Page 96 of Witchlight
They flood the under-city. The foxfire meant to light the stone streets turnsthe water green as it rises. Not so high as to drown, but high enough to soak the floor and reach to Baile’s knees. She calls more, more, from each tunnel that she bewitched because Lovats made her; she pulls the currents. There is so much here, more than when she could reach aboveground.
Lovats and his fires cannot burn this place.
Stix reached the clearing filled with stones. She still fought the seafire, but now Owl had many more rocks to add to their defense. The columns slithered and reshaped, until there was a vast dome stretched overhead. What little sun had pierced the clouds now vanished until all that remained was a lone beam pouring down like the light into a Nomatsi tent. The heat from the seafire cut off. So did the smoke. But Stix and Owl were not done yet. These people couldn’t stay here, because although the wall would stop the flames, it wouldn’t stop the soldiers blasting with them.
“Into the doorway,” Stix shouted, pushing at bodies she didn’t know with faces she had never seen before. “Follow the stairs down and we will guide you to safety!”
Wide eyes stared at her, stunned or confused or terrified. But there were others shouting. Urging them to listen. A boy and a girl in Purist gray. A Baedyed with eyes glowing green. They yelled at people who would listen, and they shoved at people who would not.
Outside, the forest burned, heating the stone wall. Soon, if they could not get into the mountain, they would all cook like crabs in a pot.
Lovats is stronger than Baile realized. Or perhaps she is weaker. Her cats are gone, her waters are limp, and the pain from the ring-bond is snapping her spirit in two. That strange, awful ring that Portia, the Voidwitch Paladin, made for Lovats.
“She told us what you planned,” Lovats said, glee building in his eyes and fattening his pupils. “She told us what you would do. You thought she was one of yours, did you not? Your littlesixmeeting in secret? We knew. We always knew, because she has always been one of ours.”
Baile cannot fathom this. She hurts too much. There is no space inside her to follow words or logic.
“I won’t go in there!” This came from the hooded girl. She stood at the lip of the hole, with its spiraling ramp into the mountain, and she held upher hands in the Purist sign against magic. “I won’t go in there—we can’t go yet.”
Stix didn’t speak much Cartorran, but in some past life she must have. She understood the girl as if this language were her mother tongue, and when she grabbed the girl’s shoulder, a voice that wasn’t quite her own emerged: “You must or you will die.”
“Merik,” the girl said. “Our leader.”
“Gone.” This was from Owl, who now stood on Stix’s other side. The heat swelled with each passing second. “He is not here, and you will die if you remain.” This was all Owl said before she scurried past on her child’s legs to join the others down, down toward a magicked—and now glowing—doorway.
A growl sounded nearby. It was almost lost to the seafire’s roar, but Stix felt it rattle in her intestines. She didn’t have to turn to know the mountain bat was there, menacing.Go into this mountain, child, or I will eat you.
The young woman shook her head. “Blessed are the pure,” she rasped. “Blessed are the pure.”
“Come on, Ulga!” yelped a new voice, and a boy sprang up beside her. “We can’t help Sky or Merik if we’re dead. Comeon.” He flung his arms around her and towed. It was a desperate movement, made from love. They were family; he wouldn’t let her roast here.
The mountain bat growled again. And the girl, Ulga, deflated into the boy’s arms. He pulled. She followed.
Lady Baile floats on her waters toward the under-city’s other side. That is where the Cisterns are, and she wants Lovats to follow her there. Anything to get him away from the people.
A static sensation scampers across the waters into her body. It is not Lovats’s flames or his laughter, though, and when Baile forces her breaking neck to look at the door, she sees a figure in black furs stepping through. On his head shines a silver crown. In his hand gleams a silver sword.
Elias. The Rook King. He has the Paladin blade that Eridysi forged, and now Baile can finally stop. He will kill Lovats. It will all be over.
Except that this is not what Elias does. Instead, he strides past Baile, splashing water across her body, her face. He does not look at her, does not even seem to see her floating there. “Lovats!” he thunders, his voice echoing off stone even as flames and smoke engulf. “The doorway is open. You can go through!”
This makes no sense to Baile, and although it hurts more than she knewanythingcouldhurt, she makes herself and her skeleton rise. All the way up until she can see into the doorway that Elias just left through.
A battle rages there. Flames, smoke, stone, and ice. Winds and lightning too. Then Bastien is at the doorway instead. His scarred face is a mask of more fury than Baile has ever seen.
He spots Baile and rushes to her. Waves lap and spray over her in his haste. Then he is beside her. Lifting her up. “We must hurry, my love,” he says, and Baile realizes he is weeping. “We must get away before Elias can destroy you. He has already killed the others. I will take you to safety, and then…” He does not finish his sentence before scooping up Baile with a grunt of exertion. Of exhaustion.
But she doesn’t need to hear his words to know what he means:I will take you to safety, and then I will destroy the Rook King.
In that moment, she realizes that Elias did not in fact have the Paladin blade. It is tucked into Bastien’s belt now, vibrating with its power to kill immortal Threads.
Death, death, the final end.
Stix wiped sweat off her brow. She remembered now—how everything had collapsed inside the mountain. How the Rook King had betrayed them all.
But there was still one piece from a thousand years ago that was missing. One memory shaped like the girl who now watched Stix through smoke and sparks. She was just a child in this life, but her strength was as vast as an earthquake.
Stix knew she stood no chance against Owl.
