Chapter 32
“What are you doing?” Themas asked.
Levelling a waterskin to her eyes, Semras poured her small jar of activated charcoal into it. Old Crone be thanked for giving her the foresight to buy some at Yore, or else her plan would have had deadlier consequences than she intended.
“An antidote,” she answered. “Or as close to one as I can make right now. He said two or three hours, right?”
The knight nodded slowly, careful to keep his cloak pressed against his bleeding nose. “I reckon his destination must be an hour from here, give or take. Why?”
“I’ll have a … um, window of opportunity to administer this before it becomes useless.”
“I thought you wanted to poison him?”
“I don’t want to. Inquisitor Velten is forcing my hand.” Semras pressed her lips into a tight line. “But he won’t make a murderer of me.”
His death would just leave her with a gaping wound within her warp shape’s core. She didn’t want her mother’s fate.
Themas hummed. “He took the other horse and left Pagan behind, just as you thought. Good luck with the beast, Semras.”
After a nervous exhale, the witch tied the waterskin to her belt, straightened her clothes, and approached the half-fey. “Pagan,” she called, her voice more confident than she felt.
Its black pupils jumped toward her with unnatural speed. They didn’t reflect the flames of the campfire, and she stepped back, unsettled by the Peering Night within.
Steadying her nerves, Semras tried again. “I have come for a Bargain, Fey.”
The stallion opened its mouth in a silent neigh. In it, she saw deep rows of teeth that didn’t belong to a horse.
A cold sweat ran down her spine. “I will give you a handful of blood, and no more, in exchange for your help in discreetly following your master tonight.”
It cocked its head, blinked, then neighed in a rhythmic, chilling tone.
It was laughing.
Semras’ breath grew shallow.
‘A handful of blood.’ She had considered the price she’d offer while waiting for Velten to leave.
It had seemed like an appropriate, quantifiable amount she could afford to lose.
But now, in front of its sinister reaction, it suddenly occurred to her that a ‘handful of blood’ sounded horribly like … like ‘a hand full of blood.’
Pale as death, Semras took a step back. The kelpie advanced, nipping in the air toward her hands. Its eyes glowed with hunger. Teeth too sharp to belong to a prey animal glinted in the dark. From its mouth, thick ropes of saliva dripped onto the soil of the forest.
A deep, primal terror rooted her in place.
Twisting its head to the side, the half-fey darted its pupil all over her. Any moment now, it would take her hand, and Semras would lose her ability to weave. For good this time.
Her mouth dried up. She wanted to scream—but no sound could make it through her tightening throat.
Its eye fell on her chest, where her heart beat jarringly, and the kelpie went still. One beat, two beats, three and ten succeeded while it gazed at her. Then Pagan snorted and shook its mane. With barely restrained frustration, it pawed at the ground.
Semras released her breath.
The Wyrdtwined Oath. The half-fey had seen her warp shape, had seen Velten’s threads entwined around her heart, and deemed her its master as well. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—take advantage of her poor choice of words, not while it believed her to be one of its Court’s lords.
Hurriedly, Semras slit her palm with a small knife, then presented her hand. A long, too long tongue came to lick at the blood pooling within. Once the kelpie had taken exactly a ‘handful,’ it bowed its head and dropped its front knees to the ground, ready to fulfill its end of the Bargain.
Amazed and shaken, Semras glanced back to Themas.
“Well done,” he said, softly clapping his hands. “I got scared there for a moment, but you handled it well.”
A curt, shrill chuckle floated out of her. “I think I used up all the luck you wished me. I’ll go now. If I’m not back by dawn … assume that Velten has killed me.”
“Don’t joke about that, Semras.”
She didn’t. If the inquisitor caught on to her plan, he’d kill her in retaliation. No wordplay or plea could ever justify her feeding him wolfsbane.
Twirling its mane around her fist, the witch climbed atop the stallion’s bare back. It stood smoothly, then carried her away, its dark coat blending into the night.
The half-fey moved silently through the Vedwoods.
Semras would have sworn it passed through the Unseen Arras at times, diving into Weirlaind’s endless Night to travel faster.
When Inquisitor Velten appeared further ahead much sooner than she had expected—his dark silhouette atop his steed, guiding it over a thin dirt path through the woods—she knew it had done so.
Good. It worked in her favour.
