Page 76 of Witchlight
Safi was under strict orders to remain in her bed, which meant that she absolutely did not. After confirming with a few steps back and forth across her hut that she was able to walk again, she hefted up a blanket and finagled it around her shoulders. Then, because she’d been caught too often unawares, she found her sword and fastened it—belt, hilt, and Truth-singing steel—to her hips.
Warmer and armed, she now stomped into Last Holdout.
It was her first time really seeing the settlement. The tree-branch canopy that seemed to block out the sky, the forest hugging them close like walls.
Safi’s right hand flexed at her side. It was a movement she saw the Bloodwitch make often, and she had a sudden, visceral understanding ofwhyhe was always doing it: because if he didn’t, his fists would form and someone might get hurt.
There was no one outside at this hour for Safi to hurt, and she couldn’t decide if she was happy about this fact… or angry. With the pain in her arm reduced to annoyance—and the muscles themselves almost completely healed—she had nothing to distract her from everything else that had gone wrong.
The Cahr Awen souls knew the Well was near. They were awakening again, resuming their eyeball-squeezing song.Why are you not moving? Why are you once more standing still?
“Because,” she hissed at them, “the other half of the Cahr Awen isn’t with me, and what good am I for the Well ifsheisn’t there to heal it too?”
The souls didn’t answer, because they never answered. Iseult had told her they were just leftover Threads, floating around, no longer bound to the outer package that had been their bodies. They were just the forgotten edges of desire, of need, of hunger—hundreds of each emotion crammed inside Safi’s entirely too-human brain.
She spun around, searching the empty passages between huts for signs of life. But there was no one awake, no one out, no one to ask,Excuse me, where can I find your leader?
She picked a direction and started walking. There was a vaguely central point where the woven canopy seemed highest—and where a shadowy column awaited. A tree trunk, she thought at first, until she was close enough to see it was made from the same stone as the shrine they’d camped beside last night.
Then Safi was close enough to see a carving on the stone. A huff of understanding escaped her nose. In four more steps, her blanket loosening on her shoulders, she reached the column and placed her hand on the familiar marking. It was an owl, Safi knew, just as there had been an owl under the imperial palace in Praga.
So many secret places across the Witchlands, and somehow she and Iseult kept finding them. Or perhaps it wasn’tsomehowso much as Lady Fate guiding them. Perhaps all these places had been built long ago for the day when a dark-giver and a light-bringer might need them.
A voice sheared through the night, bouncing against wooden boughs and sliding into Safi’s ears. A boy’s voice poised on the cusp of manhood. “He isn’t back yet.” He spoke elegant Cartorran.
“Obviously.” This was another boy’s voice, and there was a decidedly sulky layer to it. “We all got eyes, Revan.”
What followed was a rapid-fire stream of Marstoki between the young boy and a grown man, but it was quiet—too quiet for Safi to easily hear beyond the wordstunnelandforest.
Safi tipped her body around the column. Her blanket slid down her left shoulder; cold kissed her skin. Standing before one of the smallest huts (ofcourseMerik would have chosen the smallest; she should have guessed that) were four figures. Three were hooded, and the fourth wore a fine, if enormous black robe.
And beside them was a horse, gray as a stormy sky with breaths to puff against the cold. “Cloud!” Safi scrabbled out from the column, half tripping on her blanket as she ran. “Where is the rider?” She flung this question out in Marstoki. “Where is the rider?’
“There was none.” This came from one of the hooded figures, who drew back his hood to reveal a handsome face with thick, dark lashes. “We found this horse not far from Last Holdout—alone.” He flipped his hand toward Safi to reveal a Herdwitch’s mark.
But Safi wasn’t impressed by his power or his words. “Great. Yourmagic found a single horse. Now I need you to find two more, as well as the people who were on them.”
“They are gone. The two horses you seek have disappeared into the other part of the forest.”
“Theother part?” Safi sputtered. Then she tossed up her hands. “You know what? I don’t care. Just show me.” She reached for Cloud’s reins. Her blanket slipped farther down her shoulder.
And the smallest person, the one they’d called Revan, hurried in. “No, no, Lady! You are not supposed to leave. Merik said you must rest and heal.”
“Do I look like I need rest?” Safi snatched Cloud’s reins. The horse snuffed; her ears swiveled back.
But the Marstoki man holding the reins only gripped tighter. “We will await Merik’s return. I can describe what we found if that might help.”
No,Safi was about to snarl.It won’t help.This was Iseult’s horse, which meant Iseult had to be nearby. Any other possibility…
Safi couldn’t think of it. She wouldn’t.
But right as she centered her strength to kick onto Cloud’s saddle and spur straight out of this uncanny place, a dog’s whine pierced the night. Loud, sharp, and with percussive, booming thuds to rumble beneath it.
Then everything happened at once. A creature rounded a nearby building, enormous and gleaming with wings that smacked branches and feet that churned up soft earth. Cloud reared, stealing her reins from both Safi and the Herdwitch.
And one of the other hooded figures shouted, “Aurora, no!” at the same moment the last hooded figure shouted, “Merik must be in trouble!”
Those words jolted through Safi, almost as intensely as Cloud’s hooves did, now tumbling toward her face. Safi jolted sideways. The blanket fell. Cloud trampled onto it, while the Herdwitch started shouting, “Ho, calm! Ho, calm!” His commands thrummed with truth and power.
