Page 41 of A Weave of Lies
“Of course I have not! Ever heard of—dammit!” Velten dodged fangs aiming for his throat, then continued, “of propriety?”
The fire’s wefts felt uncomfortably hot around her fingers, but she held on. If she dropped them, they might spread the fire into an inescapable prison of flames around them.
“What do you mean, ‘propriety’?” she asked, screaming over the roaring and popping and snapping of burning wood.
“You have no family na—!” A wolf snapped its jaws inches away from his arm. “What else am I supposed to call you?” Another attack made Velten stumble back. Turning the opportunity against the wolf, he drove his blade into its chest.
The beast fell down at his feet, paws gripping at the soil to outrun death. It did not.
Pearls of sweat fell down Semras’ temples. “I told you already! My! Name!”
The blaze’s proximity suffocated her. Smoke filled the air, sending the witch into a coughing fit. Embers flew into the sky from the burning branches, then fell back softly around them.
The fire protected their flanks from attacks, but it meant the wolves were now concentrating all their ferocity on a desperate frontal assault. The beasts lunged and snapped their jaws atwhatever opening they could reach for before retreating in a swift jump, filling the air with the sound of teeth grinding against metal.
Three still lived, and one lay dead at Velten’s feet, Semras noted.
… Hadn’t there been a fifth wolf?
Hands taut, she struggled to keep the fire’s threads spun around her fingers. Her skin burned, threatening to blister.
Semras wailed in pain. “Velten!” The fire roared and ate her words. “Velten!”
She couldn’t hold on for much longer, yet she couldn’t let the Vedwoods burn either. Once fire devoured the threads of the Arras, it left only sterile ashes behind for decades.
“What?” Velten answered, panting heavily.
“I … I can’t keep—!” Agony seared her hands. “I can’t hold on!”
Velten turned and cleaved his sword through the nearest wolf. Blood burst out of its chest.
The animal limped away, then fell to the ground with a thud, unmoving.
Two wolves stood back, growling, while a third one emerged from behind a standing stone to join them. Semras stared at it, heart lurching.
“Semras,” Velten called softly.
The sound of her name shocked her attention back to him.
“You did well.” Blood and sweat trickled down the inquisitor’s temple, but his eyes shone brightly. “You can let go now.”
“The wolves—!”
“I will handle them.” Velten gave her a half-grin. “I promised you I would, and I always uphold my word. You take care of extinguishing the fire.”
She didn’t believe him. Blood seeped from the wounds on his arms and torso where fangs and claws had rent his flesh. Veltenhad shielded her at the cost of his own safety and was nearing his limits. If the fight kept on for much longer … he’d die.
He’ddie. And then she’d be next, and it would all be her own, Crone-forsaken fault for insisting on burying her Elder.
The realization hit Semras like an icy gale. “Forgive me,” she murmured.
If death meant to claim someone today, then she’d decide who.
One by one, Semras let go of the threads of blazing fire. Freed, the flames leapt onto the dried leaves of the forest floor and climbed the surrounding trees. The burning wave spread until flames licked at the tree keeping her coven sister’s remains, but she had no time to spare to watch its fate.
Semras closed her eyes, then reopened them into the Unseen Arras.
The sight shocked her. The world’s luminous filaments flailed about violently, their colours washed out by bright red and orange. Fire devoured their tethers and remade them into flames—and heat, and ashes, and death. In the gaping holes it created, the Night peered in.
