Chapter 27
The first ten witches were…I don’t want to say simple to pass by, but in hindsight, they were simple.
We were required to do tasks (three of them had us do hard labor, one to cut all her firewood for the year, one to gather all the ingredients she required for a spell, and one to dig her a new well), to withstand their magic (two of them thought this best, and thank the gods my Immunity stayed with me), one required a feather from Sorrow (who fucked right off the minute he heard that and we spent half a day finding him and pulling a feather), one asked for a few strands of Veyyr’s hair which was funny as hell.
In large part because he was as reluctant to give up his hair, as Sorrow was his feather.
As it stood, Sorrow swooped by, stole his hair and dropped it to the witch, no doubt in retaliation for the feather pulling.
The next two each took us a day to navigate their island—the one being thick jungle and the request being to bring the witch in question a nightsky flower that bloomed deep in the lair of a thryx, another Riftborn beastie.
And we were lucky there was only one, no nest, and no female. The males were…lazy about fighting for territory, and a quarter the size of their counterparts.
We found it sunbathing outside of its lair, snoring.
I kept watch while Veyyr slipped into the lair of the thryx.
The closest other creature to it, would be a low-slung dragon. Komodo dragon. No wings like Lax. I’d guess it weighed in close to the sagryl. Five hundred pounds easily. The females were four times that. Thank the gods for small mercies.
A strip of fur ran from its skull down the center of its back, faint green and shifting as it moved, blending with the meadow so cleanly it almost disappeared when it stilled.
The silk fur lifted slightly, standing tall as if tasting the air.
Fuck. It was waking up.
Its front limbs planted wide.
Hands. Not paws. Not claws.
Hands with five long fingers tipped in black talons, flexing against the dirt as if testing the ground.
The long tail rose behind it and split—three separate lengths twisting lazily around one another before snapping outward in a sharp crack that cut the air. Slowly it turned its head toward me with eyes that were not lizard.
Human eyes blinked back at me.
The thryx wasn’t charging.
It was watching.
And I had the terrible feeling it was enjoying itself.
I slowly pulled my falcata free. “Try it buddy, and you’ll be sorry.”
The thryx tipped its head and charged…just as Veyyr stepped out of the lair. He’d lifted his hand and took the creature out with a single bolt of lightning.
“Show off.”
“You can’t have all the fun.”
Killing the thryx worked out in more than one way, because the next witch wanted the hide of a thryx and Veyyr had the foresight to bring the strange strip of fur with us, even though I’d disagreed.
Which left us with the last three witches, and three remaining days.
With the tenth witch giggling over her new thryx rug, I stared at the land bridge between us and the next island.
This was the first land bridge that was partially submerged and it was easily the longest, at what looked like a little over a mile. Made of stone, it made a bit of a breaker against the waves, but it wasn’t what I’d call a proper pathway.
More than that, I could see the dark shapes that swam along either side of the path, converging in the areas that the path dropped below the waves.
“You probably need the bath anyway,” I said.
“Says the one with thryx guts in her hair.”
I reached up and found a nice chunk of intestine clinging to the top of my ponytail. I flicked it to the ground. No need to throw it in the water and get the locals riled up before we had to.
“You think this could be the trial?”
“No, I think what was behind us was the ten weaker coven members. The three strongest are ahead of us.”
“You learn that with your training under—”
“Yes.” He stared out across the water a moment longer before looking to me. “The bigger issue than even the hungry mouths swimming near the path, is that the minute my foot hits the water—”
“Your elemental groupies will show up.” I nodded. “Yeah, I figured as much. And can you just fly yourself across?”
He grimaced. “Short bursts despite what Lucky might think. Not a full mile, my bones are too solid, not light like a true air elemental.”
Problems, problems. “And if we just run for it?”
Veyyr crouched and then sat down. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not in a hurry though.”
My eyes just about bugged out of my head.
