Page 139 of Witchlight
Merik found himself once more running. Then flying, up through the forest. Up over the wrecked trees. “Answer me!” he screamed—both from his lungs and from his mind. “Kullen, whereare you?”
Only silence. Too much silence, and the faster Merik flew back toward the mountain, back toward that cursed doorway that had brought him here, the more ice clotted inside his belly. Not a sleeping ice, not a timeless ice, but the kind that came with death.
Merik slammed to the earth before the door. Itosha’s storms had toppled oaks and flattened undergrowth. Lightning had scarred and burned. But it was meaningless destruction compared to what now suffused Merik.
He toppled into the mountain.
Instantly, the frizz of starlight hit his body. He stood on the central platform. All was calm. All was peaceful. The doorway now glowed behind him, as if nothing at all had happened or changed outside this mountain.
Merik flew once, a haphazard, panicked wind. Nothing like the targeted power he’d had onlymomentsago against Rakel, against Itosha.
“Where are you?” he roared, and his voice sent echoes across the cavern. It sent bursts of winged galaxies flying upward.
There was the door into the ice tomb ahead. No longer did ice clog its entrance, no longer did ice hunt a prince and his hound. Now it was as calm, as peaceful as the rest of the mountain. The ice that glowed was the ice that had always been there—ice for Sightwitches.
It had no interest in Merik as he shot through and bellowed out, “Kullen! Are you here? Answer me!”
“He can’t.” The voice that spoke was one Merik knew right away, even if he hadn’t heard her in months. Hadn’t seen her, hadn’t known where in the Witchlands she might be. She stood high above, on the same ledge Merik had leaped off of with Aurora only weeks ago.
Merik flew up, a streak of terror. His muscles, his magic, his mind were all shouting,No! This can’t be happening—not again.But it was. Merik needed only look into Ryber’s silver eyes to know…
Kullen was dying.
“Am I too late?” he rasped as he landed clumsily onto the ice beside her. “Is he gone?”
“No. But also…” She swallowed. Then nodded. Her eyes—always that Sightwitch silver—were brighter than Merik had ever seen. As if she were no longerjustRyber, but something much more.
It was like the very knowledge of Noden or the goddess or whoever it was inside this mountain were rippling out around her. It made Merik think of what Kullen had said over their Threadbond:These are the days that make sense to no one except Ryber and the other Sightwitches.
Merik pushed past her, no longer using magic. Relying only on his desperate legs and this ache that was filling him just as the waters and storms of the Exalted Ones had done only moments ago.
Then Merik saw Kullen. He saw his Threadbrother, stretched upon the icy floor. Kullen had always been a lean man, but with massive bones on a long, stretched-out skeleton. Now he was nothing but that skeleton, his eyes sunken. His chest barely moving. His pale hair turned almost as silver as Ryber’s eyes.
And although it was not as thick as the tomb had been, there was new ice latticing across his body. A sheet to encase his desiccated hands, knees, feet.
His eyes fluttered open as Merik lurched to his side. They were the blue Merik had always known.
“Is it your lungs?” Merik asked. “Is it a breathing attack? I can get you air. I can fill your lungs—”
“No, my king.” The voice that rattled out was stronger than it had any right to be. It made Merik’s heart catch. Made tears punch through his eyes. “The problem is not my lungs.”
Ryber stepped into the tomb. It was so cold in here—not that Merik felt it—and she wore a thick gray gown and a knife at her hip. Behind her,other bodies assembled, each dressed the same. And each with eyes that glowed as Ryber’s did.
They were somber, unknown beings whom Merik supposed he ought to be alarmed by… but that he scarcely noticed. All that mattered was Kullen sprawled before him.
Merik tore ice off Kullen’s right hand and pulled his Threadbrother’s fingers into his. “What’s happening to you? How do I stop this?”
Kullen smiled. “You already know the answer to that.”
“No, no.” Merik’s grip turned brutal on Kullen. “Please, Kullen. The grave is still too deep, and I haven’t dug us out yet.”
“You’re wrong.” Kullen’s voice was weaker now. And the ice lacing over him had reached Merik—although it didn’t try to contain him as it had before. “The grave is long since filled, Merik, except for the one you refuse to climb out of.”
“Irefuse?” Merik half choked that word—part laugh, part sob. “Kullen, everything I have touched is ruined. Everyone I have ever loved has ended up cursed or dead.”
“The greatness I saw in you is still there.”
“There is nothing there.”
