The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  Why can’t I breathe?

  Something bites my hand.

  It barely registers the first time, but the second bite is harder, more determined. My brain has detached from my body, but I manage to turn my head on a robotic impulse, looking down. At first, I can see only roving shadows. I blink away unshed tears I didn’t know had pooled.

  Boom stares up at me. When our eyes meet, he whines, licking a slobbery, warm trail up the back of the hand he was just gnawing on.

  Seeing him here, this far away from the safety of his clearing, is enough of a surprise to jar me back from the edge. Just a little. Enough that I no longer feel I’m about to topple over.

  I press my palm against the top of his head and scratch behind his ears. He whines again, turning his head against my fingers to lick my wrist.

  My lungs inflate. But the tears really come as soon as I’m breathing again.

  Ass, meet dirt. I drag my knees up near my shoulders, and Boom presses in between my legs, shoving his massive body against me as tight as it’ll go.

  My nose finds his neck and I bury my face in his thick, black fur, letting the wave crash over me. My body heaves, torso rolling like it’s trying to force the emotion up and out of my mouth, like I could simply expel it from my system. My hands shake, wrapping around the back of Boom’s front legs, cleaving to him while he nuzzles and licks my head.

  Why am I crying? I have shit to do, important shit to do, and I’m sitting on the forest floor crying like some kind of ridiculous baby.

  I need to get up. I need to get up, but I can’t seem to make my legs work, can’t seem to do anything but cry, and the longer I cry, the angrier I get at myself for the crying, and the angrier I get, the harder I cry. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to lose my lungs again.

  What is wrong with me?

  “Oh, shit. Tee, it’s Wyatt.”

  “Wyatt?” A rustling to the side of me, and then a voice at my back, words floating delicately around my skull to tickle at my earlobes. “Oh, Wyatt. Hey. Hey. Wade, give us a minute.”

  A hand presses against my spine, and a soft touch sweeps its way up and down, from the back of my neck to the waistband of my jeans. Even through the thick material of my hoodie, I can feel the cooling whisper of Tessa’s hand, lavender energy sliding over me, blanketing me.

  For some reason, it only makes me cry harder.

  “Big-ass dog, move,” Tessa mumbles, pushing at Boom’s shoulders until he gives a little growl and pulls away from me, only enough to lie down in the dirt at my side.

  One of my hands stays tangled in his fur. The other rises to my face, desperately trying to rub away the tears and snot and puffy redness that’s taken over.

  “Wyatt, what happened?”

  “I fuck everything up!” And I didn’t know I was going to say it before I say it, but then I say it and it’s like the last piece of the dam has burst, like the last determined stitch trying to keep my body glued together has finally snapped and all my insides are suddenly spilling everywhere, all over the forest floor. “Everyone I love gets hurt. Or dies! Because of me. Mom and Dad and Briar and Emyr and—and why? Why am I still here? What is the point of me if everyone around me just—”

  I can’t finish the thought, at least not out loud. I reach up to dig my nails into the top of my shaved head, curling in on myself. I want to disappear. Maybe Derek was right. Maybe he should’ve gotten rid of me when he had the chance.

  “Oh, Wyatt.” Tessa’s hands settle on my shoulders and she pulls me against her chest, gathering me up and wrapping herself around me. Her cheek rests against my temple and she presses one single, tender kiss. And in that moment, she doesn’t remind me of me, or our dead mom, but just her, just Tessa, my angry, sad, determined sister. “Wyatt, Wyatt, Wyatt, Wyatt. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  “NOTHING IS OKAY!” I press my face to her jaw, tears making a waterfall of her throat. “How can you say that? How can you tell me it’s okay? You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Bullshit. You told me you wished I was dead.”

  Tessa doesn’t say anything for a long moment and I think, Well, there it is. She does hate me. Of course she hates me. And why shouldn’t she? I killed our parents.

  I killed our parents.

  I. Killed. Our. Parents.

  She has no reason not to hate me. No one has any reason not to hate me.

  When she pulls back from our embrace, it doesn’t take me by surprise. But the tears I find shining in our identical eyes do.

  Tessa’s voice warbles when she says, “That was a very unfair thing of me to say. I was hurting. And so confused. But I didn’t mean it. Or maybe I did mean it, in that moment, but I shouldn’t have said it. And I don’t feel that way now.”

  I press the back of one hand to my eyes and wipe the salt water away. When I lower it to the ground, Boom licks the tears away and rests his muzzle against my wrist. “You don’t?”

  “No, Wyatt, I don’t.”

  Silence settles between us again. My fit seems to have ended, my body finally rejecting all of its untapped emotion. Though the look on Tessa’s face seems to indicate a fit of her own may be right around the corner.

  She doesn’t cry, though. Instead, she reaches up and tugs her fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her pointed ears and taking a deep breath. “Our parents were horrible, abusive people who treated you like shit every day of your life and brainwashed me into thinking what they did was okay. I don’t know exactly what happened that night, but—”

  “They were trying to kill me.” I blink. Swallow. “I was attacked, and I was terrified, and I didn’t know anything about controlling my magic. It got out of hand, and they...were going to kill me to make it stop.”

