Then her eyes bulged. Her shoulders heaved.
The tip of a blade appeared through her chest.
She shuddered, lips opening in a silent scream. And she was gone, disappearing in a whirl of glittering shadows.
In her place stood a pale-faced Dess, his sword dripping with black blood.
“Oh my god,” Thia breathed, sinking to her knees. “Oh my god.”
Dess dropped down in front of her, sword clattering to the ground as he gripped her shoulders. “Are you alright?”
She pressed a hand to the two pricks on her neck. “We’re alive. We’re actually alive. You killed her. Oh my god, you killed the witch.”
“Thia,” Dess said hesitantly, eyes cast downward. “She’s not dead.”
Thia heard the words, but she couldn’t process them. Her ears were too full of the sounds of her breath, the ground beneath her rolling like waves. She was nearly Unfleshed. All it had taken was the touch of fangs, and she’d become helpless. She might have been—how had Archer described it? Bound to the witch’s will, lost to herself. More than she already was, here in Eldris.
“The only way to kill a witch is to cut off its head,” the boy was saying.
Thia tried to focus, digging her nails into her thighs. “What?”
“I couldn’t reach her head,” Dess said, ears burning. “I—stumbled. It was so careless; all I could think about was getting to you and I tripped on a rock and my sword pierced her chest by mistake.”
He hadn’t killed her.
A laugh bubbled from Thia’s lips. Then another, followed by a chest-heaving bellow that embraced the absurdity of it all. She laughed at Eldris, this land that should by no means exist, and yet had somehow destroyed her family and the semblance of her life that remained. She laughed at Dess for tripping over a rock. At herself for falling through a fuckingmirror.She laughed until she couldn’t breathe, and then she collapsed.
Dess stared at her, the tentative reach of his hand failing to hide his mix of fear and concern. “We should go,” he said slowly, like he thought he might startle her.
She allowed him to help her to her feet. “Where are the others?”
“Here,” Oskaren said, approaching behind them. She was limping heavily. Whatever that storm had been had taken a chunk out of her thigh. It wasn’t bleeding, thankfully. The magic appeared to have cauterized the wound, but the area beyond the burnt edges was gray and oozing.
Dess’s face wanned, but he quickly schooled his features into indifference when Oskaren noted it.
“Worried, brother? And I thought you didn’t care.” The injury must have been bad, as her voice wavered.
Dess’s jaw ticked. “I don’t.” But Thia saw the slight shake of his hands before he clenched them into fists.
“Where’s Thran?” Thia asked, scanning the grass.
Oskaren shook her head. “No idea.”
“Do you think Xercae got him?” Dess asked.
“There would be a corpse then, wouldn’t there?” Oskaren’s tone was cool.
Corpse.The word danced through Thia’s mind like a strange, little song. Thran was okay because they couldn’t see acorpse.
She forced a breath, to get herself under control. “Mavrel?”
A pitiful coo sounded from somewhere in the grass. Thia hastened toward it, stumbling.
Mavrel lay at a strange angle, his wing smoking. Witch’s fire. He fluttered at her approach, and, when she touched him, startled into the air. “Hey,” Thia coaxed. “It’s okay.” She offered an arm. The falcon hovered above, flapping his wings quicker than normal. Thia held as still as she could, and after another moment, Mavrel reluctantly settled onto her forearm.
Then she rose and joined the others in scouring the landscape for Thran. The city was still hours away, as was their shelter from the night before. The only spots of difference in the rolling fields were the distant silhouettes of livestock and a copse of trees to their left.
“There,” Thia said, pointing to the trees. “He’s got to be.”
