Page 24 of Witchlight
Vivia wondered the same, but where such questions struck awe in the Empress, Vivia felt only horror. Eridysi was a woman who’d written a sad song a thousand years ago; she was a Sightwitch no one really remembered; she was as relegated to legend as Lady Baile or the Fury.
Which meant she was not supposed to bereal,and her Lament wasn’t supposed to be real either.
Vivia shook herself. “I don’t want to stay here. Let’s keep moving.”
“Hye,” Cam agreed. “The door’s straight ahead. Through that hallway across the room. I’ll show you.” He scampered ahead. Vivia trailed behind. Zander too.
The sheer size of him made Vivia want to cower—which wasn’t his fault. And nothing about him cued aggression. Yet Vivia found her strides lengthening to get away from him. The foxfire fans wavered as she passed. The air seemed too thin.
She was ten steps into the hall when she heard a barking cry.Cam,she thought, and now she fully ran while Zander galloped behind. They rounded a curve. They saw the boy.
He was fine. Or at least, he wasn’t suddenly dead or eaten by ice. Instead he leaned against a massive wooden door, his head hanging in his hands. “We can’t get through,” he mumbled as Vivia skidded to a stop beside him. The boy didn’t look at her. “We can’t get through, Majesty. This”—he punched a single fist against the planks—“needs a special key that only Sightwitches have. Unless we can find one of those keys in the workshop, we can’t get through.”
Vivia stared at the door, trying to process Cam’s words. There was no knob to turn, and only a single hole where a key was clearly meant to slot.
“It doesn’t open?” Zander asked, joining them. He spoke in his rounded Cartorran.
Vivia nodded. “Locked,” she said numbly.
“May I… try something?” He gestured to a spot between Vivia and Cam.
And Vivia simply shrugged. “Sure.” She gripped Cam by the sleeve and towed him out of the giant’s way. But where she thought the Hell-Bard would fling his enormous body against the door, he instead placed both hands upon the wood. His fingers splayed. His eyes closed.
The foxfire brightened toward blinding. So much so that Cam recoiled and Vivia had to shade her eyes. Yet she heard… thenfeltas the wood responded to Zander’s magic. She hadn’t known such a thing was possible—any Plantwitches she’d ever met in Nubrevna had only ever worked withlivingplants. But long-dead wood? Long-carvedand -nailedand -hiddenwood inside an ancient mountain?
This Hell-Bard must have incredible power.
A groan filled the hall, like metal bending against stone. It was impossible to see in all the light, but Vivia thought the door might be opening. Splitting down the middle as wood fought against hinges.
Then it was done. The light receded, and now Zander was the one to groan. His knees gave out beneath him. Vivia and Cam darted forward, but he was so big. So limp. He crashed down, knocking wood and splinters on the way.
“Zan!” Lev shouted, trampling into the hall. “No, no,no,you stupid man!” She dropped to his side, and Vivia dropped with her. Together, they hauled Zander onto his back. He was bleeding from his nose. Gushing, actually.
“Vaness!” Vivia bellowed toward the workshop. “Get the healer kit from my pack!Now!” She knew what to do here. This was the same curse that struck the Empress if she used too much power. They had tools to help…
But the tools never reached Vivia or Zander or Lev. Instead, the ice did. Black-veined and hungry, it screeched in through the broken door at a speed no human could ever match. Vivia tried. Her arms shot high, her legs sprang her upright to flee. But such instincts were useless against an enemy that wasn’t alive and never had been.
The ice covered Zander, entombing him in a single heartbeat.
Then it claimed Lev. And it claimed Vivia too, embracing her, caressing her like a mother coaxing her into sleep.Come, come, the ice will hold you.
The last thing Vivia sensed before she lost all sight and sound was the presence of two little girls. They giggled and clapped and watched as the ice did its work.
“The queen of hounds, the queen of hawks, and the king of bats,” the taller one said in a language that was familiar enough to understand, but too foreign to identify. “That sounds like it should start a joke, doesn’t it?”
“Not a very funny one,” the smaller girl replied.
“Itwillbe funny, though. Once all the six are together, everyone will have to laugh.” As the last slivers of ice shrouded over Vivia’s eyes, the taller girl smiled—at Cam, Vivia thought, although she couldn’t turn to see. “Oh, hello,” she said. “You must be the Nine of Hounds. Do not be frightened. Nine is sacred inside this mountain, for only with nine can one ever think beyond.”
Kullen,
I have found some clues, but Goddess, it has taken me too long. On the thirty-first level of the Crypts, the ghosts found an old record from when the twelve Paladins still lived and were the only people with magic.
It was an old text about the differences between Void and Aether—and how the line distinguishing those two powers is thin. I’ve copied the words of the record on the next page, but suffice it to say that I have a theory: What if you are not possessed but merely a puppet?
You must remember when you began cleaving on the Nubrevnan shore a year ago. There was a vast, wicked storm. You cleaved, and I sang “Maidens North of Lovats” to bring you back to me. At the time, we both believed the cleaving was mere chance—the nature of magic and its growing instability.
Now I have no doubt it was done on purpose.The Puppeteer wanted to control you by binding you to her Loom, which in turn forced you to join the Raider King’s forces. But you are no ordinary person with an ordinary soul. You are the Paladin of Air, filled with hundreds of lifetimes.
