Against her chest, her heart thundered loudly. Her eyelids fluttered, fighting to open up or stay closed—she couldn’t tell anymore. Shivers of panic shook her every limb.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t. Shecouldn’t—
Warm arms embraced her from behind. The smell of musk and wood essence filled her nose as a chin came to rest on top of her head. It kept her firmly grounded in the present.
“It will be over soon, Semras,” Estevan whispered. “It will be over soon, and then you will have your hands back as they once were. You will see.”
“… You’re lying, Estevan,” she breathed. Her eyelids settled down, staying firmly shut as she leaned against him.
Burying his face into the crook of her neck, Estevan held her more tightly. “I am not. I cannot be lying—I cannot.” He breathed deeply. “I am sorry, Semras. I am so sorry for everything I did to you. I am so, so—”
The world became agony.
Something was ripping the veins of her hands, peeling them off and unravelling them into threads of blood and flesh andtorment.
Her eyes flew wide open—only to meet the palm of a hand. Estevan was shielding her vision from whatever the warwitch was doing. Words spoken in his deep voice roamed all around her, but she couldn’t hear them. Someone was screaming too loudly.
Was it her?
Her throat hurt. Her hands hurt. Skin once shielded them from air and now didn’t anymore. Or perhaps it was still there, coated in a layer of anguish so thick Semras couldn’t feel her own skin anymore.
She wished she couldn’t feel anything anymore. Pain blinded her eyes, plunging her deeply into the Night only to heighten her other senses. Living felt unbearable. Bones, ligaments, blood, skin, nails—every single aspect of her burned, and burned, and burned, and—
And then, Semras felt it. Something was lurking between them all, something nearly impossible to perceive yet pervading her hands entirely. The Night? Or was it the shards of cold iron? Before her agony-addled mind could understand it, something else yanked on it. It resisted the pull; it dug its claws into her warp shape. Then, all at once, something snapped and let go.
Clarity flooded her mind.
“It’s over,” Leyevna said. The matriarch’s voice sounded fresh, pure, like spring water rolling down the smooth rocks of a brook.
Estevan moved his hand away, and Semras blinked her tears away.
She was still inside his mother’s home. Seconds ago, she had felt so far away, so deeply entrenched in the blackest Night, and now … now it was all gone, and she was back, safe and sound.
Looking down at her hands, Semras found them almost pristine. Only the shadows of bruises lingered on her skin in blotches of fading yellows—the sole traces of the torment the witch-shackles had inflicted on her.
Leyevna had barely stepped back when Estevan took her place to kneel in front of her. “How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
“I’m … I’m fine. I’m feeling … a bit dizzy, but fine. Quite fine, actually,” she replied in an amazed tone. “And my hands …” Her questioning gaze darted to the warwitch.
“Try, then we’ll see,” the matriarch said, rubbing the ache of weaving off her fingers.
Semras lifted her trembling hands, contemplated them, and then …
Then she wove.
Chapter 34
Itbeganwithalmostnothing.
Just a little weave of heat and warmth to revive the dying flames of the fireplace. They lit up the coals in mere seconds, and tongues of orange flames licked high inside the chimney. A simple task, but one she did effortlessly, just as she used to.
Hope slowly swelling in her chest, Semras wove the sweat and dirt off of her and then made the wall’s framed butterflies flap their wings delicately under the guidance of her fingers. These weaves were much more complex, yet her fingers deftly wove them.
Her face broke into a childish, excited smile. Semras glanced around, looking for more things she could weave to prove to herself all this was real. That her hands were truly restored.
“Thank the Radiant Lord,” Estevan murmured, crashing down onto his seat. “Oh, thank you …”
Lifting the corner of her lips in an oddly familiar smirk, Leyevna gazed at him with amusement. “Thank your mother, you ungrateful child.”
