Chapter 7
My mind keeps remembering the day this man ruined my life, his dragon appearing out of the cloudbanks like wrath incarnate to drop on my ship, my crew, from above. The weather today is no better. But with all the marks on him, this storm isn’t his.
“Why isn’t his mind wiped?” I rasp.
“The War-Father wanted humiliation,” Harfor says.
“I’ll kill him slowly, then.”
“No. Our War-Father wants you to keep him alive.”
I whirl on her.
“Why? He’s their king. He’s the worst of them.”
“Don’t ask me. Go on. Test the enchantment.”
My hands curl into fists.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Make him do whatever you’d like,” Harfor shrugs. “So long as you keep him in one piece.”
The clouds over us are heavy with rain, thick enough to hide an army of witches.
Harfor and the Governor wait expectantly while the prisoner glares at me. The sailors are arrayed between us and the ship, and behind me are some of the Bluff’s other inhabitants, and I know I need to say something, I just can’t think what.
Rage pounds in my veins. This witch ruined everything.
“Bow,” I growl.
He lifts his chin and stares at me, proud and defiant, without moving.
Harfor’s eyebrows raise. I bet she thinks I’ve lost my skill with wielding enchantment.
I draw a deep breath and reach for the familiar feel of the magic coursing beneath his skin.
The enchantment hums gleefully when my mind touches against the power.
I have it now, and I’m keyed into him like I’m supposed to be.
“Bow,” I order again.
With his jaw clenched so tight I can see a sharp line of muscle, he jerks down and back up like a piece of wood bobbing on the ocean.
Harfor’s nostrils flare and she stands straighter, one foot moving back an inch.
The witch is trying to make a fool of me. He may be a king to his own people, but he's worth less than anybody else on this isle.
I take a step closer to him, glaring up into his face. I’ll prove I still have all my skill with enchantment.
“A real bow. A proper one. The type you’d give to your betters.”
Slowly, he bends at the waist again, his dark hair spilling down on either side of his face. He stays that way for a moment, and slowly straightens.
Then he takes a step closer to me, until he looms over me, staring down with an unspoken threat in his gaze. The burning look in his eyes doesn’t leave my face. My skin crawls. Every inch of me feels the weight of his attention.
But there’s a part of me that feels alive for the first time in two years. Like the Bluff was a dream and now my body is waking up, buzzing with anger.
The wind blusters through our group, tearing at our clothes. It smells like a storm.
“You said he can’t hurt us?” I don’t dare take my eyes off him.
“Not directly,” Harfor agrees stiffly. “But he’s a tricky bastard. He’ll do whatever he can to not obey.” She won’t meet my eyes.
Enchantment needs a power source. Every time I give him a command, it will drain his life a little bit more. But it’s hard to care, when I already want him dead.
“Kiss the ground, witch,” I add.
I watch his lips press tight, his eyes still fixed on me.
And then he takes a smooth step back and sinks to his knees.
Something low in my gut clenches tight at the sight of him kneeling before me.
The witch bends forward and touches his lips to the Bluff’s filthy wooden docks, and then he straightens, and rises effortlessly back to his feet. My skin prickles.
I’d rather he be kneeling at swordpoint than kneeling because the magic forced him to. It sours the victory.
“The War-Father should have just killed him,” I tell Harfor.
“He thinks the prisoner could prove useful,” Harfor says. She reaches into her beltbag and pulls out a key on a thin necklace. “For his chains. Guard him well. We don’t have time to linger here.”
“You’re leaving? Already? You just got here.” I wrap my hand tight around the key.
“Dame,” the Governor says to Harfor, stepping forwards and wringing his hands. “We’ve prepared a meal for you and your officers. Humble fare, as we eat on these shores, but I—”
“No,” Harfor says, casually, without letting the man finish. The Governor looks like he just got slapped across the face.
I grab Harfor’s armored wrist right as she turns away. My sister-in-arms looks back at me, one eyebrow arched.
“When will the test be over? How much longer?” My throat feels tight, like I'm choking on my last hope.
“Cai.” She says my name in a heavy sigh.
“I need to know,” I beg. “Don't leave me here forever. And not with him.”
She looks away, then back with an almost imperceptible shrug.
The wind blusters through the harbor, bringing the promised rain at long last. Droplets slash against my cheeks as the smaller ships rear up on dark swells. I can’t tell if there’s a tear falling from one of Harfor’s eyes or if it’s just a raindrop.
