Windwitch

by Susan Dennard

  Magic skated over him from the lock-spells, briefly shattering the ringing in his ears. Then he was out of Kullen’s home and hurrying downstairs. A blur of people and hunger and noise, before he finally joined the packed streets outside. Rain misted down—would it ever stop?—and each of Merik’s steps fell harder than the last.

  This is your fault, he told himself. After all, Merik had been the one to insist Safi reach Lejna, where the Marstoks had been waiting to claim her. If only he’d abandoned his contract with Dom Eron fon Hasstrel … If only he’d stayed by Safi’s side atop that cliff instead of flying off to meet Kullen.

  He’d lost Kullen in the end anyway. But I could have saved Safi. I should have saved Safi.

  And Noden curse Merik, but how prophetic her last words to him had been: “I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.”

  She’d been right, and it was Merik’s fault.

  He shambled onto a side street, no idea which one. As soon as the rain droplets hit they steamed off the street, curling into a fog. Transforming the world into one indistinguishable uniformity. Every figure looked the same, every building blended into the next.

  Another leftward veer, and this time Merik reached a familiar set of columns. Up Merik tramped, into the temple’s darkness. The air turned instantly cooler; shadows sucked him in.

  Twenty more paces, his feet dragging over the flagstones, and he was once more before the frescoes of Noden’s saints.

  It was then that the earth shook, dropping him to his knees. One heartbeat, two—the stones rattled. The city rumbled. Then as quickly as it had struck, the quake was past, leaving Merik with a booming heart and muscles braced for more.

  But when more never came, Merik gulped in a calming breath and lifted his head to the fresco of the god’s Left Hand.

  To the beast that he had become.

  “What should I do, Kull?” Merik gazed at the fresco’s gruesome face, half expecting it to answer. But nothing came. It never would. Kullen—and these stones—would remain silent forever.

  Except that in the silence came a thought. Something Aunt Evrane had always said whenever she scolded Merik: The Fury never forgets, Merik. Whatever you have done will come back to you tenfold, and it will haunt you until you make amends.

  Merik slowly swiveled his wrists, reveling in how the new skin protested. How the blistered, dirt-lined strips tore apart. He was haunted by his mistakes, but maybe … If he tilted his head at just the right angle, he could view this not as a curse but as a gift.

  The assassin in the night. The fire on the Jana. The woman in Judgment Square. Each event had led Merik here, to Noden’s temple. To a fresco of the god’s Left Hand.

  And only a fool ignored Noden’s gifts.

  Why do you hold a razor in one hand?

  “So men remember,” Merik whispered to the stones, “that I am sharp as any edge.”

  And why do you hold broken glass in the other?

  “So men remember that I am always watching.”

  Take the god’s gift. Become the Fury.

  It was time to become the monster Merik had been all along. No more numbed distance. No more fighting the Nihar temper. Only vicious, hungry heat.

  One for the sake of many; vengeance for those he’d lost.

  It was time to make amends. Time to bring justice to the wronged. Time to bring punishment to the wicked.

  Merik knew exactly where to begin.

  TEN

  Safi wished she were dead. At least then she could return as a ghost to terrorize these Hell-Bards.

  They hadn’t taken Safi or Vaness into the settlement. They hadn’t even stopped nearby. Only the woman, Lev, had cut off from the group to vanish into the jungle. Which direction she’d taken, Safi couldn’t guess.

  One moment, Lev was there, walking silent as a deer behind the commander, who trod behind Safi. Then suddenly Lev was gone, and when Safi glanced back to scan the dense foliage, she earned a blade against her topmost vertebra.

  “Keep moving, Heretic.”

  Heretic. It was the word for an unregistered witch in the Empire of Cartorra. It was the word for fugitives of the law.

  And it was what the Hell-Bards were sworn to recognize and to eliminate. They could sense hidden witcheries. They could hunt hidden witches.

  “My feet hurt, Hell-Bard.”

  “Good for you.”

  “My wrists hurt too.”

  “Fascinating.”

  Safi offered a sweet smile over her shoulder. “You’re a bastard.”

  No reaction from within his helm. Just a metallic, “That’s what they tell me.”

  Well, Safi was only just warming up. “Where are we going?”

