Page 8 of Bloodwitch

“Sir,” Cam breathed against him, eyes bulging and terrified. “You used your magic.”

“I know,” he said at the same time Ryber coughed out, “Everyone all right?” Her umber black skin was streaked with dust from the tremor as she clung to the ledge above.

“Hye,” Merik called, even though that might not be true. Two weeks, he had stayed so diligent against his witchery’s call. Against the Nihar rage too, for they were connected. He could not stop his winds when the anger took hold.

And he could not stop Kullen when the winds awoke.

“Just a bit farther,” Ryber said. She scrabbled down slightly and grabbed hold of Cam’s good hand. Then, with Merik to push, they got Cam onto a higher ledge.

“Maybe,” Cam called as he climbed, “the first mate didn’t notice the magic.”

Not the first mate,Merik thought, wishing yet again that Cam would stop calling Kullen that. The first mate was gone. Kullen was gone. He had cleaved in Lejna. His magic had reached a breaking point, then it had burned through him and turned him into a monster. Yet unlike other Cleaved, who died in minutes from the boil of corrupted power, Kullen had stayed alive.

And somehow, Kullen’s mind had been replaced by a shadow beast that called himself the Fury.

Merik was just about to resume his own ascent when a voice split his skull:THERE YOU ARE.

Merik clutched at his head.

I AM COMING.

“Sir?” Cam blinked down at him. “Is it the first mate?”

“Hye,” he gritted out. “Move.”

This time, Merik did not resist his magic. Kullen had found them; they were already damned. He drew in his breath, clogged as it was with dust off the mountain, and let the hot air spiral close. Fragile strands, but enough to push them faster. Enough to send him, Cam, and Ryber skipping straight up to the top of the cliff.

When at last they reached the final ledge, they scrabbled to their feet and ran. No one looked back. They could hear the storm approaching, sense the cold on its way.

Fast, impossibly fast with all that dark, wretched power coursing through it. A journey that had taken days for Merik, Cam, and Ryber would take mere minutes for the Fury to complete.

They ran faster. Or they tried to, but waves of dizziness crushed against Merik—and Cam, judging by the boy’s yelps of alarm.

“Ignore it,” Ryber commanded. “It’s part of the glamour’s magic. You just have to trust me and keep going.” She took hold of Cam’s forearm, and Cam took hold of Merik’s. They ran on.

They reached a forest. Trunks striped past, prison bars to hold them in and nowhere to go but forward. Green needles bled into red bark and melted into hard earth. Everything spun and swung.

Ryber never slowed, though, so Merik and Cam never slowed either.

Then the creatures of the forest began to flee. Spiders rained down and tangled in Merik’s short hair. Then came the moths—a great cloud racing not toward the sky but simply ahead. Away from the Fury.

I never thought you would leave Nubrevna,the Fury crooned in Merik’s mind.All this time, I thought you would return to the Nihar lands. After all, do you not care about your own people?

Birds launched past Merik. Mice and rats and squirrels too.

“Faster,” Merik urged, summoning more winds. Cold winds. The world might be unstable, but if he had to, he would fight.

“We’re almost there!” Ryber shouted from the fore, while beneath their pounding feet, the earth quaked yet again. Merik couldn’t help but imagine each lurch as one of Kullen’s steps booming ever closer.

“Where are we even going?” Cam panted. “If he can follow us through the glamour—”

“He can’t.”

“He already did.” As Merik uttered those words, he slowed to a stop and looked back. Black snaked across the forest floor. So fast, there was no outrunning it. So fast that before he had even turned forward once more, the darkness swept across him.

He still had hold of Cam, and Cam still had hold of Ryber.

They kept running.