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“Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret deep into the black cave. He knew that inside it, the Queen Crab resided, but that didn’t scare him away.”
“Said blind brother Daret to fool brother Filip, does Queen Crab no longer reign? I have heard she is vicious, and likes to eat fishes. It’s best we avoid her domain.”
“Answered fool Filip to his brother small, have I not always kept you safe? I know what I’m doing, for I’m older than you, and I’ll never lead you astray.”
She should never have listened to her father. She should have trusted her own instincts and used this food at Pin’s Keep.
It was her father who kept it from the people!
And she should have never, never gotten those thrice-damned weapons from the thrice-damned Marstoks and left Merik behind.
And she regrets Meriks death
He had hoped that he’d imagined the lines at dawn, when he’d applied the healer salve—that the streaks on his chest had been illusions of the light. But now … there was no ignoring the black lines that radiated from his heart like shattered glass.
Eridysi the Sightwitch who’d written the famous “Lament” centuries before.
Book sightwitch
I saw you die, Merik thought. Yet here Linday stood, a second dead man walking—and now speaking too, with almost giddy delight, “Arrest him, soldiers. Arrest the Fury.”
She was broken. She was useless. She was the pointless half of a friendship. The one who would live forever in shadows, no matter what she did. No matter whom she fought. Never had Iseult asked for anything. Not since learning as a little girl that rusted locks on a door were the best she could ever hope for.
The cold in his blood needed release, and the child trapped inside that tent needed help. That was all that mattered now.
Thw bloodwitch only gets super crazy killer when he needs to rescue babies
Good. The word tingled in Merik’s fingers as he snatched the officer’s cutlass free. This felt good. Vicious. Vengeful.
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.
His eyes fluttered opened, the pupils swallowing everything, and he said, voice ragged and raw, “Thank you … domna. Thank you.”
Name change! No more heretic
“So on they swam deeper, till darkness took hold and the only sound was click-click. Daret feared it the sound of her claws, but Filip assured him it wasn’t.”
“Then fool brother Filip swam faster ahead, forgetting his brother was blind. For fool brother Filip had heard tales of gold that Queen Crab hoarded inside.”
“Queen Crab avoids fishes, she only hoards riches— at least so Filip believed. He also believed that money bought love, and that riches could make him a king.”
“But this is the secret of Queen Crab’s long reign: she knows what all fishes want. The lure of the shiny, the power of more, the hunger we all feel for love.”
This was a trap. The baited line of Queen Crab, and he was indeed the fool brother. This wind he had been following belonged to the shadow man.
“That song isn’t Nubrevnan, you know.” The voice was so close. A claw to scrape down Merik’s spine. “The fool brothers are older than this city, their tale brought down through the mountains. Back when I had a different name. Back before I became the saint you call the Fury.”
Kullen smiled. A heartbreaking, familiar smile. “Hello, old friend,” he said. “Have you missed me?” Merik had just enough time to think, It can’t be, before the flood hit him.
KULLEN IS THE FURY!?
“I’m sorry,” he told her, even though he didn’t need to. She trusted him. Fool child. He couldn’t believe his father wanted her. Why, why—after everything, why?
Was this actually his sister before him? When Merik stared at her, he saw none of her swagger. None of her condescending strength or self-righteous Nihar temper. Merik saw, in fact, his mother.
Cleaving, Aeduan realized, and as that thought flickered through his mind, the Firewitch stilled. His eyes turned pure black. His fires snuffed out one by one around him. A figure in white coalesced behind the Firewitch. She walked stiffly, her hands extended and her eyes rolled back in her head. The salamander cloak’s fire-flap covered half her face. Ash coated her brow. Aeduan didn’t know how the Threadwitch was here. He didn’t know why either. He only knew he couldn’t look away. The Threadwitch walked, each step evenly spaced, to the Firewitch. He was a monster fully cleaved now, yet when
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Isuelt CLEAVED HER FIRSR MAM AND KILLED HIM TO SAVE AEDUAN
“Stop! Stop!” A figure hobbled toward her, hands flailing and robes flipping. Serrit Linday. Vivia stopped, shock staying her hand. Here was her culprit tucked somewhere in Nubrevna, here was where the jumbled mess from her spies would ultimately lead. Linday was the one working with the Baedyeds, the one working with the Nines—and he had tried to kill Merik. Vivia didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but she couldn’t deny what stood before her. Everything really did lead back to Serrit Linday.
Then finally Linday squeaked, “I did not want to betray Nubrevna. Ragnor promised me your throne.” His voice snapped off. He doubled over. Hacking.
“The dead cannot cleave, Princess. Not truly, for the dead … their Threads are already torn asunder. I simply scoop them up before they shrivel away.”
Including that Well your family had hidden all these ages ago.”
It is the lost well
When she was a child, Habim had told her that the Marstoks believed flame hawks to be spirits of life. Of birth. To meet a flame hawk—and to survive—was to be given a second chance. A new beginning. A clean break.
Owl. The mountain bat was bound to Owl.
He wiped his face on his shoulder, then offered Iseult his hand. She clasped it tight, her fingers lacing between his. Together they ran.
At that moment, Aeduan yanked the sack off Owl’s head. And her Threads lanced out, explosive in a way Iseult had never seen before. The earth rumbled. The mountain bat screamed, Threads of Earthwitch power laced over everything.
Owl is a powerful earth witch
Iseult nodded, as if this plan suited her. For some reason, the movement bothered him. Her easy acceptance made his lungs stretch tight.
Which left Aeduan, as always, on the edge of a scene, watching while the world unfolded without him beneath a darkening sky.
“Let’s just say…” He chewed his lip for a moment. “Let’s just say that we Hell-Bards were once heretics too. Just like you.” Here he paused to set aside the bloodied linen and grasp the needle once more. “Our magics were taken away from us, Domna, as punishment. Now we serve the man who took them from us. To remove the noose is to die.”
“Though we are safe with our friends near, we are safest with our enemies nearer.”
Merik lived. He had said he would leave the city though. That he and his two friends—the girl Cam and another who’d just arrived named Ryber—would head north into the Sirmayans.
With his scars healing, his hair growing back, and his true face now peeking through the dark, lacy shadows, Merik couldn’t risk being seen.
“Blind brother Daret, with senses so keen, smelled danger lurking ahead. So he called to the Queen, I am bigger than he! Release him and eat me instead! “Her maw then swept open, and Filip raced out, to where Daret waited nearby. Then fin-in-fin the two brothers fled, leaving Queen Crab far behind. “Said fool brother Filip to blind brother Daret, once they were free of the cave, I was wrong to leave you and hurry ahead. My brother, my friend, you are brave! “So forgive me, dear Daret, for now I can see that I was the one who was blind. I do not need riches nor gold nor a crown, as long as I’ve
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Merik was the fool brother. He had been all along—it was so clear now. He’d wanted something that wasn’t real, something he could never have, and he’d wanted it for all the wrong reasons.
Ryber had told Merik she knew how to heal him. How to stop this strange, half-cleaving that had taken hold. She’d said the answer waited in the Sirmayans,
But this is the secret of Queen Crab’s long reign: she knows what all fishes want. The lure of the shiny, the power of more, the hunger we all feel for love.
Then Merik Nihar set off, content with no riches, no gold, and no crown, as long as he had friends by his side.
