Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Wind and rain howled loud as a nightmare. Street signs vanished behind the rain, building fronts faded into gusting darkness. Only his familiarity with the city kept him moving onward in the right direction.

And the Painstone. Without it, he would have been trapped at the outpost, possibly even unconscious by now. He certainly would not have been able to face the hail. Small rocks that kicked off the cobblestones, spraying water and slamming into Aeduan’s legs, chest. They expanded the farther he jogged, soon growing as large as his fists. These shattered; explosive shards that smashed through awnings, carriages, and soon, if he wasn’t careful, would smash through his skull too.

Aeduan veered left. The crowded roofs above this street gave some respite from the hail. Short-lived, though, for the road soon ended and he was on another wide artery aiming uphill. He covered his head with the satchel of clothes and ran faster.

Then lightning shredded down. It wiped away Aeduan’s sight and blanked out his hearing—and the thundercrack that followed almost toppled him. It was only the beginning, though. Again, again, the lightning thrashed, and the city quaked beneath its power.

Aeduan hurtled forward.

At the periphery of his rain-streaked vision, he saw a corpse. Bloodied, flattened, felled by hailstone. Then a second, seared by lightning. There was nothing he could do for them; all he could do was keep moving.

He drew in his magic. Weaker than he would have hoped, but something. Enough to propel his limbs deeper into the storm. Left, right, no remaining sense of which streets he careened up, only knowing he aimed vaguely toward the inn.

Right as his feet splashed over fallen wind-flags, bright bursts of color amidst the shadows, a new sound hit his ears. Or perhaps it was not a sound so much as a tremble in his ribs, coming from the north.

He glanced back, squinting against the rain and hail. Then he ground to a halt. A cyclone, black and snaking, writhed across the lake. It moved impossibly fast toward Tirla.

In moments, it reached the ships, smashing through them as easily as a cleaver through bone. It was headed this way. It would reach Aeduan if he did not move.

He ran, pulling any magic he could find. Every ounce of his witchery, every drop of blood he drove into his muscles. Faster than before, faster than any human could run.

But it still was not enough. Nothing could outpace this cyclone. It was on his heels now. He could hear it getting closer, crushing buildings one by one. Great eruptions of wood and stone, and all while the winds screamed louder.

Aeduan could not escape it. His only hope was to take cover. Something stone, something strong. He dove sideways, aiming for the nearest building. Bodies, bodies—how were there so many bodies? He reached steps leading to a front door and dropped to the ground beside them. Then he curled into a ball and covered the back of his neck with his hands.

Wind crushed over him. Water gushed into his mouth. Hail the size of bricks punched against him, and he felt two ribs break. His left finger knuckles broke too. Any moment now, the full cyclone would hit him. The building above him would topple down. He wouldn’t die, but others would. Many others.

Except the attack never came.

Instead, the storm ended entirely. Between one shuddering breath and the next, the winds broke off. Hail stopped falling. Rain faded to quiet, a mere echoing throb in Aeduan’s ears. The eye of the storm, he thought, and he unfurled, ready to resume running.

Yet as he straightened, his broken ribs numbed by the Painstone, a blood-scent rippled into his awareness. Black wounds and broken death. Pain and filth and endless hunger.

Cleaving.

Instantly, Aeduan was on his feet, rounding backward. He unsheathed his sword, ready to face whatever madness now approached amidst the calm. When he turned, though, he did not find a man corrupted by magic. This man, towering and pale haired, strode toward Aeduan with clarity and purpose. His eyes shone black, rim to rim, and lines slithered across his skin. Yet with each step that he prowled closer, the more the darkness shrank.

Like maggots wriggling into a corpse, the shadows vanished. The cleaving scent vanished too, until all that remained was a young man whose blood smelled of rocky shores and gasping lungs. But there were other blood-scents tangled inside him, like a knot of worms pulled from the soil. Hundreds of them, too many for Aeduan to tease apart or catalog.

He’d never faced anything like it.

“Are you the Bloodwitch?” the man called in Nubrevnan, still approaching. His now-blue eyes scraped up Aeduan. Then down. “You certainly look like him.”

Aeduan sank into a fighting stance.

This only made the young man smile, a horrifying thing that stretched his face into inhuman proportions. Half his right ear was missing, blackened blood crusting the edges.

“Come no closer,” Aeduan called.

“Or what?” the man drawled, though he did at least pause his advance. “Your sword can do nothing to me. You should know this, Bloodwitch. Unless…” His head tipped sideways. He tapped his chin. “Unless your father hasn’t told you who I am.”

My father. Something dark and vile trickled over Aeduan’s skull.

The man laughed, a delighted sound. “I see from your face that he has not told you. Allow me to remedy that.” The man’s heels snapped together, his fist shot to his heart, and he bowed a Nubrevnan bow. “They call me the Fury. I have worked with your father for a long, long time—although I knew him as something else all those years ago. He still wears the same face.” The grin widened. “I do not.”

Incomprehensible words. They clanked around in Aeduan’s mind, useless.

“Your father sent me to find you,” the man went on, slinking a single step closer. “You were meant to check in weeks ago, Bloodwitch. He feared you dead, and yet…” The man opened his arms, thick eyebrows bouncing. “Here you are. And now it is time for us to go.”

“No.” Aeduan gave a curt head shake. “I have unfinished business in Tirla.”

“Which is?”

“How did you find me?” Aeduan countered.

“Easily.”

“And did my father tell you to destroy Tirla along the way?”

“This?” The man laughed, a throaty sound. “This is nothing, Bloodwitch. Where I travel, hurricanes reign.” He spun around, seeming to take in the destruction for the first time—and it only made him laugh louder.

The darkness spread down Aeduan’s neck. Voices were gathering, blood-scents too. As if people were stepping outside now, searching the streets for help. Some wailed, some screamed.

“Your father,” the Fury said, stopping abruptly, “will want to know what detains you. Do not make me return to him without an answer. He won’t like that. I won’t like that.”

“I will tell my father myself,” Aeduan said flatly. “Tell him that I will give him a full report when I return.”

“And when will that be?”

“Soon.”

Doors were creaking open. Footsteps splashing closer. More screams, more crying, more desperation to fill the city. Aeduan did not want to see what the Fury would do to anyone who came here.

“How many hours?” the Fury asked. “I can wait.”