Page 30 of Witchlight
For a brief moment, as Safi departed and the door clicked shut behind her, she considered if perhaps she should offer her uncle a good-bye. Aproper ending after so many years as antagonists. After all, this might be the last time she ever saw him again.
Love and dread,Safi thought. That was the fon Hasstrel motto, and never had it felt more perfect for this family that was not really a family at all. But Safi couldn’t make her feet turn. She couldn’t make her muscles swivel back. She simply walked away toward the main stairwell. And although her magic shrieked at her for all the lies she was telling herself—I don’t need Eron, I won’t miss him—she pretended not to notice. She pretended not to care.
On the floor above the dining room, elegant bedrooms overlooked the forest. One such room, small but finely appointed, had been repurposed to house Henrick fon Cartorra. Iron bars were now fastened over his windows; a bewitched lock had been bolted to his door, and four Hell-Bards stood watch at every hour of the day.
“I will not be long,” Safi told them as they slid aside so she could reach the door. She and Eron were the only ones who knew the lock spell’s rhythms and words. Six beats and five pauses, then the silently mouthedGoat tits in a piss storm.
Safi had chosen the password, of course, and she’d chosen it with relish knowing how much her uncle would hate it. Even now, a smile cut through the headache gripping her left eyeball.
The door’s locks clicked apart. Safi pushed into the bedroom of evergreen upholstery and wood paneling. At a lone armchair beside a fireplace—one that Henrick had to tend himself—sat the former Emperor. He wore chains around his wrists and ankles, yet on his lap was an open book.
It was the one freedom Safi allowed him: he could choose books from the lodge’s library to keep himself busy. Otherwise, he had to remain here for all the rest of his days. Or at least for all the days it took Safi to figure out what else to do with him.
Eron wanted his head on a pike. A logical desire, since Henrick had killed Eron’s sister and brother-in-law—Safi’s parents—and he had ruined Eron’s life along with countless others while cruelly controlling the Hell-Bards.
Safi knew she was supposed to feel the same hatred, the same fury. And certainly her disgust for the man ran deep. Henrick fon Cartorra was the reason she was an orphan; he was the reason she’d been forced into the noose; he was the reason she had lived most of her life on the run as a Truthwitch.
Yet even the most hated men could offer use somewhere.
Iseult had been impressed when Safi had told her this; Safi had been, quite frankly, impressed with herself too.
It helps,she thought as she stared down at Henrick’s face—at the cleverness he no longer veiled behind his dark eyes,that we aren’t married and he is powerless.The man had settled into a complacency that bordered on obsequiousness—all of it genuine according to Safi’s magic. This was a man who had accepted his fate and his lack of any future. His mistress and bastard children were taken care of, since Safi wasn’t heartless, and so what was there for him to fight for?
“I have only one question for you tonight.”
“Hmm?” Henrick grunted, and he shifted in his chair. The wood creaked; it did not sound comfortable.
“There is a negotiation we have with Lusque. They have the better end of the deal, and I want to know why you agreed to it.”
“Ah.” He nodded and closed the book upon his lap. The title read,The Great Mystery of “Eridysi’s Lament.”“You mean the grain agreement?”
“Yes. They get the grain at such a deep discount. Why would you approve that?” This was a genuine question on Safi’s part. One that was not even the slightest bit pressing considering her plans for later tonight…
But a question that had gnawed at her for days—and would keep gnawing at her, even on the roads to the east of here. Because for all Henrick’s attempts to trick the world, he was notactuallya fool. And he did nothing without adequate reason.
A fact which was proven yet again when he answered: “There was another deal for shipbuilders. It was old—before I came to the throne, and before my mother too—but it hinged upon intimidation.Build us these ships or we will invadewas essentially how it read. The grain agreement was my attempt to smooth the waters. Literally.”
“Ah.” For a brief second, the pain behind Safi’s eyeball receded. There was not only logic in this contract, but diplomacy. “And where is the shipbuilding treaty? I haven’t seen it.”
Henrick lifted his hands. “That, Your Imperial Majesty, could be anywhere. There are so many places I kept such things.”
Safi sighed, and just like that, the headache punched back in. “Could you be a little bit more specific?”
Another shrug, this time with a wince that was neithergenuinein its apology nor totally false.
And Safi heard her teeth grinding, a scritching sound to fill her skull. It was moments like these when Henrick revealed a bit of his old ways,although she didn’t think he was intentionally difficult. It was more like the pain in Safi’s foot that never quite went away after Empress Vaness had smashed all the bones with iron. Mostly the injury was healed, mostly Safi had adapted to a slight change in her gait to avoid irritating the old pains…
But sometimes she forgot. Sometimes she landed badly or twisted too fast because the muscles still remembered how they used to be.
That was how Henrick felt: he had been emperor so long, he could not fall into total complacency overnight, even if he wanted to.
Head on a pike!Eron would have barked were he sitting here. Safi only dropped her hand and said: “I’m leaving tonight, Henrick. In secret.”
He bowed his head, as if this were only to be expected. “You go to the Well?”
“Yes.” How strange that she could be honest with this man, but no one else in the lodge or her empire. “I’ll leave orders that you should remain as you are, but… well, accidents happen.”
“Accidents happen,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for the warning.” He bowed his head, a truthful gesture. “And I wish you luck on your journey. May I offer a word of advice?”
