Chapter 18 Kaelen
Kaelen
“Are your hands improving?”
Flexing her bandaged palms, the witch looks up across the table at my grunted question. Her words are dry. “Eres thinks they’re healing well. Apparently I heal faster than he expected.”
She pauses. “He also dosed me with another quill.”
At my request. The two of us swapped briefly this morning for me to wash and change, Eres bringing a change of clothing and fresh bandages for Lyra, as well as a sharp-eyed warning to be gentle with her.
Gentle. With a witch.
Today, she wears Darkwielder black, her hair braided back in a tight crown that circles her head and her posture tense enough that it puts my nerves on edge.
She looks more like a soldier than most of my own.
I offer her a tight nod before I turn my attention to the hall, scanning the long tables. There are few in for breakfast at this hour, but I catch several pairs of eyes on her. Many of them burn with unmistakable hatred. Some with fear. But not all.
It’s beyond irritating.
I stare hard at a soldier I’d likely remember the name of if I thought enough about it.
He doesn’t even notice me for several long seconds, watching the witch from the opposite table.
She doesn’t seem to notice as she flexes her fingers, touching them one by one to her thumb to test the movement with a deep frown between her eyes.
But I notice. The soldier—eventually—moves his doe-eyed gaze on and meets mine. He pales before he stands, grabbing his empty bowl and handing it to the stone-faced, older wielder standing at the kitchen door before darting past me to get outside. A wielder who turns her glare on me.
Fuck.
Neela returns my apologetic look with a raised brow that tells me I’m in trouble for missing my rotation this morning. I nod toward the Lightbringer opposite me in silent explanation, and she rolls her eyes, pointing to the kitchens before she disappears.
Apparently babysitting a possible witch-spy doesn’t excuse me at all. And not just any witch.
Vaelion’s daughter. I run my eyes over her again. I’ve never met the Commander who has made it his life’s work to wipe us from the earth. Her father has defined my entire life. My mother’s life. My father’s death. And soon, he’ll define my own.
There’s nobody close by. My tone is acerbic, the words sharp and pointed and sour on my tongue. “Tell me about him.”
Her hand has reached for her cup. It pauses in mid-air. The witch looks up. “Who?”
Leaning forward, I lower my voice. But the bitterness remains. “Don’t play games with me, witch. I spared your life, which is far more than he would have done.”
Brows creasing, she takes her drink instead of answering, buying herself time before she clears her throat. “So there is a price for mercy, it seems.”
“I don’t have the luxury of offering you a place here for free.” Soon, there will be no place at all, and desperation threatens to close my throat. “Tell me something, witch. Anything. Give me something I can use.”
Her eyes don’t burn as fiercely today. I barely see any flame at all, only a faint glow around her irises as she places the cup down carefully. “You want me to give you information so you can kill my people, Duskbane. This war is endless. Nothing I say will make a difference.”
“This war is ending,” I snap. “Look around you. Do you truly think it’s victory that we seek now? Give me information I can use to barter a deal with Vaelion. To negotiate.”
Her eyes tighten. “I thought that had already been attempted.”
Darian. “He told you.”
A slow nod. “He said his father was betrayed. But he was named a traitor for doing what you’re asking for now. He tried to make a deal with the Lightbringers, and they killed him instead.”
Footsteps sound behind me, and erevas unfurls from my palms as I pull up a barrier around us for privacy.
Darkness encloses us, only the witch’s eyes lighting the space.
“It couldn’t be proved that he had tried to make a deal at all.
Your side carried out attacks during that time period that could only have arisen from information provided by a Darkwielder.
The timing was deemed too close to be coincidence. ”
And I’m done discussing this with her. My voice hardens. “Tell me what Vaelion wants.”
We have little to barter with, but if there’s chance—if she can give me something—
“Nothing,” she whispers. But her eyes shutter, lashes casting shadows against her cheek. “He wants nothing.”
“You’re lying.” I reach across the table and grab her wrist. “Tell me.”
Her attempts to pull free are met with nothing but icy silence. I’ll wait as long as I need to.
“Fine,” she hisses eventually, leaning forward.
“You want the truth, so I will give it. All he wants is to see the end of the Darkwielders, Duskbane. He has devoted his life to your death. Devoted the life of every single Lightbringer to his cause, built our whole society around it. There is nothing you can offer him beyond that, and he would only take it anyway. He cares for nothing else. He will not stop until there is nothing left.”
I release her hand as if it scalds me. “There must be something. Someone he cares for outside of this hate.”
“Power is what he wants.” Her shoulders tighten, curving.
“To be absolute, and alone, and hold the rest of us in his hands like puppets on a string. Every move Vaelion makes has that in mind. He cares little for the gods, appeases Aedryn only out of obligation. Nothing and nobody in Solvandyr or Umbraxis matters to him as much as the power he can take for himself.”
She eyes me. “But you knew that, I think.”
He will not stop until there is nothing left.
It only confirms what I knew to be true. But to have her here when we are so close to our end and not be able to use that in any way to help my own people—
“I’m sorry, though I know you won’t believe me.” She straightens, her hand reaching to tidy her cutlery. There’s no smile on her face, no coy amusement to be seen now. “He will not bargain.”
