Page 80 of Witchlight
He dropped it, letting it flutter down to Aeduan’s chest. Next, he tugged out a leather thong, which he dangled over Aeduan’s eyes. Light glinted on silver. A scent like fireflies tickled Aeduan’s magic.
“How funny that this was once my coin, yet now it is a little trinket between lovers.” The way Leopold said this did not make it sound funny at all. “Since you cannot use it to follow your lover now, then I will tell you exactly where she is and how to find her. Though do not seek her out until all the Carawens have joined you. Otherwise, your life and hers will be lost.”
Leopold dipped close now, angling his face so his mouth was near Aeduan’s ear. His voice dropped to a whisper not even the Well could hear. “The dark-giver is with your father in the heart of Poznin. She thinks she is helping you by trying to kill the Raider King, but we both know your father is more likely to kill her first. So hurry, Bloodwitch, and finish healing. Then go to the dark-giver before it is too late.”
THIRTY-NINE
Sky was in a bad way. She’d gotten out of the Raider King’s tent, but her attempts to reach the old tower and its nearby tunnel were proving futile. She couldn’t even reach the original part of the city, enclosed in its crumbling wall. Thanks to Merik and his misplaced feet on a rooftop, every street was crawling with raiders.
She blended in well enough with them. Her Baedyed clothes never earned a second glance, not even with a book now bouncing at her hip.
But blending in was little comfort, because the more byways and side streets she veered down, the more raiders she encountered. They moved with surprising order and frightening focus. Never had she seen anything like it. Baedyeds buried firepots, Purists laid hunting traps, Red Sails wedged spikes into the ground, and the Nomatsis… Sky didn’t actually know what they were doing, but they wore masks over their mouths, and a thick fog rose up in the places where they focused their work.
What worried her most, though, were the carts. Tens of them being hauled uphill by mules and horses over the rough remnants of city roads. Barrels sloshed, a smell like tar burned into Sky’s nose.
It had to be seafire. Unquenchable, undousable, unstoppable. Seafire burned as soon as air kissed it, and the Raider King’s people were transportinghundredsof barrels into the old part of the city.
Sky watched a procession amble past. All the other worker wasps were laying their traps with a precise, if chaotic speed—like this had always been the plan, but now the timeline had gotten bumped forward. But the people working the carts and the barrels… They never sped. Chaos never touched them.
Sky untucked from a shadow, letting her shoulders rise and chest balloon. Her stride sharpened. Words assembled while heat gathered around her diaphragm—a sensation she’d always thought was just guilt because she wasn’t blessed and she wasn’t pure.Nowshe knew it was a witchery.Herwitchery, bound directly to the Aether.
Merik might not have been the first person to ever see through her manipulations and tricks, but Merikwasthe first person to say,Ah, now that’s a useful skill, Sky. Why don’t we use it for good things?
Turned out, Sky liked doing good things.
And shereallyliked the idea of returning to Last Holdout tonight—if not for her own safety, then to relay the words the Threadwitch had passed on. So she marched right up to the nearest cart with six barrels in the back and twelve Baedyeds surrounding it. Most had their scarves down. Their breaths plumed like chimneys. Ahead, at a gap in the wall, the Red Sails were stamping spears into the ground. They had left just enough space for the cart—and the three other carts behind this one to finagle through.
So much seafire.
Poznin was going to burn.
But Sky couldn’t think about that. She just had to get into the old city. She just had to reach the tunnel.
Although her stomach was twisting, Sky kept her chin high and her stride long. The Baedyeds in Last Holdout, she’d noticed, had a way of walking.Rolling,really, as if they were on the decks of a ship or crossing their Sand Sea. Loulou was especially fluid. Sky liked watching him walk. She liked following him around too, trying to imitate him even if he mostly ignored her.
All her practice had paid off. Only one Baedyed glanced her way, dark eyes lingering on her as she eased into careful step beside them. Then it came: “Why are you here?”
“To help.” Sky pumped her magic up from that warm spot in her diaphragm. Across her vocal cords and over her tongue.I am just like you. I belong here.“I was ordered to be here in case you need more hands for the…”Oh shit.Sky trailed off as the word for seafire didn’t appear in her brain. She’d never heard it used before; her magic—she was discovering—could only replicate that which she hadheard.
The man’s eyebrows lifted. “Inhelysha?”
“Ahtset. Ahtset.”Yes, yes.“Se-inhelysha.”Sweat gathered under Sky’s scarf. She was glad he couldn’t see her face.Trust me, trust me. I’m just like you.
He nodded. “As long as you are trained?”
Sky gulped. Then nodded. “Of course I am trained.” She smiled under her scarf, hoping the crinkle that reached her eyes would convince him. It did. He grunted.
“Then follow behind. Everything must be ready before the Cartorranstone-shitters get here. We’ll have a good surprise for them, eh?” He smiled now too, but his was genuine and revealed sharp, shining teeth.
He turned away. Sky’s breath punched out. She knew the wordsstoneandshitterseparately, but she’d never heard them bolted together like that. And she didn’t like the implication of his words. If this seafire was meant for stone-shitters, then that meant Cartorrans were either already here or else would be here shortly.
Oh Cursed Wells, Sky needed to get back to Last Holdout.
As she hurried behind the Baedyeds and their seafire, Red Sails and Nomatsis, Purists and other Baedyeds all bowed aside like grass on the Windswept Plains, giving the carts at least a twenty-pace berth. Sky tried to count them, to gauge how many traps were being buried and stakes dug in. But of course, she could see only this one avenue. The rest of the city was a mystery.
Once through the old ramparts, the quiet ruins of the inner city stretched before her. The wind whipped louder, picking up old snowfall and mixing it with thick, wet flakes just toppling down. Here the Cleaved stood in long, unmoving rows.
In Cartorra, on the Purist compound where Sky hailed from, they’d had apple orchards. Every autumn she’d had to help with the harvest. And every winter, the stubby trees endured winter and snow and winds and misery. That was what the Cleaved had always looked like to Sky when she’d seen them: the apple orchards when all life had been sapped from them. The trees when they were simply dormant skeletons.
