Page 4 of Witchlight
Aeduan tightened on the man’s blood again. Aeduan was tired, he was hungry, and he hated this part of his new job. “Your father,” he countered, “has already offered his fealty to the new empress. As well as all of his soldiers… which, I believe, include the two of you.”
The brother on the left—whose name might as well have been Shitpants fon Grieg for all Aeduan knew—let his eyes close again. Defeat practically sang off his blood. Redrick or Redris or whatever he was still would not relent, though. He pulled back his own lips, the snarl of an angry mongrel used to getting his way.“Demon,”he repeated with extra venom.
This time, Aeduan did let his eyes roll. “Understood. I will leave you as you are, and maybe your smarter brother here can talk some sense into you.” He released Shitpants, letting the shapes of sweet wine and lathered horses fly free in the man’s veins.
The man promptly collapsed to the stone floor. A second rat chittered from the rafters. Aeduan lowered his hand.One, two, three…
There it was: Shitpants grabbled to his feet and drew a sword. A fine blade with rubies of Hell-Bard red to adorn the hilt. He charged Aeduan while his brother watched on, unable to move.
Aeduan let the man come, waiting until Shitpants was so close he could spot a patch of hair the man had missed shaving. Aeduan spun sideways. His cloak snapped. In one movement, he unsheathed a blade of his own: small, sharp, always within reach at the top of his baldric.
He shoved the knife into Shitpants’s hamstring. The man collapsed again, but now with blood spurting and a scream ripping from his lips. It was the sort of sound that would have given Aeduan no pause a year ago. Because that Aeduan had never met a Threadwitch named Iseult or a child named Owl (who was not a child at all).
But the Aeduan of today, the one whohadmet Iseult andhadsaved Owl and whohadsworn his vows anew to the Carawen…
He did pause before this sort of thing.
Aeduan felt his molars grind. Felt his chest expand with cold breath.One need not be evil to become it.He’d thought that once about his father. Now he, Aeduan, was no better.
With a strangled growl, he swiped the stiletto on his sleeve and resheathed it. Then he grabbed once more on to Shitpants’s blood. Here were the lathering horses, here was the sweet wine. He froze both, although only in the places nearest to the hamstring wound, where the tang of fresh blood wanted to burst forth and taste air.
Meanwhile, twenty paces behind Aeduan, the other brother he decided he would simply call Red was still frozen in place.
And the rat still chittered overhead. He was a hungry little beast.
Aeduan stepped in front of Shitpants. “You know you cannot win this.”
“You”—Shitpants spat the word—“are a symptom of all that is wrong with the usurper. She took away our noose. She took awayourcastle, and now she threatens us with a monster?”
“Your noose.” Aeduan glanced at Red. “Why would you want to keep that?”
Red didn’t answer, and Shitpants was only just gathering steam. A pot boiling off rage that had simmered too long—certainly longer than this unfortunate moment inside a crumbling castle could have prompted. “It was an honor to serve Emperor Henrick. People feared us—andyouwould have feared us, for your foul, Void-tainted magic would not have touched us then. We would have skewered you.”
Aeduan gave up. With a sigh, he clenched his fist. The man’s blood froze, hamstring wound and all. His mouth ceased its spewing, his brain ceased its thinking, and he toppled over. Not dead, but deeply, stupidly unconscious.
Aeduan glanced again at Red. “Your turn. Make your choice.”
“You,” he croaked out, “are not a Bloodwitch.”
Aeduan tensed. Not because he was bothered by Red’s words, but because they were so unexpected, so illogical in this cold, stony hall with its whistling wind and scuttering rats.
Red continued: “Bloodwitches cannot do this. They cannot control people like this, freezing them. Killing them.”
Aeduan walked now, his magic still clasping the man’s blood as he advanced. “I assure you, I am a Bloodwitch. And I also assure you: Icankill you.” He came to a halt before the man. Unlike Shitpants, Red had a beard. Neatly trimmed, clean like his velvet suit and fur cloak—and all of it so at odds with this barely upright ruin around him.
“No,” the man insisted. “Iam a Bloodwitch. Before the Loom, and after it. But my magic is bound to Water, and you—whatareyou?”
Now Aeduan frowned. The words remained unexpected, but now theywere undeniably interesting. And undeniably unsettling, even if Aeduan thought he’d stopped caring about his witchery long ago. He’d never met another Bloodwitch. It was a rare enough magic that he’d never even heard of others like him existing outside of old tales.
Aeduan let his power rise, let his senses sharpen and prong deeper into the man’s blood. And yes, there was a coppery tang that he recognized. Bright and fresh like his own.
“I do smell it on you,” Aeduan admitted, his voice flat. “Which means you must smell it on me. But if you’re trying to call my bluff, you need only look at your brother to know Icankill you—and I will.”
Red swallowed. His eyes crawled with red, exactly as Aeduan knew his own did. “Oh, I know you’ll kill me,Monk.” His teeth bared just as his brother’s had. “Not because you are a Bloodwitch, but because you are a demon. A monster.Ican smell it onyou: you’re bound to the Void, a cursed beast with ’Matsi poison running in your veins. Tell me: was it your mother or your father who—”
Aeduan yanked upward with his magic. The muscles fired in his biceps and forearm. In his shoulder and chest. Then he snapped his wrist.
The second fon Grieg brother toppled down with athump!Dust spiraled upward. Silence echoed. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
