Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(107)

“Cahr Awen,” Iseult finished. “I … I think she does.”

“Gods below, I can’t handle anymore surprises today.” Safi reined the horse toward the sunrise, punching down her confusion and doubt—deep, deep, out of reach.

And, as she guided her horse to the trail, she was pleased to see the mare drag at the bit. The horses were ready for speed, Iseult was ready for speed, and Safi was ready to end this.

Digging her heels into the mare’s ribs, Safi launched into a scudding gallop and set off for Lejna of the Hundred Isles.





THIRTY-SIX

The Jana was in an uproar when Merik finally touched down on the main deck. They sailed west now, the rising sun an angry thing behind the ship.

When Merik squinted at the tiller—right into the sun—he found Kullen. A hunched, wheezing shape who somehow kept a wind hauling in the sails. Kullen. Merik pushed off across the deck, thunder rolling over the wind-drum’s boom.

An entourage streamed behind.

“Admiral,” Ryber called.

Merik waved her off. “Hermin,” he panted, trying to jog, speak, and catch his breath. If he was already tired, he could only imagine Kullen’s exhaustion. “What’s happening?”

Hermin hobbled alongside Merik. “Yoris found Prince Leopold unconscious by the Origin Well. Apparently the Bloodwitch attacked and betrayed him.”

Merik’s footsteps stumbled. Leopold was here now too? What the Hell was he going to do with a blighted prince?

He mentally swatted that aside for later.

“Admiral!” Ryber shouted again. “S’important, sir!”

“Not now.” Merik hopped the steps to the quarterdeck, where the wind whipped louder, harder. As he approached Kullen, slumped at the tiller, he wondered why Ryber had allowed her Heart-Thread to push himself this hard.

“Stop this boat!” Merik roared. “Stop your wind!” He grabbed hold of Kullen’s coat and yanked the man upright.

Kullen’s face was gray, but his eyes were sharp behind his wind-spectacles. “Can’t … stop,” he panted. “We’ve got to catch up … to the … Marstoks.”

“And we will, but we don’t need so much speed—”

“But that’s just it!” Ryber shouted, shoving up to Merik. “We do need speed because the Bloodwitch is here.”

For half a breath, Merik could only stare at Ryber. Bewitched air stung his eyes, screamed in his ears. Then he bolted for the bulwark and yanked his spyglass free.

“Where?” he breathed, heart lodged in his throat.

“More east.” Ryber gently aimed the spyglass right, until Merik saw it: a lone blur of white streaming down the seaside road.

Merik slid the glass farther east until … There. Two figures, one in white and one in black, on horseback. They coursed down the same road, and the Bloodwitch was no more than a league behind them. He would be upon Safi and Iseult before Merik could even fly back to shore.

Merik snapped down the glass and forced himself to inhale—in through his nose. The heavy scent of oncoming rain. Then out through grinding teeth.

It helped nothing. “How the Hell,” he ground out, “did that monster get here so fast?”

“By all that’s holy,” Hermin swore, peering through his own spyglass. “Is that white speck him?”

“His powers are straight from the Void,” Ryber said gravely. Then she cried, “Kullen!” and lurched from the bulwark.

Merik bolted after, and with Ryber’s help, he peeled Kullen’s white-knuckled hand off the tiller. Then he slid his arm beneath his Threadbrother’s.

Kullen was too cold to the touch, his clothes too damp with sweat. “You have to stop this!” Merik shouted. “Stop your winds, Kullen!”

“If I stop,” Kullen answered with surprising strength, “then we lose your contract.”

“Your life is worth more than a contract,” Merik said, but Kullen started laughing then—a hacking, gulping sound—and he lifted a weak arm to gesture south.

“I have an idea.”

Merik followed Kullen’s finger, but all he saw there were dark skies and the flickers of distant lightning.

But then Ryber breathed “No,” and Merik’s stomach bottomed out.

“No.” He towed Kullen around to face him. The first mate’s hair was so plastered by sweat, it didn’t even move in the wind. “That is not an option, Kullen. Ever.”

“But it’s the only option. Nubrevna needs this … trade agreement.”

“You can barely stand.”

“I don’t need to stand,” Kullen said, “if I’m riding a storm.”

Merik shook his head, frantic now. Panicking, while Ryber whispered over and over, “Please don’t do it, please don’t do it, please don’t do it.”

“Have you forgotten what happened last time you summoned a storm?” Merik looked at Ryber for support, but she was crying now—and Merik realized with a sickening certainty, that she had already resigned herself to this course.

How, though? How could she give up so easily and so fast?

“We don’t need the trade agreement,” Merik insisted. “The Nihar lands are growing again. Growing, Kullen. So as your Admiral and your Prince, I command you not to do this.”