Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Ever since his witchery had awoken in him as a child, heights had never bothered him. But this was no mere drop-off. This was staring into another universe. Into the very heart of Noden’s court.

Merik sucked in a long, girding breath before pulling his gaze back up—and then up and up and up. Lights flickered across the cave, as well as other blue glows. And then, high at the top of it all, was a stretch of ice, almost like a bridge.

“Up,” Merik said, pointing toward the nearest ledge. One of the other blue glows had to be the door Merik needed to reach Lovats, and the only option before him was to try every one and see where they took him—and then, of course, pray to Noden that it didn’t eject him somewhere worse than Poznin with the Puppeteer.

At the Northman’s nod, Merik closed his eyes and called his magic to him.

He expected resistance. Underground, there was little air and no winds. And underground, there could be dangerous consequences if one tried to manipulate the air too much. Air currents led to storms, and storms in small spaces were never good.

Merik’s winds came easily, though. A huge rush that punched into him and the Northman. They both toppled backward, but before they could fall into the water, Merik swirled his winds behind them. Beneath them.

Power, power, power.

Merik and the Northman flew. It was as natural as breathing—Merik couldn’t believe how easily the power came to him. And it wasn’t the Fury’s magic channeling over their bond either. Those winds were cold and vengeful. These winds sparkled.

It was the only word he could find to describe the feeling. This sense that the glimmering galaxy below somehow fed his lungs and carried him faster, higher, stronger than he had ever managed on his own.

They reached the first ledge, where a second blue door glowed. It was identical to what he’d seen submerged in Poznin. “Wait,” he told the Northman, and he moved toward it.

But the Northman did not like that command. He shook his head and hurried after Merik. Two bracing breaths for each of them. Then together they stepped through, and like before, Merik felt compressed and elongated, paused yet pushed along. Then he and the Northman were out the other side.

Wind and night kicked against them. Pine trees shivered. Merik’s eardrums instantly swelled, as if he’d flown too high too fast, and a full moon shone down.

This was not Nubrevna. Merik gripped the Northman’s forearm and hauled the man back through the magic door.

Crush, stretch, stop, and move. They stumbled onto the ledge they’d just left, both men panting. “Cold,” the Northman said, and Merik could only nod. He motioned up. Then once more, his winds twined beneath them and carried them high.

The next door, on a ledge scarcely large enough to hold them both, ejected them into a ditch. A narrow slope cutting upward toward a crack in the earth, and the scent of cedar and stale smoke hit his nose.

This was not the Lovats under-city either.

Back into the cavern they moved, and on to the next ledge, the next door. This ledge, next to the cavern’s falls, was slick with water. The Northman slipped; Merik’s winds caught him—but not gracefully. He shoved the man through the glowing blue …

And once again, cold snapped against them. This time, though, there was no wind. An icy staircase ascended before them, and Merik and the Northman quickly skipped up. All they found, though, was a vast, flat expanse of nothing. Moonlit and white. Shimmering and lifeless.

“Sleeping Lands,” the Northman said, and there was fear in his eyes as he backed down the stairs. “Death,” he warned. “Death.” Then the Northman rushed back through the magic doorway.

Merik hurried after. He had heard of the Sleeping Lands—of course he had. It was an uncrossable frozen wasteland that sucked in unprepared travelers. Only the Nomatsis … the No’Amatsis, rather, had ever managed to cross it.

Once more, the door’s magic pummeled against Merik. This time, though, when he toppled through and landed inside the cavern beyond, something was wrong. When he inhaled and called his winds, they came—and they came strong. With power, power, power for the taking.

But there was cold slithering beneath them. Icy rage that Merik recognized in an instant.

“We must hurry,” Merik said. Nubrevnan words useless to the Northman, but all he could manage. In a burst of strength and momentum, Merik flew them to the next door, this one tucked at the end of the cavern.

This door did not glow, and when he stepped inside, no magic battered against him. He saw only shadows. Next door, next door—they had to reach the next door before the Fury came. Before the Fury could lead the Raider King here. And this doorway was near, connected to the current ledge by stairs.

But the mountain shook. So hard, it flung Merik to the ground. So hard, it flung the Northman off the ledge.

Merik threw out his winds, catching the Northman and ripping him back to solid ground—solid ground that still quaked. Rubble fell. Dust plumed. And as Merik and the Northman stood there, gripping each other and waiting for the tremor to slow, cold twined into Merik’s lungs. It plucked at his breath.

Power, power, power.

Then came the darkness, undulating and frozen. It rippled around Merik and the Northman, and both men wrenched toward the doorway they’d just abandoned. Dust clouded its dark gullet now.

A figure formed.

“Why do I hold a razor in one hand?” he asked. “So men remember I am sharp as any edge. And why do I hold broken glass in the other? So men remember that I am always watching.”

The Fury stepped from the shadows. Cold billowed off him in vast, violent waves. He was his namesake; he was fury through and through.

His blackened eyes met Merik’s. “Where are they, Merik?” he asked. “What have you done with my blade and my glass?”

The Fury attacked.





FIFTY-THREE


A rush of scalding air hit the boat as Vaness sailed Safi and the Hell-Bards onto Lake Scarza—and as she sailed them into a battle only the Hell-Bards could see.

The heat swept Safi’s hair from her face, stung her cheeks with invisible embers she couldn’t spot, and set her lungs to choking. All while the boat dipped and shuddered, guided by Vaness’s magic, which was guided by Caden sitting at the helm.

They aimed for shore.

Not fast enough, though. Not before the explosion ripped loose through the Floating Palace. A sudden visceral surge that battered into Safi. She heard nothing else, she felt nothing else. The firestorm ripped against her, lived inside her, and breathed with her dry lungs.

Then the glamour fell. Just a flash like before, but enough for Safi to see the full extent of the battlefield.

A ship splintered in half burned just ahead, great plumes of smoke given to the sky. Blood stained the water. Sailors clung to debris. Charred corpses floated by.

Habim had always said war was senseless, yet he had caused so, so much senseless horror here. This was what Uncle Eron’s scheme had done, and it was not peace in the Witchlands.