It took four Hands to pin her down, and still she fought back, screaming around her gag as they bound her. Black ink stamped her limbs, depicting whirling krakens and three-finned sea dragons. She was Oori, a seafaring coven that spent their lives navigating between the temperate Broken Sea and the harsher waters of the Trija Ocean cradling Witchik’s eastern shores.

Beside Ranka, Aramis was as still as stone.

One of the women crossed the room with a predator’s gait. She knelt in front of the Oori and removed her gag. “You’ll make this easier on yourself if you behave.”

“Monsters,” the Oori spat. “When my people find you—”

“They’re not coming for you. No one is.” Determination gleamed in the woman’s eyes, as bright as Ongrum’s hatred, as deep as Ranka’s fear. She grabbed a fistful of the Oori’s dirty hair and jerked her head back.

No, no, please—

The Hand plunged the syringe into the Oori’s neck.

The Kerth started to scream, her cries raw, broken, the scream of the mourning, the horrified cry of a witch who understood what was happening and knew it was coming for her.

The Oori’s hand twitched.

Her pale gray nails darkened, like ink blossoming in deadly clouds through the nailbed. White swept over her eyes, swallowing her irises.

For a brief, beautiful moment the witch looked brilliant—all raw power and deadly magic swelling in her veins. She was the pride of every witch who had walked this earth. Witchik’s history made flesh. The mirror image of the only version of herself Ranka had ever known.

Then, all at once, the blisters erupted.

They bubbled across the Oori’s skin, broke free of major veins, coalescing into fist-sized, weeping cysts. Her head lolled. Her skin took on a sickly pallor. The witch decayed before Ranka’s eyes, and her movements became jerking, animalistic.

“Solomei’s light,” Aramis whispered.

The Oori thrashed, muscles bulging, and there was a new kind of strength to her—the reckless, self-destructive power of a thing that knew no pain, no fear. Only hunger. Her skin tore and bled as she fought free of the bonds, her limbs flailing, whited-out eyes rolling. Foam frothed at the corners of her mouth.

The Kerth wept, cringing away from the newly afflicted witch.

The Hand looked back at the others. “If we set her loose, she’d drop dead in days. Useful for short-term damage—but not for winning a war.” She bent down and slit the witch’s throat. The Oori gurgled and slumped forward.

Bile rose in Ranka’s throat.