Chapter 15
Frozen in surprise halfway under the bed, a man lay on the floor next to her. Semras stared wordlessly at the rope and knife clutched in his hands. It didn’t feel real.
By the time it did, he had scrambled to his feet and was plunging the knife toward her chest.
She dodged it narrowly with a sudden jerk backward. Her heart beat wildly, pumping blood through her ears with a deafening, thumping noise. Her back pressed against the wall, she darted her eyes around and worked through her options as fast as she could.
The window was too thin to escape through it. The door? He stood in front of it. She could turn the bed over to create cover. But how? It was too heavy; he’d have her bleeding to death before she could even try to move it. Scream?
Scream.
His hand sealed her mouth, and her shriek died in her throat before it could alert anyone. With his other hand, her assailant grabbed her neck and squeezed her windpipe shut. His tools scattered on the wooden floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw the knife roll out of reach.
Panicked, Semras scratched his face, his wrists, his arms—anywhere she could reach. Her nails broke; blood seeped from beneath their beds. Crush his eyes, a voice in the back of her mind chanted. Rip off his ears. Pierce his skin.
Cut the threads
of his
life.
Beyond these dark thoughts lay the Bleak Path. With her supply of air rapidly dwindling, Semras couldn’t see it.
She just did as it asked.
The witch plunged her senses into the Unseen Arras. Within, her perception slowed down, the threads of the world revealed themselves to her, and she became helplessly stuck in its slow currents. With growing horror, she watched the man drop the hand over her throat and reach for the rope.
Its end was tied in a noose.
Her gaze waded through the Arras with desperation, seeking within the warp shape of her assailant the threads that kept the man alive. She found them twirling around the middle of his chest—threads of red pumping with the flow of his lifeforce.
Semras reached out. Slowly, too slowly, too entrenched in a past that hadn’t yet caught up to the present of reality, she moved. Her fingers grazed the threads, and—
A horrible wheeze ripped her sight away from the Unseen Arras. It took a while for the witch’s sluggish mind to realize it came from her throat.
Around her neck, the noose tightened.
Her assailant gazed at her coldly, eyes blank and devoid of any empathy, as if he was executing a mundane task. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, but Semras couldn’t dredge any memory out of her foggy mind.
He was pulling, pulling, pulling, and her lungs burned. Semras gasped for breath. Stars began dancing in her vision.
Air, she needed air! She scratched helplessly at the skin of her neck, begging to be released from the tightening rope. Her crushed throat gurgled with agony. Her vision faded as her body grew limper and limper. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Death’s lights danced before her—the star-like souls of her past kin shone through the all-devouring Night. With each painful beat of her heart, they crept closer. The Old Crone stood in the space between, arms wide open to welcome her home.
The man smiled and spoke words Semras could no longer hear. In desperation, she sought her beloved Arras once more. Somewhere in the Unseen World, in the spaces between time, perhaps someone would hear her. A foolish hope; so far from the Coven as she was, no witch would be listening.
But she had to try.
Would the inn mourn her like the woods had for her Elder?
Her consciousness barely held on by frayed threads, and the agony in her lungs made it near impossible to concentrate. Still, she had to try. She had to.
The Arras flickered in and out, just out of reach. Filaments danced at the edge of her vision. She couldn’t see them. Was she there? Or was it some hallucination to accompany her to her death? It did not matter.
Semras screamed into the Arras. Her silent cry echoed all around her, disturbing the threads holding together the weaves of the room, the inn, the village.
No one answered.
Out of air, out of hope, Semras started fading away. It had been in vain. She would die here, so far from her beloved forest and Coven.
Another name to add to the Inquisition’s list of victims.
The door flew open in a startling bang.
Hands grabbed her, taking her away while others cut the rope off her limp body. Shouts rang out. A man cried out somewhere in the background.
And a voice spoke—a rumble of rage so low Semras felt shudders run down her spine. That voice was angry, so deeply angry; a primal fear seized her mind at the sound of it.
She was lying on the bed again, but with no memory of how or when it happened. Sleep begged her to surrender, beckoned her so sweetly to oblivion. She ignored its call, fearing she wouldn’t wake again if she followed it now.
A warm hand on her cheek slowly coaxed her back to reality, guiding her jaw upward to keep her airway clear.
