The speaker was coming for them.
Semras ran to Estevan. Gaze anchored to the floor, he didn’t move from his sitting position, nor did he make any sign to acknowledge her arrival. Kneeling by his side, she looked him over worriedly, trying to take in the extent of his wounds. Her fleeting fingers ran across his body.
The roots had retreated beneath the cracks of the ragged black stones whence they came, but their marks remained painfully visible on Estevan’s skin. Ripped clothes hung on his frame and revealed red welts where the roots had cruelly seized him. No bones seemed broken, at least, but perhaps the inquisitor was still too shocked to show any sign of it.
Semras seethed silently. He was in no state to move quickly, but they needed to leave.Now.
Standing silently a few steps away, the warwitches were studying them with sharp eyes. Their stitched mouths and the ribs protruding from their malnourished bodies had once evoked both fear and pity in her. Now, as she helped Estevan onto his feet, her glare held only cold hatred for them.
The warwitches cared not, their emotions long since numbed from years of voluntary privation. They stared at them until their prey stood vacillating on his feet, then vanished back into the shadows of the great hall.
At the corner of Semras’ vision, the Voice approached the staircase’s landing.
“Estevan,” she whispered, “we must—”
Madra stepped in front of them. “He was mine to take. I asked the Elders first,” she said, arms crossed over her golden necklaces.
“I don’t have time to chat, Madra. I brought him here, and he’s my responsibility. End of discussion,” Semras said, slipping her arm around Estevan to help him stand.
Her touch sent the inquisitor stumbling back. She let him push her away, worried she had caused him pain. Perhaps he truly had broken bones, but she had no time to check—the Voice of the Elders was coming.
Semras glanced at the staircase. The speaker hadn’t progressed further than the landing. Head held straight, fingers laced together, she was patiently waiting for the witches to be done talking. The irony of Madra’s presence buying them time wasn’t lost on Semras, but as small as it was, she’d take that blessing.
Skin sickly pale, Estevan was rubbing his hand over his heart. Laboured breaths came out of him in shudders. He needed time, and she’d give him as much as she dared to.
Madra scoffed. “Maybe you should have kept an eye on him then, instead of turning us both into a spectacle. I assumed he was alone.”
“And you thought what? That you could choose him like some cattle at a market?” Semras stepped up to the fleshwitch, shielding Estevan behind her. Her nostrils flared with barely restrained anger. “You really had a man tortured because you wanted him that much? You’re disgusting, Madra.”
“No, I do not! News has visibly not reached your little corner of the world, Semras, but another purge is coming. If it’s not now, it’ll be in another thirty years, but itwillcome. And we won’t be able to weather that storm with our dwindling numbers and weakening powers. Look around you, Woodwitch!” Madra swept her hand over the dispersing crowd.
Witches were leaving the chamber in waves. Some glanced back at them, laughing shyly behind their hands. Others shooktheir heads, their lips lifted into half-smiles. The atmosphere was eerily light.
A sudden sense of estrangement hit Semras. A man had been tortured, her life as she knew it had just changed, and they were all just … leaving.
It was not the first time that Semras felt left behind—but it was the first time she wanted them to.
“Do you see how few daughters are born each year?” Madra continued, oblivious to her train of thoughts. “I do! I’m the fleshwitch who assists births, and I’m the fleshwitch worried mothers go to when their daughters do not see the Arras as early as they did themselves. And that’s if they even see it at all!” She paused to compose herself, slicking strands of hair away from her face. “The potency of our blood is diluted with each generation. We are a dying breed, Semras, so forgive me when I saw the opportunity to mix our blood with diabalhists in the hope it’d sire us powerful witches again.”
“Lots ofsiringhe’d do in the state you put him through,” Semras replied, seething.
“I would have easily taken care of his wounds. I’m a skilled fleshwitch—unlike you,Woodwitch.”
“More like a bleakwitch in the making.” Semras bared her teeth in a smile. “Do the honourable thing, Madra, and go stitch your mouth if you want to indulge in your perversions publicly.”
Movements near the staircase caught her attention. The Voice of the Elders was on the move again.
Madra snarled, creasing her face into an ugly scowl. “How dare you! You think I do this for fun? You think you can do better than me? I don’t care if it’s you or me who takes him. We need new daughters of the Night, Semras, so take your prize and—”
“Get out of my way, Madra, before I carve it through you.”
If the fleshwitch was looking for a fight, she wouldn’t like the result. Semras had rage and pain and guilt to excise out ofher like a purulent wound. Violence would purge it all out very nicely.
Madra scoffed and looked away. Lips pursed, Semras grabbed Estevan’s wrist, then shoved past the fleshwitch. His sweat-drenched skin almost slipped out of her weak grip, and she clenched it tighter. Beneath the leather glove, her maimed fingers flared up with pain.
There was no time anymore to find a fleshwitch to heal them.
Just one more precious thing she had to sacrifice on the altar of Estevan’s survival.
