Page 47 of Bloodwitch

He ran, pulling any magic he could find. Every ounce of his witchery, every drop of blood he drove into his muscles. Faster than before, faster than any human could run.

But it still was not enough. Nothing could outpace this cyclone. It was on his heels now. He could hear it getting closer, crushing buildings one by one. Great eruptions of wood and stone, and all while the winds screamed louder.

Aeduan could not escape it. His only hope was to take cover. Something stone, something strong. He dove sideways, aiming for the nearest building. Bodies, bodies—how were there so many bodies? He reached steps leading to a front door and dropped to the ground beside them. Then he curled into a ball and covered the back of his neck with his hands.

Wind crushed over him. Water gushed into his mouth. Hail the size of bricks punched against him, and he felt two ribs break. His left finger knuckles broke too. Any moment now, the full cyclone would hit him. The building above him would topple down. He wouldn’t die, but others would. Many others.

Except the attack never came.

Instead, the storm ended entirely. Between one shuddering breath and the next, the winds broke off. Hail stopped falling. Rain faded to quiet, a mere echoing throb in Aeduan’s ears.The eye of the storm,he thought, and he unfurled, ready to resume running.

Yet as he straightened, his broken ribs numbed by the Painstone, a blood-scent rippled into his awareness.Black wounds and broken death. Pain and filth and endless hunger.

Cleaving.

Instantly, Aeduan was on his feet, rounding backward. He unsheathed his sword, ready to face whatever madness now approached amidst the calm. When he turned, though, he did not find a man corrupted by magic. This man, towering and pale haired, strode toward Aeduan with clarity and purpose. His eyes shone black, rim to rim, and lines slithered across his skin. Yet with each step that he prowled closer, the more the darkness shrank.

Like maggots wriggling into a corpse, the shadows vanished. The cleaving scent vanished too, until all that remained was a young man whose blood smelled of rocky shores and gasping lungs. But there were other blood-scents tangled inside him, like a knot of worms pulledfrom the soil. Hundreds of them, too many for Aeduan to tease apart or catalog.

He’d never faced anything like it.

“Are you the Bloodwitch?” the man called in Nubrevnan, still approaching. His now-blue eyes scraped up Aeduan. Then down. “You certainly look like him.”

Aeduan sank into a fighting stance.

This only made the young man smile, a horrifying thing that stretched his face into inhuman proportions. Half his right ear was missing, blackened blood crusting the edges.

“Come no closer,” Aeduan called.

“Or what?” the man drawled, though he did at least pause his advance. “Your sword can do nothing to me. You should know this, Bloodwitch. Unless…” His head tipped sideways. He tapped his chin. “Unless your father hasn’t told you who I am.”

My father.Something dark and vile trickled over Aeduan’s skull.

The man laughed, a delighted sound. “I see from your face that he hasnottold you. Allow me to remedy that.” The man’s heels snapped together, his fist shot to his heart, and he bowed a Nubrevnan bow. “They call me the Fury. I have worked with your father for a long, long time—although I knew him as something else all those years ago.Hestill wears the same face.” The grin widened. “I do not.”

Incomprehensible words. They clanked around in Aeduan’s mind, useless.

“Your father sent me to find you,” the man went on, slinking a single step closer. “You were meant to check in weeks ago, Bloodwitch. He feared you dead, and yet…” The man opened his arms, thick eyebrows bouncing. “Here you are. And now it is time for us to go.”

“No.” Aeduan gave a curt head shake. “I have unfinished business in Tirla.”

“Which is?”

“How did you find me?” Aeduan countered.

“Easily.”

“And did my father tell you to destroy Tirla along the way?”

“This?” The man laughed, a throaty sound. “This is nothing,Bloodwitch. Where I travel, hurricanes reign.” He spun around, seeming to take in the destruction for the first time—and it only made him laugh louder.

The darkness spread down Aeduan’s neck. Voices were gathering, blood-scents too. As if people were stepping outside now, searching the streets for help. Some wailed, some screamed.

“Your father,” the Fury said, stopping abruptly, “will want to know what detains you. Do not make me return to him without an answer. He won’t like that.Iwon’t like that.”

“I will tell my father myself,” Aeduan said flatly. “Tell him that I will give him a full report when I return.”

“And when will that be?”