  The commander didn’t answer that one. So onward she pressed: “When will we get there?”

  Still nothing.

  “What poison did you give the empress? Do you plan to feed us, or will starvation run its course? And do all Hell-Bards waddle like a duck, or is it just you?”

  When he still refused to offer a reaction: “I will scream, you know.”

  A sigh bounced from his helmet. “And I will gag you, Heretic. That little trick you attempted by folding your wrists? It won’t work with a gag.”

  That shut up Safi. Though not because of the threat in his words but rather the lack of anything else. No truth, no lies. None of the Hell-Bards registered with her witchery. How, she wanted to know, was such a thing possible?

  It was the only thing Safi had learned about her opponents since capture, and it was of no use for an escape. Nonetheless, when an opportunity finally came, she was ready for it.

  Vaness woke up.

  It wasn’t a gradual, groggy glide into awareness, but rather a panicked, predatory explosion. One moment, the empress lay limp in the giant’s arms while Zander crossed a low gully. He had to lean forward to climb, his body awkwardly angled.

  Meanwhile, Safi had paused ten paces behind, the commander’s sword keeping her still. She watched Zander, impressed by how easily he carted Vaness up a rise almost as tall as he.

  Halfway up the hill, though, Vaness became a hurricane.

  She kicked. She screamed. She fell to the ground while Zander fought to stay upright.

  The empress was on her feet before Safi’s mind had even processed the awakening. And Vaness was running away before the giant or the commander—or Safi too—could chase after.

  Vaness didn’t get far, though. Zander’s legs were twice as long, and he grabbed her from behind in mere seconds. She screeched like a Cleaved.

  It was enough time for Safi to make a move. More than enough time. She dropped to her knees, spinning backward. With her torso, she tackled into the commander’s knees, then lifted her left shoulder into his groin. Even with a long brigandine on, it had to hurt.

  He certainly dropped fast enough, his back slamming into the streambed’s wall.

  Then Safi kicked—a hard side thrust of her heel into his exposed throat.

  Except she missed and got a leather-clad shoulder instead.

  The commander roared. A bellow of pain. Far more pain than the move should have earned, and he released his longsword—as if the muscles in his arm and hand had ceased to work.

  He’s hurt, Safi realized. She charged her heel once more into his left shoulder.

  He doubled over.

  She kicked again.

  His knees buckled.

  She kicked again and again until he fell back, hands clutched against his shoulder. Head lolling back. His helmet slipped off to reveal his face.

  Safi froze.

  It took her half a shallow breath to sort out what she saw. He looked so familiar … and yet so foreign.

  Maybe it was the stubble that had grown across his jaw, or maybe it was the blood crusted down the left side of his face, as if his ear had been punched and the blood left to ooze for several days.

  Or maybe it was simply the fact that the odds of the Chiseled Cheater being here—of him being a Hell-Bard command
er …

  It was unfathomable. Impossible.

  Hell-Bard commander … what had Lev said? Fitz Grieg. Caden Fitz Grieg.

  Never, never could Safi have guessed he’d be the Chiseled Cheater. He was the reason she was here. He had stolen her money after a taro game, and it was that trickery that had lit the fuse on all events to come.

  If Caden hadn’t stolen her money, Safi wouldn’t have tried to steal it back the next day. If she hadn’t tried to steal it back, she wouldn’t have held up the wrong carriage. If she hadn’t held up the wrong carriage, the Bloodwitch monk would never have gotten her scent. And if the Bloodwitch had never gotten her scent, she’d probably be free right now.

  Free and with Iseult at her side.

  Never could Safi have predicted that Caden would be the man behind that helmet. She had spit every time she’d said his name, and she’d vowed if she ever saw him again, she’d shred his face right off his high cheekbones.

  Behind Safi, the sounds of struggle continued. Vaness’s cries and kicks. Zander’s grunts and clanking armor. Safi scarcely noticed. All she could do was absorb the Chiseled Cheater’s face and try to assemble the pieces of a story she didn’t understand.

  Perhaps if she’d had a chance at actual escape, she would have tried. Perhaps if she’d seen a way to wrestle Vaness from Zander’s grasp and that cursed collar, Safi would have tried that too.

