Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

“Wait!” Aeduan tried to slow the donkey. “Wait,” he shouted, louder. “There’s a monk back there!”

At that, Lizl reined her horse to a stop. She swiveled in her saddle, eyes immediately latching onto Aeduan’s ear—onto the opal he wore. But neither his nor hers glowed, meaning no monks nearby had called for aid.

“You lie,” she spat, already angling forward once more. “You try to trick me so you can escape.”

“No,” he protested.

“Then who is it?”

That, he could not say. It was possible he had never learned the person’s name—his magic cataloged so many bloods. Some it retained, some it did not.

Before Lizl could push her mare onward, though, more shots echoed out. Closer, and with them came voices and shrieks.

A woman in Purist gray burst from the trees beside the path. Clutched to her chest was a babe, wailing. She saw Aeduan and Lizl.

She stopped dead in her tracks. “Please,” she begged in Marstoki. “Please don’t kill me. I beg you, please. My child—”

Her words broke off. An arrow hit her in the back. It cut through her chest, piercing her heart. Then piercing the babe. Blood cascaded into Aeduan’s senses.

He stumbled off the donkey, magic grasping for the woman. To stop her blood and save her before she and her child died. He was too weak, though, and too slow—and the leather leash sliced into his neck, holding him back.

Until Lizl dismounted too, and together, they raced for the woman. Aeduan dropped to her side and stared into dark eyes. But he was too late. The last flickers of life had already fallen away. Her babe was silent, his body limp.

Distantly, Aeduan wondered if his own mother had looked the same on that night all those years ago. The arrow wound, the blood—endless blood. Aeduan had not been able to save her either.

Death follows wherever you go.

His leash yanked, forcing him to rise. Lizl dove into the woods ahead of him, sword drawn, leaving him with no choice but to follow.

He was glad for it. He wanted to follow. He wanted to kill.

They passed more bodies. Another woman, two children. Each dead, each pierced by bolts with yellow fletching. Lizl did not slow; Aeduan did not slow behind her.

The sounds of fighting drew nearer. More pistols popping and screams filling the air. Swords clanged too, and a man’s voice shouted orders. They reached the forest’s edge and a moonlit massacre met their eyes. It was a Purist encampment, walls high but gate opened wide. Bodies covered the rocky earth in rows, as if people had fled in a great stampede only to be picked off one by one from behind.

Blood dribbled and drained. It was not merely Purists that tarnished the soil with red, but Nomatsis too. Different ages, different genders, different glassy eyes and splayed limbs. The blood, though, always looked the same.

A shout, and a lanky boy charged from the gate, no older than fourteen. On his back was a Nomatsi shield. He had no weapon. He simply ran.

As one, Lizl and Aeduan abandoned the trees to defend him. Yet like before, the boy slowed to a stop when he saw them, hands rising and mouth bobbing. No words, only terror.

Two arrows thunked into him. One through his ear, the other through his throat. Blood burbled from his mouth. His legs gave way beneath him.

Lizl gasped. Aeduan stumbled forward.

He stopped short, though, when the shooter strode from the woods. The man’s white cloak, streaked with filth and red, billowed behind him. His eyes met Lizl’s, then Aeduan’s, and he nodded. “Keep herding them to me,” he called, motioning to the encampment with his crossbow, “and I will take them out as they come.”

Lizl blinked, confused, yet between one sluggish heartbeat and the next, the truth careened into Aeduan: he had misunderstood everything. The massacres he had found, the dying monk he had buried. He had interpreted it all wrong.

It had not been Purists and raiders against the Nomatsis. It had been Purists and raiders with Nomatsis.

Against the Carawens.

Aeduan turned to Lizl, words rising in his throat to warn her, to explain what lay before them. He did not need to, though, for a moment later, a girl sprinted from the encampment. Her gray gown tangled in her legs. She tripped over a corpse. She fell.

Beside them, the monk reloaded his bow.

Lizl lurched at the man. “Stop!”

He did not stop. The girl tried to get up, whimpering, but she had broken something. Her hands clawed, her cries lifted louder.

The crossbow cranked, a fresh bolt almost loaded. Lizl lunged. Aeduan’s hands shot up.

He silenced the man’s blood. It took every scrap of strength he had left, and the pain—it scorched through him. But it was enough. Enough for him to grab hold and still the man for one shallow breath. Then two.

Lizl reached the monk and knocked the crossbow from his grip.

Then the flames won, and Aeduan lost control.

The monk instantly tensed, twisting as if to attack—yet in a move too quick to see, Lizl unsheathed her sword. She had it fixed at his neck before he could fully spin around.

“Why did you do that?” Her voice was pinched and high. “Why did you kill them?”

“What do you mean?” the monk snarled. “Why did you stop me? We have orders!”

“From whom?”

Aeduan leaned in, straining to hear the answers. His heart thundered against his ribs. The shadows wavered, and his magic … He could no longer reach it, no longer sense blood—any blood. Not even the fallen bodies littering the earth around him.

“From the Monastery, of course.” The monk’s eyes darted between Aeduan and Lizl. “Who are you? If you were not sent to help, then why are you here? Are you part of the insurgency?”

“Help with what?” Lizl demanded. “What insurgency?” But the monk had no chance to reply before a new voice rang out, “Lower your weapon! We are on the same side.”

As one, Aeduan and Lizl snapped their gazes to the encampment’s gate. A monk towered behind the girl they had saved, his sword thrust through her back. He yanked it out. The girl spit blood. Then her body slumped among the others.

Aeduan knew this monk. This was the scent he had recognized—a man who had helped him in Ve?aza City, when he’d hunted the Truthwitch. The monk’s pale hair was longer now, and his leg freshly bloodied.

His sword was bloodier, though.

One by one, eleven monks joined the pale-haired man. Each carried a blade coated in flesh. After forming a line, they advanced on Aeduan and Lizl. Flecks of organ and excrement hit the earth as they walked. Twenty paces away, the lead monk eased to a stop, and the other eleven monks halted as well.

“Back away,” the pale monk called. “We fight for the same side.”

Lizl did not lower her sword. “You killed innocents.”

“We killed vermin.”

“They were mothers.” Aeduan’s voice shook, each word in his throat made of fire. He shouted on anyway. “Children.”