Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

They passed ships, where sailors hollered and waved from the highest masts and more people whooped and whistled from belowdecks. Then the procession reached the main lakeside quay, where the roar of the crowds magnified to almost deafening. Health and joy to you! some screamed. Or the more common Marstoki greeting, May all be forgiven in the fire! Yet for every cry of devotion that swelled from the crowds, Safi heard just as many cries of rage.

She had no idea how Vaness endured it, and the longer they marched, the more it fascinated Safi. While Vaness’s beauty, her strength, her heroism at Kendura Pass might have earned her fanatic adoration, she was still the leader of an empire. Everything she did was on display, and everyone had an opinion on how she should behave. Her unwillingness to marry, to smile, to bend—Vaness herself had told Safi what sort of rumors that fed.

The Iron Bitch, they called her.

That name riffled over the crowds now, flinging into the tent from all angles, echoing in a way that only truth could. Yet the people who uttered their disapproval felt it just as fervently as those who screamed their worship.

“The people have come from across the empire,” Rokesh informed, slinking into step beside Safi. “To see tonight’s fireworks and celebrate. Every inn within the city will be full, and every inn within twenty miles beyond.”

So many people here to see her, Safi thought, yet none who truly know her. It must be very lonely indeed to be loved and hated, yet never seen.

The procession left the wharves and entered a main avenue of beige towers with red-tile roofs. The Merchant District, Safi learned. Beyond, shops and tents and street vendors crowded beneath white awnings. Then they crossed an intersection where one of the golden spires thrust up from the earth. No doors, no windows, only the square column racing toward the sky and capped by a flame-shaped cupola.

Safi wished she could get closer. Whatever this was made of, it was not the same material as the rest of the city—not sandstone nor marble nor limestone nor granite.

Then they passed the tower and entered a new district where each building was painted a hundred different shades. “The Artist District,” Rokesh explained, before they veered east into the University District, then into the Healer District. On and on, they switched back and forth through the city, covering every area. Passing every golden spire. Until at last, the buildings and towers were replaced by a long sandstone wall. Beyond, cedar branches rustled on the breeze, and a final spire reached up, up, up. The tallest spire of them all, dark against a dusky sky.

At an iron gate, the soldiers slowed to a stop, parting enough for Vaness, Safi, and the Adders to continue through. Without a single waver in the tent or in her stride, Vaness pointed a finger at the approaching entrance, and the black bars swung wide.

The tent briefly constricted inward as they squeezed through, like a cat wrinkling into a doorway. The scent of cedar hit Safi’s nose, the city din quieted behind, and finally, iron bars crashed shut, closing them in.

With each step they moved through the cedars, the air seeming to tighten and coil. It pulled Safi’s heart into her throat, and she did not have to ask where they were. The answer called to her, and the spire gave it away.

They were at the Origin Well of Marstok.

Yet something about the forest grated against Safi’s magic as they walked on. It plucked at the hairs on her arms, and twice she thought she saw figures hiding in the trees. On the third instance, she said, “Someone is in the forest.”

But Rokesh merely nodded. “They are soldiers. This area might be private, but we still take no risks with Her Majesty’s safety.”

Safi supposed that explained it, yet despite Rokesh’s words, the fingers tripping down her spine did not go away.

After a hundred paces through the cedars and up a steep stairwell, the forest finally opened to reveal a long spring framed by sandstone tiles. Evenly spaced around the rippling waters were six massive cedars, bent and reaching for the sky. And set back from the Well, in the forest on the northern side, was the golden spire.

Vaness stopped before the water and eased down the tent. She carefully bent the poles and struts inward so the canvas creased like an inchworm, exposing them all to a purple sky.

Then the Empress of Marstok turned to face Safi.

Part of Safi was stunned this question had not come sooner—that in their two weeks since reaching Azmir, they had not visited this place before. Most of Safi, though, was stunned to be here today. This was the imperial birthday procession. There was no reason to travel here now.

“It is true then?” Vaness asked, observing Safi. Simultaneously contemplative and predatory. “You are half of the Cahr Awen?”

“I … don’t know.” Safi’s toes curled in her boots. “Where did you hear that?”

“It is my business to know such things. And if it is true, Safi, then it is also my business to protect you. For over a century, Marstok has been the only empire with an intact Origin Well. If there are more—if there could be more…”

Safi’s lungs loosened. Her shoulders drooped. For there it was, wasn’t it? Safi was valuable; Safi was a risk.

“I will ask you again,” Vaness continued, sharper now. Impatience flashing in her eyes. “Safiya fon Hasstrel: are you the Cahr Awen?”

Safi swallowed. She was suddenly too hot, the iron belt around her waist too tight. Without requesting permission, she tore off the Adder shroud. Air, glorious and free, kissed against her.

The truth was, Safi had no idea what she and Iseult were. According to Monk Evrane, they were the Cahr Awen—and they had swum to the heart of the dead Origin Well of Nubrevna a month ago, and a quake had shaken the land.

Monk Evrane had claimed this meant Safi and Iseult had healed the Well, and while Safi’s magic had told her unequivocally that Evrane believed everything she’d been saying, her good sense had suggested it was supremely unlikely. The last Cahr Awen had lived five hundred years ago. There was no reason they would return now, and no reason they would be—out of all the people in the Witchlands—Safi and Iseult.

Not to mention, Safi had already lived her entire life with a target painted on her back. Did she really deserve a second? Gods below, she missed the easy days of Ve?aza City. And gods below, she missed her Threadsister.

Her lips parted to repeat that she truly did not know if she was the Cahr Awen, but at that moment, a scream sundered the darkening sky. Inhuman and ear-shattering.

A flame hawk, searing like the sun, burst up from the nearby trees.





TWENTY-TWO


Iseult was furious, and no amount of thinking Stasis made a difference. She had been so stupid. So careless and loud. She knew how to fight quietly. She knew how to approach undetected. Yet she’d charged that man like a drunken brawler in a street fight.

She had tied him up, and now he lay sprawled on the floor beside the bed, his bloodied face peaceful. Even his Threads hummed with the calm ease of a dreamless sleep. Owl had been fascinated from the moment Iseult had hauled him in, taking up sentry beside him and staring into his sleeping face. She’d made no move to touch him, thank the goddess, but there was a sunset shade of reverence in her Threads that had kept Iseult on edge ever since she’d shut—and bolted—the door.