Page 120 of Witchlight
A shark’s maw.
Merik flung out his own hands. Winds slammed outward from them like a shield. They thrust him backward before plowing into Itosha. They didn’t hurt her; he hadn’t thought they would. But they at least distracted her.
Merik dropped now. No winds, only gravity. He fell like the dead man he was toward theotherpart of the forest, which had not burned away as Last Holdout had. Here, trees still stood—as did the stones, in that otherworldly space his people had so avoided.
Yet smoke did gather in some pockets.Good places,Merik thought,for hiding.
Ten feet above jagged tree branches, Merik yanked wind to him. Just enough to clear a trail below—but not so much that all smoke fled.
He hit the earth.
And now, he ran. No magic, no winds.
Itosha shrieked from above, a sound like a bird of prey. Gone was her amusement. All that remained was the hunger. Her winds billowed downward. She did not land as Merik had, but instead blasted away the smoke.
Light and air closed in, exposing him like a mouse on the field. Then more winds attacked, this time razored by frozen rain.
Merik didn’t stop. Rain sliced into his back. His head. Fresh wounds that sent blood into the storm spitting down. And always, Itosha’s screams chased behind.Little Hound! Little Hound! I see you, I see you, you cannot get away.
Then the Paladin herself descended, carried by a funnel of electrified air. She ripped through the trees, cracking apart ancient trunks as easily as matchsticks.
Merik gave up running. Instead, he exploded forward on Kullen’s magic. His limbs flung back with the force of it. His body flipped nearly horizontal. He wove, he spun, he raced around trunks and stones.
So much power—had Kullen always had this? Had healwayscommanded this enormity of wind, as if he were not merely a witch controlling power but a vector through which all air could channel?
No, my king, I did not.
That voice was so unexpected, Merik lost control. Just a stuttering of a moment, but enough for him to almost slam into a tree. He swerved. His shoulder rammed. His arm ripped, and pain filled him.
And he felt as Kullen laughed. A warm chuckle that sang of their boyhood on the beach, and of hot Nihar sunshine.Be careful, Threadbrother, for I can’t protect you from in here.
“Where?” Merik tried to ask as Itosha howled behind. “Where are you? Are you awake?”
Yes and no.
“I don’t understand.”
You don’t need to.Kullen smiled then—Merik felt it bloom across their shared Threads. The strange, terrifying smile of a man who’d always been more comfortable alone than with others.These are the days that make sense to nobody except Ryber and the other Sightwitches.
“Is Ryber with you?”
Merik never got an answer. Not before a fresh screech hit him. A joyful, piercing sound that matched the winds scorching Merik’s back. Itosha was about to catch him; they both knew it.
Not yet, she won’t, my king.
It was at this moment that power coursed into Merik with such intensity, he could do nothing but be carried along with it. Winds flogged him from behind, but they werehiswinds underhiscommand, and they knew how to carry him. How to lift him out of the trees, out of the seafire’s smoke and into the dawn.
Itosha followed, but she’d lost ground. She had the power of storm brimming inside her, yet in the end, Kullen’s magic across these Threads of binding were faster.
Merik flew high, high, until the forest disappeared below. Until the breath in his lungs felt too thin and his vision spun. Still, he kept climbing. He would reach the clouds. He would lose himself there, then lose Itosha.
But that was when Merik saw someone else. Someone who had no power, no winds, and who simply fell, streaking like a white-clad cannonball toward the earth.
Safi spun, out of control. She grabbed and flailed at empty air. The river would break her. Then feast on her if Merik didn’t change course now. Yet if hedidchange course now, he would lose his chance to lead the Exalted One away from Poznin.
Many for the sake of one.It was exactly what he’d punished Safi for on theJana. But maybe it didn’t matter—maybe there was no evaluating cost in that way. A life was a life, and he couldn’t let hers crash into a place he couldn’t save her from.
Hye,Kullen murmured at the same moment Merik made his choice.And so—with his Threadbrother’s vast power to drive him—he changed trajectory. Sharp and hard, the move made Merik’s brain crush against his skull. Made his organs climb into his throat. His vision went fully black. He lost sight of Safi or the clouds or Poznin or Itosha still chomping at him with lightning and sharpened rain.
