Chapter 9 #2
The Eastlander jerks back and dodges the attack.
“Well, hello to you, too.” He laughs, and this time it’s an awful sound—low and deep but shadowed by faint high-pitched shrieks, like demons live inside him.
He tosses what remains of his spear aside.
“And I don’t want her,” he says. “Not really. I want to kill her. Very different things.”
The Witch Collector moves closer, blade ready, but in a flurry of that black cloak, he’s suddenly facing me.
The Eastlander—with the help of his shadows—holds the king’s right-hand man ensnared.
One arm is folded tight around the Witch Collector’s neck, while the other now clasps his stolen dagger.
The move happened so swiftly that I didn’t even see it.
The Eastlander grins like a sick bastard. “Now what? I get to kill you, too, old friend? It’s been so very long.”
A perplexed look passes over the Witch Collector’s face. “We are not friends, you nameless son of a bitch.” He grits out the words, jaw clenching as he strains against the shadows.
“Right you are, which means I don’t have to be nice, now, doesn’t it? Let the fun begin.”
The Witch Collector stares at me with eyes so green they shine through the caliginous night. “Run!” he yells, just as the Eastlander plunges the blade into his side. Once, twice, with a twist between the ribs.
Crying out, the Witch Collector slumps to the ground—just like my mother did—and again, the Eastlander comes for me. This time, there’s no sick, playful gleam in his eyes. Only wrath and determination.
I force myself to my feet and dart around him, barely missing the swinging edge of his stolen dagger.
The Witch Collector is kneeling, resting the dying weight of his body on one hand, blood beginning to trickle from his mouth.
His gaze is still on me, bewildered as I charge him and rip his sword free from his baldric.
The weapon, lighter and sleeker than I imagined, feels good in my hands.
Summoning my hatred, I rage forward and drive the blade toward the Eastlander’s chest. I hope I gore his black heart.
Wearing that evil smile, he explodes into a gust of crimson smoke, and I run right through him. Or what was him.
Stumbling, I fall to my hands and knees, the sword’s hilt bruising my palm when I land. A strange feeling cascades over me. A release, like some unnatural pressure—one that feels like it’s been with me always—lets go. A surge of power rushes through me, heavy and consuming and altogether foreign.
My hands. They look like my mother’s. Covered in witch’s marks that I’ve never had before. I blink, gasping, sure that I’m dreaming. That I’ve dreamed all of this.
But also because, right there in the grass, right within my reach, lies the God Knife, as if Finn left it here on purpose.
A presence at my back makes the hair at the nape of my neck rise.
“Miss me?” The Eastlander’s words flit across my ear.
Grabbing the God Knife, I flip over, slashing at the air, praying I catch any part of him on the end of this blade.
The Eastlander jerks back, but blood sprays from the gash opening across his sweaty face, from his left temple to his right jawline, right through his lips.
The howl of pain that leaves him is an unholy thing in the night.
“My lord!” someone cries.
The Eastlander holds up his hand to silence them. “Go!”
I don’t know what damage to expect from the God Knife. I half imagine he might rupture like the villagers he and his men had killed with whatever evil magick they wield.
Wait. My lord. He and his men. He’s a leader. But…gods. This is no normal Eastlander. I think I’ve just butchered the face of their prince. Maybe even killed him if the God Knife is as deadly as Father claimed.
The prince presses his hand to his bleeding cheek, holding his face together at the seam.
Then he looks at me.
Fast as any animal, he lunges in my direction. Bloody fingers clamp around my throat, and he shoves me to the ground, rattling my teeth when my back hits the earth. Straddling my hips, he uses his other hand to pin my wrist to the ground, the God Knife still in my grip.
Dark eyes lit with violence, he glances at the God Knife, the blade slick with his blood. His eyes dance and dart wildly, his head turning back and forth between my face and the blade, as if listening to something or someone I can’t see.
The moment passes, as if whatever confusion or communication he was experiencing ended. And just like that, everything about him changes, the deep red of his entire being blackening.
With pointed concentration, he tries to pry the knife from my hand, but my grip is relentless, stronger than it’s ever been.
He grabs my wrist, slamming my hand to the ground, but I don’t budge, keeping a death grip on the hilt. Does he recognize this knife for what it is?
When he can’t best me, he clenches his teeth so hard his head trembles, fury boiling from the rage of defeat. With one last wicked roar, he lowers his heinous face an inch from mine, blood dripping from his gaping lips onto my chin and into my mouth.
“We’ll meet again, Keeper,” he mutters. “And when we do, I’m going to drive that knife into your heart and inhale your pathetic little soul.”
He won’t if he’s dead.
