Page 124 of Bloodwitch

Merik would not fail.

A body slammed into him. The last of Merik’s breath burst from his lungs in great, blinding bubbles. And suddenly he realized his chest was on fire. His skull. His eyeballs, his very mind.

He was drowning.

Arms fished around him, tugging him toward the surface, and he did not resist. Seconds later, he and the Northman broke the surface. But there was no respite here. The water churned and splashed as Cleaved poured into the pool, ten at a time, row after row, tumbling, toppling, grabbing.

Merik’s plan had worked too well.

He led the way, swimming for the stairwell. Corpses bumped and sloshed against them, but he kept going—and the Northman kept going just behind. Until at last, they reached the first steps.

Merik hauled himself up.

The step crumbled beneath him, dropping him back into the water. Knocking him against a dead man and tangling him in the corpse’s long black hair.

The Northman tried the next step, but it too collapsed beneath his weight. And now the pool was filling at a rate that would soon leave Merik and the Northman cornered. Trapped. They could not tread water forever, and the Cleaved could not keep rushing in. Eventually, the pond would fill and then Cleaved who still lived would simply walk across the bodies.

The water seethed around Merik. Corpses bumped against him, and the Northman splashed and sprayed, trying over and over to reach higher stairs.

This was it—this was the best Merik was going to get for time. If he couldn’t make his magic work now, if he couldn’t coax it back to life, then this was the end. Not just for him, but for the Northman who had come to save him.

And for Nubrevna, exposed and unready for a Raider King’s attack.

Merik wasn’t ready for that end. He closed his eyes.

Come,the water sang around him. Come and find release.There was power in that water. Where it came from or what it meant, he couldn’t guess. But the magic was there all the same.

Listen,he told the spark in his lungs.Listen and see.

All his life, Merik had been a weak witch. Barely able to earn his Witchmark as a child, he had disappointed his father. Disappointed himself. Only when his temper flared did he ever seem to have any power.

The Nihar rage, his family called it.

But in anger there could be no listening. In rage, there could be no sight. And in fury, there could be no understanding.

Esme had been right—just as Cam had been right. Merik saw what he wanted to see. He told himself he made all choices, good and bad, to help Nubrevna as if this somehow justified his willful blindness. As if this somehow vindicated his dependence on blood-boiling rage.

And Safiya fon Hasstrel had been right too: Merik loved to feel needed. It did give him purpose—and it also gave himexcuses.

For almost two days he had lived without his magic inside him. For almost two days he had moved where someone else willed, andhe had seen with eyes unclouded by wrath. Words had freed him from Esme’s collar, not anger. And it was not anger—or even magic—that would free him from this pool filled with corpses.

Listen and see. Listen and see.The spark in his chest thrummed louder. The waters sang and pulled. The power at work here wanted him to reach that blue light. It wanted him to travel through. It wanted him to embrace the full magic that waited on the other side.

Merik’s eyes snapped wide. Water rocked and crashed against his face. A woman’s dead eyes stared into his. There were too many bodies now, splashing and piling and raising the water with each second.

He inhaled as deeply as he could, a desperate gasp with no grace or ease, but it was enough.

Wind rushed in.

A second breath, a second gale. Three breaths, four, ten—the winds writhed in stronger, wilder. Water spun and corpses spun too. Until at last, enough air cycloned around Merik for him to finally make his move.

He flung up his hands. Air rocketed beneath him, beneath the Northman. They shot up from the waves.

Merik flung his hands down.

Water and bodies and Cleaved ripped backward, away from Merik and the Northman. Away from the blue light still glowing below.

Power, power, power.