Page 78 of Witchshadow

“No,” Stix mumbled.

Ryber reminded her anyway. “Eridysi made them to kill the Exalted Ones after they ruined the Witchlands with their tyranny. That broken looking glass will show Paladins for what they are, and that blade will kill them. It will kill you, Stix.Forever.”

“I know.” Stix’s mumble turned to a growl. “I’ve seen my own death a hundred times, remember?”

“But that wasn’t a real death.” Ryber fumbled her diary off her belt and thrust it toward Stix. Humidity-muffled moonlight beamed over it. “If you would just read this, you’d understand what I’m talking about. You’d understand why Kahina can’t have Eridysi’s tools—”

“Idounderstand,” Stix snapped. “And I have no plans to tell her where they are.” She dug a knuckle into her forehead; her crooked spectacles shifted down her nose. She didn’t want to fight with Ryber because it wasn’t Ryber she was actually frustrated with. It was herself—hadshe made a mistake?—and it was the voices gathering once more at the base of her skull.Why are you leaving?they wanted to know.Come back this way, keep coming!

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could endure this swollen pressure always buzzing. And she certainly couldn’t watch another person die in the Ring.

She had done the right thing to free them. Ofcourseit was the right thing.

As if sensing Stix’s misery, the orange tabby piled onto her lap. Ryber must have sensed too, for when she spoke again, her tone had softened. “Kahina isn’t stupid, Stix. She has lived countless lifetimes, just like you.”

“Not like me,” Stix countered, but her heart wasn’t in the argument. She was tired of the Ring, tired of Kahina, tired of the blade and the glass, and above all else, tired of this Paladin soul she’d never asked for.

As the carriage thumped through a deep divot in the softened road, moonlight speared into the carriage. It bounced off the cat’s green eyes, which glimmered like Kahina’s ring. Instinctively, Stix rubbed her thumb.

Pain spiked through her.

She flinched, startled by the intensity of it, by the lightning flaring up her arm and down her spine. She jerked her hand into the dim light, only to find a raw, blistering line striped around her thumb.

The cat stopped her purring. Ryber gasped, and Stix gulped over a sudden tangle in her throat. The voices, for once, were silent—as if they too were stunned by what Stix saw. As if they too had grown cold with horror.

“What is that?” Ryber asked. For some reason, she was whispering.

And for some reason, Stix was whispering too when she answered, “I don’t know, Ryber. I really don’t know.” Except that in the most remote corners of her brain, a place fully usurped by voices, therewasa quietmemory of a green ring, the person who’d worn it, and the pain that came from breaking a bargain bound in jade.

Vivia awoke with the sense that something was off. She’d forgotten where she was. Why, how. Then came the scent of sandy earth and plant exhales. Thick, alive, a smell she’d never known she missed until it reached her again.

This was Nihar, a place that had been dead for so long.Theplace where her father had been raised, and then Merik after him. She’d always wished it had been her to come here, even if she never admitted that to anyone but herself—and only then during these dark, solo moments of the night.

Katydids choired aboveground, outside of this prison where Vivia’s crew waited for her to do something. To lead. If only she knew what steps to take, if only someone were here to tell her.

What a great queen she was.

She pushed off the earthen floor and fumbled for Vaness nearby. The lanterns had been extinguished outside the cells—all save one—yet no amount of squinting was making Vaness’s unconscious form appear.

She isn’t here.It took Vivia several moments to realize this. Too many moments to realize the floor beside her was empty, and the rest of the cell too.

Horror battered through her. She scrambled to her feet, ready to shout for guards and demand answers. Yet as soon as she pounded her fist against the door, it creaked open. Lantern light slid in, and Vivia gaped, brain too stunned to understand. Muscles too stunned to move. Her door was open, Vaness was gone, and…

Footsteps. Soft, lethal, moving away.

Vivia pushed into the hall right as a figure exited through the door at the end, thick and bulky as if someone was draped across their back.Vaness.Before Vivia could shout for the Empress or kick into a run, a second figure materialized from the same door, a curved knife flickering in his left hand. In his right, winds swirled. Vivia felt more than saw those winds—just as she knew immediately that this man had come for her.

Dalmotti must have sent him. She recognized those rounded knives, just as she recognized the two rapiers hanging at his hips. He and the other man were Assassin Guild. Excellent at what they did: murder, stealing, kidnapping.

A ball of winds loosed; Vivia dove sideways; wind scraped against her shoulder, hard enough to bend bones. Sharp enough to flay skin.

Sailors stirred in other cells. Cam’s voice pierced out, “Majesty!”

Vivia lunged for the man in black, but her shoulder hurt. The bones resisted, and he easily dodged before loosing a second blast of winds, sharp and targeted, like knives made for each organ. One at her heart, one at her stomach, and two for her eyeballs.

Vivia barely flung up her arms to protect her eyes and heart. She twisted sideways to prevent a deadly blow to her belly. Still, the winds did damage, hitting her forearms, her side. Heat ignited. Blood and pain, briefly blinding in the intensity.

She screamed. Not because of the injuries but because she could not fight this Windwitch alone. She needed her sailors, now pounding against their wooden doors. She needed Yoris and his soldiers—anyone who might show up before this Windwitch drew in his winds for a third attack.