“Este … van?” Semras whispered in a raspy, dazed voice. She blinked the last tears away, eager to see the inquisitor for once. Her whole body shook with violent shivers. She felt cold, so very cold.
He had promised he’d keep her safe.
Her eyes widened when they met dark brown pupils instead of ice blue ones. Ulrech was the one holding her, soothing the pain of her throat away. “The inquisitor is busy,” he said quietly.
Busy?
“… Where?”
The knight hesitated. “He … is outside with the man who attacked you. You will not meet that man again; the inquisitor is dispensing justice as we speak. Sir Themas is assisting him.”
They stayed in silence in the room, waiting for … Semras didn’t know. Her body shivered uncontrollably.
She had done nothing. Had provoked no one through words or weaves. So why had the man attacked her? Who was he? Why her?
Why?
Ulrech broke the silence. “My—um, my apologies. I should have realized sooner you were under attack. I failed in my duty, and you suffered for it.”
“… You … came.” Her voice was rough, painful. It hurt to talk. “Thank … you. For sav—”
She coughed. Ulrech grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and helped her tip it down into her mouth. She drank with difficulty.
“Do not speak,” he said. “It will take time for your throat to recover. You are … Suffice to say, Inquisitor Velten was enraged when he saw the state you were in. I would normally call the target of his ire a poor wretch, but that criminal deserves what is coming to him.”
“Why … me?” Semras couldn’t manage more. Pain flared out each time she spoke, but she had to ask. She wanted to know. Needed to know.
Even if she knew already.
Sir Ulrech looked at her with pity. “You are a witch. That is all he needed, I suppose. I am not saying he was right—this judgment belongs to Inquisitor Velten—but that is the most likely reason.”
A single tear escaped her eye. It slowly slid down her cheek, then crashed along the knight’s thumb.
He stared at it, astonished. “You have never experienced this before, have you? Never left your coven grounds much until now?”
Semras shook her head. She’d heard plenty of stories of bigotry from older witches, but they had remained just that—stories. Cautionary tales to warn her of the worst that could happen. None had measured up to facing it herself.
No words could have ever prepared her for the sheer terror of feeling her life being squeezed out of her by the hands of another.
“I see. You are quite … innocent. That is … that is surprising.” Ulrech let out an embarrassed laugh.
“I do not mean to mock you. I meant innocent as in naive. No, that does not sound better. I—never mind. I have never been good with words.” He shut up, seemingly deciding that speaking was not in his best interest.
She’d have laughed, if she could. It wasn’t only her throat that stopped her; mirth seemed to have deserted her mind entirely.
Instead, she settled on staring at him. Only when Ulrech looked at her with panic in his eyes did she realize her tears had returned.
“Oh no, I am not good with that. Try, um, try not to … cry?” he asked. Muttering to himself, he continued, “Dammit, what would Nimue say?”
Nimue. Again.
Semras was starting to hate that name. Even Ulrech seemed to like her, while she was only a necessary evil to his eyes. In her weakened state, she couldn’t repress the bitter jealousy simmering deep within. What did Nimue have that she did not?
Ulrech struggled with his words, then gave up. “Forgive me. I am not used to talking to witches. Or people.”
“What … about Nimue?”
A rare, dreamy smile bloomed on his lips. “She is different. Easy to talk to. Any man would kill for her smile.” Then his face slowly fell into a frown. “How do you know about her?”
Semras shrugged.
“What do you know about her?” he barked a bit more harshly.
“I … know.” She struggled to get the words out—because of her throat or her heart, she couldn’t tell. “Lover.”
Ulrech’s scowl darkened. “I am warning you. You are putting your nose into things that do not concern you. Keep well out of them, and we will have no problem.”
Was he really picking a fight with her over this? From what Themas had told her, the rumour mill was already well aware of Estevan’s lover. It was a little late for his guard dog to protect that secret.
Unable to argue back, Semras rolled her eyes instead.
The Venator knight leaned closer. “If you dare utter to anyone about—”
“Sir Ulrech,” Estevan called from the doorway.
The inquisitor stood there, watching them with a face devoid of any expression. Blood soaked his white shirt, blending into his burgundy shoulder cloak. A pungent, metallic smell hit her, and Semras looked away, nose wrinkling.
So much blood. It made her stomach lurch.
“This is neither the moment nor the place,” Estevan continued. “Cut it out.”
“Yes, my lord.” Ulrech stood, averting his shame-filled eyes from her.