Chapter 11 #2
My anger only grows. I spot his discarded baldric and sword. It’s too far away, so I lunge for the knife sheathed in his boot instead.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he says, twisting out of my reach.
But I begin whaling on him, clawing, filled with a war of emotions I don’t know how to process.
The Witch Collector grabs my wrists and drives me back to the oak tree. Pinning my arms against the low, thick branches, he presses the weight of his heavy body against mine—chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Gods, he’s huge.
I wriggle to get free but quickly decide better of it. We’re breathing so hard. The friction between us is more than unwanted, so I jerk my head forward to headbutt him. He yanks back, but I catch his mouth with my forehead before he can get away.
Bottom lip bleeding, he eyes me like I’m some kind of wildling. Perhaps I am, in this moment at least.
“You need to calm down,” he grits out, pressing his forehead to mine, even holding that part of me at bay. “I know you’re confused and upset and in pain, but I am not your enemy. Not anymore. If you want answers, I suggest you stop trying to kill me and let me explain.”
Pressing against me once more, he jerks, a movement meant to punctuate his words.
It only makes me far too aware of the body touching mine.
His hot breath on my lips, those long, strong legs standing firm, that thick chest rising and falling against my own, and his rough, powerful hands holding tight.
Neither of us moves for what feels like an eternity as an unwelcome and unexpected heat coils between us. It’s just the fever of a fight.
He tightens his grip, though the action doesn’t elicit pain. “Can you be a good girl now? Or are we going to roll up our sleeves and go for a tumble?”
Clenching my teeth, I unfurl my fists, steady my breathing, and let the tension in my muscles relax, softening against him—all signs of relenting. Because if I’ve ever needed anything, I need him to let go.
Now.
Finally, he draws his head back and peers down at me, his big body still trapping mine. My surrender registers in his eyes.
He turns his head and spits blood on the ground. “No kicking, no hitting, no biting, no attacking. We talk. That’s it. All right?”
When I nod, he releases me and steps back a few paces. Eying me, he wipes his mouth on his sleeve, looking a bit rattled. Maybe he needed distance, too.
For too many long moments, he studies me again. This time, his gaze traces my every line. Slowly. Eventually, he looks away, drags his fingers through his long hair, and sighs.
Why am I staring at him? Noting his every move?
I rub my wrists where his touch still lingers and push away from the tree on shaky legs. I’m just exhausted and bitter and grieving, my mind and body spent from what I’ve been through and from saving his godsdamn life. That’s all. I’m not thinking clearly.
“Thank you for no longer behaving like a feral animal,” he says, groaning when he touches his thumb to his wounded lip. He switches to speaking with his hands. “Ask your questions. I am sure you have many.”
Gods, he has no idea. Questions form so fast I have to fist my fingers in my dress while my mind sifts through which one to ask first. An exhale shudders out of me.
“Why would Nephele teach you my language?” I shape each word with force.
“Because she is my friend,” he signs. “Hard as that might be for you to believe.”
Friend? My sister is friends with this man? This man—this Witch Collector—the likes of whom we’ve dreaded the whole of our lives? More impossibility.
“Nephele taught me years ago as a way to pass the time,” he signs, moving his hands with flawless precision.
“And because she missed you. She made me swear I would never choose her sister on Collecting Day. Your mother needed at least one of her daughters to care for her with your father gone. I promised that Raina Bloodgood would never leave Silver Hollow. Not by my hand.”
His words are a shock to my entire being.
I’ve never been chosen—not due to my lack of skill and witch’s marks—but because my mother shielded me, and my sister asked the Witch Collector to spare me.
I can’t wrap my mind around any of it. The thought that Mother knew what I was capable of and that my sister could ask the Witch Collector for my protection and have her wish granted seems so very wrong.
“I should have known,” I sign, pounding out judgment with my hands, every jolt making my sore chest ache. “On top of all the awful things I have come to know you to be, you are also a liar.”
The menacing way he stares at me in warning and the way his entire body stiffens almost makes me flinch. But I hold fast.
“Be sure, I am many things.” The veins in his temples and forearms stand out in relief with every sharp word. “But I am no liar.”
