Chapter 33
As the two other witches glower at me and pass Torain, the silver-haired man turns to look at the plant next to him. I don’t think Torain wants to kill me. I sheathe my sword so I’ll look less like a troublemaker.
With a crackling noise, a flame licks up one of the green leaves, making it shrivel and darken. The fire spreads back down the branch, making its way towards the body of the plant. My breath catches. This has to be the work of one of the two men who left.
As Torain stares, the whole burning branch goes gray, taking the fire with it. He reaches forward to snap it off the plant with a cracking noise.
…Did he just turn that branch into stone? Torain drops it into the pot and turns to look at me.
“Knight,” he says, carefully enunciating the word like it’s a curse.
“Witch.”
“Causing trouble?”
“I was just going downstairs.”
“Why?”
I hesitate, ready to tell him a lie, or to say it’s none of his business. But Torain doesn’t seem to like me, and the news ought to make him happy enough.
“The ocean. I need one of your rowboats.”
“Back to your Hellions?” he practically spits, lip curling.
“I don’t fight for them anymore,” I say stiffly, because I am trying to go back, just not for the reason he thinks.
He narrows his eyes, and I sigh. “Look. I know you think I've got him Enchanted, but I’ve got no interest in being Roiven’s anything, and I doubt you like the idea either. I don’t belong here.”
He slowly raises a single eyebrow. I sigh and shift my weight, hoping I haven’t made a mistake in telling him I’m leaving.
“By the gods. Will you escort me to a boat? If I go alone, I fear I’ll be forced to gut one of your men.”
He tilts his head slightly to the side.
“You aren’t what I expected.”
“Good,” I mutter sourly. “I’d hate to be predictable. Well?”
“This way.” Torain turns on his heel. He heads up the stairs instead of down, and I freeze on the landing.
“I’m not going back to my room.”
“Good for you,” Torain says airily.
“Fine. I’ll find my own way,” I snap.
Torain turns and looks over his shoulder at me.
“Those steps lead down to the wrong side of the mountain. You have to go up to the proper landing and take a different stair down to get where you’re trying to go. Are you always this argumentative?”
I swallow down the fear that he’s trying to trick me, and follow him.
We go up another two flights of stairs. Then Torain leads me across a hall full of arched columns, and to another staircase, this one slightly curved.
We descend. We pass a pair of servants, who bow to Torain, and then a squad of women in leather armor, their hair braided severely back.
They nod to the witch and then eye me curiously as we pass, and I keep my gaze locked on Torain’s back. Nobody tries to stop me again.
“The Coven of Ancients. What does that mean?” I ask, as we keep descending. His feet are light on the stairs, but he nearly trips at the sound of my voice, and then glances over his shoulder.
“What’s it to you?” he asks.
“What, I can’t be curious?”
“No.” He turns forward again and keeps walking. Right. I’ve got ties to the other side and I’m leaving. Of course he wouldn’t want to answer any questions.
I still have to try.
“Could the coven negotiate? If I could broker a peace, but it meant surrendering, could the coven agree to it even if Roiven—”
“No,” he says sharply. “Yes, we could, if all of us overruled him. No, we would not.”
He’s as stubborn as the King.
We reach the base of the staircase and pass a room with more plants growing in it. I'm going to miss the sight of greenery.
“The bond between Roiven and I,” I ask quietly. “It’s really unbreakable?”
Torain is silent.
“Come on,” I say. “That one is my business. And what difference does it make if I know?”
“Yes,” he says briskly. “It’s unbreakable.”
“A marriage.”
“Yes. A marriage. It seems clear enough to me that he’s under your spell."
“Believe me,” I growl back. “He tricked me into this. I refuse to be his wife.”
“As if you could deserve him. How many of our kind have you killed?”
“I didn’t know better. I didn’t know I was…” I trail off. If Roiven hasn’t told them, I don’t know how Torain will take it.
“So it was fine to kill us, until we were like you? Yes, I've noticed your eyes. No, it does not endear you to me, knight.”
My throat goes tight. For a moment I'm speechless. The pain in my head stings, but it’s nothing I'm not used to.
He’s right, of course. But even if I had been fully human, once I realized the Empire was wrong about witches and their magic, I would have changed my mind about the war.
“And… the other one,” I finally say. “The familiar bond. Why doesn’t that one leave marks?” I glance down at my living arm as I ask, at the pattern that grew over my skin when I let Roiven into my mind. A permanent, physical reminder of the connection I’m regretting.
“It changes you in different ways.”
“Can that one be broken?”
