Page 115 of Bloodwitch

“Why areyouattacking?”

“Because this is the plan. The one we have all worked for. You know that.”

“No, I don’t. Because you and Habim have told me nothing!”

“Then we will explain after.” Mathew circled the Empress; Safi circled too. “Now is not the time for this—”

“Explain after what? After the Empress is dead? How willthatbring peace to the Witchlands, Mathew?”

“By eliminating someone who wants war! She broke the Twenty Year Truce, Safi. Shecausedthis war to resume.”

For half a heartbeat, Safi believed him. After all, it was what everyone always said, including the Empress herself. Vaness had landed forces in Nubrevna, canceling the magic that bound her to the Twenty Year Truce—and therefore the magic that bound all the other nations and empires as well. So yes, she had caused it.

Yet as each of these thoughts speared through Safi’s mind, she realized her chest hadn’t buzzed with truth at Mathew’s words, her magic hadn’t twinkled and sung.

Which meant he was lying.

Safi’s gut flipped. A great downward drop that yanked her lungs straight to her toes. She felt like vomiting. Or shrieking. Or even demanding that Mathew tell her it wasn’t true—thattheyhadn’t somehow coordinated the end of the Truce, the resuming of the war.

Somehow, though, Safi managed to do none of those things. Somehow, she managed to channel Iseult’s stasis and sink more deeply into a defensive stance. “It was you who ended the Truce, wasn’t it? I don’t know how, but it wasn’t the Empress who did it at all. It wasyou.”

Mathew’s eyes shuttered within his shroud. A pained wince that cut straight to Safi’s heart.True, true, true.“I told you,” he said gruffly. “In Veñaza City, Itoldyou there were big wheels in motion—”

He did not get to finish. At that moment, the glamour wavered. Ever so slightly, as if the entire world blinked, and for half a breath, the real world tore through.

It was so much worse than Safi had imagined. There was the Empress, standing in exactly the same place but with blood gushing down the right side of her body. Behind her, twelve Adders lay dead, everyone of them impaled on their own swords. It was Lake Scarza, though, that made Safi gasp and rear back—and made everyone in the crowds do the same. A collective cry of horror that rippled outward while the world they saw was briefly replaced with another.

Military boats aflame and sinking. The wall of soldiers now a wall of corpses. Smoke and fire and explosions erupting in time to the fireworks.

Then the glamour snapped back into place. The ships floated once more. The soldiers and Adders stood sentry. And Vaness did not bleed.

It was too late, though. The mistake had been made. People knew they had been duped.

“Safi!” barked a new voice. Habim leaped onto the terrace, Firewitched pistol in one hand, sword in another. He moved into position beside Mathew. “Stand down, Safi. Do not ruin this. I realize you care about the Empress, but—”

Safi laughed. A surprising burst of sound that shut up Habim and made Mathew flinch. A fuzzy, burgeoning thing that could not have been more at odds with the crowds panicking below or the fireworks still detonating.

“Do notruinit?” she repeated. “I already thought I had! All this time—ever since Veñaza City, I thought I had ruined your precious little plan. I thought I had made choices that were wholly my own, and sent Uncle’s scheme spinning through the hell-gates.

“Now I see I was nothing more than your puppet. I suppose you knew about the engagement to Henrick all along. YouknewI would end up in Marstok. And I suppose you thought I would help you here tonight, didn’t you? Well, you’re wrong. Because I won’t.”

“The Empress isn’t what you think she is, Safi—” Habim began.

“That is rich coming fromyou,General.”

“She is what her parents taught her to be, Safi. She will only lead Marstok into more war.”

“No.” Safi hissed that word with all the conviction she could conjure. Then she spat it again, harder, “No.You’re wrong. You don’t even know her, Habim.”

“We are running out of time,” Mathew warned. He stood taller now, with Habim at his side. Two Heart-Threads doing what they believed was right—and what Safi might have believed was right too, if she hadn’t seen behind Vaness’s mask.

“Do not make me compel you,” Mathew warned. “I did so with the Empress, and I will do it to you too.”

“You already have!” Safi laughed again, a ridiculous, high-pitched sound that screeched inside her skull. Mathew must have commanded Vaness not to move, so she could stand there and take a blade through her belly. Now, he would do the same to her. “You bewitched me in the storage room earlier, Mathew. And you bewitched me a month ago in Veñaza City.”

His betrayal had cut deep then. Now, it severed her heart entirely.

All her life, these men had been there. To scold and to teach and to tend her wounds from another sword lesson gone wrong. They were not evil; Safi knew that as surely as she knew that Vaness was not evil.