The eight of us sit around the dining room table, staring at Alexus.
He terrified me as a child, just the very idea of him—the Witch Collector. But ever since the early months after my collecting day, he’s never given me a single moment of fear. Nothing like what I’m experiencing right now. Right now, I’m not sure who I’m looking at. I suppose if I could imagine Alexus as Un Drallag, this might be that man.
The man my sister, a woman he sees as a foreigner and possible spy, is having to endure alone.
“What did you do to them?” Zahira asks calmly. She sits across from me, the pair of us flanking Alexus.
“I burst their hearts,” he says, face cold and hard as stone. There isn’t a single note of regret, guilt, or any emotion at all in his voice.
I don’t know why I do it, but beneath the table, I reach for Neri’s hand. He sits next to me, his hand resting on his thigh. I clasp it like a buoy keeping me from sinking, and his fingers close gently around mine.
“Can I ask how?” Zahira presses.
He shrugs, the barest movement of his shoulder. “Like I killed the Eastlanders who were in Frostwater Wood with Raina and me. And the guards who tried to capture me and Rhonin in the Merchant Quarter. I can pinpoint that power now.” He drags his hand through his dark, wet hair and leans his elbows on the table, his leather jacket creaking. “Fucking finally.”
“How did it happen?” I ask. “Was anyone else harmed?”
He shakes his head. “It took some time to find Eryx at the barracks because Gavril had him hidden under a cloaking spell. But when I did, I made certain others saw the spectacle, so they’d know what their end would look like if they continued to side with the East. As for Gavril, I cornered him in the mess hall. He fought me with every magickal trick in the book, but it only fueled my loathing. When I finished with them, I dragged the bastards through the city, even into Brear Hall and the White Wolf tavern, rain, mud, and all, so everyone would know they were dead. I harmed no one else. But now they know I will if I have to.”
“Why did you bring them here?” Keth’s irritation is evident in his voice. “You just told anyone who cares where we are.”
Alexus only glares. “Let them come. I’ll fucking finish them too. I woke up this morning and decided I wasn’t playing this godsdamn game another day. If Thamaos wants a foothold in the North, he will have to deal with me. He might’ve taken my memory of Raina, but I remember my old master well. I know how he thinks.”
“Then you know that if and when he’s able, he will retaliate,” Neri says. “You just made his job here much harder. You cut the head off his snake and plucked the eyes of his crow.”
“You’re fucking right, I did. Eryx was lucky he wasn’t hoisted in a gibbet at the harbor to slowly drown in the tides. And Gavril the Sorcerer almost had to endure being gutted by my bare hands. He knew what was coming, though, and he summoned Thamaos. His last words before I ruptured his heart were not even his own.”
“What were they?” Zahira says.
A certain quiet washes over him. “I’m coming for you, Un Drallag. You and the White Wolf, too.”
I squeeze Neri’s hand, then let go, a familiar ache swelling in my chest.
Unbearable dread.
His long thigh brushes mine, providing a different sort of contact, but still a comfort I lean into.
“At the tavern,” Neri says, “Eryx said he heard I’d be coming. I figured he’d been in communication with Thamaos through Gavril.”
“He has,” Alexus replies. “But that’s the last time he infiltrates this land. There’s an entire coast filled with Witch Walkers here. Their job has always been to secure this border from land, sea, and air attacks. They failed because the prince wormed his way in and weakened us. But that’s over now. Fuck the East. By the time I’m done rallying the Northland Watch, nothing will cross these shores, not even ghosts.”
“All right, then.” Zahira begins rolling her sleeves. “What’s the plan?”
Alexus points a long finger down the table. “Keth and Jaega, I need you to leave for the Mondulak Range tomorrow at dawn. You’ll have to do it together, but without me. Joran and Callan, you’re staying here, as am I. Rumors are already spreading about Neri and Thamaos’s return, so I’ll help Malgros deal with the news of war. But only until I find a way to reach Raina. If that happens, you two will need to continue my work here.” He turns to the women at his left. “Zahira and Yaz, I need to meet with the officials you know and trust first thing tomorrow morning. After that, you two should leave for the Drifts to see Castalan.”
He looks at me and glances down at my lips. I dart my tongue out, tasting what remains of the wound from Neri’s fang, and tuck that side of my lip under my teeth. Last night, he’d told me that my decisions were my own, that he wouldn’t say another word to me in this regard, but that I needed to understand that Neri never has been and never will be accepted at Winterhold, deal or no.He’s a beast, Nephele,he reminded me. As though I’m unaware. As though that doesn’t make matters even harder. As though Alexus wasn’t a beast once upon a time too.
Even in childhood stories around the fire, I was always intrigued by the big, bad wolf.
“You two need to sift north tonight,” he goes on, though I see the understanding in the hard lines of his face. “Stop at Hampstead Loch and warn everyone there, then get to Winterhold and send word to the Witch Walkers of the Iceland Plains, especially those along the coastline. We need a shield around the entirety of the Northland Break. And soon.”
My heart starts to race as I glance to my right and catch Neri’s golden gaze already on me. He needn’t say a word for me to read the worry written across his face.
He can’t take us anywhere. If we go north, it will be on horseback, which is too slow, considering the weather will only worsen with every mile we travel.
The only other option is for me to sift us.
Alexus stands and peers at the ceiling, water still dripping from his sodden clothes and drenched hair. “Sounds like there’s a break in the rain. I’m going out to mark the dead and burn the bodies.”