Torain stops so suddenly I nearly crash into him in the dim lighting.
“Don’t think of it, knight. It's impossible, and his ancient is not an enemy you want to make,” he says, his voice nearly a growl. He thinks I’m asking about breaking one of their bonds. About severing Sava from Roiven.
“But could a witch break their own?”
When he turns to look at me, the dim lighting on his high cheeks makes his face look skeleton-gaunt. And the look in his bright green eyes is horror.
“Who would ever want to do that?” he asks, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
“If you didn’t get along,” I suggest.
If I wanted to let another witch take the kraken’s power, without me having to die.
“They’re your split soul,” Torain whispers, his eyebrows furrowing as he talks. “It would be as broken as hating yourself.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just shrug, and stare blandly at him until he gives me one final frown and turns back forwards.
Figures, that witches would find a way to justify being stuck with a bond forever as a good thing.
What happens to unhappy couples who forged a kin bond, even without being tricked into it?
I’m beginning to think the Tower is nothing but stairs, which I guess makes sense, since we started at the top of the mountain and are working our way down.
But after two more staircases we suddenly leave the closed, confining corridors for a flat, open area that feels almost like a town square.
There are two dozen doorways, and small windows above them cut into the rock.
Fruit trees on every side, and an open staircase to our right.
The whole thing is overshadowed by a tall stone ridge that blocks this outdoor space from the ocean’s view.
A child’s abandoned wooden doll sits beneath the bench of a stone table like the ones in the village’s courtyards.
One of the doors is cracked open. Pale light spills out of it. So does a voice. An annoyingly familiar one that’s low and commanding and makes my stomach clench.
“We don’t know if their information is wrong, or if ours is,” I hear Roiven say. “We…”
I throw an alarmed look at Torain’s back, wondering if he’s led me here on purpose, to turn me in. But Torain only glances at the door before continuing toward the stairs. I tiptoe after him with my heart in my throat. I let out a sigh of relief as we reach the stairs and start to descend.
The stairs end in another courtyard with a dozen doorways.
“Cai?”
I flinch, and turn to look up at the top of the stairs.
Roiven stands there. With the dim glow of the stones as our only illumination, he’s too far away for me to make out any of his expression. He’s just a shadow.
“Damnit,” I mutter under my breath. I hear Torain’s soft snort behind me.
“Where are you going?” the man I bonded to asks.
“I’m leaving.” I straighten my back. I’m not going to be embarrassed about it, even if I was trying to sneak away without a word.
“Just like that,” Roiven says flatly. He crosses his arms and I shrug.
“You tricked me into becoming your wife, and you think I’d want anything to do with this place?”
“And how do you expect to leave?” Roiven finishes.
“I know how to work a rowboat,” I say stubbornly, already knowing it’s an insane proposition.
“If you’re that determined, Savasaeirn can take you tomorrow morning,” Roiven says. “Don’t do something stupid just to get away from me.”
I snort.
“Tomorrow morning? When the Hellions will be here? That plan’s so transparent it’s practically made of water.” He’s not planning to take me anywhere.
“They won’t be here tomorrow. They changed course,” Roiven growls.
“What?” Torain snaps, his whole body stiffening.
“They seem to be headed to Lusern,” Roiven tells him. Even if I couldn’t feel the worry radiating off him, the tension in his voice is thick enough to cut.
“Then take me tonight,” I demand. Both men ignore me.
“Why?” Torain asks Roiven. “How would they even know about it?”
“Not from questioning me. But we’ll find out. We’re flying out in fifteen.”
Torain curses under his breath. He shoulders past me and jogs up the stairs, passing Roiven and vanishing.
“Cai, don’t do this,” Roiven says. “Stay here until I can take you wherever it is you want to go.”
I grip my hands tightly into fists. He makes me feel completely off-balance. One wrong push and I won’t even recognize myself anymore.
“I’m not waiting until tomorrow,” I tell Roiven. “I need to leave. Now. Please.”
“You’ll have to wait. I can’t take you now.”
He descends the stairs, a shadow coming toward me. I take a step back, pressing myself to the wall.
“No choice. Of course,” I snap. “Rowboat it is.”
A cold feeling drags low at my gut, even though I already made up my mind. A rowboat is far too flimsy for the Wild Seas. I don’t recall seeing any other particularly nearby isles from Sava’s back. What happens if I fall in, or if I get stranded in the middle of the water?
Well. Still better than being stranded here with Roiven. Isn’t it? I know I’m being illogical, but being tricked by him after I decided to trust him makes me feel like such a fool that I can’t stand it.