Page 149 of Witchshadow

Safi raked her gaze over Henrick’s storm-shadowed figure. A single sword, unadorned, hung at his hip.

“Surrender,” he said. “There is no escape.” He didn’t smile as he spoke, didn’t gloat. There was only the hardened, perhaps even tired frown of a soldier too long in the snow.

Safi fought the urge to glance at Caden. As doused in darkness as he was, she hoped Henrick hadn’t noticed him. He had, of course, noticed Iseult, but he offered her only a cursory glance, as if he recognized she was no threat to him in her current state. “You are surrounded, Safiya, and more forces approach from all sides.”

She flashed him a smile. The same smile she’d been wearing for the last two weeks. “But it was never escape I sought, Your Imperial Majesty.”Keep him talking, keep him busy.“I sought to protect my family, you see. My uncle. My Threadsister and all the Hell-Bards”—she motioned vaguely toward the forest outside—“bound to me in a way we didn’t ask for.”

Henrick said nothing. Snow gathered on his shoulders, glistened on his crown.

So Safi pushed on, sliding into a saunter around the tower, hands behind her back. The perfect distraction, and as hoped, his eyes remained onher. “I know you have a family. Sons you’ve never seen and a nephew you love. Iknowyou understand what I feel for my own family, but—”

“Enough,” he barked, and Safi expected his sneer to return at any moment or for his hand to grab at the chain on his belt. Instead, he raised his chin and said, “We all have our burdens to bear. I will not shirk mine.” He grasped for the blade at his hip. “The fon Cartorran line will continue, and you will continue it. I am sorry, though, that it had to come to this.”

He unsheathed his sword.

And in that moment, as steel breathed free from its sheath, the full picture finally locked into place. Safi paused her amble. Her hands fell loose to her sides.

The Emperor’s crownwastoo tight. Not by choice, but by the confines of family—a different family than the one he kept tucked away in Praga. This burden came from his parents, his ancestors, his title passed down from mother to son in a cold castle wreathed in scarlet.

Which was not so different from Safi in the end. She’d tried to outrun her uncle and her Hasstrel blood, yet here she was, running right back to it.

“Surrender now,” he said, no cruelty in his tone, “and I guarantee neither you nor your Threadsister will be harmed.” He advanced a single step.

And Safi softened her stance. “No.” She offered him a sad smile—a real one. “You have your duties, Henrick, and I have mine.”

It was the first time she’d addressed him by his given name. The first time she hadn’t called him by his title, and he tensed at the sound of it. Then something almost like grief crossed his eyes.

She’d seen that look before, in his study when she’d called him poison.

Two heartbeats passed; the snow briefly lightened. Then Henrick sighed. “I am sorry,” he said, and he brushed softly at the chain glistening upon his belt.

Blades swiped free, a great clash of noise from outside the tower. Loud enough to sing above the blizzard winds, near enough to flash glimmers of movement through cracks in the ruined tower.

Safi lifted her hands. Cleaved lines crawled over them now, blending into her Witchmark. Warning of a doom so near. But that didn’t make her fists any less effective, thanks to the family who had trained her. The family she would fight for until the end.

“I will not go easily,” she told him honestly.

“And,” began a new voice, cutting through the snow as sharp as a northwind, “she will not go alone.” Then Iseult moved into position beside Safi. No more smoke around her, no more ice. Awake and glowing in this tower surrounded by storm.

Initiate, complete.

The Old One had never fought in a storm before—had never fought without sight to guide him. The first Bloodwitch, however, knew exactly what to do as Purists closed in on Gretchya.

There was memory in his muscles if he was willing to listen and let them move free.

A woman with sallow skin loose upon her bones charged Gretchya with a hatchet. A young man with a black beard lunged in with two blades. Behind them, more bodies—mindless husks—coalesced within the snow. Aeduan knew not why they attacked their master’s Heart-Thread. It was as if they were cleaved, no longer in control of their minds. He could only guess that the storm and Sirmaya’s sapped power had driven them to this chaotic thirst for blood.

Aeduan dealt with all of them. He ducked, he spun, he grabbed arms and levered bodies. He kicked at any knees near enough to reach and hammer-fisted at noses or throats or ears. Duck, spin, lever, kick. Elbows, feet, knees, and flat-palmed hands. His body moved in a blur of magic-fueled speed through an unnatural storm that chomped with ice teeth.

One by one the Purists fell, yet not a one of them died.

Distantly, as bodies poured in with the snow and sleet and winds, and as Aeduan’s muscles moved with a forgotten harmony, he noticed that each defense the first Bloodwitch called on was only meant to disable. Each attack was only meant to gain time.

The first Bloodwitch was merciful. He had a power to dominate men, yet he’d never used it that way.

What a waste,Aeduan thought as he flipped a man to the cold earth. These Purists would all rise again, driven by Corlant’s command. Their deaths would be so much better for the dark-giver’s safety—and so much better for Aeduan’s own. Already, he smelled that the first woman had risen again. Already she’d resumed her steady hunt for Gretchya. But Aeduan could not go after her. There were too many. Purists of every age, every gender, every race.

He should be angry at the first Aeduan. He should hate this weakness and curse these muscles that betrayed. There was no order in mercy;only chaos in an already turbulent storm. And yet, with each twirl and kick, each grab and bend, Aeduan let the muscles’ memories rise higher. A strange warmth had settled over him. A foreign certainty that cemented around his bones and pumped his magic harder, faster.