Chapter 30 #4
If he’d rather die than break his oath … would he also be ready to kill for it?
Semras lifted her head to find the inquisitor watching her pensively. Her eyes widened as the festering wound between them oozed—fear, blame, mistrust.
“What happens,” he asked slowly, “if one of us dies?”
Betrayal.
She bolted.
“Wait!”
Semras ran between the trees as fast as she could, ignoring the branches ripping through her skin, and the painful beating of her heart, and the knot in her throat.
The woods would shelter her—but only if she could lose the inquisitor closing in on her. She could hear his crunching footsteps on the dried forest floor behind her. Faster—she needed to run faster.
Rough hands seized her before she could fade among the trees. She elbowed him, and the inquisitor and the witch fell in a struggling embrace, rolling on the forest ground as they both searched to gain the upper hand. He was stronger—had always been. But she was strong too.
The witch had her own weapons. She wasn’t as helpless as she’d been back then, shackle-bound and begging for mercy.
She’d never beg for mercy again.
Semras clamped her fingers down around the wounded flesh of his arm. Grunting with pain, he staggered back, and she rolled as far away from him as she could, then began crawling away.
It would be safer, the Bleak Path beckoned her. It would be so much safer if she just took control of the inquisitor. Just to stop his pursuit. Just to keep herself safe.
She’d have no time to peer into the Unseen Arras to see if she caught the right threads, but she could still try. Fingers poised to weave, she glanced over her shoulder.
She’d take his wefts, link his mind to hers, dominate his will, and then—
A hand grabbed her heel. With a jarring yank, the inquisitor pulled her back down underneath him.
His hand blocked her eyes, bruising her temples in a harsh, painful grip.
“I know what you are thinking, Semras,” he said, breath short and raspy.
“I know you better than you think! You want to run? Want to escape the big, bad inquisitor before he kills you to rid himself of all responsibility?”
Another hand grabbed her wrists, then lifted them above her head. Roots and pebbles speared through her back.
She squirmed to escape him—without success; pressing her against the forest floor, the inquisitor prevented her from moving.
Feinting compliance, Semras stilled her struggle.
He released her at last, and she sprang and pushed him off her with all her might. Surprised, he fell, and she immediately straddled his hips. Her hands reached for his neck. Gritting her teeth through the pain radiating from her maimed fingers, Semras tightened them around his throat.
No need to stray into the Bleak Path when the bastard’s breath could be wrung out of him.
The inquisitor grabbed one of her wrists and dug his fingers into its weak point. Her fingers twitched open, releasing him partly from her wild, desperate attempt at surviving. Snarling, she increased the pressure on his neck with her remaining hand, and he tried to push her away.
Semras froze; a nagging feeling was scratching at the back of her mind. Then she remembered.
The forest with neither ruins nor fire. The threads between them. Her hands on his neck and his pushing her away. Their struggling embrace.
It had all been part of Nimue’s prophecy. She’d been wrong; it had never been about the glade. It had been about now. About their ‘deaths’ at each other’s hands.
That part rang true. A life bound to one another sounded like a proper death to her. And if it hadn’t been for her maimed fingers slowing her down, Semras would have strayed onto the Bleak Path. Another death of who she once was, at his hands.
Taking advantage of her momentary shock, Inquisitor Velten reversed their position once more. Her back hit the forest floor, and Semras fought and flailed to escape the vulnerable position.
The inquisitor snarled. “Enough! You will not make me a monster!” Before they could reach his neck once more, he grabbed her hands and slammed them on each side of her head.
“I may have broken my oath to the Radiant Lord, but I will not willingly break another one. Nothing will bring back what I lost. It is too late; I am already damned! So. Stop. Fighting. Back! I beg of you! Please!”
Semras went still.
He had begged. How many times had he begged her now? She lost count long ago.
Breath curt and shallow, Velten released her hands and stared. “Do you understand? I cannot hurt you. I will not hurt you. So keep your end of this damn oath, will you!” Behind the scalding words hid all of his pleas and despair.
Ah! As if he were the only one in pain here.
“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” Semras replied. “We both lost something we can never get back today. But don’t worry, Inquisitor … I won’t make you honour your part of the Wyrdtwined Oath. I don’t want you to.”
He scoffed. “You would insult me by freeing me from my obligations? I think not, witch. You have taken for yourself an unwilling husband, and you will not be rid of him so easily.”
“You think I wanted this? Our words shouldn’t have been binding at all. You made it so! When you drank from my cup, you sealed our fate, you bastard! You took the step that sealed our fate!”
“Oh, so now it is my fault? How could I have known? How could it have had any effect after so much time and distance?”
“I don’t know! I’m an herbalist, and this is old fey magic. All of this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t stepped into the Mother-Tree!”
“It would not have happened if you had returned home when I told you to!”
Breathless, they stared silently at each other. Far above their heads, birds sang their amorous songs, completely oblivious to the mood.
Semras swallowed back the insults and recriminations she so dearly wished to throw in his face.
“Oh, I am returning home,” she said, sneering, “and I’m returning home alone, while you will remain behind to live your life as you intended to before you dragged me into it.
No obligation, no protection, no companionship.
Perfect strangers, as we should have stayed! ”
Velten trailed his knuckles against her cheek. Half-lidded eyes wandered over her face. “Already speaking of separation? What a lovely wife you make.”
“Get. Off. Me.” Semras pushed him off and stood, sweeping the dirt off her dress. “Do not ever call me that again.”
She stomped away, uncaring if he followed her back to camp or not.