Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Merik rushed forward, dropping to the man’s side. “Are you all right?” A stupid question—the man hadn’t eaten in countless weeks, and he had somehow, by some miracle Merik could not fathom, come back from Esme’s cleaving.

Merik left the man and clambered around the stones. The bowls he’d seen earlier had been filled with rainwater. Fresh rain, he guessed, from the storms last night. Certainly fresh enough for a dying man.

He found one bowl, a massive, hammered bronze creation, and, careful not to lose a drop, he staggered back to the Northman. After setting the bowl on the earth, he hauled off his coat, then his shirt. The wind attacked; his bones shook against the sudden frost. Then he got the coat back on.

After dunking a shirt sleeve into the bowl, he brought it to the man’s lips and gently squeezed. Evrane had done this a hundred times when Merik was growing up. A hundred hundred times, bringing the sick and the injured back from the brink of death. She’d done it for Kullen too, after his breathing attacks. And every time, Merik had watched on, hands wringing and terror bright in his chest.

That same terror shone brightly now. This man had somehow survived cleaving; Merik would not let him die.

Time trickled past, moving in time to the water dropping off the cotton. Slowly, the man’s shivering subsided. Slowly, he regained control of his throat, rasping strange words that did not sound like language. Eventually, the man managed to sit up.

The sun was halfway across the eastern sky.

“I cannot understand you,” Merik told him after the man tried, yet again, to communicate. The man pointed as he spoke. First at the stone. Then at the hilltop.

Merik shook his head, trying Cartorran: “I cannot understand you.” He tried Marstoki after that, and Dalmotti and Nubrevnan too. It wasn’t until he attempted Svodish that any comprehension finally marked the man’s face.

“Where?” the man asked, now in Svodish. He pointed again at the stone, at the hilltop.

“Arithuania,” Merik answered.

A frown, more confusion than horror—but the horror came soon enough. “When?”

“Year…” Oh blighted Hell, how did you count double digits in Svodish? Merik couldn’t remember, so he settled on, “Year ten and nine.”

Now the shock came, and with it bile. Before Merik could grab the man and help him, the Northman lurched around and heaved. Water first, in great sprays, then dark bile, and finally nothing but choked air. By the time he finished, tears streamed down the man’s cheeks, tracking pale lines amidst the dirt.

“How?” His red-eyed gaze did not meet Merik’s. “Four years. How?”

Merik exhaled sharply. Four years. Four years. Surely the man had not been Esme’s prisoner for so long.

“Why … heal?” Merik asked. The man had come back from cleaving; Merik wanted—needed—to know how.

But the Northman only shook his head. “Stop,” he said simply. “Dark, then stop.”

Before Merik could try to interpret this, the witch herself returned.

Where are you, Prince?

Merik spun away from the Northman as fast as he could. If Esme could look through his eyes, he did not want her to see. There was still a chance that man could flee; Merik would not let her claim his life again.

“I am at the shrine,” he said, staggering toward the central stone.

Why? A flicker of lightning—a mere caress of pain through Merik’s veins. You should be back to Poznin by now.

“I fell asleep,” he said. “The food offerings made me sick.” Panic crept into Merik’s voice, his words spewing out with frantic urgency. And he let them come that way. With or without a healed Northman to hide, this was how he reacted to Esme.

Especially since the pain was notching higher now.

“Please,” he squeezed out, teeth clenched. “Please, I have gathered gemstones and will walk back now—stop, stop, stop!”

You will run back, Esme commanded, tone dismissive, bored. I will not be happy if you arrive here after midnight. And just like that, her claws retracted.

“I will run,” he agreed, slumping over. He had no idea how he could possibly run that far.

He would deal with that problem later.

For several long moments, Merik sucked in air. It vibrated in his lungs. No magic, only cold and the scent of rock and soil. He stayed this way until he was certain Esme was gone. He stayed this way until the Northman finally rasped, “Help.”

Merik twisted toward him, assuming the man needed help. But no. He was pointing at Merik, then patting at his neck.

“Help,” he repeated, and Merik realized he meant the collar.

“No.” Merik shook his head. “No help for me.” This man wore no collar—none of Esme’s Cleaved did, save Merik. And since it sounded as if this man had no idea how he had healed, then there was nothing at all Merik could do. If he tried to leave, Esme would just summon him right back.

Shuffling back to the man’s side, Merik pointed up the hill. “North.” He pointed again. “Go north. People. Help you. And here…” Merik scooped the knife off the dirt. Its red tassels laughed at him now.

The Northman did not take the knife, though. “You.” Again, he pointed at Merik. Then at his neck. “Use?”

Merik wanted to. He wanted the security of knowing he had protection, that he had some secret weapon Esme did not know of. But what would he even do with the blade? He could not attack her—she would simply attack him, destroy him first. And as gnarled as the logic might be, he was safe in Poznin. Right now, Esme had no desire to kill him. She needed him for the Fury. She needed him for her experiments.

Besides, if she ever turned her Cleaved army on him, a single knife would do nothing against thousands. This Northman, though—he could use it. He might even need it, trying to reach those people with the fires.

“You,” Merik said again, and this time, he took the man’s skeletal hand and wrapped the man’s fingers around the hilt. “You.”

The man’s papery brow pinched tight. “What … place?” He motioned to the shrine, to the hill he’d come from, and then to Merik’s collar. “What place?”

“A nightmare,” was all Merik replied, wondering why he remembered that word yet he couldn’t remember how to count. Either way, it was the right one to use here. So he said it again: “A nightmare. Run.”





THIRTY


Stix awoke to voices. Not voices inside her head, either, but real voices attached to human throats. They were arguing.

About her.

“We can’t just leave her, Ry.”

“We can’t wait for her to wake up either. We have a job to do, Cam. I promise, we’ll come back for her after that.”

“But what if she wakes up before? Or what if raiders get to her first? Please, Ry. My gut’s tellin’ me we ought to bring her with us.”

A frustrated huff. Then a muttered, “Who’s the Sightwitch here?” A heartbeat later, Stix heard footsteps approach, and when she hauled open her eyelids, light seared across her vision. She winced, arms—weak and sore—rising to block her face.

Where was she?