  Another moment of silence passes. Tessa stares at me and I stare at her and I don’t think either of us breathes.

  Finally, she nods. Looks down at her claws. “Then they deserved to die. Your magic was protecting you. I—if I had spent one day protecting you myself, if I had realized what was happening earlier, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But I didn’t, and it did, and we can’t go back now.”

  I wrap my arms around my knees, rest my chin against my thighs. “You were just a kid.”

  “Yeah, well, so were you.” She lets out a quiet laugh. Less like wind chimes, more like birdsong. Her fingers brush against that scar on her belly, the mark that stretches across her pelvis. “I got this the first year after you disappeared. It’s the date of the fire, written in the Old Language. The last time I saw you, or them.”

  “Why would you want that on your body forever?”

  “A reminder of the worst parts of ourselves.” Her fingertips brush over the white lines. “A reminder to never go back there.”

  I think about the scars on my arms. Tessa and I and our many, many similarities.

  She continues. “I don’t want either of us to spend the rest of our lives feeling like this, Wyatt.”

  And I don’t have to ask what she means, because I know. Guilt and anger and heartache, my familiar companions, are Tessa’s, too.

  “How do we fix it?” Maybe she’ll have some magic for me. Maybe she can wave her fae hand and all of this pain will simply go away.

  But it isn’t that simple. She shakes her head and meets my eye again. “Time. Hard work. We could probably both use several hundred hours of therapy.”

  It’s a joke but it isn’t a joke and neither of us laugh.

  Tessa reaches forward and rests her hands on either side of my face, pressing her thumb underneath my chin and raising my head up to meet her eyes.

  “You are not a bad person. Sometimes people get hurt, and you can’t save everyone from everything, but that is not your fault. Your value as a person is not based on how much you can do for other people. You are valuable, Wyatt. You. All on you
r own. For exactly who you are.”

  More than a pawn. More than a means to an end. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be seen as a whole person, to be seen as I am. I just didn’t expect that acknowledgment to come from my sister.

  Somewhere in my chest, something begins to stitch itself back together.

  I don’t have the chance to respond, though, because Briar’s phone pings in my pocket and snaps me back to reality. Shit. Briar. I push myself to my feet and pull it out.

  UNKNOWN NUMBER

  Where are you?

  Fuck if I know, Jin!

  “Not to dramatically change the tone here, but have you seen Briar?” I shove the phone back in my pocket and raise my eyebrows.

  Tessa frowns, gracefully hopping to her feet. “Ah...a few hours ago actually. She was in the village. Think she was leaving Lavender’s place. Why, what’s up?”

  “I haven’t been able to get in touch with her for days. Can’t find her anywhere. And then Emyr talked to Clarke and she said she’d look for her, but then Clarke stopped responding. And I found Briar’s phone in our room, with missed messages from me, and her mom, and Jin.”

  “Jin?” Tessa’s eyebrows shoot up toward the sky.

  “Yeah. I guess Clarke smuggled their phone out to them?”

  “Huh...” Tessa frowns, reaching up and rubbing a hand over the back of her neck. “That’s...interesting. You can’t find either of them?”

  “I mean, I haven’t really looked for Clarke. I’m just worried about Briar.”

  “Right, yeah. I tell you what, Wade and I’ll go into the village, hunt around, see if I can find her, and bring her to you. You have any other ideas where she might’ve gone? Any place in particular that she was interested in?”

  After a moment, I nod. I don’t know why it comes to me, but it does, suddenly slotting into place in the back of my mind. “Yeah, one.”

  “Okay, you check there.” Tessa reaches over and squeezes my arm, and only then does my body register it’s still in pain from Derek’s assault. “We’ll find her. Wade!”

  He appears with a rustle of branches, and I don’t know how much of that exchange he heard, but I don’t have the mental capacity to be embarrassed about it right now. Together, the two of them head off in the direction of town.

  I watch them go for a long moment before finally heading to the one place I think Briar might be. Boom follows, a shadow at my back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  HOW IS THIS WORTH DYING FOR?

  The closer I get to the door of Faery, the worse I feel.

  I can’t explain it. My stomach is in knots. The hair at the back of my neck stands on end. Saliva blooms under my tongue, between my teeth.

  Humans have excellent instincts. Somehow, they’re genetically predisposed to sense danger. They feel it before it happens, the coming threat, red flags shooting to mast.

  Fae don’t have that. Witches don’t have that. We throw ourselves headfirst into whatever bullshit we come up with and hope for the best. So, this? This feeling? This gut feeling telling me, Stop, turn around, god have mercy on all who enter here? I don’t know what it is, or where it’s coming from. And I make a point to ignore it.

  The trees around the door seem quieter than the rest of the woods. Here, the birds don’t chirp, the leaves don’t crunch underfoot. Even the sunlight streaming in through the tops of the trees seems dimmer, this part of the forest awash in shades of gray.

  Has it always been like this? Not that I can remember. The door’s always felt creepy, but never ominous.

  Doesn’t matter, though. There’s no time to worry about it. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, Boom at my back, until we get where we’re going.

