Windwitch (The Witchlands, #2)

by Susan Dennard

There were advantages to being a dead man. Merik Nihar, prince of Nubrevna and former admiral to the Nubrevnan navy, wished he’d considered dying a long time ago. He got so much more done as a corpse.

But no one had pity or mercy to spare these days. Not even Merik Nihar.

In fact, the instant the man lowered his hands, he shrank back. “What are you?” “Angry.”

With Iseult, Safi was brave. She was strong. She was fearless.

For Safi, that title made perfect sense. She was sunshine and simplicity. Of course she would be the Light-Bringer half of the Cahr Awen. But Iseult was not the opposite of Safi. She wasn’t starshine or complexity. She wasn’t anything at all.

No more tiptoeing around a room because women oughtn’t to run. To shout. To rule. And above all: no more blighted regrets.

For although the holiest might fall—and Merik had fallen far, indeed—they could also claw their way back up again.

Iron was not meant to weep.

Iron might weep, but it did not break.

“Oh, I know!” Safi clapped her hands, delighted by her own genius. “I shall call you Un-empressed.” “Please,” Vaness said coldly, “stop this immediately.” Safi absolutely did not.

Long before she’d ever met Iseult, Safi’s teachers had hammered into her that she was strong, that she could fight and defend, and that no one should ever be able to back her into a corner. Safi was a wolf in a world of rabbits.

A man is not his mind. A man is not his body. They are merely tools so that a man may fight onward.

It was too close—the sort of close that Vivia avoided, for though Stix would never ponder this moment again, Vivia would endlessly ruminate, evaluate, and yearn unrequited.

Safi wasn’t the sort of person who died. She was the sort who bent the world to her will.

Why do you hold a razor in one hand? “So men remember,” Merik whispered to the stones, “that I am sharp as any edge.” And why do you hold broken glass in the other? “So men remember that I am always watching.”

“Do I look like I care about plums?” She did care about plums, but there was protocol to follow for these sorts of conversations.

I know what I’m doing, for I’m older than you, and I’ll never lead you astray.”

“Whatever has happened between us,” she said evenly, “whatever events have passed to lead us here, they cannot be undone. And now I owe you my life. Twice.”

Dead grass is awakened by fire, dead earth is awakened by rain. One life will give way to another, the cycle will begin again.

Light, smoke, flame—these were his elements. His friends. He’d been born from them, a creature of half flesh, half shadows. And to these elements he would return.

The water was a mother to Vivia, a tyrant to anyone else.

There were disadvantages to being a dead man. Merik Nihar, prince of Nubrevna and former admiral to the Nubrevnan navy, wished he’d considered living a long time ago.

I do not need riches nor gold nor a crown, as long as I’ve you by my side.