Coral roars and lunges despite her injuries. The witch doesn't even look. She gestures with her free hand and invisible force slams into Coral. The wyvern hits the ground hard and doesn't move.
"No!" I choke out.
"She's alive," the witch assures me. "For now. Whether she stays that way depends entirely on you."
I claw at the hand on my throat.
"Give me the vampire," she says again.
I manage one word: "Never."
"I was hoping you'd say that," she says and her free hand begins tracing symbols in the air.
The runes glow and the air around them seems to rot. The smell makes my eyes water. It touches my skin and pain lances through me. It feels like she's unraveling me from the inside out, pulling apart the threads that hold me together.
I scream.
She smiles and traces another rune.
The pain doubles and my vision goes white. Every nerve is on fire. I can't breathe or do anything but scream.
"You can make this stop," she says over my screaming. "Return the vampire to me."
Return?
I see Coral lying broken in the rubble and the ruins of Aelfheim around us.
"No," I manage to say.
A shadow falls over us.
He's covered in blood, most of it not his. His monstrous form towers over us both. The witch's eyes widen in genuine fear forthe first time. She releases me. I crumple to the ground, still shaking from the pain.
"Well," the witch says, and for the first time there's uncertainty in her voice. "The husband arrives."
Svenn doesn't speak. The Wendigo form doesn't do words. It does violence.
He takes one step toward her and the witch scrambles back.
"Now, now," she says quickly, raising her hands in a placating gesture. "Let's not be hasty. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement—"
Svenn lunges.
She throws up a barrier of that wrong shadow-magic, but his claws tear through it like cobwebs. She stumbles back, real fear on her face now.
"You don't understand what you're dealing with," she tries. "I'm not some common rider you can—"
His claws rake across her barrier again and this time it shatters completely.
The witch's composure cracks. She starts speaking in an ancient fae language, her hands moving in complex patterns. Symbols appear in the air around her, different from the ones she used on me. Svenn doesn't care. He tears them apart like they're nothing.
But then the witch's fear transforms into something else. My heart drops at the calculation in her eyes.
"I see it now," she breathes, her eyes widening. "The hunger in you. The beast that wants to slip the leash."
She speaks words while her hands trace runes of decay.
Those aren't spells meant to harm,the Un whispers.
