Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(25)
Vivia had failed to kill him, though.
So now it was Merik’s turn.
*
When Cam returned, she was soaked through. Merik opened the door at her pounding, and she pushed inside, dripping water and leaving wet prints behind.
Merik waited until the door was shut to inspect the armful of food clutched at her chest. Hard bread, limp vegetables, and shriveled fruit—all wrapped in a jagged piece of wide-weave canvas.
Merik gathered it from her cold, rain-slick hands, his stomach rumbling, and after a gruff mumble of gratitude, he headed for the dry sink. Though some structures in Lovats had Waterwitched plumbing, Kullen’s place was not one of them.
When Cam made no move to follow, he glanced back. “What is it?”
A gulp. Then Cam slunk forward, rubbing at her damp arms and avoiding Merik’s gaze. “They’re calling you the Fury on the streets, sir.”
Ah. So that had stuck, then.
“Ain’t too many soldiers out now,” she went on, “but the ones who are … Well, they’re all lookin’ for you. For the … Fury.”
With a sharp exhale, Merik dropped the vegetables and fruit into the sink—a limp head of fennel, four fat turnips thick with dirt, and six blue plums only slightly tinged with brown rot. The round loaf of barley bread was stale enough to break a tooth on, so Merik rewrapped it in the wet canvas and set it on the table to soak and soften.
His attention lingered there, brow knitting. “Will it be possible to reach Pin’s Keep? With so many soldiers still searching?” He swung his eyes back to the girl, whose lips puckered sideways. An expression Merik was beginning to recognize as her thoughtful face.
“Are you sure, sir … That is to say…” She cleared her throat, moving abruptly to the sink, where, with surprising urgency, she set to scrubbing at the turnips with her knuckles. The scar on her left hand rippled and stretched.
“What?” Merik pressed, moving a single step closer.
Cam’s cleaning turned all the more enthusiastic. “You sure you want to go to Pin’s Keep, sir? What if … what if it wasn’t your sister who tried to kill you?”
Heat fanned up Merik’s neck. “It was her.” No emotion, no emphasis. “I knew it was her before Judgment Square, and I have no doubt now.”
“Just ’cos she runs Pin’s Keep,” Cam challenged, “don’t mean she sent that assassin.”
The heat spread, rising up Merik’s spine. “I know it was her, Cam. I’ve been a hindrance to her plans ever since I moved back to the capital. And now—now,” he went on, the heat spreading into his lungs, “I have a direct connection between Vivia and the assassin. I lack one final piece of proof, boy. Something tangible to give the High Council. I’m certain I’ll find that at Pin’s Keep.”
“And what if you don’t?” Cam’s voice was a mere squeak now, yet something in her pitch gave Merik pause.
He fisted his fingers. The joints cracked. “Where,” he asked, “is this coming from?”
She scrubbed harder, a loud scratch-scratch beneath her words. “It’s just that, sir, I heard something on the street. Something bad. Something that makes me think … Well, it makes me think your sister ain’t behind all this.”
“And what did you hear?”
“That there was a second explosion.” And with those words, her story tumbled out. “Just like the one on the Jana, sir, and people are sayin’ it was the Cartorrans who did it. Or maybe the Dalmottis. But they’re saying that whoever it was that blew us up, it’s the same people who blew up that other ship too.”
“What,” Merik asked, even as his heart sank in a great downward rush, “other ship?”
“Oh, sir.” Cam stopped mid-scrape of her turnip, posture wilting. “It was the Empress of Marstok’s ship, and everyone on board was killed. Including … including that domna we carried on the Jana. Safiya fon Hasstrel.”
*
Vivia found nothing new underground. Just more spiders and centipedes and amphibians on the run, and despite what had seemed like hours of moving stones from the cave-in, the rubble seemed as thick as ever.
Her frustration was good, though. She savored how it made her jaw work side to side as she strode down Hawk’s Way, through a halfhearted rainstorm. She used the frustration to sharpen her mask into an uncrossable sneer, and by the time she reached the largest of the city’s watchtowers, she was a Nihar once more.
She ascended the tower, nodding curtly as soldiers saluted one by one, fists against their hearts. It was so different from the Battle Room. No mocking stares. No waiting for her to trip and fall and fail. Vivia trusted these men with her life, and she knew they trusted her in turn.
“Bormin, Ferric,” she said, naming each man beside the door at the tower’s highest level before she strode outside into the rain. She crossed to the officer on deck: the tall, broad-shouldered Stacia Sotar—or Stix to those who knew her well enough to earn that privilege.
Stix’s black skin was slick with rain, her white, tied-back hair plastered against her skull. She waved to Vivia, and her Witchmark—an upside-down triangle that signified her as a full Waterwitch—stretched long.
While Vivia could control water in liquid form, Stix controlled all aspects of the element. From ice to steam to this storm dribbling down. And while Vivia needed water nearby to draw from, Stix could summon vapor from the very air.