I motion to the valley around us. “Yet here we are. So much for your promises.”
It’s a weak accusation. He could’ve left me in the ruins of my village, alone. My anger needs release, though, and he’s my only target right now.
“Yes.” He scoffs. “Here we are.” Another infinite moment passes, his glare a hard, sharp thing.
“I owe it to your sister to get you to Winterhold without harm,” he continues.
“But, as I said, I am no liar, and we are running out of bloody time, so I must be honest with you about what we face. A sennight past, word reached Winterhold that the Prince of the East planned to break King Regner’s treaty with the Northlands.
To be certain the news was correct, we needed a certain kind of magick.
The kind only you possess. You were to be my choice for Collecting Day because your sister claims you have the true gift of Sight. But I was too late.”
He looks toward the west, where blue sky fades into cloudy gray as the dying embers of Littledenn, Penrith, and Hampstead Loch release their final breaths.
I press my fingers to my temples. Too many thoughts swirl inside my mind.
For one, I pray that I sent the Eastland prince to the Shadow World—for good—so he can harm no one else in whatever evil quest has possessed him.
I hope that bastard is reduced to no more than a shadow wraith, lurking through the deepest, darkest pits of the Nether Reaches.
But secondly, the part I can’t make my brain process is that Nephele sent the Witch Collector for me. Told him my secret. Even if she overestimated me, she still revealed something we swore to never tell—to our greatest enemy, no less.
She left the village shortly after I learned I could see things through scrying.
It had been a game, a joke, until the waters spoke to me.
We didn’t truly understand such magick then, and I didn’t learn the rules for some time.
She’s been gone for eight years, but has she changed so much that she would sell her sister’s soul to the Frost King?
I glare at the Witch Collector. “She would never do such a thing.”
But clearly she did, even if Sight isn’t so easily wielded as she made it seem.
The Witch Collector takes a long step in my direction. His torn linen tunic billows in the breeze, revealing a thick, corded arm and the flexing muscles covering his ribs where terrible stab wounds should exist. Instead, I glimpse perfect, sun-bronzed skin—thanks to me.
“With your gift,” he says, “we could’ve foreseen an attack.
Maybe we could’ve found a way to stop the Eastlander army before they became a threat.
Maybe we might’ve saved everyone in the vale.
Nephele knew that and knew she had to tell us what you were capable of.
She was only doing what anyone who loves their homeland would do.
She was trying to protect it. Do not fault her. ”
My flaring temper chills into a ball of ice as his words settle deep. The Eastlanders didn’t come to the vale to kill villagers and leave. It was never about us at all. We were only in the way. A deterrent to remove. A threat to silence.
“They want to reach Winterhold,” I sign. “Why?”
The muscles in the Witch Collector’s jaw tense, and his eyes turn hard as river-worn stones. “They want the king. They are on their way to capture him now. They breached the forest last night.”
Unsure which rising emotion to hold onto, I glance toward Frostwater Wood in the distance.
In truth, I don’t care about the Frost King’s safety.
But my sister? And all those Witch Walkers?
They’re the strongest of the vale. Will their magick be enough against the Eastlanders?
Or will they be cut down for protecting an unworthy king?
“There were so many,” the Witch Collector continues.
“They obliterated Hampstead Loch. The elders and wardens at Penrith cut the Eastlanders’ numbers, but the enemy had only been reduced by half when they reached Silver Hollow.
And not because they all fell to the blade.
At Littledenn, the army divided. Many rode into the wood.
The Witch Walkers patrolling the boundary were slaughtered. ”
Again, I glance toward the forest and back to the Witch Collector. My pulse races and my palms dampen.
I take an angry step toward him, my mind on Nephele. “Why are we here, then? We have to help them. The Eastlanders are so far ahead of us.”
A twinge of dizziness sets the world spinning. We.
I can’t believe the Witch Collector and I are on the same side.
A day ago, I planned his end. Envisioned it.
Tasted the sweetness of revenge and wondered if I was brave enough to take the life of a man who threatened all I hold dear.
Now I stand here with the deaths of dozens painting my hands, speaking with one of the three people I hate most in this world, forced to be his ally because we share a common goal.
At least I think we do.