Page 142 of Witchlight
Then she spotted golden eyes within the branches.Manygolden eyes.
Stix wanted to laugh. She wanted to weep.Six-fingered cats to ward off mice,she thought, and with what little control she still had over her muscles, she nodded at all the cats now gathered in the leaves.
A black cat sprang first, followed a fraction of a breath later by tens more. Ahundredmore. Some with six fingers, but many with only five. They were the feral cats of the city, and they had always loved Lady Baile as much as she had always loved them.
The first cat landed on Lovats with her claws and fangs bared. The Exalted One was startled enough to spin about—and to meet, face on, the hundreds more bodies that hissed and yowled from the tree.
Stix sprang too. She had barely enough clarity, barely enough strength to control her musclesandgrab hold of her witchery, but it was enough. Ithadto be enough.
Ice,she thought at the water all around her, gathered in cobbles, vaporized in the air, pulsing as sap in the tree.Feast upon him.
The water obeyed, crushing over Lovats—and over cats too—in an iron maiden of ice. Stix felt Lovats’s scream through her magic, through her water. And sheheardit rip through the cats.
Then came his flames, cooking anything in his way. They roared into Stix. Cooked her eyeballs, her skin, her hair. But she thrust right through. Sheneededthat ring; shehadto get it off of him.
She tackled Lovats to the cobbles. Years of training moved her muscles without thought.Always, always stay the night for Baile’s slaughtering.Lovats was so much more powerful than she. A god in many ways, and as soonas Stix’s arms slung around him, he flipped her to the ground. She landed on irons. Chains and shackles barked pain into her kidneys—but that was minuscule concern compared to the bone-cracking pain the jade ring shot into her.
No,Stix tried to scream as Lovats bore down. As his beautiful face swam closer and his fingers closed around her neck.NO.She grabbed at his hands. A chokehold like this was so easy to get out of. She’d practiced it so many times. She’dtaughtit so many times. All she had to do was grab the pinkie and yank. Snap the finger so hard that the knuckle broke.
On a normal human, that would be enough to change the fight’s direction. But on a Paladin? On anExalted Oneas powerful as Lovats? Flames coursed off his body, and Stix smelled burnt hair. Her hair, the cats’. Hell, maybe all of the city burned for all she could see.
No,she thought again, and after fumbling her fingers over his pinkie, she counted inwardone, two.Here was the middle finger. Here was the ring that controlled her. She felt it, right there, throbbing in time to her own fading, scorching heartbeat.
Stix grabbed hold. For this city, for Nubrevna, for the Fox Queen she would always serve, sherippedat Lovats’s finger. Because she was Lady Baile, she was Stacia Sotar, and she wasnotabandoning anyone today. Least of all herself.
Flesh tore. Muscles stretched and frayed. Bones snapped, and flames burned, burned, burned. But it was all too fast, too violent for Lovats to resist.
The finger came off entirely—and with it came the ring. With it came Stix’s power.
Water pummeled into Lovats then. Sap that finally broke from the tree. Floods that filled nearby Cisterns. Rain that had not planned to break today. It all blasted down in a single, targeted torrent for this man who wasnota god.
Yet none of Stix’s waters ever made contact. Instead, they hit fire and became steam. A great, heaving fog that erupted across Judgment Square and shrouded everything. And as the fog and fires laid claim—scalding and cruel—the weight of Lovats atop Stix vanished.
She scrabbled to her feet, gasping for air and reaching, groping, searching the steam for some sign of which way he’d fled. But even with her magic back and the pain of the jade ring receding…
There was nothing to be found. No trace to follow.
Lovats was gone.
SEVENTY-TWO
Caden found his Thread-family in a clearing of flowers that was much too calm after climbing through a mountain where ice had melted, and after running through a forest while a storm had faded away.
The Amonra had flooded past its banks. Now waves lapped against oak trunks and striped boulders. A heavy line in the earth showed where Lev must have dragged Zander ashore.
She was pumping at the man’s chest when Caden and Alma reached her. “Wake up, Zan. Wake up.” Lev was crying, even as her movements stayed curt and trained. “Zan, buddy, come on.” She stopped her pumping to press her mouth to his. Hard puffs of air that sent his chest rising.
Caden knelt on Zander’s other side. As soon as Lev finished her breaths, he replaced her. The giant of a man wasn’t dead—he could see that in the Threadstone Alma still clutched. In the way she stood there, grave and focused on the air around Zander instead of on the man himself.
But Zander was in danger, and death hovered near.
“I can’t heal him,” Lev said as Caden pumped. She didn’t seem surprised by his arrival. She was too focused on Zander for anything else. Muddy tears streaked her face. “Commander, I can’t heal him. I keep trying, but I can’t get the water out of him. I’m not strong with this magic yet—I don’t remember how to use it—”
“It’s all right,” Caden said.
“It’s not, though. I’m in command. This ismymission. I did this—Ididthis.”
Caden couldn’t answer. There was no time as he tipped back Zander’s nose and pressed his lips against the man’s. Two hard exhales before Lev was once more pumping at his chest.
