Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(28)

About fifty witches—­the highest-­ranking coven leaders in each Clan—­were gathered at the giant hole in the side of the mountain. Manon spotted her grandmother immediately, standing at the bridge entrance with what had to be the Blueblood and Yellowlegs Matrons.

The new Yellowlegs Matron was supposedly some half ­sister of Baba, and she certainly looked the part: huddled in brown robes, saffron ankles peeking out, white hair braided back to reveal a wrinkled, brutal face mottled with age. By rule, all Yellowlegs wore their iron teeth and nails on permanent display, and the new High Witch’s ­were shining in the dull morning light.

Unsurprisingly, the Blueblood Matron was tall and willowy, more priestess than warrior. She wore the traditional deep blue robes, and a band of iron stars circled her brow. As Manon approached the crowd, she could see that the stars ­were barbed. Not surprising, either.

Legend had it that all witches had been gifted by the Three-­Faced Goddess with iron teeth and nails to keep them anchored to this world when magic threatened to pull them away. The iron crown, supposedly, was proof that the magic in the Blueblood line ran so strong that their leader needed more—­needed iron and pain—­to keep her tethered in this realm.

Nonsense. Especially when magic had been gone these past ten years. But Manon had heard rumors of the rituals the Bluebloods did in their forests and caves, rituals in which pain was the gateway to magic, to opening their senses. Oracles, mystics, zealots.

Manon stalked through the ranks of the assembled Blackbeak coven leaders. They ­were the most numerous—­twenty coven leaders, over which Manon ruled with her Thirteen. Each leader touched two fingers to her brow in deference. She ignored them and took up a spot at the front of the crowd, where her grandmother gave her an acknowledging glance.

An honor, for any High Witch to acknowledge an individual. Manon bowed her head, pressing two fingers to her brow. Obedience, discipline, and brutality ­were the most beloved words in the Blackbeak Clan. All ­else was to be extinguished without second thought.

She still had her chin high, hands behind her back, when she spotted the other two heirs watching her.

The Blueblood heir, Petrah, stood closest to the High Witches, her group in the center of the crowd. Manon stiffened but held her gaze.

Her freckled skin was as pale as Manon’s, and her braided hair was as golden as Asterin’s—­a deep, brassy color that caught the gray light. She was beautiful, like so many of them, but grave. Above her blue eyes, a worn leather band rested on her brow in lieu of the iron-­star crown. There was no way of telling how old she was, but she ­couldn’t be much older than Manon if she looked this way after magic had vanished. There was no aggression, but no smile, either. Smiles ­were rare amongst witches—­unless you ­were on the hunt or on a killing field.

The Yellowlegs heir, though . . . Iskra was grinning at Manon, bristling with a challenge that Manon found herself aching to meet. Iskra hadn’t forgotten the brawl between their sentinels in the hallway yesterday. If anything, from the look in Iskra’s brown eyes, it seemed that the brawl had been an invitation. Manon found herself debating how much trouble she’d get into for shredding the throat of the Yellowlegs heir. It would put an end to any fights between their sentinels.

It would also put an end to her life, if the attack ­were unprovoked. Witch justice was swift. Dominance battles could end in loss of life, but the claim had to be made up front. Without a formal provocation from Iskra, Manon’s hands ­were tied.

“Now that ­we’re assembled,” the Blueblood Matron—­Cresseida—said, drawing Manon’s attention, “shall we show you what ­we’ve been brought ­here to do?”

Mother Blackbeak waved a hand to the bridge, black robes billowing in the icy wind. “We walk into the sky, witches.”

•

The crossing of the black bridge was more harrowing than Manon wanted to admit. First, there was the miserable stone, which throbbed beneath her feet, giving off that reek that no one ­else seemed to notice. Then there was the screeching wind, which battered them this way and that, trying to shove them over the carved railing.

They ­couldn’t even see the floor of the Gap. Mist shrouded everything below the bridge—­a mist that hadn’t vanished in the day they’d been ­here, or the days they’d hiked up the Gap. It was, she supposed, some trick of the king’s. Contemplating it led only to more questions, none of which she bothered to voice, or really care about all that much.

By the time they reached the cavernous atrium of the Northern Fang, Manon’s ears ­were frozen and her face was raw. She’d flown at high altitudes, in all kinds of weather, but not for a long while. Not without a fresh belly of meat in her, keeping her warm.

She wiped her runny nose on the shoulder of her red cloak. She’d seen the other coven leaders eyeing the crimson material—­as they always did, with yearning and scorn and envy. Iskra had gazed at it the ­longest, sneering. It would be nice—­really damn nice—­to peel off the Yellowlegs heir’s face one day.

They reached the gaping mouth into the upper reaches of the Northern Fang. ­Here the stone was scarred and gouged, splattered with the Triple Goddess knew what. From the tang of it, it was blood. Human blood.

Five men—­all looking hewn from the same scarred stone themselves—­met the three Matrons with grim nods. Manon fell into step behind her grandmother, one eye on the men, the other on their surroundings. The other two heirs did the same. At least they agreed on that.