  But that wasn’t the terrain before her, and she had too many questions churning to life like a stirred-up wasps’ nest.

  Which was why Safi didn’t notice when Lev returned from her excursion to the settlement. It was why Safi didn’t try to fight when Lev emerged directly behind her and kicked out her knee. Then, when the Chiseled Cheater, wincing, hefted up his helmet and became the Hell-Bard commander once more, Safi simply observed mutely. Even when they wound a rope around her ankles so she couldn’t run or kick or fight, she let them.

  Yet when the commander wrenched Safi around and growled, “Nice try, Heretic,” Safi finally reacted. She grinned.

  It had been a nice try, and worth the swelling right knee. Because she had learned more about her opponents than she’d ever expected. She knew the giant was strong but slow. The commander favored his right side in a fight because he was hurt—and his old wounds could clearly be reopened.

  Best of all, Safi knew the Hell-Bards wouldn’t hurt her. The commander could have as soon as the fight had begun. He could have sliced her open—just enough to slow her, and Lev could have taken Safi down with a lot more force than she’d actually used.

  Yet neither Hell-Bard had hurt Safi or Vaness. Which meant they wanted both women alive. Unharmed. Or rather, the Emperor of Cartorra wants us alive and unharmed.

  It gave Safi power, even with her legs bound and the empress collared.

  The next time Lady Fate offered up an opportunity, Safi would be ready.

  * * *

  The sun was hidden by rain clouds when Aeduan awoke. He couldn’t gauge how long he’d been out, but he was certain it was longer than he ever allowed himself. His magic had demanded energy from somewhere, and when food wasn’t an option, unconsciousness it had to be.

  It had been a shallow sleep. The kind where dreams fused with reality. Where he thought he was awake, but upon actual waking, he could see how strange the world had been. Bear traps as big as a man. Pine needles sticky with a blood that would never dry. Rain to flay off fresh skin.

  And the scent of silver talers, ever present in Aeduan’s nose.

  His eyes snapped wide. With his new muscles protesting and the skin stretching too tightly, Aeduan hauled himself into a sitting position. His clothes were soaked through.

  A quick glance around the area showed nothing save a gray sky rippling overhead and fresh mud all around, while a quick inhale revealed nothing dangerous near. He turned his attention to his healed leg. The breeches were shredded, and the new pink wet skin gleamed in the cloudy light. It itched, but he ignored that, instead crawling stiffly on all fours toward the talers.

  The bag hadn’t moved since Aeduan’s blind stumble into the bear trap. With his hands trembling ever so slightly from exhaustion, he lifted the sack and peered inside.

  A branch cracked.

  Aeduan lurched to his feet. His vision spun, yet he smelled no one.

  “Don’t move,” said a voice in Nomatsi. Directly behind him.

  The Threadwitch. Of course it would be her, yet Aeduan couldn’t decide if Lady Fate was favoring him or cursing him.

  He chose the latter when the Threadwitch said, “I removed your knives. They’re hidden.”

  In his mindless drive for the coins, he’d entirely forgotten the blades. Fool.

  He twisted toward her, calling in Dalmotti, “I do not need my knives to kill you, Threadwitch.” Rain began to pelt his neck, his scalp.

  The girl expelled a harsh breath before circling into the clearing. She wore Aeduan’s cloak, turned inside out. Smart, even if it was against Monastery rules. One step became ten, until she paused at what would have been a safe distance against anyone but a Bloodwitch. Aeduan could tackle her before she blinked.

  Instead, he let his arms hang limp at his sides. He could attack, but information was better earned through conversation. At least so Monk Evrane always said.

  Then again, Monk Evrane had also said this girl was half the Cahr Awen, that mythical pair their Monastery was sworn to protect. Aeduan found it unlikely, though—not merely that this girl could be half of that pair, but that the Cahr Awen even existed.

  “Where are the rest of my coins, Threadwitch?”

  No answer, and for three heartbeats they simply eyed each other through the rain. Droplets streaked down her face, leaving trails of white amid the dirt. She looked thinner than two weeks before. Her cheekbones poked through transparent skin, her eyes sagged.

  “Where are the rest of my coins?” Aeduan repeated. “And how did you get them?”

  Her nose wiggled. A sign, Aeduan guessed, that she was thinking.

