Page 11 of Witchlight
Vaness dipped closer to Vivia. “This is not how it looked when I was here,” she whispered. “There was a storm raging—an actual storm, with lightning. And there were winds and rain. And rocks fell while the ground shook.”
“It looks like I remember it,” Cam inserted, his voice now a whisper too. “But the ice—that’s new. It wasn’t there before. Not like this, anyway. It was confined to the Sightwitches’ tombs.”
Cam had described those tombs. A place where Sightwitches went instead of death, so their goddess could take back the magic she needed.
Vivia retrieved her cutlass. She sheathed it, and noted that while Cam did the same, the Empress did not. Her flail remained a flail.
Vivia tiptoed to the edge of the platform surrounding their magic door. It was twenty paces long, and beyond was nothing. Only darkness and black-veined ice. “That’s where the spirit swifts live,” Cam whispered, joining her. “Or at least, where they used to be.”
She nodded but didn’t answer. Cold coiled off the strands of ice. Threatening. Hungry. Certainly no starry bird creatures flew there now. No magical beings made of pure Aether.
Vivia was almost glad not to see them. This place was already too disquieting and uncanny.
“Which way do we go?” She looked at Cam. Then motioned to the two paths that carved from their platform. One ascended sharply with rough-hewn stairs. The other hugged the cavern wall and remained blessedly flat.
“Give me a second, Majesty. It’s… well, the cavern’s the same but different.” The boy started muttering to himself, striding toward the flat path. “Me and Ry came in over there… which means that’s the way to the Convent. Then Ry took us…” He screwed his eyes shut.
And Vaness, who still stood beside the door where magic could radiate around her, frowned at Vivia. Her nostrils flared in a way that said:Should we not have figured this outbeforewe stepped inside?
Vivia frowned right back. It wasn’t Cam’s fault the space had filled with ice since he’d come here two months ago.
“That way!” Cam flung up a hand, eyes springing wide. “The door to the Convent is that big shadow over there, and we went left outside of it. So the under-city must be between here and that shadow.”
“Except there is nothing between here and that ‘shadow,’ Cam.” Vaness sounded fully furious now.
“No, no. There is! I swear it, Imperial Majesty. It’s just blocked by that column of ice.”
“And how,” Vivia inserted before Vaness could fume any more, “do we remove the ice, Cam?”
“I … don’t know.”
“Fine.” Vivia kept her eyes on the Empress, warning. “We will determine that when we reach it. Let’s move.” She checked her pack. Checked her cutlass in its sheath. Then set offwithoutchecking if the others followed. Because of course they did, Cam with a noisy bounce in his stride and Vaness with lethal silence.
No one spoke as they moved onto the narrow path overlooking the abyss. The outcropping of granite was only as wide as Vivia’s left arm was long, so she kept herself pressed as closely to the cavern wall as she could. She didn’t look down; she looked only straight ahead. And Noden’s breath, it was cold. Her fingers were soon numb from clutching at the wall.
For thirty paces she moved this way, until she reached a column of ice she would have sworn hadn’t been there a few minutes before. She stared at the cold curling off it, at the fathomless blue of it striated with black. Vivia could fit around in theory, but it would be tight.
And it was a long way down.
Infinitely long, if Cam’s stories were to be believed.
Vivia wished suddenly she’d thought to include a rope in her sack of supplies. Such an obvious thing to bring, yet she’d been so fixated onafterthe mountain—on Lovats and her father…
What a stupid, foolish oversight for a woman who wanted to be queen.
“Let me go first,” Cam whispered, carving through her thoughts. Without waiting for approval, he wiggled past his queen and shot ahead. He reached the ice. He skirted easily around, graceful and lithe—if still too noisy. Then he reached the other side and offered a hand back. “I can help from the front, and maybe Her Imperial Majesty can help from behind.”
Vivia swallowed. Shame spun through her.Stupid, Little Fox.She made herself nod. Made herself give Cam her right hand and offer Vaness her left.
Cam pulled. Vaness pushed. Vivia scraped ahead, and the ice blazed ineffably cold against her.
The abyss looked somehow too close and also too unreachably far. Maybe she did see stars down there. Maybe she did see spirit swifts.
She stepped again. Her foot planted on the granite just past the ice. One more step and she’d be on the other side.
The ice attacked. An explosion outward of tendrils and shards. It surged over Vivia’s outstretched arms, over her legs and her face.Come, come, the ice will hold you. Come, my daughter, and sleep.It thrust into her ears, her mouth, her eyes.
Vivia screamed. Or maybe that was Cam, maybe it was Vaness. There was no telling what was what. The ice claimed everything. Cam tried to wrench Vivia to him, but she was frozen down. She was trapped.
