Page 37 of Witchshadow

Where Stix turned it into a mask of ice. Suddenly the bird couldn’t see,and it toppled like a graceless fledgling to the ground. It slid toward Stix, heat coursing against her. Cotton burned, her hair singed, and her skin blistered. But she launched sideways before any real damage could be done.

The crowd erupted with delight, and Stix couldn’t help but revel in that sound. Just as she had at the Cleaved Man, even if her father told her it wasn’t seemly for a Sotar. She readied her second water whip for the final knockout…

And that was when it happened. Because ofcoursethat was when it happened: the voices returned and the memories punched into her. Hye, she had come here for those exact memories, those exact voices, but did they have to show up now?

“No,” Stix snarled, watching as the world dissolved around her. Listening as the crowd’s cheers fell away and the past shoved in. “No, no,no.”

But the old lifetimes didn’t care what Stix wanted. They had been waiting for her to come here, so now they had something to say. And as it always was, they spoke in a language she could not understand. A hundred languages all clashing together.

Stix didn’t need words to know they were angry.Come this way, keep coming,they seemed to cry.Come, come, come this way, keep coming.Light flickered at the edge of her vision, eating her sight like flames eat paper. Like this flame hawk would eat her. But she couldn’t see the bird anymore, for the past had arrived and it would not be ignored.

Her Heart-Thread is on fire, flames from an Exalted One named Lovats. Laughter from him too. “Food for my flame hawk. Food for my pet.”

Stix’s voice breaks as she begs Lovats to release Bastien.

“You should not have turned on us,” Lovats says in reply. “You should not have turned on me.”

Stix’s eyes meet Bastien’s eyes. “Blade,” he screams through the flames. “Use the… blade.”

The vision ended. The voices vanished. And Stix found herself on her knees with her face in her hands. She was weeping—but it was nother.It was the Old One. The one they adored here, patron saint of change, seasons, and crossroads. The one who lived inside of Stix along with so many other souls.

There was no time when the voices took control. Stix had learned thatafter the first intense memories had overwhelmed her—that whatever passage of time she might experience did not match the rest of the world. She might slip into a memory and half a day had passed, or she might drift off and it had been only breaths.

Right now, thank Noden, it seemed to be the latter. Stix dragged to her feet and faced the flame hawk again. Ice still covered its face; its body was still prone—though not for long. Smoke coiled into Stix’s nose.

She swung. Water loosed like an arrow, long and true. It hit the hawk’s feet, then circled and circled before finally cinching in place and freezing. The bird was stuck. The bird was masked. It could not even scream its defeat.

Stacia Sotar, the Water Brawler, had won her first Slaughter Ring.

Immediately after the fight, two guards escorted Stix to Kahina’s private box. Ryber was not allowed to join, and though she put on a good performance as a trainer offended by the separation, the guards were intractable.

When Stix arrived, she found Kahina alone, sprawled across her long chair. She seemed thoroughly disinterested as Stix was nudged to a floor cushion several steps away, as if she hadn’t invited Stix here at all. As if Stix was just another piece of furniture on her towering private space.

Minutes gusted past, and Stix silently waited. That blighted flame hawk had gotten her good at the end. Her shirt had burned through to her right shoulder, leaving pieces of cotton inside the damaged flesh. She’d gotten a stripe across her jaw too, and her white hair had burned to shriveled shortness around her right ear.

When Kahina still had not acknowledged Stix after several minutes, Stix cleared her throat. And Kahina sighed. The pipe clutched within her teeth snuffed out. She rolled languidly to one side.

“You do not look so good.” Kahina swung her legs to the floor. “But what an impressive display. You made short work of my pet.”

Pet.The hair on Stix’s arms shot high. “The… flame hawk is yours?”

“She is.” Kahina withdrew her pipe and smiled. It was a predatory grin. A powerful grin.

“You don’t treat it very well.”

“Is that what you think?” Kahina gave a throaty laugh and clapped her hands against her knees. The jade ring glinted on her thumb. “Do you know who I am, Water Brawler?”

Stix nodded. “Leader of the Red Sails.”

“No, no.” Kahina pushed to her feet. Without her spectacles on, Stix had to squint to follow Kahina as she strutted for the deck’s edge. “Everyone knows I am the admiral. I mean do you know who Iam?” A glance backward. “Or for that matter, do you know who you are?”

Again, the hair on Stix’s arms shot high. A Firewitch with a flame hawk. A Firewitch who took cruel delight in the violence unfolding below.Food for my flame hawk. Food for my pet.

“Ah,” Kahina murmured. “I see that perhaps you do.” She thrust the pipe back into her teeth. With no match nor uttered command, the pipe flared. Fresh smoke plumed, and Stix wanted very much to be gone from this deck. She wanted Ryber’s steady silver eyes or that orange tabby’s relentlessly happy purr. She wanted the safety of her cot and the pillow, and she wanted Kahina far, far away.

“You do not remember everything yet, do you?” Kahina asked.

Stix did not respond.