“Pardon what the fuck? What do you mean you aren’t in a hurry?
We’ve been going hard, not just because you have a stupid fucking quest to complete, but I have to…
I have to go! My veilrunner is waiting for me and she doesn’t have all the time in the world!
” I still didn’t know how to put it into words exactly what this veilrunner was to me.
That connection felt like something that had always been there, that even the wiping of my memories couldn’t take away no matter how hard it had tried.
I touched the ring on my finger, knowing it held the answers. Somehow.
“I know.” He closed his eyes. “Just give me a minute.”
I crouched beside him and then put my hand to his cheek, startling him. Those icy blue eyes just looked…tired. Worn out.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a fever. The thryx can cause infections if they get even a bit of a bite on you. Was there a smaller one in the lair?”
“I’m not sick.” He took my hand from his face and tugged me down beside him, then wrapped his one arm around me, still holding my other hand. “I am getting close to the death that waits for me, Tracker, I can feel it. Call me a coward if you will but I do not feel like rushing to my death.”
The urge to punch him in the guts and tell him to stop being stupid rushed over me and I stilled it. That was not the answer here, not for him. Just because I didn’t believe what he thought was real, didn’t mean I could beat it out of him. I touched his face again, turning him to me.
Let him see the truth in my eyes.
“I’m not going to let it happen, Veyyr.”
“You can’t—”
“You never asked who I conferred with in the cave at the ocean,” I said.
He turned fully to me, not just his head, and I twisted so that his arm holding me had to drop and wrap around my middle. “Does it matter? The answer was the dragon, your guide, mentor, whoever it was, was right.”
I smiled thinking of Euryale and Stheno as mentors. I could live with that, even if it would horrify him. “Sure, but I asked if you were going to die.”
He stared up at me. “And?”
“She said you asked the question before I became part of the equation. And if there is something that divination can’t track, it’s a Tracker.
Stop thinking you’re going to die. We have an ingredient to find, and I have a veilrunner to save.
And I’m going to need your help for that.
” I smiled and tried to will him to feel the same confidence I had—not because we were infallible but working together felt like if there was a chance at success for anything, we had it.
The air between us grew warm, and I wasn’t sure if it was him doing it or my imagination. His lips though, they were real as he leaned into me, his mouth slanting across mine, dragging me across so I straddled his lap, his body.
He moved his mouth to my neck and pulled back. “Fuck. We are too covered in shit for this.”
“Stay with me here, a moment more…please.”
It was the please that stopped me, that had me leaning in, not just physically but with every part of me. Letting the bond curl tighter between us, letting my tracking threads tangle him closer as we just…breathed.
In and out, bodies and hearts in synch, calm and belief flowing from me, into him, pushing the inevitability of his death out. At least for now. I pressed my forehead to his, knowing in my belly that this moment would be one I’d never forget, no matter what spell was thrown at me.
I ran my fingers along the back of his neck and held him there a beat longer before I forced myself to let go. To put some semblance of distance between us, if for nothing else than the illusion that I wasn’t falling hard.
“Come on, Storm Boy, let’s figure this water hazard out.”
Deciding to cross the water hazard as I’d called it was all fine and dandy, but it didn’t really change that we had more than one issue. The swimming things waiting in the water were a multitude, but those I figured I could deal with.
The Undines were the more concerning problem at hand.
“If I go first, I’ll get to the first dip and throw that bit of guts out far enough that the nice fish will go for it.” I hoped. “Once I clear each spot and get onto solid stone, you follow. If we have to run, we run. Otherwise, just a step at a time.”
It was the better of the two options which the other would have me packing Veyyr on my back to keep his feet above the water. Neither of us liked that one.
Sorrow flew back to the kill site of the thryx and brought us a large chunk of intestine, so I had a dozen handful sized pieces of somewhat rank meat.
I wrinkled my nose and flipped a piece to Sorrow.
The bird shook his head and mock gagged.
