“Me? That’s the test?” My eyebrows raise. The War-Father isn’t a big believer in taking prisoners.
“He won’t be easy to keep alive.”
She turns and snaps. One of the soldiers, still lined up at the ship's ramp, salutes with his sword and trots back up the gangplank.
And then a figure appears at the top of the ramp. My breath hitches as my mouth goes dry. Involuntarily my metal hand shifts toward my left hip, where my sword hilt used to sit, but there’s nothing there now.
He’s as beautiful and deadly as the sea. And he’s the only witch I’ve come face-to-face with before and not been able to kill. Not for lack of trying.
I’ve spent two years dreaming of revenge against this man.
He’s big, as broad shouldered and tall as I remember, with longblack hair hanging loose around his shoulders. But now his hair is oily, and his skin unwashed.
And they’ve covered him in so many enchantment marks, I'm surprised he's even walking.
The thin black spellmarks curl out from beneath the rags he’s dressed in, climbing in lines and circles up his neck and jaw, leaving enough bare space around his facial features for me to recognize him. The fierce, hawk-like golden eyes that burn with unholy power. The square jaw.
My right armored hand curls into a fist, a reminder of whatthis man, the king of my enemies, took from me. I’m breathing too fast. I may have only seen him once before, but his face is seared into my nightmares. Harfor lived, but there’s still the Enchanted, and my sailors. He’s the reason they’re all dead, the reason I’m trapped here on the Bluff.
The reason my oldest friend no longer believes in me.
The witch’s muscular arms are chained in front of him, though from how complex the enchantment on him looks, I bet it’s more for show than anything else. And as much as I hate him, I don’t like seeing those marks on anybody’s skin.
“Who—” the Governor sputters beside me.
“Whatisthis?” I hiss as a group of sailors march the prisoner slowly down the ramp, their weapons prodding against his back.
“They keep trying to rescue him,” Harfor folds her arms, still staring at me. “War-Father wanted him brought on this side of the enchantment. But we can’t very well take him somewhere civilized. At least he’s all spelled up. The bastard has to take your orders.”
“What?” My eyes flick between Harfor and the captive as my stomach sinks. This doesn’t make any sense. Why take a witch captive instead of killing him? Why enchant him if they aren’t going to drain him to power our crystals? And why bring himhere, to me, on Rancor?
This is fine, I try to tell myself.If the War-Father is giving you aprisoner, it means he really does trust you. They wouldn’t place a witch in the keeping of another witch. Especially not one as powerful as him.
But the logic doesn’t cheer me as much as it should. I’m missing something. This isn’t normal or smart.
“And my test…? It’s just… to guard him?” Now that he’s inside the enchantment barrier, the other witches can’t reach us. What am I supposed to be guarding himfrom?
The prisoner is herded over to us. My blood goes cold at his approach.
He stops two feet from Harfor, towering over the knight, over the Governor, over me, glaring at the Bluff as he looks everywhere but my face. His golden eyes glow with rage, his expression set in hard lines. So. Whatever spells they’ve marked into his skin, they haven’t given him oblivion. He still has a mind.
I shouldn’t be relieved, but part of me is anyway. Maybe I just want him to know I’m the one killing him, when I finally do.
I clench my jaw. The witch's eyes stop examining the isle and finally land on me. His angry expression hasn’t changed once since he got off the ship. But the moment his eyes find me, his shoulders straighten and a muscle in his jaw clenches tight. He takes a step back.
So. I’m not the only one who remembers that day.
And it seems he never realized the burning woman who fell through the sky survived.
7
Mymind keeps remembering the day this man ruined my life, his dragon appearing out of the cloudbanks like wrath incarnate to drop on my ship, my crew, from above. The weather today is no better. But with all the marks on him, this storm isn’t his.
“Why isn’t his mind wiped?” I rasp.
“The War-Father wanted humiliation,” Harfor says.
“I’ll kill him slowly, then.”
