Page 127 of Witchlight
She ran. She chased. She didn’t stop. Not until the rift through the mountain reached its end. Not until she stumbled out into the part of the mountain she’d visited before. Paladins’ Hall spread before her, both exactly as she remembered and also completely changed.
No longer did the mountain itself attack, but instead the Exalted One. First came the cackling squall that signaled Itosha. She’d been slowed by the narrowness of the tunnel, but now she gusted and chanted from the cavern’s heart: “You cannot escape me, Little Hound. I will follow wherever you try to go.”
And Itosha did follow, cycloning into a new doorway. A massive, shimmering thing of lucent blue hovering on a platform in the middle of the abyss. It was a full moon all eyes would latch on to, no matter how bright the constellations that shone nearby.
The sense of being placed onto tracks hit Safi again. So hard in the chest that she staggered into stone. Her vision spun, shrouding her view of the cavern.
Think beyond,quavered voices against her neck.Think beyond.
The mountain started moving again, a brutal lashing side to side as stones ripped down and dust choked. Shards of rock fell, so sharp they cut at Safi’s scalp, her arms, her legs. Then came a voice, so like Itosha’s and yet so different.
“You should not follow him, Itosha. You should change your course before it is too late.”
“Coward, Ferisien. This is our chance.”
“This is your doom,”the voice replied. And then it was no more.
Safi shook her head, wobbling like a dog as she tried to latch on to her senses. Her vision was clearing; the mountain was calming; and sure enough, she could see a new upthrusting of rock that had formed across Paladins’ Hall. A bridge made of stone that hadn’t been there before.
But a bridge Safi could take all the same.
Once more, she staggered into a run. And once more, she did not stop.
The temple on Hawk’s Way was as old as the city itself. Time had smoothed away the Hagfish columns at the shadowy entrance.Six of them,Stix noted as she helped her father inside.Always six.
How much of the past had always been embedded here? How muchmorehad they all forgotten of the living history that was reborn today?
As she had hobbled her father through the city, Stix had directed healing magic into him. It wasn’t a skill she’d used often—or ever, really. She had always been more comfortable as a fighter, defender, sailor on the seas.
But magic was different now, and the power inside Stix was dimensioned in ways her Paladin memories knew how to use. She sent warmth into his blood. Clumsy, but soothing against the pain that shuddered through him. And she kept his bloodinsideso no more would fall on to the cobblestones.
He’d lost too much though, and what he needed more than anything was rest.
The air turned cool as Stix guided him deeper into the temple. Sunlight faded, replaced by two lamps above a statue of Noden on his throne. It was almost funny now, knowing what Stix did. The god all Nubrevnans had worshipped for centuries did not exist. There were no Hagfishes at his side in an abyss. There was, instead, a goddess sleeping with spirit swifts and shadow wyrms inside a mountain.
On the statue’s left was a fresco of Lady Baile. Noden’s Right Hand, and Stix’s own self from a thousand years ago. Her skin was painted like a starry sky, while her fox-shaped mask shone blue. She held golden wheat and a silver trout, and the copper urn resting before the image was filled to the brim with wooden and silver coins.
Before her figure, tens of people had gathered. There were no cots or mats, but she recognized healers from Pin’s Keep. Trained medics—some with magic, some without—moving through the rows and clumps of injured.
It was too many hurt and broken and dying, and suddenly Stix was afraid to leave. Not merely because she feared for her father’s life—although she did—but because she could do good here. She was a fumbling healer, but she could learn.
You will return,she reminded herself as she eased her father down against the cold wall.You will return after you help Cam with the Cisterns, for you are Lady Baile and you will never abandon them.
“I’ll be back,” she told her father, releasing her hold on his blood. Instantly, she felt it start leaking anew. But it was a slower trickle now, for the journey here had given his body enough time to start repairing itself. “Just hold on, Father. I’ll be back very soon.”
“I know.” He smiled. A brief burst of sunlight in these shadows. Then he slumped down and his eyes drifted shut.
Stix turned to go, making herselfnotlook at all the bloodied and half-drowned people around her. The broken limbs and bodies drained of life. The Cisterns had to be the priority. Shewouldreturn.
Her gaze briefly flickered over the other fresco. Noden’s Left Hand, the Fury. Normally, there were no offerings in this urn, for no one wanted the Fury’s eye to find them, lest they be judged. Now, though, there were nine people bowed low before him, murmuring and begging, some with injuries. Others with injured ones in their arms.
They thought Lady Baile had forgotten them, so they begged out of desperation for the Fury to turn his cruel eye their way.I will be back.Stix bit her lip.I swear, I haven’t forgotten you.She picked up her pace, aiming for the Hagfish columns.
But she never reached them. Not before a sound knifed into her ears. Into her mind. Then electricity rammed into her spine.
It was like a thousand firepots beating at her from the inside out. She felt her skin burn, paper over flame. She felt her muscles give out and her body crumple downward.
The ring-bond.It is my ancient ring-bond just like long ago.
