Windwitch (The Witchlands, #2)

by Susan Dennard

that pretty people should not be allowed to lecture. Nothing negated beauty faster than boredom.

Um what the actual fuck

Vaness was, according to scholars, the youngest, most powerful empress in all of the Witchlands history. She was also, according to legend, the strongest, most vicious Ironwitch who had ever lived, having felled an entire mountain when she was only seven years old. And, of course, according to Safi, Vaness was the most beautiful, most elegant woman who had ever graced the world with her presence.

Character introduction

because Safi’s life wasn’t complicated enough already, she’d discovered that she and her Threadsister Iseult might be the mythical Cahr Awen, whose duty it was to heal magic across the Witchlands.

Backstory from book 1

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

“Look out!” Safi tried to grab for the empress, tried to yank them both down for cover. But she was too slow. The sailor had pulled the trigger on his pistol.

Why was he going to kill Vaness?

Its dark thirst could not be slaked. Wind could not snuff it out. Water only fanned its resinous flames all the higher.

Very descriptive!

And she thought of the Puppeteer, who tried endlessly to invade Iseult’s dreams. A Weaverwitch, she called herself, all while insisting Iseult was just like her. But the Puppeteer cleaved people and controlled their Threads. Iseult could—would—never do that.

Mostly, Iseult thought about death. Her own. After all, she had only a single cutlass and she traveled toward a future that might not exist.

Though we cannot always see the blessing in the loss. Strength is the gift of our Lady Baile and she will never abandon us.

Why do you hold a razor in one hand? So men remember 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.

Sitting still is a quick path to madness.

Six of the vizers saluted at her as she stalked by; seven did not.

For even if the High Council finally handed over the title she was born to, they could always snatch it back—just as they had done to her mother in those final days thirteen years ago.

Even though he was only a few months older than Vivia’s twenty-three years, he wore old-fashioned robes.

Vivia is awfully bitter for 23. I thought she was much older! Yikes.

Noblemen. Every single one of them male. It shouldn’t have been that way, of course. The Lindays, Quintays, Sotars, and Eltars all had female heirs … who conveniently never wanted to leave their lands. Oh, but can’t our brothers/husbands/sons go instead?

Lovats simple cannot support any more people.”

Simply.* DAMN GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. This is a published book!

Quihar, “the more people we allow in, the more likely we are to let enemies into our midst. Until we know who killed the prince, we must close the Sentries and keep newcomers out.”

Merik had been everyone’s favorite. He’d had the Nihar rage, and he’d had the good sense to be born a man. Easy, easy—that was how Merik’s life had always been. No resistance. Whatever he’d wanted, he’d gotten. Even his death had been easy.

Now that Vivia considered it—really considered it—castration was much too good for Linday. He deserved to be drawn, quartered, eviscerated, and then burned until none of his rotten core remained.

Well that escalated quickly.

Vivia Nihar was a Tidewitch, and a blighted powerful one at that. She could drown them all with a thought, so let Serrit Linday and the rest of the High Council try to cross her again.

The Bloodwitch named Aeduan hated Purists. Not as much as he hated the Marstoks, nor as much as he hated the Cartorrans, but almost as much. It was their certainty that angered him. Their condescending, unwavering certainty that anyone with magic should burn in hell-fire.

the Purists were always men.

Why?

“What I need, boy, is for you to find a Nomatsi Threadwitch. Last I heard, she was in a town called Lejna on the Nubrevnan coast.” Something dark and vile tickled over Aeduan’s skull. “Her name?” “Iseult det Midenzi.”

“You are unholy, yes, but you are also the king’s son—and just as you need something, I need something. I will tell the king your money arrived as planned, and in return, you will hunt down this young woman.”

Cam didn’t ask for more. She never asked for more. She trusted her former admiral, former prince, even when Merik so clearly lacked any real plan. Any real clue.

And it reminded him that he could be truly dead. That he owed every of inch of his still living skin to Noden’s beneficence and Cam’s prophetic gut.

Cam’s gut was the sole reason Merik still lived, and that mysterious organ had saved their skins at least six times on the journey to Lovats.

Ryber. Merik’s chest tightened at that name—at the beautiful black face it conjured. She had vanished after Kullen’s death, leaving Merik with nothing but a note. While it was true that Merik had never grown close to her, never quite understood what she and Kullen shared, he would’ve welcomed having Ryber with him now. At least then one other person might understand what he was feeling.

He aimed for the dining area. Toward the books atop the table and chairs.

Why isn't this a single sentence??

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.

So Merik embraced the rage. He let it course through each of his breaths. Each of his thoughts. He could use the anger to help his hungry city. To protect his dying people.

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

She stepped lightly to the lake’s edge. Green light splayed across the surface, dancing in time to the water’s flow. Flickering with the occasional fish or shell creature.

Awkward sentence structure

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.

There’s no predicting what might come, and money is a language all men speak.

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.

All she could do was absorb the Chiseled Cheater’s face and try to assemble the pieces of a story she didn’t understand. Perhaps if she’d had a chance at actual escape, she would have tried. Perhaps if she’d seen a way to wrestle Vaness from Zander’s grasp and that cursed collar, Safi would have tried that too. But that wasn’t the terrain before her, and she had too many questions churning to life like a stirred-up wasps’ nest.

Bitch, seriously??

The next time Lady Fate offered up an opportunity, Safi would be ready.

I like how she assumes she'll get another opportunity…

Yet only in death, could they understand life. And only in life, will they change the world.

Iseult hadn’t expected him to. Never had she longed for Threads more, though. The world was so empty, so colorless without humans nearby, and weeks had passed with only distant plaits to brush against her. Now, when she was finally faced with a human again, he was colorless. Threadless. Blank.

“There are degrees of freedom. Complete freedom isn’t always good, nor is the lack of it always bad.”

The holiest always have the farthest to fall.

“Goddess above, it’s right there in the phrase, isn’t it? ‘Dumb luck.’ Choose the stupidest option, and Lady Fate will reward you.

“Vivia,” he forced out, “is the one who tried to kill us.” “No,” Cam snarled. “She ain’t. Look at me, sir.”

“I want you to see the truth! I want you to face it, sir. I ain’t blind, you know—I’ve seen the marks on your chest, and on your arms! Just like the dead man in the cellar. We need answers, sir, and I think I know where—” “And I ain’t blind either, Cam.” Merik finally turned toward her. “I can see blighted well that you’re a girl.”

“Is that what you think I am? All this time, and you still haven’t sorted it out?” Then she barked a hollow laugh. “Why am I surprised? You didn’t notice me when we were on the Jana. You couldn’t even remember my name back then, so why should I expect you to understand—to see me for what I am now!”

“That is how I control them. I sever all their Threads save one, then I bind that final Thread to the Loom. But that is complicated. A technique I will teach you another night. For now, all you need to know is how to kill them.”

There are degrees of everything, Caden had said the day before, which doesn’t fit well into your true-or-false view of the world.