If even he didn’t want it, it was soured, but the scent would be stronger in the water that way. I hoped.
“If you thought I smelled bad before,” I said as I stepped out onto the stone.
And something tried to latch onto me. Not a fish…magic. I frowned. “Don’t step on this yet. There is something off. There is a thread of magic trying to pin me to the path.”
“A grounding spell. I won’t be able to fly you or me over.”
“There goes our back up back up plan.” I muttered.
I walked the stone path and got to the first drop into the water which was only about a foot deep, not bad.
But the path wasn’t broken, it was created that way, designed to force those on the path to get in the water.
And seeing as Veyyr’s feet at least would be stuck…
“Fuck, you can’t jump either. You have to go through the water.
” I looked over at him. There was no way to avoid the Undines now.
Which pissed me right the fuck off.
“Tracker, what are you thinking? Your eyes are swirling…”
I pulled the falcata free, stepped down into the water and as the first dark shape came for me.
I stepped sideways as the magic tried to grab me again, instead, I brought the tip of the blade down and through the skull of the shark-like creature that surged through the three-foot gap.
I held the blade steady and the body of the beast cleaved in half, blood flooding the water.
I backed up the stone path, hand on the falcata, and the other held out to Veyyr.
There was no going back now, we were all in. “Do you trust me?”
He stepped forward onto the path and grimaced as the spell latched onto him. “If only one of us—”
I let the anger just propel me and my mouth forward.
“Knock that shit off. At some point, we are going to fuck, and I’ll be damned if an Undine is going to get that part of you. Sloppy seconds I think the fuck not.”
Veyyr choked on a laugh. “Perhaps not all of your previous personality is gone,” or at least that was what I thought I heard, as his hand settled in mine and I dragged him through the first bit of water. I held not only his hand, but the bond.
And he did the same.
We clung to each other, like children running through the dark knowing that if we let go…
we’d lose each other forever. Maybe pointing out that we had been circling around getting naked hadn’t been the classiest way of saying that he meant something to me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to say…
what I really thought. What I really felt.
That like Sorrow, I wanted to claim him as mine. To throw any who came close to trying to hurt or steal him away, off the nearest cliff, into a pit of vipers…
The next drop into the ocean was a little deeper and as I put my foot down to the two-foot depth, the snaking coil of a tentacle wrapped toward me. I jabbed the falcata straight down, cutting the tentacle off.
“Fuck right off with all of you unless you want to end up as my dinner!” I took another step, and three tentacles came at me.
Fucking pieces of shit. I didn’t let go of Veyyr.
He pulled his sword and between the two of us, we cut the no-octopus free of all twenty of its arms. Not a hydra but it felt close.
The water wasn’t bloodied, but instead a thick yellow substance blobbed up like bubbles, along with bits of tentacle that floated.
I didn’t wait, but dragged Veyyr across. We were on the other side, and I was not above hurrying, breaking into a jog.
“That eager to see me naked?”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it, he wasn’t usually cracking jokes. “Not without a bath. Or three.”
Ahead I could see two more dips, and we were halfway. The next dip was not much more than the last and nothing waited for us. And for that, I threw a handful of the meat chunks out.
“Why did you do that?” Veyyr asked as we slogged out the other side of the dip.
“Reward good behavior. Punish the bad.”
“I doubt they care.”
He probably wasn’t wrong, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.
We jogged along the path, a few waves began to bash up against the edge, harder with each step. Fuck. That likely meant something worse than tentacles, worse than sharks.
I didn’t look out to the open water, because I already knew, I felt the shift in the energy, I felt Veyyr start to pull back on me.
“Veyyr, stay with me!” I yelled at him, “Stay with me!”
“Trying,” his voice was soft even though he was slowing, as if he were falling into mud. I hit the next drop into the water but didn’t look at how deep it was and really, I should have.
The water went over my head and Veyyr fell in with me.