Windwitch (The Witchlands, #2)

by Susan Dennard

Merik sank into the hood of his tan cloak. True, his face was scarcely recognizable thanks to the burns, and his hair was only just beginning to grow back,

Oh my God that was not a dream.

For Kullen had cleaved in Lejna two weeks ago. He had died in Lejna two weeks ago. He would never be coming back.

The truth was, though, that she was stuck. On a ship. In the middle of nowhere. With only the Empress of Insipid for company.

She felt only a growing emptiness. A gathering dark. For this was her life now. Not boredom and lectures, but hell-flames and assassins. Massacres and endless flight.

Bald, scarred, and hulking, the saint of all things broken bore only the name of his true nature. His one calling. He brought justice to the wronged and punishment to the wicked,

This is what the author is paralleling Meril to

Merik wrested it from her grip. Hunger, he had learned, beat morality every time.

Will she become her mother, the vizers all wondered, the queen by blood but with madness in her head? Or will she become her father, the Nihar vizer who now rules as regent and for whom command comes as easily as breath?

Honestly, probably her mother...

It was their certainty that angered him. Their condescending, unwavering certainty that anyone with magic should burn in hell-fire.

Purists feel this way...

Merik was the fish from the fable, lured into the cave after Queen Crab’s gold, and Cam was the blind brother who followed happily. Foolishly. Right into the clacking maw.

The paladins we locked away will one day walk among us. Vengeance will be theirs, in a fury unchecked, for their power was never ours to claim. Yet only in death, could they understand life. And only in life, will they change the world.

Forshadowing?

And all these years, Merik had tamped down the anger in an attempt to be as unlike Vivia as he could be, yet where had it gotten him?

But she doesn't have the anger... But she doesn't want too be like her mother... Which perception is right?

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

Vivia had left the Battle Room to find chaos.

Not to mention this new beast of a man who had freed the prisoners in the first place.

VIVA STILL FIGHTS WITH MERRIK 😂😂

It was a sign that our people were too weak to keep fighting, Jana had explained. And it was a sign that the royal family was too weak to keep protecting.

The under-city is as big as Lovats above, my Little Fox. Powerful witches, the likes of which we no longer have today, built it centuries ago as a hiding place to keep our people alive.

I ended the Truce by claiming you in Nubrevna. I brought this upon myself.

And, of course, craft a new name for the empress. “Iron,” she suggested as they resumed their trek west, following the sun toward Saldonica. “Steel? Oh, Iron-y.” That made her chuckle. Not Vaness, though, who now glared. “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.

If a man is better armed or better trained, Habim had taught, then do as he orders. It is better to live and look for opportunity than to die outmatched.

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

That the sight of their mother’s body, smashed from the force of her jump off the water-bridge, had simply driven Vivia to thoughtless cruelties.

But Merik had known the truth then—and he knew it now too. Vivia had always blamed Merik for their mother’s melancholy. With each new instance of Jana hiding in bed for days on end, of Jana bringing a knife to her own wrists, of Jana locking out her children for weeks at a time, Vivia had turned colder. And colder. For in her mind, their mother had descended into darkness only after Merik had been born.

“We’ve also had no word from our spies,” Stix said, words even and businesslike. “Whoever was behind the prince’s assassination, it does not appear to be one of the—”

So it wasnt the princess Viva, or the closest to her doesnt know.

The Fury never forgets, Merik. Whatever you have done will come back to you tenfold, and it will haunt you until you make amends.

It was time to make amends. Time to bring justice to the wronged. Time to bring punishment to the wicked.

Heretic. It was the word for an unregistered witch in the Empire of Cartorra. It was the word for fugitives of the law. And it was what the Hell-Bards were sworn to recognize and to eliminate. They could sense hidden witcheries. They could hunt hidden witches.

None of the Hell-Bards registered with her witchery. How, she wanted to know, was such a thing possible?

Serafin

This is Viva and Marreks father, the king

This was a moment of triumph that she’d waited years to receive—he had just named her admiral—yet still, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to listen.

She is so cold and calculating...

“Food is coming,” Serafin interrupted. “Thanks to our Foxes. We’ve accumulated a sizable supply beneath the palace, and those stores will keep us secure through this war. That treaty with the Cartorrans will help too, thanks to your brother using his brain.”

So he is all for the piracy too...

