Page 154 of Witchlight
With no preamble, Stix tried—as best she could—to execute her queen’s command. She described all that she had learned, all she had done, all she had become in the past months. But just as Stix’s own mind had rebelled and rebelled against the truth inside her, against the Paladin soul and all its memories…
She could see Vivia doing the same.
And Stix could hardly blame her.
Eventually, it became too much. Vivia sat on the edge of her bed, while Stix remained kneeled upon the floor. The water in the pitcher stopped its wild heaving, although it didn’t calm entirely. And for many dragging minutes, there was only Stix’s voice—as detached and clear as she could make it—filling the bedroom.
Until Stix finally reached the end of her tale. And she finally reached the part she had come here to say: “So you see why I can’t remain in Lovats.”
Vivia swayed. Her eyes, huge and pale in the fire-lit room, looked atStix with something that might have been horror. Might have been shock. “You will leave? Again?”
“Hye.” With careful movements, Stix pushed to her own feet. The room spun. “I told you: there are Exalted Ones still out there. And one of them… he will come back here. This city is not safe.Noneof the Witchlands are until I find him.”
“Why you, though?” Vivia pushed off her bed. “Just because you’re… you’re Lady Baile? A… a Paladin? Surely the Cahr Awen can do this. Or the other Paladins you spoke of. That Red Sails Admiral and the child. Leave this task to them. And stayhere,Stix. Protect ushere.”
Stix ground her teeth. Again, she was squinting. Again, there was no reason. But it was the only way to blunt the agony of this choice she didn’t want to make.Except you do, now that Vivia has found love with another. You don’t want to be here to watch that.
“Do you see this?” From her shirt, Stix dug out a silver chain with a vial attached. She unlooped it from her neck and held it outstretched.
And as she expected—as she’dhoped—Vivia recoiled. “Is that a finger?”
“It’shisfinger. The monster who built this city. It belongs to him, as does the ring upon it. I will use these to find him.”
“How?”
“I… don’t know,” Stix answered truthfully. “I only know that this piece of Lovats is important.”A sixth finger,she thought, as she watched it dangle next to her fist.To ward off mice.“And until I find him, I cannot stay here, my Queen. But once I do—once Kahina and I have ended him, I’ll return.”
“Or you will never find him and never return?” Vivia shook her head, and the water in its pitcher juddered with the same furious rhythm. But where there had been outrage on the queen’s face before, now there was only cruel indifference.
It wasn’t real. That expression. It was just a little fox putting on her mask, even as the water betrayed her true pain.
“I’m sorry.” Stix returned the chain to her neck. Then tucked the encapsulated finger back inside her shirt. “I’m more sorry than you can ever know, Vivia Nihar. But I swear to you that I will return.”
Vivia’s lips seamed shut. She turned away. The water sloshed anew. “Go,” she said toward the desk. “Go, Stix, before I say something I know I can never take back.”
Stix obeyed. It was the best path for them both, even if all she really wanted to do was fling herself at her Threadsister andbegfor her to listen, to understand.
She spun on her heel.Calm,she told the water in the pitcher.Be calm and give her the peace she needs.
Stix was almost to Pin’s Keep when Kahina slunk out of an alley’s shadow. The spark of her pipe gave her away. Then the woman herself was there, her white hair tucked under a hooded cloak.
“It’s done?” she asked.
Stix nodded, finding the wordhyetoo hard to utter. Everything hurt. Not on the outside, of course, but on the inside where pain had a way of festering long after an injury should have healed.
“I’m sorry,” Kahina said as she pulled Stix against her for a gruff—but ferocious—embrace. This was the softer side of her that she rarely showed anyone. The hearth fire instead of the inferno.
A cat purred against them as they stood there in this half-collapsed street of the Skulks, and Stix found that suddenly she was crying. All the tears she had kept locked away during her many steps from Queen’s Hill to here now pulsed outward. Neither physical resistance nor magical resistance would keep them dammed in.
“I’m sorry,” Kahina said again. “I did warn you.”
Stix nodded against Kahina’s shoulder. “You did.” The woman smelled of tobacco and woodsmoke. “And I know you’re right that this is for the best. For Vivia and Nubrevna—and for the Empress and Marstok too. But…”
“But,” Kahina agreed, and she finally withdrew. Her hands moved to Stix’s biceps and she squeezed so hard it almost hurt. “You will be tougher for this, Stacia Sotar of Nubrevna. Just as I was tougher for my own broken heart. Some wounds might be slow to heal, but all do heal eventually. And as Paladins, we have more time than most. She will age and she will die, yet you will linger on.”
Stix screwed her eyes shut. Paladin bodies didn’t live forever—although their souls did—but they still outlived most humans. There was so much magic inside them; time simply did not have the same hold.
“Now come, Stix.” Kahina released her, smoke puffing from her pipe. “Our little sister is waiting for us at the Convent, and we have so much work to do.”
