Page 128 of Witchlight
No one approached Stix. No one even seemed to notice she was suffering. After all, she was just one more person in the temple who needed help after calamity had struck.
Stix grabbed at her throat, at her eyes, and she searched frantically for any sign of where that old, old enemy might be. Then she saw him, coming from behind Noden’s throne as if he’d always been there.
“Hello,” he said in a voice that had always been too soft, too kind for the cruelty that lived within. “You have changed greatly in these last thousand years, Baile. I, however, am the same as I always have been.” He smiled now, his face as beautiful as she abruptly remembered it had been—and a perfect match to the stone Noden nearby. Because of course, the city hadn’t created their god out of nothing…
They’d simply renamed a person who reallyhadcome before.
Time might have changed the tales, the memories, the title, but his likeness—there could be no denying who Noden had been inspired by all along. The Exalted One Lovats had the same broad shoulders over a supple waist. He wore the same curls, silver and gleaming.
He came to a stop before Stix. She curled onto her side, wheezing.Those are the rings,she thought.Those are the rings we are bound to.There were three on his right hand, and Stix remembered now: this was why her city had so much magic.
The Exalted One, Lovats, had bound the Six with jade rings crafted by Portia. Midne had already been claimed by Portia, so she was untouched. The Rook King had been too powerful for domination, so he had also beenleft alone. But the four elemental Paladins? They’d had no choice but to kneel, to serve, tobuildthis city that Stix had just worked so hard to save.
One ring was missing now, and that was the ring Kahina wore.
Lovats dropped to a crouch beside Stix. Somehow, he was even more beautiful than he had been a thousand years ago. The silver of his hair glowed like moonbeams.
He ran a hand over Stix’s face. There was nothing she could do to stop him. She was aflame. She was dying. The pain shattered every bone, lacerated every vein. “I missed you more than any of the others, you know. And now, here you are. The first face I find upon waking. But do not fear, my love. I have no plans to claim vengeance. No desire to hurt you—or anyone else. I am changed, you see.
“Now stand up, Baile.”
Stix’s muscles convulsed. Then obeyed, shoving under her. Cranking her upright.
Lovats smiled at her, only a few inches taller than she was. “This version of you is so lovely. You always have been, though, for your soul is ever constant.” Again he stroked at Stix’s face. He leaned in too, as if he might kiss her…
But he paused, mere inches from her lips. “Come with me now, Baile. I command you.”
The pain exploded, and again, Stix lost control of her muscles. But rather than collapse to the stones, Lovats simply caught her. Lifted her like a Nubrevnan groom with his bride.
The pain will stop, my love—she heard crackling inside her skull—if you would just stop fighting against me. Can you not see that you have already lost?
SIXTY-FIVE
Iseult saw Poznin from above, brutalized.
She saw forests burned to ash.
She saw more mountains and hot white shorelines baking under a morning sun. She saw waters—and briefly, she was even dunked within them, as if Leopold hoped he might drown her into submission.
Still, Iseult held on. And with each leap into the Dreaming, each leap into a new dying corner of the Witchlands, the heat of Leopold’s Threads faded into something almost bearable. Or maybe Iseult’s body simply lost the ability to feel pain. After all, stare too long at the sun, and eventually you’ll go blind.
But let her go blind. Let her hands and body lose all feeling. She would not allow Leopold to escape, and she would not let him walk free and undamaged. He wasnotworthy of a god; it was past time that his mischief had consequences.
Green forests. Limestone and lakes. Leopold’s Threads shifted from panic and fear to fury and hate. In the Dreaming. Outside of it. No matter how he pivoted or pulled, attacked or assaulted, he could not get Iseult to release him.
“Let a man have his secrets?” Iseult asked as they once more glided through the Dreaming, so thrice-damned calm with its snow and its gray and its nothingness. “How many t-times did you say that to deflect me from finding the truth?”
“I have never hurt you—”
“You haveruinedthe Witchlands. You havekilledAeduan.”
“Then fix it, Iseult.” Now Leopold’s Threads blazed into something new—a shade of such godlike power, Iseult’s eyes screwed shut against her will. Her grip didn’t weaken, though, even when he sank low again and tried to snap her loose.
They tore out of the Dreaming. Humidity clawed in. And green and sunlight and warmth.
And Threads. So many Threads, burning and untamed, racing toward a master—or maybe several—west of here. A storm rallied there, accumulating thunderclouds like the hurricanes that sometimes struck the Dalmotti coast.
“That storm,” Leopold said with wide, glimmering eyes, “is only the beginning of what awaits if you do not take the next step. The seas and rivers of the Witchlands will boil. Mountains will collapse, and all the people will burn. Unless you find Sirmaya and build us anew. I told you I had a plan, Iseult, and this is it.” He opened his arms to the hot, sticky lands around them still thrumming and singing with life. “In light,” he recited, “twelve will meet on lands long contested, while in darkness, the shadow-ender will topple nightmares and the world-starter will build us anew.”