Serafin anticipated a specific answer, and he was waiting for Vivia to fail in giving it. She wet her lips, puffing out her chest as she carefully offered, “We are still in discussions with the Marstoki Sultanate, Your Majesty, but I will inform you the instant an agreement is made—” “Oh?” With a creaking lurch, he snatched a paper off his bed that had, thus far, been hidden in shadows. “Then why did I learn this morning that you canceled negotiations with them?”

OH SHIT VIVIA!!! YOU CANCELLED NEGOTIATIONS YOU BITCH

And of course, now with the empress possibly dead, I am certain they would have ended negotiations themselves!” “But you could not have known the empress would die. Unless…” Some of Serafin’s frost melted. Some of his humor returned. “There is more to her death than I realize.” Vivia’s responding laughter was far too pinched. He slouched against the headboard. “I told you, I only worry for your sake. I know you are strong, but the Council does not.” As the king devolved into more stories of his own prowess, Vivia tried to calm her heart. Tried to pretend she was listening, but the truth was that her hands trembled. She had to sit on them to hide it.

OH SHIT DID SHE KILL THE EMPRESS TOO!?!?

A lone bench stood several paces from the pond, and that was where Vivia strode now—for it was there that Jana had always sat. Vivia eased onto the bench, just as her mother used to do. Then she stared, just as her mother used to stare, at a cluster of bearded irises.

She really idwntifies more with her mother who was crazy...

Yet only in death, could they understand life. And only in life, will they change the world. Then Jana would recite it again. And again, until anyone who was near her was driven just as mad as she.

Vivia might be like her mother in some ways, but she was not that. She was stronger than Jana. She could fight this darkness inside her. At that thought, Viva sprang off the bench and charged for the archway. There was nothing of value in this garden other than the trapdoor. Only madness and shadows lived here. Only memories and lament.

So she does have a daekness inside of her. She could have done it all...

Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret, deep into the black cave.

What Merik couldn’t figure out, though, was if he was fool brother Filip or blind brother Daret. Then he forgot all about it, for Cam was abruptly sidling left. In seconds, she’d disappeared down a shadowy alley, leaving Merik to scramble after. The stormy evening light vanished; his vision daubed with shadows.

He would be the blind one according to this

DARKNESS IS NOT ALWAYS FOE, FIND THE ENTRANCE DOWN BELOW.

Twice a week Queen Jana had come here, and twice a week Merik and Vivia had dutifully followed. Until, of course, the day that Merik’s father had learned Merik’s magic wasn’t as strong as Vivia’s. Until, of course, the day that Serafin had sent Merik to live with his outcast aunt in the south.

Acquired Y19D173 from Judgment Square. Traded to Serrit Linday for farm labor, in exchange for food. “Traded,” Merik mouthed. “To Serrit Linday.” He blinked. Read the name a second time. But no—it definitely still said Serrit Linday.

LINDAY?!

They suggested a Nubrevna far worse than Merik had realized.

“The Fury,” she breathed, and instantly the fog froze to snow. A flurry to drift harmlessly down around them. “You’re … real.” A new cold—one from within—struck Merik in the chest. He was that broken. That unrecognizable.

He hadn’t smelled her coming. He couldn’t smell her coming, so his body had reacted to a threat. He’d have to get better at that. At least as long as she remained near him.

Awe he cares

ever since he had embraced the name Fury—his winds had come without protest, his temper had stayed calm. Easy.

had read about the practice in her book on the Carawen Monastery. The silence and the stillness allowed a monk to separate his mind from his body. Iseult had tried it once, but with absolutely no success. She already fought so hard to separate herself from her emotions—if she got rid of her thoughts too, what would be left?

each Well had six trees around it, and here instead were six stretches of burning foxfire. Each Well was also a source of magic, and Vivia couldn’t deny the immense power thrumming through these waters.

There was, after all, one Well not accounted for. One well for an element no one believed existed. The Void Well.

That was the ultimate power of the Origin Well. The power to cure any ailment.

Rope bridges were slung between buildings, and as often as Safi saw laundry dangling from a crooked window she saw corpses hanging as well. Some were bloated, fresh; others were decomposed all the way to gleaming skull. This was what complete freedom allowed. This was what men did in the absence of rules or an imperial yoke. Cartorra has its flaws, Heretic, but it also has safety. Food too, as well as wealth, roads, education. I could keep going, for the list is long.

And all of it here, where it could do no one any good. This food should be feeding Pin’s Keep or the homeless in the Cisterns—or, hell-waters, the people of Nihar would take it. Instead, though, it sat here and served no one. Except, perhaps, Vivia.

Merik is playing the role of the fury now, acting like him.