Chapter 8
The task isn’t as hopeless as I feared. The storm spat up two more planks from the shattered rowboat that Malkin and I found earlier today. It isn’t much, but the Witch King carries it as we walk in cold silence along the black shore, hunching over as the wind shrieks against us.
Still. We've been out over an hour already.
With stormclouds this heavy, it’s impossible to tell when day ends and night begins.
I hold up the lantern, which I’ve taken back from him, and squint into the rain.
What a miserable task for a miserable day.
My body shivers and my boots are unpleasantly soaked.
At least I’m not barefoot like the Witch King.
In the dark the sea looks black. But there’s something pale bobbing out there. I hold up the lantern and take a step closer to the tideline.
The sea slinks back away from me. And then with all the sick fury it possesses a wave rears up twice as tall as the others have been.
My stomach flips and I stumble back across the slick stones. I’m not fast enough. The wave breaks and floods up around my feet, covering my ankles. I jump back, the lantern swinging wildly in my hand. When I reach high ground, I gag.
At least I didn’t hear a voice that time.
The witch stares at me dispassionately as the water rises up around his calves before retreating.
“I thought your people worshipped knights.” It’s the first he’s spoken since we entered the rockfield.
“We’re not holy,” I snap. I feel sick and woozy and my head pounds. Another wave brings the pale shape in the water closer to shore. Shivering, I raise the lantern and squint at it again.
“Why do they treat you like a servant? What are they testing you for?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I thought I killed you.”
“Then I guess you’d better try harder next time. What is that?”
He turns and follows the direction of my gaze, but doesn’t answer.
I take a deep breath. The Governor won’t let us back inside without more. But if I lose the Witch King on his first night in my custody, I’m never going home.
The waves roll in endlessly. The shape rises and falls, swaying on the tide, but comes no closer.
“Aren’t you going to order me to fetch it?” he asks dryly when we’ve been staring for minutes.
I rub my forehead. Now that the shock of his arrival has died down, I’m not sure I’m comfortable using the enchantment on him. I still want him as dead as ever, but enchantment just makes me sick.
“If you stood in the shallows, not deeper than your knees, do you think you could hook it with one of those?” I ask, nodding at the planks in his arms. He looks down, then out at the shape, then back at me. He doesn’t answer.
“Well?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Witch. You do realize that every time I use the enchantment, it drains your life, don’t you? If you’re smart, you’ll answer without me needing to command you every time.”
His eyebrows furrow, and he stares at me like I’ve just told him I hear voices.
Then the witch turns on his heel, walks ten feet deeper inland and dumps the wood from his arms. Picking up the longer plank, the witch turns and walks into the water.
I didn’t ask him to go. I haven’t even finished deciding if it’s a good idea.
And I’m a little bit pissed that he still technically didn’t answer my question.
But I stare at his broad, rain-plastered back as he angles the plank and tries to drag the pale thing closer in.
From where I stand, I can’t see if it’s working.
He straightens and braces the plank over his shoulder, then wades in deeper. A wave smashes against his chest and my breath catches. He’s in far too deep for the wildness of the storm.
“Careful,” I snap. “Don’t be—”
I can barely see him in the dark. The lantern isn’t strong enough. A wave swells between us, obscuring him, and when it falls, I don’t see him at all. I squint hard into the dark, desperate for even a ghost of him.
“Witch?” I call.
A moment later he emerges, his shoulders rising up out of the dark sea as he strides towards the shore. My shoulders go slack. He’s gotten the pale shape, whatever it is.
When he’s only hip-deep, I finally make out that it’s a splintered trunk of a fallen white-bark tree. It’s a big piece of driftwood. Taller than either of us. It will have come from the far north, the inner empire, where trees still grow in abundance without witches to drain the soil.
I bet that tree traveled nearly as far as I did.
The golden glow of his eyes is eerie. The witch reaches the tideline, stopping a foot in front of me and dropping the wood at my side.
It clatters on the stone. The witches’ shoulders heave and I have to remind myself that he can’t attack me, even if he’s standing so close that every inch of my body is tense and humming with nerves.
“Good enough. We’ll head back,” I tell him. He keeps staring. If he’s expecting me to thank him, he’ll be waiting a long time.
I gather the planks in my arms and let him drag the log.
We walk back in silence. My feet have gone numb in the cold, and my teeth chatter, but the storm lightens with every step.
By the time we reach the castle it isn’t raining anymore and the wind has died down.
The moon peeks through shredded clouds that race across the sky.
Silently, I lead the way into the castle. Skeinn isn’t there to stop us or inspect what we’ve found, so I guess we could have come back empty-handed after all. I dump the wood to the side of the drafty entryway and have him do the same.
I don’t need my prisoner dying of cold. The store room has a set of dry clothes big enough for the witch, no better than the rags Harfor dressed him in, but they’re clean.
I give him a rag to towel dry with. When he strips the wet shirt off over his head, I bite back a gasp at the sight of the enchantment marks.
I already knew they must cover all of him, from the lines emerging from the edges of his clothing. But the sight of his bare, muscle-corded skin covered in those cruel marks makes my fists curl. When I still rode Hellions, I didn’t like seeing the enchantments on convicted murderers, either.
There’s a white line of scar across his abdomen, just below his pectorals. It’s barely visible beneath all of the enchantment lines, but I notice it anyways, and feel a smug satisfaction warm my heart.
My body isn’t the only one carrying the memory of our fight. I huff a laugh.
He quickly drags the clean shirt over his wet hair and frowns at me. It fits well enough, but it shows off nearly all of his big arms and scoops lower over his collarbone than it needs to.
“What?” he growls.
“Nothing.” My eyes land on the lines circling his elbows, and I drag in a sharp breath.
“What?”
“Pain rings,” I growl. “Fucking hell.” I can understand making him obedient, locking up his magic, stopping him from attacking us. But using enchantment to torture somebody… even somebody like him…
His eyes flick to the folded clean pants waiting to replace the ones clinging to his thighs.
“A little privacy?” he asks coldly, like he doesn’t care about the pain that must be throbbing through his limbs.
I hesitate, then turn to face away from him.
“Don’t try anything,” I warn. “No stealing, no running away, no attacking me… shit.”
“What?” his voice is clipped, from behind me as I stare against the storeroom’s stone wall.
“It came out as a command.”
He snorts.
“Why are you pretending to care?”
I hear a wet thwack as his old pants drop to the stone floor. His lower half must be naked behind me. Do the enchantment lines cover every inch of his skin there, too?
Surely not every inch. But it’s the last thing I should be thinking about. Fabric rustles as he changes.
“I don’t like enchantment.”
“Like hell you don’t. You’re an imperial knight. I’m done.”
I turn to find him staring at me, arms folded across his chest. The clothes are thin fabric, the trousers lightweight enough that I can’t help but notice the considerable bulge between his legs without looking for it.
Even without the benefit of soap, the rain and the clean clothes have transformed him from the filthy prisoner Harfor’s sailors led off the ship.
The night isn’t getting any younger. All I want is to put this day behind me.
The witch frowns at me and tilts his head slightly to the side. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“I want to change too. And we still have the kitchen to deal with,” I mutter, as I lead the way out of the storeroom.
He follows without needing to be commanded.