“I promise I won’t forget about you,” she tells me quietly. Harfor breaks her arm free and walks up the gangplank. Her sailors follow her, and a hollow opens in my chest, ripping through all the scar tissue of my exile.
I thought this was over, that I was finally going home.
And instead, I’m still stuck here—only, my worst enemy is stuck here too.
The hollow in my chest widens, and widens, until I’m surprised I don’t fall to pieces on the docks, a hand here, a leg there, my head rolling to the edge of the planks and splashing into the sea.
I want to wring the Witch King's neck. I want to claw him open with nothing but my hands and prove to everyone where my loyalties lie. This is his fault. All of it. Every single terrible thing.
Rancor wakes up from her slumber as Harfor’s feet touch the deck.
In the dark of the storm that’s arrived, the entire harbor glows blue with the crystal’s light.
The Hellion turns, sails still bound tight.
Then she surges forward toward the open sea, until the blue light glows in the distance but doesn’t bathe our shore, and we’re left in the dark and the rain.
The Governor shifts, then turns to look at me. His gaze needles my skin. The rain slicks down my hair and wind howls in my ear.
I’ve failed to escape this miserable shithole, and all the Governor’s false kindness has shattered back away.
“What was that?” The Governor snaps. “Is Caiteven, failed knight, mistress of this place? I think not.”
The King of Witches was watching the Hellion go. Now his eyes snap to the Governor, his lips curled unpleasantly down like he’s just smelled something foul.
The Governor pulls his hand back to slap me, as if it’s my fault Harfor left so fast, before the Governor could gain whatever favor he needed to be given a better isle to run.
My instincts roar awake inside me, but I stand firm, hands at my side.
Harfor was clear that I’m still being tested, and the War-Father told me to obey.
The Governor’s hand swings toward me. Malkin yelps, a hand clapped to her mouth.
The witch lunges forward and lifts his bound hands to block the blow. He moves like he's part of the wind, so fast my eyes barely track him.
The Governor’s hand connects with the witch’s chained wrists in a loud crack. The Governor gasps and scrambles back.
The witch takes a slow step towards him. Even covered in enchantment marks and his wrists bound in chains, he’s an imposing figure. And all the precautions binding him are a constant reminder of what I already know: he’s powerful beyond reckoning. The strongest of our enemies.
“Get back,” the Governor snaps.
The witch takes another slow step forward, tilting his head to one side.
“I said….!”
“You’re a small little man, aren’t you?” The king’s voice rasps from disuse. It's as low as the thunder rolling across the sky.
“The witch defends you,” the Governor snaps at me. “Proof, proof that you—”
“He’s Enchanted to,” I point out flatly. But my heart is racing. How am I supposed to guard someone like him? We shouldn’t let him live. Every breath this man draws is a threat to life itself.
The Governor's chest swells and falls as he pants, eyes sparking with fury.
“Prove it. Kill him.”
My throat tightens and I take a step away from the prisoner. Oh, how I wish I could.
“I can’t.”
“You are to obey me in all things,” the Governor squeals.
The fucking witch snorts.
“The War-Father said he wants the witch alive. I obey him first of all,” I say.
The Governor looks at the King of Witches and clenches his fists.
“Bow to me,” he says. The witch stares back at the Governor without moving. “Bow to me,” the Governor tries again, more loudly, like he thinks that’s the trick to commanding the spell.
“Harfor said he was Enchanted to obey me,” I remind the Governor.
The Governor’s eyes flick between us as his little brain tries to figure out what to do from here.
It would be better if it were just the three of us on the docks, but everyone else is here, too, watching.
The Governor is not a man who handles humiliation well.
I hope the War-Father doesn’t plan to leave me here for long. It’s going to be one punishment after another.
“Bow to him,” I mutter, and the Witch King bends ever so slightly at the waist. After two years, I finally remember the way it feels to work the enchantment. He won’t disobey me again. I won’t let him.
The Governor straightens and sneers.
“You and your new little friend will scavenge the rockfield for driftwood…”
“What?” I snap.
“...While the rest of the castle feasts. An armful each, before you can come back inside. And then, you will clean from the meal.”
“In these conditions? We just went!”
The witch turns away from the Governor, watching me instead. But he stays silent.
“Clearly you didn’t try hard enough before,” the Governor sneers. “Teach you to laze about when I set a task.”
“We brought in everything there was.” From the corner of my eye I watch Malkin lift a hand to her throat.
“Then you'll have a long night.”