Page 81 of Witchlight
While Sky had appreciated Merik’s commitment to rescuing Wakers, she’d always thought it was a lost cause. Now, sheknewit was, for there were barrels of seafire planted every thirty or forty steps. Against the buildings, againstpeoplewho’d once laughed and lived. If the barrels were ignited, every one of these people would burn. There’d be no waking after that. No chance at a spring rebirth.
Sky found she was panting inside her scarf. Hard exhales that sawed against cloth. The traps were bad enough, the idea of ruttingseafirewas bad enough, but this? It was sheer murder.
And to think, you once supported the Raider King.Except Sky hadn’t. Not by choice, anyway. When the Cartorran emperor had taken her compound’s orchards for his own, off they’d all gone to join Corlant and his mass of displaced and hungry.
Corlant in turn had taken them here, and Sky had just pretended these not-dead, not-living people hadn’t bothered her. They were just apple trees, after all.
The carts in the procession peeled away at new streets. Her cart however cranked forward; the barrels kept sloshing and groaning. Then there it was: the tower of the Puppeteer coalesced in the snowy shadows. A horrible place that Sky had hated even when Merik had been its master. Filled with shackles and collars, with spiders and mouse droppings.
What she wouldn’t give for spiders and mouse droppings right now.
The cart trundled to a stop, right beside the crooked alley where the tunnels wormed underground. “Here,” a Baedyed called, their voice high and trilling. “Cover this street in barrels. Go into the tower too. And you.” Their eyes, vivid green even in the predawn, latched on to Sky. “You will help me set the triggers.”
Triggers?Sky thought, her lungs now gasping so hard, she actually feared others would hear.Don’t pass out, don’t pass out. Trust me. I’m just like you.When Sky reached the Baedyed’s side—they too were fully scarfed like Sky was—she forced her throat and mouth to work in concert, her warm, magicked diaphragm to push air at a reasonable pace: “Why do we need triggers?”
The Baedyed hefted a spool of rough string from the cart’s front, and Sky thought he was ignoring her. Until eventually an answer came, flat and efficient: “The Raider King says there is a subterranean shaft near here. If the Cartorran armies try to use it, well.” They shrugged. “Then they will feel the fangs of the Sand Sea right before they die.”
FORTY
It was not the Raider King who came to retrieve Iseult. Instead, it was Admiral Kahina. “Follow me,” she said, her Threads exhausted. Something had unsettled her in the last hour.
“Follow you where?”
Kahina only glared and strode back out of the tent.
Iseult followed. Her hips felt so light without the book or any blades. Meanwhile the knife in her boot was stiff against her ankle; enough so, she had to adjust her gait. But Kahina was sunk too deeply in her own thoughts to notice Iseult’s stride. She had a pipe in her mouth; it glowed and puffed smoke.
Although clouds still hugged the sky—erasing the setting stars and moon—there was a sharpness to the world. A hardening of edges that hinted at sunrise. The city had changed since Iseult had been marched in—or rather, Ragnor’s raiders had. Everywhere Iseult glanced, she found worried, focused Threads. War was coming.
No, war was already here.
At an intersection two blocks from the tent, Kahina crossed onto a wide avenue. Iseult glimpsed a placard on a crumbling building that readCity Hall. This was a road on Leopold’s maps and on Ragnor’s. It would lead eventually to the heart of the city and to the Air Well.
Inexplicably, there were no raiders or Threads here. There was only snow that had turned to ice on ancient cobbles. Mist trailed off Kahina as they traversed the ancient city, as if the heat of her Paladin soul melted all it touched. Her Threads pulsed with weariness… and something else—something pinkish and warm.
It wasalmostthe color of friendship,almostthe color of family. Except frightened, as if someone she loved was in danger.
Kahina shivered. Her pipe flared. Then once more, mist formed around her head.
“You’re the Paladin of Fire,” Iseult said. She hadn’t meant to speak, butit was much like being next to Leopold. Here stood history. Here stoodanswers.
The woman’s silvery eyebrows rose. Her posture was stiff and military. “I’m Admiral of the Red Sails,” she countered. “But yes, I also happen to be a Paladin of Fire.” A wider swath of snow and ice melted around her. Then turned to fog.
“You were one of the Six,” Iseult continued. “You knew the Sightwitch Eridysi. And Ragnor, b-before he was the Raider King. You were there when… when the world became chaos.”
Now Kahina’s jaw clenched until her pipestem creaked. “And the world has been chaos ever since. Which is why we’re here. Whyyou’rehere, Dark-Giver. Now, enough talking.”
Ahead, ramparts rose, marking where the oldest parts of the city still clung to a waterlogged earth. Beyond that, Iseult knew the road would curve and eventually take her to the tower were Esme had once dwelled—or, if she went the other way, to the Origin Well.
“Why?” Iseult pressed. The snow still melted and fogged wherever Kahina stepped; it felt like running through sea spray. “What went wr-wrong a thousand years ago? I’ve only ever read part of Eridysi’s diary, so I only know what happened with the Void Paladin Portia. She and the other Exalted Ones used their power to enslave the land and rule. Butthenwhat?”
Kahina didn’t answer. She walked faster instead, her legs longer than Iseult’s and her body weighed down by fewer layers. A Firewitch, it would seem, didn’t need furs against this cold.
Kahina reached the time-worn ramparts; a gate cut through; she vanished into the shadows, only her hair still visible like a guiding star across the night. Then they were through the gate and the ancient part of Poznin rose before Iseult. She had seen this on the maps as well, but the two dimensions of a drawing were nothing compared to the heft and texture of the real thing.
These walls have stood against winds and waters for a thousand years—and so has the woman beside you.
Soon, Iseult could see Esme’s tower, a bent-backed haze in the gradually fading night. She also saw a second person waiting ahead: Ragnor the Raider King. He wore a uniform now, giving him the look of the general he’d been a thousand years ago. Of the tactical genius that Leopold spoke of.
