Page 137 of Bloodwitch

Every night, he relived that attack in his dreams.

Never before, though, had he hovered outside like this. Never before had he watched his mother die or his own wounds ooze blood upon the floor.

Now, he stood at the edge of the scene, observing while the boy died without him beneath a burning sky. He watched his mother’s flesh sizzle and smoke. He watched the tears slide down his broken cheeks, evaporating instantly with the heat. He watched his young skin sear, only to heal as fast as it could be blackened.

He watched the life leave his body, only to return a moment later. Again and again.

He watched the fletching in his mother’s back catch fire. Six bright bursts of light before the shafts caught fire too. Down they burned. Through his mother. Into him.

Still he healed. Still he sobbed. Still he died.

But this time, Evrane never came for him. The rainstorm never broke.

It took Aeduan a long time to notice that the memory had changed—that it wasn’t adhering to the truth of that day fifteen years ago. The truth of what happened every night when he dreamed.

Evrane should have come by now.

For the first time since awakening in this memory, Aeduan turned—as if he thought he might find Evrane behind him. As if she might be stuck, waiting for him to stand aside so she could move within.

There was no one there, though. Of course there was no one there, and all he found was more fire. More smoke. More shadows and more pain.

He was alone in this nightmare. There was no Evrane. There was no escape. There was only the darkness and himself.

He turned back to the child. He turned back to the boy he had once been. He did not see a demon. He did not see a monster.

And in that moment, Aeduan understood: it was not just that he had wanted to die forever that day. Hehaddied. The child inside him had burned away alongside his mother, and since then, though he might have existed, he had never truly lived.

Now nobody came for him in the nightmare because that was the truth of it. No onehadcome for him. Evrane might have moved his mother’s corpse off Aeduan, she might have tended his wounds and taken him to the Monastery, but she had not saved him.

All these years, he had blamed himself for what had happened. If he had just fought, if he had just reacted, then his mother would not have died. Then he would not have been trapped beneath her; his tribe would not have burned.

It was as if by blaming himself, he had given the death meaning. He had given it a reason—and that reason was his own existence. His own failings and weakness and monstrous, Void-bound magic fueled by blood.

But there was no reason. There never had been. He was just a child, trapped in the wreckage of war. He had not done this, he had not caused this. Yet he had lost his life to it all the same.

Now no one could save him but himself.

Four long steps carried Aeduan to the boy. He stared down into his own face, half hidden by the charred remains of his mother. Dysi had been beautiful in life. Now she was nothing more than a smoldering corpse and a handful of memories.

With careful hands, Aeduan gripped her arms to move her. The instant he touched her, though, she crumbled into black nothing and whispered away. So he sank to a crouch beside the boy—beside himself—and he gazed into ice-blue eyes.

Aeduan had never gazed into his own eyes before. They swirled with red.

“Run,” he told the boy. “Run.”

“I can’t,” the boy said.

“You can,” Aeduan replied. “We can. Together.”

Heat roars. Wood cracks and embers fly.

He is pinned by cedar and corpse. His mother is dead.

But he is not supposed to die with her. She had told him to run, so running is what he needs to do.

He pushes upward, a scream ripping from his lungs. Up his scorched throat and out across the fire. Push, push—his mother is heavy, but he cannot let the loss of her hold him down.

His screams pitch louder, his muscles labor and groan. The wounds in his chest stab deeper and the flames score at his cheeks.