Windwitch
Page 2Merik knew that feeling well, for it was fury that fueled him ever onward. Even as pain cut through his body and blisterings on his chest were scraped open by homespun.
Others in the area picked up the chant. Free us and feed us! No crime in being hungry! Merik found his steps settling into a quick clip to match the rhythm of that cry. So few people in the Witchlands had magic, much less magic of any real use. They survived by the whim of nature—or the whim of witches—and their own unrelenting grit.
Merik reached the gallows at the oak’s fat trunk. Six ropes dangled from a middle branch, limp coils in the midmorning heat. Yet as Merik tried to skirt the empty stage, he caught sight of a tall figure, pale-headed and hulkingly framed.
Kullen. The name grazed across Merik’s heart, sucking the air from his lungs before his brain could catch up and say, No, not Kullen. Never Kullen.
For Kullen had cleaved in Lejna two weeks ago. He had died in Lejna two weeks ago. He would never be coming back.
Without thinking, Merik’s fists shot out. He punched the gallows stage, pain bursting in his knuckles—at once grounding. At once real.
Again he punched. Harder this time, wondering why his insides spun. He had paid his dues to Kullen’s ghost. He had bought that shrine on the hillside, using the one remaining gold button from his admiral’s coat, and he’d prayed for the Hagfishes to give Kullen quick passage beyond the final shelf.
After that, it was supposed to stop hurting. This was supposed to stop hurting.
Curse his mind for going to her, though. Merik had done so well at avoiding memories of Safi since the explosion. Since his old world had ended and this new one had begun. Not because he didn’t want to think about her. Noden save him, but that last moment he’d shared with her …
No, no—Merik would not dwell. There was no point in remembering the taste of Safi’s skin against his lips, not when his lips were now broken. Not when his entire body was ruined and wretched to behold.
Besides, dead men weren’t supposed to care.
On he charged through filth and body odor. A tide that fought back. A storm with no eye. Each smack of limbs against Merik’s shoulders or hands sent pain scuttling through him.
He reached the irons. Fifty prisoners waited here, shackled to the stones and crispy from the sun. A fence surrounded them, indifferent to the people pressing in from the outside.
They begged the guards to give their sons water. Their wives shade. Their fathers release. Yet the two soldiers who waited at the fence’s gate—inside, to keep from being trampled—showed no more interest in the hungry of Lovats than they did the prisoners they were meant to guard.
In fact, so bored were these two soldiers that they played taro to while away the time. One wore an iris-blue strip of cloth at his biceps, a mourning band to show respect for his dead prince. The other kept the band draped across a knee.
Vivia had seen to that.
Thank Noden, Merik soon arrived at the hut, for he could keep his winds and temper contained for only so long—and the fuse was almost burned up.
The crowds spat him out before orange walls streaked in bird shit, and Merik cut toward a door on the south side. Always locked, but not impenetrable.
“Open up!” Merik bellowed. He knocked once at the door—a mistake. The newly splintered skin on his knuckles sloughed off. “I know you’re in there!”
No response. At least none that Merik could hear, but that was all right. He let the heat in his body grow. Strengthen. Gust.
Then he knocked again, feeling the wind curl around him as he did so. “Hurry! It’s madness out here!”
The latch jiggled. The door creaked back … And Merik shoved in. With fists, with force, with wind.
It had been too long since Merik had let his winds unfurl and his magic stretch wide. Fire built in his belly, a rage that blustered and blew. That had kept his stomach full when food had not. Air billowed around him, sweeping in and out in time to his breaths.
The soldier—middle-aged, sallow-skinned—stayed on the ground with his hands to protect his face. Clearly, he’d decided surrender was his safest option.
Too bad. Merik would’ve loved a fight. Instead, he forced his eyes to scour the room. He used his winds too, coaxing them outward. Letting the vibrations on the air tell him where other bodies might wait. Where other breaths might curl. Yet no one hid in the dark corners, and the door into the main prison remained firmly shut.
So at last, with careful control, Merik returned his attention to the soldier. His magic softened, dropping papers to the floor before he eased off his hood, fighting the pain that skittered down his scalp.