Page 109 of Bloodwitch

“I told you,” she spat. “He is not so easy to find as the others.”

“Why?”

“He has no Threads. He is outside the world’s weave.”

“Impossible. Do not lie to me.”

“He was born in the sleeping ice. You, of all people, should remember that.” A withering tone had taken hold of Esme’s voice, and finally—finally—the storm reared back. Less wind, fewer waves. Holding his breath, Merik lowered his chin and twisted his face toward the shore.

The Fury looked puzzled. The shadows on his skin, the snow and the winds—they had faded. “You have found him before.”

“Because he was with others I knew.” Esme gave a dismissive flick of her wrist. “He is no longer.”

“The General will be displeased.”

“Then tell him to come here and say so himself.”

“Oh,Isee.” Kullen’s head fell back, and he cackled at the sky. “That still bothers you, does it? You are still bitter he did not bring you with him.”

“No.” The word cracked out, and with it, a pain lightninged through Merik. His back arched. He gasped for air.

Then it was over, as fast as it had come.

“The King,” Esme snipped out, “will bring me to him once he opens the doors.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” The Fury clucked his tongue. “A lovely delusion, Puppeteer, except he already got what he needed from you. He gotme.”

A pause. Stillness and silence softened around the Well. But it passed in an instant, and Merik had just enough time to suck in air before the storm tore loose.

First came all-consuming pain. His muscles locked; his throat screamed.

Then came waves. Wind too, and the sudden hammering of rain. He could not breathe, he could not see. No screaming, only choking and convulsing.

Finally, his feet moved. He stepped below the surface. Three long strides while cold and darkness shuttered over him, stealing sound. He exhaled, bubbles charging out even though he needed to conserve air. There was no conserving anything here. No thinking, no moving. The only thing he could do was drown, electrified by Esme’s cleaving while the last of his life drained away.

Merik lost consciousness, there beneath the waves. He couldn’t say for how long. He could not say how many lungfuls of water he inhaled. All he knew was that the final sparks of pain towed him into Hell… Then he came back into his body, and he was on all fours upon the shore, vomiting.

He was mid-heave, bile-laced water gushing from his throat onto grass, when he realized he was awake. He wasalive.

Esme sat several paces away. Her prim pose was a lie; her tight smile a painted mask. Her fingers yanked grass from the earth. Fistful after fistful, she wrenched up the blades and then dropped them at her feet.

Blinking, Merik scanned the forest and the Well, searching for the Fury, but the man was nowhere. Only the usual Cleaved remained,standing guard as always. How long had Merik been underwater? How many times had he drowned?

“No gratitude.” Esme ripped up more grass, smiling a flat-eyed smile at Merik. “They have no gratitude for what I do, Prince. No understanding of the difficulty. They come to me, they demand I find people, and then they leave again.No gratitude.”

It was similar to what the Fury had mentioned, and even in his drowned misery, Merik had enough sense to tuck away that information.

“He has no Threads!” she went on. “I can only find him if he is near Iseult—not that I have toldthemthat.” Another fistful of grass. “She is mine. Not theirs. And you are mine, Prince.Not theirs.”

Merik forced his head to nod and throat to wheeze, “Yours,” before his lungs started seizing again. Dry heaves shook through him.

Esme, however, stopped her grass-shredding, and when she cocked her head sideways, the anger had dimmed in her yellow eyes. “So you willnothelp the Fury enter the mountain?”

Merik had to wait until his stomach stopped shuddering, his throat stopped coughing. Then he eked out, “No.”

“Then why did the Fury say such a thing?”

Move with the wind, move with the stream.“Because he wants to frighten you. You are the Raider King’s favorite.”