Page 61 of Witchlight
He rasped in air. Again, again, feeling how his heartbeat shuddered through him. Into his lungs pierced by arrows, down toward his abdomen. What was this weakness? This curse? Safi had said it wasn’t cleaving, but itwaswrong. Was it some lingering effect from the Old One, Nadje? Or some new ailment he would never escape?
You’re bound to the Void, a cursed beast with ’Matsi poison running in your veins.
Aeduan grappled once more for his magic.
This time it obeyed. Weakly, sullenly, but there for the commanding—and Aeduan’s command was to search for the silver taler. He reached until he felt the faintest stirrings of his own blood smeared on silver.
Iseult had moved. In fact, she was aimed for a different part of the forest at this precise moment. That was all Aeduan could sense—not if Iseult was alive, safe, running, or fighting. But it gave him energy and hope. She was near; he would find her after he found the Truthwitch. Then they would all leave this awful forest together.
For Aeduan understood now why this place might have been left unguarded by his father. There was something else at work here. A different danger. An uncanny force he didn’t want to reckon with.
Surefoot whinnied quietly, as if to sayHello? Human? What are you doing?He stroked her neck. Then forced himself to straighten and turn away from the silver taler, away from the dark-giver… and toward the light-bringer.
The Truthwitch could not have ridden far in her current state. She had a vibrant blood, made all the more unmissable by her wound and blooming fever. Yet when Aeduan sent his magic stretching out again, he sensed nothing. Yes, Safi had left traces of her blood. Remnants floating like moths. But the physicality of her was nowhere nearby.
Aeduan swallowed and let his hand fall from Surefoot’s warmth. He let his magic fall too. It shrank inward, tail between its legs.I am too tired for this. Give me rest and peace!
He couldn’t do that. He had sensed Safi’s scent to the east, so east he aimed, guiding Surefoot with him. Once at the spot where he’d sensed Safi’s blood, he hauled out his magic anew.Reach, stretch, find. There.He let his magic hide again; he resumed his tired trek with Surefoot.
Twice he wondered if it would help him to dig out the Truth-lens. Maybe it would sense its creator; maybe its magic was still somehow threaded to Safi.
But Aeduan resisted. He didn’t like the way that witchery felt. He didn’t want to have to stare directly in the face of truth.
So on and on he and Surefoot traveled, and bit by bit, they made progress. The undergrowth vanished in some places to reveal hoofprints that must have come from Dandelion or Cloud. Or he would snag a taste of the Truthwitch’s blood scent and know she’d gone this way.
He lost sense of daylight. The forest and its ever-present storm felt beyond the passage of time. Here, it was gray whether night had fallen or not. Here, the wind did not reach and the world did not change. Only the river, expanding and growing and sinking into the porous, hungry earth, had any power.
It made Aeduan think of his time trapped and drowning inside his own body. When Nadje had ruled him and he’d felt no hope. Could that Exalted One be the source of this bloodied weeping from his chest?
A sound reached his ears: horses huffing, stamping. A clink like tack. Then a soft whinny to curve and slide around beech and pine trunks.
The Truthwitch.
Aeduan shoved ahead, leaving Surefoot behind as he kicked into a run. He grabbed hold of his magic, yanking it out with almost painful cruelty.There are the mountain ranges and cliffsides, there are the meadows filled with dandelions and the truth hidden beneath snow.The blood scent was weak, but then Aeduan was weak too.
He spotted shapes in the forest ahead. Two horses. One a splash of brown, the other a smear of gray. They both nickered, and one reared slightly as Aeduan stomped through the undergrowth toward them. He was close enough now to see their eyes widening and ears perking. He was close enough to know they were afraid of his rapid, wild approach…
And then he was close enough to see the clearing held only Cloud and Dandelion. There were markings and boot prints in the snow, but no Safiya.
Aeduan cast his magic wider. He grasped and felt… but Safi was gone.
The gelding reared as Aeduan came to halt before him. His eyes rolled, and Aeduan lifted his hands. “Whoa, Dandelion. Whoa.” His voice was much too loud. The horses were much too loud. This was not a place for hope or life. Here, everything drowned.
Surefoot trudged into the clearing. She needed rest. So did Cloud andDandelion. Aeduan would have to continue alone. His worst fears might have come to pass—and Lady Fate’s knife might have turned against him—but he couldn’t abandon the cause yet. The light-bringer needed him. The dark-giver needed him.
Hope dies last,he thought, knowing instantly that it was not his own thought, but a ghostly memory from Nadje.Hope dies last.
Aeduan set off again.
TWENTY-EIGHT
After binding Safi’s hands, Safi’s captors hauled her onto a horse—one of their own, since they left Dandelion and Cloud behind.
For some reason, this made Safi want to weep. She’d thought she could feel nothing but magma right now, yet an oceanic hole split her chest. She had to fight the tears, had to pump false authority into her voice: “How far are we traveling?” She spoke in Marstoki, of course, for these raiders spoke Marstoki—and she had to assume that meant they were Baedyeds.
The woman riding with Safi blatantly ignored the question.
“I only ask,” Safi continued, “because I’m in a lot of pain. I got shot in the arm—by a Marstoki one-shot pistol, actually. And you know how much damage those can do. This one was even Firewitched, so not only have I lost a lot of blood, I seem to be cursed as well.” She paused here, having to suck in a breath. “It’s quite unpleasant.”
