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Back Witchshadow Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Map
  5. Epigraph
  6. BEGINNINGS
  7. PART I
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. PART II
  45. THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. THIRTY-NINE
  48. FORTY
  49. FORTY-ONE
  50. FORTY-TWO
  51. FORTY-THREE
  52. FORTY-FOUR
  53. FORTY-FIVE
  54. FORTY-SIX
  55. FORTY-SEVEN
  56. FORTY-EIGHT
  57. FORTY-NINE
  58. FIFTY
  59. FIFTY-ONE
  60. FIFTY-TWO
  61. FIFTY-THREE
  62. FIFTY-FOUR
  63. FIFTY-FIVE
  64. FIFTY-SIX
  65. FIFTY-SEVEN
  66. TRICKSTER
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. Also by Susan Dennard
  69. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  70. Newsletter Sign-up

Vivia did not move for several minutes. She breathed musky, cold air and waited for panic to lay claim. She listened as they put Cam in a different cell. And she kept listening as voices reached her from other cells. Promises to kill Yoris. Promises to break free. Apologies for failure.

As much as she wanted to answer, as much as she wanted to offer a pretty speech to bolster morale and show them how sorry she was, now was not the time.

Breathe in. Breathe out. No regrets, keep moving.

She pushed to her feet. Her eyes opened. And that was when she finally spotted Vaness stretched across the mud. Vivia lunged for her and groped for the Empress’s neck. There was her pulse, weak but present. She was ice to the touch, though, and she did not respond to Vivia’s fingers or a whispered “Wake up, Vaness. Wake up.”

Then Vivia found the marks upon her neck, near the spine. Three fat punctures, the scabs fresh. The Empress had been drugged, just as Yoris had threatened he would do. It must have been the only way to neutralize her magic.

“Noden drown me,” Vivia whispered to the mud. She slid to a seat beside the Empress. Then she repeated to no one, “Noden drown me.” For there was no water down here for her to use.

And because, for the first time since Yoris had captured her, she felt genuine fear unwinding inside her. Icy and heavy, a little fox lost. A little fox run into her hole with nowhere else to hide.

TWENTY-TWO

Safi sensed Zander was running. She felt the Loom moving away, stretching her out like a hide drying upon the rack. Cold splintered in, and with it came pain. Shadows too that coursed within her, poking and pulling and ripping her to shreds.

She thought she might be screaming. She was certain she must be moaning. Somehow, that one sensation—of air pushing over vocal cords—still cut through the weight of dying.

She did not have much time, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was a corpse unspooling in Zander’s arms. Her life and what remained of her soul were entirely in his hands.

She could not sense when Zander reached the healer’s room again, nor when he dropped her on the cot or even when the noose was replaced around her neck and her own hands were forced upward to fuse the separate pieces together.

One moment, she was death. The next, she was life. Whole again, with a firm mattress beneath her. But she was seizing. Great convulsions of every muscle she possessed, from toes to thighs to biceps to tongue. The cold and the shadows were gone—only echoes remained, memories that could never be erased, permanent marks upon her bones.

“What is happening to her?” Henrick’s voice punched into her awareness. Furious and frothing. “You were meant to heal her.”