Page 106 of Witchlight
He kept running. He kept pulling Safi in the salamander cloak that could not protect her forever.No,he realized as he tripped over an unseen rip in the road. She is pulling me. They had traded places. Her muscles still worked, her mind was still free. And although she could have left him behind—could have sprinted ahead to the Well and to Iseult—she hadn’t.
Part of Aeduan hated her for that.Hewas not what mattered here. Leave him to the seafire and the pain. He was done. A husk. A Bloodwitch with no blood, only heat solidifying in his veins. But another part ofhim—a part that sounded so much like his mother—whispered:You are not done yet. There are still debts owed and a knife that must go claim them.
Then they were through. The flames melted off Aeduan and the temperature against Aeduan’s skin cooled. Smoke billowed, and his body was lost. But he was out of the seafire, and the Truthwitch was too.
He collapsed.
FIFTY-FOUR
There was blood coming out of Aeduan. So much blood that screamed of both wrong and truth simultaneously. Worse, when she tried to drag Aeduan, he simply would not move. It was as if he was anchored there, and thrice, when Safi’s head swiveled at the right angle, she thought she saw six arrows pinning him down.
So she left him. She didn’t want to, but shehadto. She was so close to the Well. Only another ten paces up this path and the Well would span before her. Orange light flared, and with it were wild, violent Threads. So intense, Safi could hardly look at them.
She reached the top of the hill. She finally beheld the Air Well of Poznin.
It was nothing like she’d thought it would be. Based on written descriptions, based on flashes of memory from the Cahr Awen, there were supposed to be oak trees here. There was supposed to be calm, quiet isolation. Instead, there was fire and there was chaos. The oak trunks burned with red flame. The waters rippled with shock.
And there was Leopold, fighting with a rapier, his Threads ablaze in silver. He was so fast as he winked in and out of this world, using the Dreaming to jump around the Well. Then there was a second person, wreathed in fire—the same fire that consumed the trees. It spewed from her mouth, from her hands on a scale that made Habim’s Firewitchery look laughable. Her Threads were even brighter than Leopold’s.
Another Paladin,Safi thought, already dismissing the woman. She wasn’t Iseult, and so she didn’t matter to Safi’s mission.
Next, Safi’s eyes found a body in black, a hole stabbed through one eye. Safi lunged toward it… but saw in moments it wasn’t her Threadsister. This was the Raider King.Thiswas Aeduan’s father, dead. Gone. No more Threads to bind him into life.True, true, true.
Fifty years ago, the Republic of Arithuania had collapsed in a long, drawn-out death. Today, Ragnor’s empire had collapsed in mere hours.
A trunk cracked nearby. Sparks cascaded. The tree—one of the Well’s oaks—fell, trailing heat behind it before landing on a bare patch of ice. Embers flew.
The five others would soon fall too.Where, where, where is the dark-giver?the Cahr Awen souls screamed.Find her and finish this! Death, death, the final end is waiting!
Leopold spotted Safi. From across the Well, he saw her, and his eyes went huge. It was not a look of joy or triumph, but one of horror—and a matching white lay claim to his Threads.
The Firewitch saw Safi too and acted faster than the seafire’s eruption. Faster than time itself, and with no warning at all in the woman’s Threads. She launched a ball of fire at Safi, and Safi had only enough time to see how pure the fire was, how white its heart and how vast its fury, before it reached her.
Except it never made contact. Suddenly Leopold was before Safi taking all the fire, all the rage. It hit him square in the back, in the head, in the legs, and spewed past him on either side.
But it didn’t reach Safi.
And Leopold had enough time before he roasted alive to say five words:She is in the Well.Then Leopold’s Threads faded to shadow. He fell, close enough to the Well that his body hit the ice. It crunched; he fell through into fire-lit waters. Then he vanished. One more body to add to the countless strewn across Poznin.
She is in the Well.
Safi ran like she’d never run before. Her sprint across the river was a slog compared to this, her race through Poznin a stroll. She was faster than she’d ever been, born on the Cahr Awen souls and the nearness of Iseult. This Firewitch would not get in the way.
“NO,”she heard the woman scream. Then again in her head,NO.And with that command, pain speared out from Safi’s thumb. A sharp ignition of heat before her whole body was wrapped in it. It felt like having her magic removed with the Hell-Bard’s noose. And like with that Loom-bound magic, Safi found herself compelled to do something that wasnother own desire.
I do not want to hurt you,a voice said. Familiar, though Safi couldn’t place it.You were never my target. You were always just his tool. He made you, and you do not deserve to die for that. So stop, Empress. Stop and our bargain will be concluded.
Bargain. Tool. Empress. Meaningless words in Safi’s skull. She grappled and brawled against them. She couldseethe Well—she couldseehow the waters were moving because Iseult must be drowning within them.
Then Safi saw it again: the weave of the scene as if she were a card in an expert player’s hand.In Sirmaya’s hand.Leopold the Fool had just been played where he was needed, after Aeduan the Knife had increased Safi’s hand. Now the Paladin of Flame Hawks faced the Witch, the Empress, the Sun, and Birth.
Suddenly Safi knew whom she faced. Because they had played cards against each other in Saldonica. It was Kahina, Admiral of the Red Sails, whose ring had left a magicked mark on Safi’s thumb.I will let you win this fight, and my crew and I will depart,Kahina had said while her forearm had cut off air into Safi’s throat—and cut off thoughts into Safi’s brain.In return, though, you will owe me. Anything I want, I will one day collect from you. Do we have a deal?
Safi’d had no choice then but to agree to Kahina’s terms. She had no choice now as the consequences of that agreement racked through her. Wave after wave of spine-snapping pain. Just as Safi had writhed and fishtailed under Kahina’s grip on that Hell-Bard ship, she was writhing and fishtailing all over again.
No,she thought. It couldn’t be over this close to the Well. Not after everything she’d sacrificed. Not after so many others had sacrificed for her. She pretended she was back in that game. That Kahina had just dealt out eight cards.Flip. Safi pushed herself against the pain and the fire and the desperation in her viscera to obey Kahina’s command.Trade. What was Safi missing? What path still waited before her?Reveal.
The Witch. The Empress. The Sun. Birth.
