Page 121 of Witchlight
But Kullen’s winds knew what to do.
Merik hewed through the sky. If Safi was cannon shot, then he was the destruction that came in the aftermath. He drew more power to him, more winds, more speed—and all with a sense of certainty and an awkward smile that had always had faith in Merik’s strength, even when Merik had possessed none.
Behind him, Itosha laughed.
Safi had done this before: she’d felt her eyes sizzle, her heart fry, and each breath taste of burning death. This time, though, she wasn’t inside the mountain. This time, she was flying in a storm over Poznin, and she was certain she was going to die.
She screamed, a bereft sound lost to the winds. A sound swallowed by the eternalcrack!of lightning.
Then, just as it had in the mountain, her body slammed against something solid. Something frozen while strong arms flung around her.“HANG ON!”Merik bellowed against her.
So Safi hung on, even as her mind fought to catch up.I’ve done this before. Haven’t I done this before?Winds charged beneath her and Merik. They rocketed up, up away from the river while the storm pressed down and the Exalted One in the skies tried to squash them, boil them, keep them from getting away.
Lightning slashed. A mere arm’s length away, so bright that the world turned bright and fully revealed Merik’s face before Safi. Dark, wet hair pressed against his head, while the scars along the side of his face shivered with a silvery glow—as if Threads ran through them.
Never had Merik flown Safi with such strength. It was as if his winds were muscles to be flexed. Extensions of arms and legs. He didn’t carry Safi, so much as cocoon her. In his embrace, in his magic.
Above them, fresh tempests shook loose, and a voice penetrated Safi’s skull:Little Hound! You cannot get away from me! You should not have slowed.Below, dark waters slung past, alive and writhing. Ice no longer covered anypart of the river—but Threads did. They laced through, and there was no missing the masses of silver scoring within like sea foxes.
Safi and Merik left the river. They returned to the smoking remains of the forest. Nothing looked familiar. If Safi had been in this part of the trees, she didn’t recognize it now. Trunks blurred into rocks bled into charred earth. Smoke seared into her mouth and eyes. And Threads—always there were more Threads, slithering through the soil like snakes returning to a charmer.
Merik held Safi fast against him, hugging her like the lover he’d briefly been. And gods below, what she wouldn’t do to go back to that moment by the Jadansi, when the only trouble she’d faced was a Marstoki empress who wanted to claim Safi’s magic for her own. When she’d said to Merik,I have a feeling I’ll never see you again.
Safi laughed. A hysterical sound that lacerated her lungs. She was seeing Merik again, andgods,what a thrice-damned miracle that was.
Faster they hurtled, while more unquenched rage thrashed behind them. Boiling, relentless, alive. And just as she had done two months ago, clinging to Merik inside the mountain, Safi lost all sight, all sound. Static expanded inside her, scratched against her skin. She dug fingers like anchors into Merik’s hair. Her face pressed against his neck while her thighs squeezed him with all her strength.
He didn’t let her go.
Until, as abruptly as he’d caught her, hedidlet her go. It was with winds moredesperatethangracefulthis time, and he toppled them both to the charred earth where skeletal trees burned like dying candles around them.
“Hide!” Merik ordered, his voice a scratching, stretching thing as he yanked off his coat.
“Little Hound, I am coming for you!”
He shoved the coat into Safi’s arms, and now his dark, dark Nihar eyes fastened onto hers. “Safi, listen to me:hide. Itosha is on her way, and I will do everything I can to get her away from here, away from Poznin.”
Itosha,Safi thought. So that was the Exalted One’s name. Before she could answer—argue that Merik could still hide with her; explain she knew what this monster was; or at least insist that Merik keep his coat, foolish man—a burst of air shoved Safi backward. So sudden, it almost knocked her legs out from under her.
Merik had taken flight, and in seconds, he was gone, with only a flare of smoke through the trees to reveal he’d ever been there.
Safi stared after him, too stunned to move or hide as he’d commanded. At least until Itosha’s winds crackled into her, sparking with electricity.Thatspurred her back into action, and Safi flung herself behind a burning beech moments before the Exalted One arrived. Cackling, howling, the creature streaked past. Her body was nothing more than a stripe of furious white, but with Threads—somany Threads—shoveling into her and propelling her ever faster.
Merik could never defeat something like that. Safi wasn’t sure he could escape it.
This time, the winds that knocked into Safi did claim her legs. She hit moldering earth. Her eyes screwed shut from impact, from heat. Embers scorched her skull. And in the endless slog of time it took to reclaim her senses—and reclaim muscles that still hadn’t accepted she wasn’t falling—a roar of glee filled the forest.
And Safi saw that same glee brim across Itosha’s Threads.No,Safi thought.Not Merik.But there was nothing she could do except sink into the moment. Let the scalded palms of her hands and scorched soles of her feet push her back to standing.
She launched into a run.
SIXTY-TWO
After getting everyone off the second water-bridge, Stix carried herself on ice and tide back into Lovats. Scores of people were dead. Numbers beyond counting had fallen from vessels or been submerged and crushed on their farms.
It was more than her mind could fathom, and the only thing that kept her sailing—kept her reaching for this endless spring of magic inside her—were Vivia’s words:No regrets, keep moving.
Hell-waters, she prayed her queen was safe. For now, finding Vivia would have to wait. There was simply too much work to do. Too many lives that still needed saving inside of Nubrevna.