  The rain fell heavier now, pooling atop the mud. Rolling down the Monastery cloak that Aeduan wanted back. His own filthy wool coat was sodden through.

  As if following his thoughts, the girl said in Nomatsi, “I’ve found us shelter.”

  “Us?” Aeduan asked, still in Dalmotti. “What do you think this is, Threadwitch?”

  “An … alliance.”

  He laughed. A raw sound that rumbled from his stomach and clashed with the distant thunder overhead. He and the Threadwitch were, if anything, enemies. After all, he had been hired to deliver her to Corlant.

  Aeduan was intrigued, though. It wasn’t often people surprised him, and it was even less often that people challenged him. The Threadwitch did more than that.

  She perplexed him. He had no idea what she might say next. What she might do next.

  Aeduan sniffed the air once. No blood-scents hit his witchery, yet something did prickle his nose …

  The damp smoke. Run, my child, run.

  “Dinner,” the Threadwitch explained, stalking past Aeduan. She moved as if nothing had happened between them. As if the rain wasn’t falling and she hadn’t stolen his Carawen blades.

  And as if turning her back on a Bloodwitch wasn’t a fool’s move.

  Aeduan took his time walking. A few test steps with his newly healed leg. A stiff scooping motion to retrieve the abandoned coins. Then, when no traps sprang up to hold him and no pain burst forth, Aeduan shifted into a jog, following the Threadwitch wherever she might lead.

  * * *

  Safi’s boots were far too large. They rubbed sores onto her heels—yet that was nothing compared to the raw skin at her wrists, where the Hell-Bard rope scraped and dug. Meanwhile, the rope at her ankles had sunk into the loose tops of her new boots and sloughed off the skin.

  Each step burned.

  Safi reveled in the pain. A distraction from the fire that gathered in her gut.

  Hell-Bard Commander Fitz Grieg.

  Ca
den.

  The Chiseled Cheater.

  There was that scar on his chin—it peeked out from his helmet. She remembered it from Veñaza City. Just as she remembered the confidence in his smile, and the manner he had of regarding a person dead on, no blinking. No looking away.

  All those lifetimes ago in Veñaza City, Safi had thought that smile and the intensity of his stare were … interesting. Appealing, even.

  Now, she wanted nothing more than to rip them off his face.

  Safi’s boot snagged on a root. She tumbled forward. Rope fibers sliced into already bloodied flesh, and against her pride’s greatest desire, she sucked in sharply.

  “Stop, Heretic.” The commander released her ropes before moving in front of her and helping her to rise. Then, from a satchel on his belt, he withdrew two strips of beige linen like the sort used for binding wounds.

  “Give me your hands.”

  Safi complied, and to her shock, he wound the cloths around her wrists, blocking the harsh ropes from her open flesh. “I should have done this at the start,” he said. His tone was neither apologetic nor accusatory. Merely observational.

  It was then, while staring at the top of his dirty helmet, that a realization hit Safi. One that made her lungs hitch a second time.

  What if Caden had told the Cartorran Emperor about Safi’s magic? What if the reason Emperor Henrick knew Safi was a Truthwitch—the reason he’d wanted her as his betrothed—was because of this Hell-Bard before her?

  The Chiseled Cheater had tricked her. Then the Hell-Bard commander had trapped her.

  Safi was beyond anger. Beyond temper. This was her life now—forever running, forever changing hands from one enemy to the next until eventually the enemy severed her neck. It had been inevitable, really. Her magic had cursed her from the day she was born.

  But Iseult …

  Iseult was out there somewhere, forced on the run as well. Forced to give up the life she’d built in Veñaza City all because of Safi. All because of the Chiseled Cheater.

  Cold hate spread through Safi’s body. Throbbed against the ropes, pulsed in the tips of her blistered fingers and toes.

  The hatred grew when they resumed marching. Hours of agony until at last the Hell-Bards halted for a break. Zander tied Safi to a lichen-veiled beech, and she let him. Even when the knobs of old branches poked into her back, she didn’t fight him. Nor when he pulled up her arms, straining them behind her and forcing her back to arch. Then he tied off the rope high—so uncomfortably high—and her feet low. She was trussed up like the duck Mathew always roasted on her birthday.