“Are you?” Agony in my throat, every word cutting against blades that dig deeply. “I doubt it, aside from saving your own skin. Where will you seek shelter when we’re dead, witch? Will you go back to him?”
She stiffens. “I’m not going back. This war has lasted hundreds of years, wielder. I see little point in worrying over an uncertain future. What will come will come regardless of my thoughts. I’ll do what I need to, to pay for my keep here.”
My brows crease. She doesn’t even realize how close we are to the end.
I grew up in this room, and yet this witch only sees the aftermath of two hundred years of war.
I look across at the half-dozen empty tables, pushed together in a single row.
So few are needed now, compared to the packed room that used to hold thousands.
Many more would find whatever space they could against the walls or steal a coveted space on the floor to sit and listen to the bards and the storytellers amidst the din of laughter and conversation.
There are thousands of ghosts in this hall.
They walk through every room of Umbraxis, and I cannot escape them.
They follow me every moment of every day, reminding me of what we have lost. Haunting my meals, my work, my sleep, lingering in the eyes of every face I speak to.
So few of us left, and yet we try to continue as best we can until the end comes for us.
I don’t know what else to do. How do you prepare for an end that you know is coming, when none will be left standing?
My people will leave no legacies, no stories, no memories.
Thousands of years of Darkwielder history, wiped away and forgotten.
Nobody will stand in the Gloam to send the last of us safely on our way to Erevan.
These walls will be empty, or worse. Lightbringer feet will trample over the spaces where we lived and loved and give no thought to us at all, aside from that of victory.
None will remember us. None will speak of us, except as a faceless enemy in the Lightbringer history scrolls.
And yet when you’re waiting to die, people still need to be fed.
Inhaling, I push away from the table. “I have work to do. Follow.”
When she stands, my eyes flicker down. Narrow.
There’s a knife missing from beside her plate. She’s watching me, blandness written into every line of her face. When I turn without mentioning it, I catch her eyes tightening at the edges.
If she can manage to take a Darkwielder out with a blunt piece of iron, they deserve what they get.
So far, we’ve kept the witch apart from most of the castle. She creeps after me with silent footsteps as I make my way through the lower levels of the castle toward the northern wings, though I feel her eyes on me often.
This area faces away from the Veilspire, out toward the barren lands. As I push open the small-set door that leads to the croft, frigid air slaps against my cheeks. “How is your stomach?”
Gentle, Eres had said. But her injuries don’t excuse her ignorance. The witch looks around, lifting her hand to squint out at the wide lines of dark, rich soil that stretch ahead of us. “Fine. I barely feel it. What is this place?”
I wonder how much of her bravado is down to her experiences.
“Where do you think we get our food?” Stepping out into the grounds, I start walking down between two rows toward the storage area, and she falls into step beside me. “This is the Umbercroft. You wanted to earn your keep, witch. It starts here.”
In the corner of my eye, I see her examining the shadeleaf crop.
Its wide, low-growing fronds are nearly black, coated with a velvety-like soot.
Beside them, mounds of gloamroots push up uneven humps of moistened soil.
The only part visible above ground are the dark, fibrous stems that split into clusters of thin, sharp, ash-colored leaves.
“I don’t recommend touching those without gloves, unless you want to add further injury to your hands. The root is the edible part.”
She yanks her finger away as my eyes travel on, searching for the best task to give her while I work. Farther along, roughly hewn trellises sag under the twisting weight of embervine squashes—dark gold and almost bruised-looking.
“What happened there?”
The question has me turning to follow her gaze.
The row beyond the embervines is grey and skeletal.
Nothing is left beyond snapped, shriveled stalks and chalky-looking earth.
“We don’t have the resources to farm them all.
We had to choose what was easiest with the fewest amount of hands. The rest were left to fallow.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I raise an eyebrow. “Not an issue in Solvandyr, I suppose.”
There are thousands of them, after all. An endless stream of witches, obsessed with bloodlines, while we scrabble for what we can on the edges.
The orchard stands beyond the planting beds, pale trunks rising from the soil.
Ashburst trees beckon the sky with thin, smoke-colored branches, violet fruit hanging in clustered orbs.
Smaller, stonecore apricots grow between them, copper-skinned spheres with leaves thick and waxy to survive the cold.
Gesturing to them as we reach the storage sheds, I duck inside the first and snag an empty woven basket from the side. “Can you manage to collect fruit, or is that small task beyond you?”
She stiffens. “You’ll be watching my every move, I assume, so you’ll find out.”
Shoving the basket into her hands, I nod to the animal pens on our left. “None here have the luxury of sitting around. I’ll be over there, but I will absolutely be watching you.”
The pens lean together, left to their own devices for too long and now badly in need of refurbishment.
The familiar bleat of the duskback goats comes from inside.
Nightfowl rattle in their pens, slate-feathered wings tapping against the rails, eager to escape.
Three soldiers, clad in the same dark uniform that the witch now wears, tend to them.
Their eyes flicker to us and bounce away.
One of them is the asshole who was watching her at breakfast. Unease stirs in my gut.
The witch tilts her head. “I see. And what do I do when the basket is full?”
I nod to the oversized wooden boxes pushed against the wall beside the door we used to enter the croft, balancing on the pulley we’ll use to transport the food to the kitchen. “Empty them over there. I doubt you know what a full day’s work looks like, but a few hours won’t hurt you. Make a start.”