  Curiosity killed the cat.

  But satisfaction brought it back.

  I repeat those words to myself, a silent mantra.

  The small comfort they have to offer disappears when I finally reach the elm trees whose tangled, black branches form the archway that leads to Faery.

  “Briar?”

  I’ve found her. There should be relief. The anxiety I’ve been carrying around with me all day should dissipate, at least some. Derek doesn’t have her. She isn’t hurt.

  But...is she?

  She’s standing in front of the door, her back to me, black and blue curls cascading down her back in a frenzied mess. She turns at the waist at the sound of my face, deep brown eyes widening slightly.

  “Briar, what are you doing here? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  In one hand, she’s holding a book, spine cracked open against her forearm. That same book she’s been carrying around since the night of the riots, the one she’s been studying in our room.

  The fingers of her other hand drip with blood. Her own blood, running from a cut down the center of her palm.

  There is no relief to be found here. There is only the silence of the forest, the heavy weight of an unseen threat pressing around us from all sides, and the cold dread creeping into my chest.

  “Bri, you’re bleeding.”

  I say the words even as I know she knows them. Her blackshot eyes flick from my face to her bloodied hand. From her hand back to my face. From my face to the twisted archway of the door.

  My gaze follows hers there. I realize, that sickening feeling growing worse and worse, that the elm arch is covered in her blood, too. Sticky and wet with a trail of red sigils Briar has drawn.

  I don’t know anything about witchcraft. I don’t know what any of these are used for, not separately and certainly not when all combined together.

  But that dread begins to flood into the rest of me. Everything goes cold.

  Behind me, Boom gives one long, pained growl, and every strand of hair on my body stands at attention.

  “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

  She presses her wet palm against the tree. The elm arches twist and sizzle, her bloody sigils seeping into the wood and disappearing, the strange magic of them being absorbed right into the door itself. Her yellow energy flares out from her body like the blast of a bomb, rattling the air so hard that it knocks me off my feet and my head cracks against the ground.

  Through the archway, I see the usually staticky view begin to dissipate. Maybe it’s because my head’s fucked up from the fall, but I swear, for the first time I actually manage to see beyond the veil, into the world of Faery itself.

  And before I lose consciousness, Faery stares back.

  * * *

  When I wake, everything hurts, but the woods feel normal again. Briar’s jacket is rolled up like a pillow under my head, and Boom is sleeping next to me, my face against his back. I blink up at the sky, catching hints of the sunset through the tree limbs.

  “Was worried I lost you there for a minute,” comes Briar’s voice from somewhere to the side.

  I turn my head and my neck aches. She’s sitting on the ground a few feet away, perched in front of the door. She looks at me, and I look back, and we say nothing for a long moment.

  Before now, before this exact moment, we’ve always been able to say whatever we needed to say without any words at all. But I can’t even begin to guess what Briar’s thinking. Not now.

  She’s the one who breaks the silence, her gaze going back to the archway. “I didn’t really think it was going to work.”

  “Are you sure that it did?”

  She frowns, sitting up straighter and twisting her fingers in front of her belly. “No. But I think so.”

  Yeah. I think so, too.

  I am pretty sure that Briar just yanked down the whole doorway to Faery, leaving nothing but an open hole in its wake. A hole anyone could walk through, anytime.

  “You owe me a giant explanation,” I snap. I’m not used to snapping at her. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel okay.

  But Briar a
lso doesn’t feel like Briar in this moment. She definitely didn’t feel like herself when she was standing there painting sigils with her own blood.

  “I know,” she says quietly, shoulders sagging. “I know. I meant it when I said I was sorry.”

  I stare at her more before shaking my head. “Start at the beginning.”

  She nibbles at her mouth, watching me again. She might know she owes me an explanation, but she clearly doesn’t want to give me one.

  Still, at length, she asks, “Did you really never think about the witches who were abandoned in the human world?”

  That is...not where I expected this story to begin.

  When I say nothing, my brain floundering inside my head, she finally sighs. “The fae toss their unwanted babies past the borders and you never thought to wonder...if any of them might’ve survived? You just assumed they were, what, eaten by wild animals? That none of them were ever found? Rescued? Raised by humans?”

  I...

  No, I guess I never did consider that before.

  Pieces start moving in my mind, things clicking together bit by bit, but my head hurts and everything else hurts and it’s been a long day and I can’t get to where I’m going without a little more help. I ask, “Briar, what do you know about the abandoned witches?”

  “Only what my mother’s told me.” She swallows, shifting from one thigh to the other. “The stories I grew up on.”

  I stare at her again, waiting for her to continue. To explain. When she doesn’t, I ask, “Like... Native American legends?”

  Her nervousness seems to dissipate some with that question. She glares at me like I’ve given her a small stroke. “No, Wyatt. Not like Native American legends. Like a family history. Passed down from one generation to the next.”

  I press my palms to my face and scrub at my temples to try and ease the pounding behind my eyes. “What does your family history have to do with the witches, Briar?”

  I know. I already know. The pieces are all there, but my brain won’t shove them together. Everything hurts too much.