“Let me down here, Pagan,” she whispered into the kelpie’s ear. “I need to confront your master for a moment. We will keep tailing him after that, so wait here for me.”
It stopped and dropped its front legs, and Semras climbed down its back.
All she needed to do now was to prepare and pray that everything would go exactly as planned.
After drinking half of her waterskin and making sure the gloves protected her hands from the wolfsbane, Semras slipped one of its seeds inside her cheek.
If she swallowed it accidentally, the activated charcoal would help absorb most of its side effects, but she still had to act fast. And soon too, before the poison would start affecting her through the soft tissues of her mouth.
Semras bit her lip, then strode toward Inquisitor Velten. “Where are you going?” she hailed as she caught up to him.
Startled, Velten tensed in his saddle but kept on riding slowly into the night. “You should be sleeping.”
Semras picked up the pace to keep up with him. “Did you think you were clever?” she asked. Even to herself, her voice sounded oddly detached. “You found out who bought prickly comfrey at the coven’s grounds. You’re going to confront them alone.”
“I did not, and I do not have to explain myself to you.” Velten kept his eyes fixed in front of him, his horse at a slow walk. “You have been useful, and I am grateful for it, but this is my investigation, and I will pursue it on my own. With my authority as inquisitor, I release you from—”
“You have no authority here,” Semras replied with a sneer. “You stand upon the land of my people, and I will not let you harass my coven sisters. Bring me with you, or I will stop you. This is your last chance, Velten.”
The inquisitor pulled the reins, and his horse stopped moving.
Looking down at her, he stayed silent for a moment. Then, a scowl spread across his face. “I said go back, witch. I will not tolerate your meddling any longer.”
Semras sucked in a breath. “My … meddling?”
After everything she risked for him? After everything she had sacrificed and endured and given up for him?
“Yes,” he said, venom dripping from his voice.
“Your ‘meddling.’ You ruined every single part of my plan. It should never have become this complicated, nor involved you this much. You were never supposed to be this—to be … never mind. Just … just go. I left quietly so that you would not follow me. So please do not.”
“… What was I supposed to be like?”
Groaning in frustration, the inquisitor raked his fingers through his hair.
“A tool. A pawn in my plan. Just a safety net in case the worst-case scenario happened! But then, the worst-case scenario became even worse, and now I have to stop my own damn brother. I will do anything—do you understand?—anything to prevent the war he wants. And,” he said, looking to the forest path sprawling in front of him, “it will be without you. Leave. Now. Go back to camp; go back to Sir Themas. You are no longer needed, witch.”
No longer needed.
They were wyrdtwined to one another. It meant nothing to him. He had used her all along.
On her quivering lips, grief mixed with rage. “A tool … I see,” she said quietly. “I should have known that these were the only words of yours I could trust.” A high-pitched, self-deriding laughter bubbled out of her. “How I wish we had never met, Inquisitor.”
At least his horrendous attitude eased her guilt. Now, she had no reason to hesitate anymore.
She would poison him and then trail him to the witch’s home. He’d live if she gave him the antidote in time but would be incapacitated for long enough to let her and her brethren flee back to the Coven.
Then she’d tell the Elders of Yore about Callum’s plan, and they’d find a way to avoid the war. She should never have relied on an inquisitor to save a witch anyway. That had been her mistake from the very start—trusting him.
That was the plan. Save her witch sister, save the Coven, and then forget Inquisitor Velten ever existed. Easy, simple, uncomplicated.
And impossible with his threads woven around her heart.
Sitting atop his steed, Velten looked surprisingly blurry. It confused her. Then she felt them—the tears falling silently down her cheeks, each one a traitor she felt no strength to wipe away. Yet wipe them, she did.
He told her once that no one else would.
“I won’t leave without my due, Estevan. You promised me your heart.”
He flinched. “… I-I did.” He dismounted, let a breath shudder out of him, and then turned to her.
His horse wandered a few steps off, ears twitching as it looked in Pagan’s general direction.
The witch approached the inquisitor. Head tilted down, she rolled the seed beneath her tongue as she gathered the resolve to slip it between his lips. She’d have to kiss him to do that—she had no other choice. And only one chance.
Semras lifted her eyes to Inquisitor Velten. His face had twisted into the semblance of a smile, betrayed by eyes filled with a storm of emotions—anguish, yearning, misery … and helplessness.
“Well,” he said with a pained smile. “Take it then. Rip it out.”
He looked like a man ready to die.