Page 85 of Witchlight
That, you know perfectly well, isn’t why you’re mad.
“We’ll camp here,” she said, keeping her voice even. Her ire locked inside. “At least until the Empress wakes up.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Lev replied, and Zander—who was still a bloodied mess himself—lumbered to his feet, head bowed.
The minutes passed. The stars slid west, exactly as the stars at home did. Yet illogically, they felt brighter here. Razored and inescapable. Especially the Sleeping Giant, forever pointing north—which was no longer the way home.
After clearing a spot for a fire, Lev aimed south toward the snaking Amonra to fetch water. Zander meanwhile stayed near, foraging through the shadowy underbrush of the buzzing, clicking night.
The Empress slept on. Crickets silenced once the fire began. Moths, meanwhile, fluttered in. The orange glow drifted outward like a veil, too sharp in this peaceful clearing of white and yellow flowers. Too unnatural in a land few humans dared to cross.
Vivia kept thinking she heard giggles. That she saw childlike shapes within the trees.
You must be the Nine of Hounds,those girls had said to Cam.Do not be frightened. Nine is sacred inside this mountain, for only with nine can any of us ever think beyond.
Over and over, Vivia imagined the scene from the workshop. A thousand times, at least, but like her Witchmark when she rubbed too much, the memory was starting to swell. To change color and bulge with pain at the edges.
Zander eventually returned to camp. He settled beside Vivia in the shadow of an oak. “I found these, Your Majesty.” He offered his cupped palms to Vivia, where fat gooseberries glinted green and ripe. “They’re safe to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” Vivia told him, and it was true. The thought of eating anything made her gut cramp.
Zander grunted. Then shoved a handful into his mouth. He’d cleaned his own face, so no more blood stained his lips or beard.
“You’re a powerful witch,” Vivia found herself saying as he grimaced against the sour berries. In the distance, a raven cried. “I’ve never seen anyone manipulate wood before.”
He chewed. Swallowed. Cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I’m powerful, Your Majesty. I was brought to Hell-Bard Keep when I was young, so I never had a chance to study it.”
“Does it overwhelm you? The magic. Do all these trees and flowers and vinesclamorat you to be used?” Vivia made an almost frantic motion around her head, trying to imitate the onslaught she always felt from the water.
Now Zander frowned. “Maybe? I definitely think I’ve got more connection to the plants now than I did when I was a boy. But who knows?” A shrug. “It was so long ago. And Idoknow it’s nice to be here with the plants instead of inside that mountain without them.”
“Of course it is. Because you’re not trying to get home.” Vivia didn’t mean to sound dismissive. She didn’t mean to sound cruel. The words just popped out, and she wished right away that she could snap them back in again. For all she knew Zanderwastrying to get home. He had been a Hell-Bard so long—surely hedidhave a place he wished for.
But if Vivia’s words bothered the man, he gave no sign. “Maybe, Majesty,” he agreed without malice. “The way I see it, though… Well, I’ve been a lot of places in my life, and while they were almost never the place I thought I needed to be…” Another shrug. “They werealwaysthe place that needed me.”
He shoved the second handful of gooseberries into his mouth, and with nothing more than a soldierly nod, he pushed to his feet and strode away.
He didn’t get far—there was nowhere to go, after all. And Vivia could already hear Lev’s return, tramping through the underbrush with water sloshing in her bags like the sweetest of wines. She was the opposite of Zander in gentleness and solemnity, but Vivia had to acknowledge, Lev wasn’t the opposite in loyalty. These two Hell-Bards had proven themselves.
Empress Vaness had been right about them; Cam and Vivia had not.
Vivia swatted a gnat from her eyes. She didn’t want to think about Cam. Or the mountain or the ice or what theblightshe was going to do now to get home. Just because she was sitting still didn’t mean she could let madness overtake her.
So she didn’t. Instead, she stood as Zander had. Instead she barked, “Watch the Empress, please. Keep the bugs off her.” Then she set off the same way Lev had just come from, to face the Amonra. To face the waters always calling to her.
Over the last month together in Noden’s Gift—often on their nightly chats beside the Well—Vivia and Vaness had discussed what might be going wrong with magic. Was it actually awrongness? Or was it simply a gift they’d not yet learned to utilize? Was magic actually expanding in strength, or were Vivia and Vaness simply weakening in their control?
They’d had no answers, and it had become a problem that would have to be dealt with later. For although other witches in the settlement had also felt their magics surge, none had experienced the same barrage. They could still function, and technically so could Vivia and Vaness. As such, this particular problem would have to wait untilafterVivia had reclaimed her throne. Priorities were what they were.
Vivia wished now that she’d looked harder for answers.
The waters of the Amonra formed a thick, writhing beast before her. Starlight reflected and pulled. To the west, Vivia could just glimpse where oaks relented their hold on the earth and the massive stones rose instead.
Use us,the waters lapped, reaching for Vivia’s toes.Join us.
She nodded absently at them. She was going to have to listen to them soon. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done so before, a month ago, when she’d carried herself and the Empress on tides far, far across the Jadansi. Away from Noden’s Gift almost all the way to the Pirate Republic. It had exhausted Vivia then and overwhelmed her, but it hadn’tkilledher.
Surely that counted for something?
