Page 75 of Witchlight
And Merik glared at her—his eyes being the only thing she could see through his frozen sand-scarf. “I know,” he grumbled, even though he hated saying it. Hated giving up control to her. “Just please don’t get us killed, hye?”
Sky gave another expressive grunt; this one said,Obviously. She tugged at her scarf, checking it was in place, and without another sound or even a backward glance, she set off into the city.
Merik hurried behind.
Back when Merik had still been a prince of Nubrevna, back when he’d still had access to spies and intelligence, the origins of the Raider King had remained an empty space. A mystery no one had been able to answer, and even now—as close as he lived day in and day out to the man—Merik still had few answers.
For one, he had never seen Ragnor. Neither up close, nor from afar. For two, he didn’t understand Ragnor’s strategy. The Raider King had gone fast and hard against all the empires, yet now he was content to simply wait.
Waiting was never good for morale. It was why Sky, Ulga, and Birdyhad been poking through Poznin that day Merik had found them: they were bored and too young to stay loyal without clear cause.
Merik hurried out of cover, Sky stepping lightly ahead. A large pool had hardened to ice on their left. Marsh reeds poked up, rattling quietly against the night’s winds—and against Merik’s winds too. Just the occasional gust to mask their footsteps. To kick up old snow. To draw ears toward other sounds instead of toward him and Sky hurrying past.
Not that his Windwitchery was reliable. It always stuttered and coughed when he came into the city and got too near to the Air Well.
But that is why Safi is here,Merik thought for the hundredth time.Because the Cahr Awen is real. Because Aunt Evrane was right. Because somehow Safi and her Threadsister are going to heal the Well and save all the Witchlands.
It was a thought that kept repeating in his brain without ever settling in. An assemblage of words that didn’t make sense. He hadn’t even fully accepted that Safiya fon Hasstrel was currently in Last Holdout, so how was he supposed to also accept she could heal all magic in the Witchlands?
Merik and Sky reached the first building where guards usually patrolled. They weren’t there tonight. Clouds drifted overhead, tatters from the storm above the forest. They looked like fish escaping their school.
“I’m going to have to find better ground,” Merik whispered to Sky, who crouched beside him. “I can’t see ahead clearly.”
“S’a bad idea.” Sky’s magic latticed around the words. Not on purpose, but because she felt her point so deeply, she wanted to convince Merik too. “We shouldn’t split up.”
“I’ll make the signal when we can keep moving.” Merik drew in his winds and vaulted to the building’s crooked rooftop. He folded onto his hands as soon as his feet touched icy shingles. He could spy many rooftops now, most half-tumbled or entirely broken…
And all of them empty as far as Merik could see. He withdrew a spyglass from a slot on his belt. The rooftops sharpened through the lens. The snow and shadows lurched closer. But all was still empty, still silent.
Merik gave the signal. A whistle so soft, it could only be heard when he coaxed his winds to carry it down, directly into Sky’s ears. Her figure was soon a vague shadow across the snowy ruins.
Merik floated to the next rooftop, repeated his scan through the spyglass, repeated the signal to Sky. Again, again, as the horizon remained clear. Soon, however, they were too near the Well—so Merik’s winds began resisting his command. It forced him to choose a path with narrower gaps between rooftops.
He and Sky went half a mile this way before Merik finally found any life—but it was not the usual arrangement of raiders he’d seen in the past. These were not rows of protective sentries meant to keep out intruders, but rather camps of soldiers with only a few tired guards huddled around burning fires.
Orange flames beckoned with warm fingers. Merik shivered. There were entire streets left empty; it would be so easy to navigate between encampments. And that felt wrong. Why would Ragnor drop his guardnow?
Merik didn’t whistle to Sky this time as he took flight. Instead, he skipped to a rooftop next door where the shingles were black and devoid of snow.
He should have noticed that—the lack of snow. He should have sensed how warm they felt through his wet boots. But he was more worried over the absence of soldiers, more worried he and Sky were blundering into a trap.
A plank shifted beneath Merik’s foot. A shingle scraped on wood, and the sound split the night like a pistol shot. Then came a groan, loud as Aurora baying, and suddenly the roof beneath Merik collapsed. It happened so fast—one moment, he was upright; the next, he was being eaten alive by splinters and slate and heat. He hit a floor he couldn’t see and grappled for his winds. But of course they chose to fall silent. To slam their hands over their ears and ignore his desperate calls.
The heat of a stove clogged his lungs. There was pain too, in Merik’s ribs, in his neck, and above all, in his leg. A splinter had gotten him. He was bleeding.
He grappled for purchase and tried to rise. He was in someone’s bedroom. A crude space repurposed into something almost cozy.
He was also not alone.
A woman gaped at him. The gap between her front teeth was familiar, as was her pale hair pulled back like a Nubrevnan sailor’s and the sharp, pointed tip of her chin.
“Stix?” Merik tried to choke out. “Stix, it’s me.” The words never left his throat. Not before ice rose over him, hungry as the ice from the mountain—but without the soothing song to accompany it. This was Stix’s magic, as wildly powerful as Kullen’s had been but with control over a different element.
The ice claimed Merik’s chin. His forehead.No, no, no. He drew in a final breath before it claimed his mouth.Please, winds, come to me. Please, break me free.
They did not come. They did not help him.
THIRTY-SEVEN
