Page 32 of Witchlight
“Well,” he replied. His head began shaking as he strode toward her. By the time he reached her and the crashedEridysi,he’d removed his lenses and scarves. Acid had gotten him in multiple places, despite his defenses. There was a line of blisters around each eye, and along the bridge of his nose.
“Well,” Safi repeated. “What do you have to say for yourself, Hell-Bard?”
“Nothing, Heretic.” He shook his head again. “Only that you shouldn’t have left the lodge without a square of Hell-Bards to protect you.”
Safi snorted. “Let’s dispense with the horseshit, please. Why are you here?Again?As your empress, I forbade you from entering the Solfatarra. You do remember that, don’t you?”
“And as your Hell-Bard captain,” he countered, “I forbadeyoufrom leaving the palace without protection—”
“Don’t.” Safi stamped a foot. Snow kicked up around her. “Caden, we have to talk about this. Although, could we perhaps do so while returning to the lodge? I’m freezing.”
Caden winced. First at Safi’s request, then as snowflakes landed on fresh blisters. “You forget,” he offered eventually, “that I am a Firewitch now… or rather,again.I can get us warm and we can talk here.”
There was so much contained in that one sentence: the fact that Caden’s magic had returned, the fact that he still wasn’t accustomed to it… And the fact that he was subtly refusing to obey her because he wanted to remain beside this graveyard.
“Fine,” Safi said eventually. “Let us burn what remains of theEridysi.”And let me finally have this conversation I’ve been avoiding.
It took Caden three times to get his magic to spark—and that was only after he and Safi had cleared away as much of the snow as they could. Then it took another three times before theEridysi’s wood, damp and cold, would listen to his witchery and feed his magicked flames.
Now the wood burned like a funeral pyre, and Safi had to admit there was something healing about the flames. It must have cut Leopold deep to see his precious creation crash. She hoped this blaze could be another twist of the knife. A sprinkling of salt on a thousand-year-old wound.
Neither Safi nor Caden sat, but instead stood near the fire and let the smokeless heat roar against them. It added color to Caden’s haggard cheeks. It made his new blisters gleam orange.
Far, far in the distance, chimes clanged out the eighteenth hour. “I think you should leave,” Safi said.False,scratched her magic. “I think your time with me is done.”
He stared into the flames, silent.
“You want to search for Zander and Lev, don’t you? Beyond the Solfatarra? Because you must know they’re not here.”
Caden shifted his weight, and for the first time since being cornered, his posture relaxed. “Idon’tknow they’re not here or I wouldn’t keep searching. But yes, I would… like to look farther abroad.”
True.
“Why haven’t you asked for permission to do so?”
“Because.” Caden glowered at the pyre, his thumb tapping against his collarbone—where a golden noose used to hang. “I’m still a Hell-Bard captain. My duty is to protect you, and I take that seriously.”
False,Safi’s magic warned at the same moment it murmured,True.She moved toward him, and with gentle care, she pulled his hand from his neck. He didn’t resist, and so they stood there, hand in hand. “But that isn’t the only reason you’ve stayed, is it?”
For her, this was a conversation between friends, yet she knew that for him—no matter how close they might be, no matter how much hellfirethey might have fought through… For him, it would always be a conversation between a captain and his empress. She might be his Thread-family, but he could not shed duty. He could not shed his vows.
Sometimes, she wondered what Caden had been like before his father had sent him to Hell-Bard Keep. She saw glimpses of that boy from time to time. Certainly the Chiseled Cheater who had first swindled her out of coins was part of that old persona—the same charming, almost mocking man who could navigate a fraught card game with an admiral in the Red Sails. Who could sayGood enougheven as the world literally burned around him.
It was a personality like her own. Someone who laughed easily and enjoyed a good drink; who reveled in mischief and teasing, yet would never intentionally harm.
But that person was not who Caden was any longer. The Hell-Bard Loom scraped people of their essence, stealing their color and their life. Safi had only been bound for weeks, yet she was forever changed by that Void magic. Small divots had been left upon her soul; they would heal and they would scab, but the scars would never go away.
Caden had lived as a Hell-Bard for so much longer. He’d been consigned to the Loom so muchyounger. And no matter how often he might say that phrase—Good enough—Safi didn’t think it was true anymore.
“I’ve crafted a mission,” she said, “which will allow you to search for Lev and Zander.”True,her magic whispered at the same moment that it whispered,False.Because shehadmade a mission—but it was not merely so Caden could search. It was mostly so he wouldn’t be in the way.
“No.” Caden reared away from her. “You can’t give me special treatment, Safi. People disappear all the time, and we don’t go looking—”
“Of course we do.” Heat from the pyre licked against Safi’s side.
“Well, I won’t do it. I won’t accept the mission.”
“Even if I command you to?”
