Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

And she saw what Leopold had seen: a trebuchet winding back, a great ball of flame clutched in its sling. It was aimed for the sky-ferry.

Leopold pushed Owl toward Iseult, and Iseult pulled the girl close.

Crack! The massive arm snapped. Fire launched their way.

“Hold on!” Leopold bellowed. He dove for the pulley, swooped his arm around Iseult—who swooped an arm around Owl—and then all three held tight.

The fire roared past them. Large as the ferry, hot as the sun. Sparks sprayed onto the wood. Wind scalded against them.

The ferry whooshed sideways, pushed by displaced air. Gravity clawed at Iseult. At Leopold and Owl, but their grips held true. Mountains, canyon, snow, death.

The ferry swung back the other way.

And more fire ignited on the trebuchet. The ferry was closer to the Monastery now; an easier target getting easier by the second.

“Why are they attacking us?” Iseult had to shout over Owl’s howls and the ferry’s shrieking wood.

“No idea!” Leopold shouted back. His Threads were as pale with fear as Owl’s, but green determination latticed around the edges. He had not given up yet. “Surely there is some way to turn this thing around!”

While the ferry rocked to a gentler sway, he searched the pulley mechanism, and Iseult followed his lead. Neither loosened their grip on Owl. They simply scoured and examined—and Iseult also prayed. Please, Moon Mother. Help us survive this, please.

“What would a switch look like?” Iseult asked.

“I don’t know!”

“I thought you had been here more times than you can count!”

“But only four times on the ferry—” He broke off as the next trebuchet launched.

Fire rocketed toward them. Leopold stared. Iseult stared. Owl screamed, a sound to split mountains. A sound to summon stone.

Or a mountain bat. In a streak of fur and speed, Blueberry dropped from the sky. With his wings folded in, he dove faster than the flames.

He crashed into the fire. The ball flew off course. His flight turned to a spinning topple. No space between fire and beast. A blur of smoking flesh plummeted toward the earth.

Now Owl really screamed, but Iseult was ready this time. “He’s all right.” She grabbed Owl’s face. Forced the girl to look at her. Iseult knew from experience with sea foxes that creatures like Blueberry were almost impossible to kill.

“Owl!” she pleaded. “We need your magic! You have to control this metal. Make the pulley stop—can you do that?”

Owl did nothing of the sort. She was crying now, a weak whimper while her Threads shriveled inward like they had the night before.

“Feel my hand,” Iseult ordered, squeezing Owl’s fingers. “Do you feel that? Feel the skin, feel how hot it is and how strong the muscles underneath.”

Nothing. No response, no reaction, no awareness.

“And do you feel your own hand, Owl? Do you feel the way the skin and bone crush together the tighter I hold on?”

Still, Owl’s Threads shrank. Breaking, breaking, breaking.

It was then that another trebuchet snapped, close enough to hear the wood punching. Close enough to hear the fire’s thunderous ignition take flight.

Iseult dared not look. “The sky!” She had to howl now, to be heard over the winds and flames and wood. “Do you see how blue it is? Look up, Owl, look up!”

To her shock, Owl looked up. So Iseult looked up too.

And at that moment, Blueberry streaked across the blue. Smoke chased behind, his tail ablaze. But he lived. He lived.

Color plowed through Owl’s Threads. Brilliant as the mountain bat’s, but with a thousand shades twirling and chasing. Too fast to read—too fast to matter.

“The chain!” Iseult screamed, seizing the moment. “Owl, please—stop the chain!”

The chain stopped. The pulley froze. The ferry lurched, a snapping lunge that sent Leopold sprawling toward the rail.

“Reverse it!” Iseult screamed. “Reverse it, Owl! Reverse it, reverse it!”

The ferry reversed.

“Faster!” Leopold now shouted, crawling back to the pulley. “Faster, faster, faster—”

They were not fast enough. The flames shattered against the ferry, blinding and deafening. Heat to boil the flesh off bones. The last thing Iseult saw before her world blazed to ash was Blueberry’s fierce, silver Threads diving their way.

Then everything vanished beneath the pyre.





THIRTY-FOUR


There is an army headed your way.

I know.

What do you intend to do?

Stay alive. What else?

Then I should inform you that I have moved ten thousand soldiers to my borders, and I intend to move five thousand more, once they are mobilized. They will have a full Firewitched arsenal at their disposal, and we are building blockades at every road and bridge into Marstok.

Raiders will not enter my empire. However, the officers are under strict orders to allow refugees through.

Why are you telling me this?

Why are you helping my refugees?

Because if Nubrevna falls, then Marstok will be next.





* * *



The Battle Room shook with the voices of the High Council. Urgent, panicked, uncoordinated, and uncooperative. And also, all male. The women who had visited for Merik’s funeral had not remained in Lovats after—for until Vivia wore the crown, there was nothing to compel them to. Their fathers and brothers did not give up power so easily.

Which explained, of course, why Serafin Nihar was also not in the room.

Five of the twelve vizers wanted to face the Raider King and his armies head-on. Some variation of “We outnumber them!” hit Vivia’s ears every few seconds.

Three vizers wanted to fortify the northern estates and holdings—because, of course, said northern estates and holdings belonged to their families. And three vizers wanted to attempt treating with the Raider King directly. “Surely something can be negotiated,” several kept murmuring to themselves, as if by saying these words they would somehow become true.

The Raider King treated with no one, though. Vivia had tried; Vaness had tried; others had tried before them. No messengers ever returned.

Of course, for each strategic faction in the Battle Room, no one within the groups could agree on specific tactics or technique. Some wanted more soldiers, others fewer. Some wanted to attack from land, others by river.

The only point upon which all could agree was that death marched this way.

And that Nubrevna was not ready.

Vivia’s own plan had earned support from only one person: Stix’s father, Vizer Sotar. He approved her approach of sending a portion of the troops north, to escort refugees to safety and slow the Raider King’s advance, while maintaining the bulk of the Nubrevnan forces in and around Lovats.

“What does the king say?” Vizer Quihar demanded. His words boomed out, loud enough to fill the room, loud enough to shatter arguments midsentence.

Silence abruptly ruled the space. All eyes cut to Vivia.