Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

“Who swear fealty to the Raider King.” The monk on the end poked her sword at the nearest corpse, an elderly woman with silver hair and a chest punctured by arrows.

“Yes,” the leader agreed. “And these people breed more raiders, who swell the Raider King’s ranks. We save thousands of lives by destroying just a few.” At these words, the outermost monks began to move—slowly, cautiously, rounding the edges of their line like wolves circling a lamb.

Aeduan and Lizl did not move.

“He,” Lizl dug the tip of her sword into the first monk’s neck, “said that you have orders from the Monastery. Who gave them?”

“The Abbot, of course.” The lead monk opened his arms, as if welcoming them to a party. As if they were the last to arrive, and he indulged them by inviting them at all. “These orders come directly from Abbot Natan fon Leid himself. You would defy him?”

Still, the monks inched nearer. Still, Lizl’s sword held true.

“We are not murderers,” she said, and Aeduan found himself nodding. Found his fingers flexing and readying for a fight.

One they would lose, but one worth fighting all the same.

“Whose side are you on?” The lead monk lifted his bloodied sword at Lizl. “You are clearly monks like us. You wear the cloak and the opal and you”—he aimed his sword at Aeduan—“I know. So stand down. Obey your Abbot’s orders. Or admit you are insurgents and face the holy punishment.”

Aeduan’s eyes met Lizl’s. Hatred burned, and he knew it well. It pulsed inside his weakened veins. It wanted justice, it wanted vengeance, and it wanted blood. He so rarely let this darkness surface. He so rarely looked it in the eye and said, Yes, today you can come out.

This would mark the fourth time.

He would kill them all.

“Now!” barked the lead monk, sword curving high, and in a concerted charge, the Carawens moved.

But Lizl moved too. In a blur of speed, she slung something at Aeduan. He caught it, looped it over his neck, and the instant the Painstone touched flesh, the night sharpened around him. Blood-scents crashed against his magic, and with them came the power to control.

Lizl charged. Aeduan charged. The fight began.

With a single, fluid strike, Lizl killed the first monk. Her sword pierced his throat. In, out. Blood splattered Aeduan as he dove for the loaded crossbow. With his muscles fueled by fresh, painless power, he was unstoppably fast. He grabbed, he aimed, he shot.

Down went a second monk. A third lunged at Lizl, a fourth at Aeduan. He sidestepped, circling behind. A kick to the knee brought the monk to her knees. Then he grabbed her head and spun. Her neck snapped. He claimed her sword.

The next five deaths smeared together. Intestines and screams and blood to crush all senses. No emotions, only death. Until Aeduan found himself facing Lizl—and she faced the remaining four.

The lead monk wore a veneer of rage at the center. His head swung side to side, over and over as he growled, “You should not have done this. You should not have done this.”

Muscles fueled by magic, Aeduan vaulted at the nearest two monks. His blade sliced down, then up on a diagonal and across. Wide, circular movements that would have been too slow were he not a Bloodwitch.

But he was a Bloodwitch, and the two monks fell a heartbeat later, ribbons of red streaking the air where they collapsed.

Aeduan rounded toward the remaining monks—except it was only the leader now, for Lizl had hacked apart the other.

“You should not have done this,” he repeated. “You should not have done this.”

Aeduan thrust. The monk parried, a clash of steel. Again, again, Aeduan attacked, and each time the monk defended. A good fighter—Aeduan remembered that from Ve?aza City.

But good fighters did not always make good men.

Three more swipes, three more parries, and at last Aeduan caught the monk on his wrist. A spin, a yank, and he cut the man’s hand from his arm. Sword and hand hit the earth.

Aeduan reared back his blade, ready to stab the man through the heart.

Lizl beat him to it. In a graceful arc that carved through flesh and muscle and spine, she cut off the man’s head.

It flew several feet through the air before thumping to the soil.

Then the man’s knees crumpled beneath him, blood gushing, and his headless remains toppled over. One more body to add to the mass grave. One more death to feed the night.





THIRTY-NINE


Why did you lie to me?

I did not.

You said you sent 5,000 soldiers and sailors to your northern borders. My scouts report over 10,000 are on the way.

I did not send those forces.

Someone did.

And I can guess who.





* * *



“Who did this?” Vivia sent her gaze around the room. Fourteen officers from the Royal Navy and Soil-Bound stared stonily back. At her command, they had gathered at a long table in a fortified room at the Sentries of Noden.

No one had spoken since she had walked in. So she asked her question again: “Who did this? Troops do not move without orders, and I want to know who gave them.”

A soil-bound general at the table’s opposite end was the first to speak up. “We all did,” she said. “Exactly as we were instructed to do.” She withdrew a crumpled letter from her forest green coat and slid it across the table.

The iris blue wax had been torn, but even ten paces away, there was no mistaking the royal seal. Vivia extended a hand, lips pressed thin while she waited for the officers to hand the letter down to her.

When at last it reached her, she tore it open. And as expected, her father’s handwriting glared up at her. It was a detailed missive, listing all the specifics he had described to her.

And it was dated a week ago.

“I did not give you these orders. I, who still maintain the role of Admiral.” She dropped the page to the table. No slamming, no gales of temper. She was the bear in the forest who did not need to roar; whose sheer size and strength cowed lesser animals. “So explain to me why any of you obeyed.”

“The King Regent,” a new general began.

“Is no longer in power,” Vivia finished. “He is no longer Regent, and he has not been Admiral in several months. So tell me why”—she snatched up the paper again and rattled it at them—“did none of you come to me when my father began planning? Why did none of you think to inform me of the messages coming from the watchtowers?” Even as she asked this, Vivia knew what the answer would be.

They had not informed her because they had not wanted to.

The armed forces of Nubrevna had followed Serafin Nihar for years. Decades, even. Through war time and truce time, through battle and siege. What was Vivia compared to that?

I am Queen.

“Fix this.” Another shake of the letter. “And fix it fast. Call the troops back, mobilize them to defend Lovats, and pray that we are not too late.”