I thrust the blade toward his heart, but once again, he transforms into curling tendrils of darkness and fades away.
I lie there, breathless, staring up at the sooty sky as shock rolls through me, wave after wave. The God Knife is so oddly warm against my palm, all but humming in my hand.
Was that the God Knife’s power just now? Erasing the Prince of the East from existence? Or was it just him vanishing? Will he die from the wound to his face?
It hurts to sit up, but I make myself.
There’s not an Eastlander in sight anymore.
Shaking, I wipe the blood from my face and lips on my sleeve and slip the knife into my belt. I then struggle to my feet and stumble past the Witch Collector to my mother’s side, where I fall to my knees. Her lips no longer move, but those witch’s marks…
Eyes burning from the looming smoke, I plead to the Ancient Ones, casting the song of life into the night like so many prayers, calling upon the moon from which I descend, willing my magick to repair the damage done to her gentle soul, all to breathe life back into her witch’s blood.
“Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah.”
I can feel the power inside me. Feel it growing.
“Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah.”
I envision my beautiful mother living, laughing, dancing, and I try so hard to weave the glimmering strands of her precious life back together again.
“Loria! Loria! Anim alsh tu brethah! Vanya tu limm volz! Sumayah! Anim omio dena wil rheisah!”
She never stirs.
I sit by her side, stunned and in anguish. There’s no sound but the crack and creak of burning wood and the hiss and whipping roar of fire spreading from stead to stead. I sweep a tear-filled glance across the village.
No one moves. Not even in the fiery shadows. If Mena or anyone else remained in the cottages, they’ve been burned to nothing by now.
With agony gripping my heart, I force myself to stand and run into the night. The smoke is so thick that I can’t see the moon, much less the stone wall on the outskirts of the village.
But I could find my way to Finn’s shop blindfolded.
When I arrive, it’s burning, like everything else. The temple. The tannery. The orchards and vineyards. There are so many dead, and the whole world is on fire.
Coughing, I cover my mouth with my sleeve and scour the area for any sign of life.
Any sign of Finn or his family or even sweet Tuck.
I run toward Finn’s home, trying to whistle, praying he might hear my call, only to see three bodies lying near the door, burned and blackened.
I stumble back, tears streaming down my cheeks, stomach sick.
Two of the bodies are so small. Betha and the twins.
After a terrible groan, the house crashes in on itself. A family, a history, people I loved—gone.
But then I remember.
Hel. Finn. The fallow fields.
I bolt in that direction, tears streaming, but when I reach the clearing, there’s nothing save for empty land and a blanket of smoke. I don’t know how long I stand there—staring, waiting—but eventually, I head back to the village, so very numb.
My chest aches, hollowed out, a cavern where my heart used to be. I can’t think around the pain of knowing that death by flame is how Finn and Hel likely met their end as well. Gods, I would’ve killed them myself to spare such torture. I would’ve done anything.
But I didn’t do enough, did I?
Exhausted and choking on smoke and tears, I return to Mother’s side. There’s no one left. Just me. This was probably the Prince of the East’s plan when he didn’t kill me, to punish me with the fate of emptiness and utter aloneness.
To take everything from me but my breath.
Someone touches my shoulder. I jerk around, God Knife raised, prepared to be cut down like everyone else. The Witch Collector’s valley-green eyes meet mine. He’s on his knees, holding his bleeding side, his face pale. He opens his mouth to speak, but collapses before any utterance leaves his lips.
After a moment, I crawl near to him and press my blade to his throat, its edge ready to slice through flesh—exactly what Finn prepared it for. I’m so angry, so devoured by the pain in my heart. Gods, I want to blame this man for everything.
The Witch Collector lifts his chin, staring at me in a way that causes guilt to swirl in my gut.
I can’t stop crying, and I loathe that he’s seeing me this way—consumed with grief.
I’ve lived in terror of the Witch Collector my whole life, and now I have the chance to kill him.
Yet under the glow of this terrible firelight, I see not a man to be feared or destroyed, but just…
A man.
Struggling to breathe, his every gasp gurgles in his throat. He looks to the black sky, but his gaze finds mine again, and he asks the unthinkable.
“Sing me alive.” He glances toward my mother. “I saw you. Heard you. I know you can. D-don’t…let me die here. We can’t…let them…win. Sing me alive.”
He watches me, a helpless plea hidden inside the fine lines fanning from the corners of his eyes. He’s the last person I should save, but he still carries the breath of life, and I’m surrounded by death. I just want someone else to be with me when the sun rises.
But this isn’t someone else.
He’s the Witch Collector.
And so, with a heart that feels hard as stone, I stand and turn to go.