Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

The guard could not possibly survive this injury, yet Cam was right. Even dead men deserved compassion. So though every fiber in his body screeched at Merik to run, he made himself crouch beside the girl. That was when he saw it.

The man was missing a finger—his left pinkie, just like the assassin Garren.

It was like that night on the Jana all over again. How, though? Who was this man? It couldn’t just be random coincidence.

Before Merik could put these questions to the dying man, everything stilled in his body. Even the storeroom and the dust motes seemed to pause.

Dead. The man was dead.

Merik’s throat cleared, ready to order Cam onward. Except that at that moment, a rasp scuttled through the cellar. It crawled over Merik’s skin like a thousand sand fleas.

“Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret

deep into the black cave.

He knew that inside it, the Queen Crab resided,

but that didn’t scare him away.”

Cam rocked back, falling onto her haunches. Merik simply gaped at the corpse. The man’s dead mouth didn’t move, and his eyes stayed stiff and glassy … Yet there was no denying the words came from his throat.

Impossible, impossible.

Cam scrabbled back on all fours, hissing, “Sir, sir,” while the corpse continued to whisper.

“Said blind brother Daret to fool brother Filip,

does Queen Crab no longer reign?

I have heard she is vicious, and likes to eat fishes.

It’s best we avoid her domain.”

“Sir, sir, sir.” Cam grabbed for Merik.

A bell began to clamor. Ear-splitting in volume and brutal in intensity, it was the palace alarm.

Merik moved. Hand in hand with Cam, he bolted for the stairs—even as the rest of the song slithered out around them.

“Answered fool Filip to his brother small,

have I not always kept you safe?

I know what I’m doing, for I’m older than you,

and I’ll never lead you astray.”

Impossible, impossible.

Guards charged downward from the surface now. Merik felt their footsteps hammering behind them on the stone steps. He sensed their breaths skating down the stairwell’s air.

He and Cam reached the lowest level and sprinted into the rows of shelves. Somehow, though, the guards still closed in from behind.

It’s the smell, Merik thought vaguely. The guards can follow the smell. Yet there was nothing to be done for it except to keep running. Shelves went hazy at the edges of his vision. His breath, and Cam’s too, came in short gasps.

They reached the back wall. Merik thrust Cam behind the cedar cases as light tore over him. Ten guards with torches in hand careened closer.

“The Fury!” one shouted. “Shoot him!” barked another.

Merik heaved into the Cisterns after Cam. She had waited for him—fool girl—and he gripped her once more. Held fast to her arm as they barreled down the dark tunnel.

Shadows, shouts, shit—it all bounced off the limestone walls. Then came a bark from Cam—“Crossbows!”—and a burst of wind in Merik’s chest.

No, not wind. That charge, that thunder—it was the flood.

The soldiers hollered for Merik and Cam to stop. But they didn’t. They couldn’t. That sound, that tempest approaching …

Merik and Cam had to get past Shite Street before it hit.

They reached the sewage. Cam plummeted in, and Merik fell with her, knees buckling. Hands and chest submerging. Yet the roar, the flood—it pushed Merik and Cam onto their feet once more.

They ran. A crossbow bolt sang past their heads. A second shattered the nearest lantern, swathing them in darkness and leaving only the soldiers’ approaching torches to see by.

The flood didn’t care. It still approached, so loud now it was like Lejna. Like Kullen’s cleaving death. No escape. Just the storm.

Merik kept running, his eyes blanketed by black. His hearing consumed by tides. Ahead, ahead—he just had to get ahead.

Orange light flickered. New lanterns. New tunnels. The end of Shite Street was so close now with a glistening ramp visible beyond. Merik ran harder. Four steps.

Two.

He launched onto the landing, only to lurch around and see Cam, still ten paces back and chased by a mountain of charging water.

Without thought, Merik lashed out with a whip of power. The winds snapped around Cam. Tiny but strong. Just like she was. A coil of air that carried her the final steps to safety.

The girl collapsed on the ground beside Merik, breathing heavily. Body shaking. Coated in dung and only Noden knew what else while water frothed past in a perfect, bewitched funnel.

Worried, Merik reached for her. “Are you,” he gasped, “all right?”

An exhausted nod. “Hye … sir.”

“We can’t stop.”

“Never,” she panted, and when Merik offered her his hand, she smiled wearily. Then together, they left the ferocity of Shite Street behind.

TWENTY-TWO

Aeduan stormed down the riverside path, his magic on fire. His body moving too fast to stop, too fast to fight. Straight through the Red Sails hunting the Threadwitch, he drove.

They withdrew blades in flashes of steel and bellows of ire. Yet Aeduan had no plans for combat. Not today.

One saber hissed out, setting Aeduan’s instincts alight. He ducked, rolled forward, and broke from the trees to face the Amonra.

Threadwitch, Threadwitch—where was the Threadwitch?

He spotted her. Not far ahead, on the shore. He could reach her if she would just stop running.