if Aeduan was willing to take it.

  Aeduan was.

  In the end, the blood-scent had convinced him that this man was indeed his father. It had changed in fifteen years, though—the bloodied iron and sleeping ice might still remain, but gone were the nighttime songs and the loving hounds that he remembered. Now there was fire. Now there was inconsolable loss. It stained every piece of Ragnor’s blood. It gave his eyes a weight that no one else could understand.

  No one but Aeduan, who had been there on the day everything had been taken away from them.

  In the end, it was Ragnor’s words that had convinced Aeduan to actually join him. And since that day in the thatched-roof house, his course had been so clear. Aeduan had never second-guessed. He had never hesitated. Coin and the cause. Coin and the cause. No space for personal wants, and no desire for them either. He had given up hope so very long ago. There was only action, only moving forward. Coin and the cause. Coin and the cause.

  Until two weeks ago.

  Now everything was muddied. Now Aeduan felt trapped between duty and life-debts. Between his father and a child. He could not fully serve Ragnor while also searching for Owl’s tribe. He could not find Owl a home—or repay Iseult what he owed—while also remaining committed to coin and the cause.

  He was caught, like the man from the tale who wanted to feed his family during a blizzard, but could not bear to kill the lamb. In the end, everyone died of starvation, including the lamb.