“Why do they treat you like a servant? What are they testing you for?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I thought I killed you.”
“Then I guess you’d better try harder next time. What is that?”
He turns and follows the direction of my gaze, but doesn’t answer.
I take a deep breath. The Governor won’t let us back inside without more. But if I lose the Witch King on his first night in my custody, I’m never going home.
The waves roll in endlessly. The shape rises and falls, swaying on the tide, but comes no closer.
“Aren’t you going to order me to fetch it?” he asks dryly when we’ve been staring for minutes.
I rub my forehead. Now that the shock of his arrival has died down, I’m not sure I’m comfortable using the enchantment on him. I still want him as dead as ever, but enchantment just makes me sick.
“If you stood in the shallows, not deeper than your knees, do you think you could hook it with one of those?” I ask, nodding at the planks in his arms. He looks down, then out at the shape, then back at me. He doesn’t answer.
“Well?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Witch. You do realize that every time I use the enchantment, it drains your life, don’t you? If you’re smart, you’ll answer without me needing to command you every time.”
His eyebrows furrow, and he stares at me like I’ve just told him I hear voices.
Then the witch turns on his heel, walks ten feet deeper inland and dumps the wood from his arms. Picking up the longer plank, the witch turns and walks into the water. I didn’taskhim to go. I haven’t even finished deciding if it’s a good idea. And I’m a little bit pissed that he still technically didn’t answer my question. But I stare at his broad, rain-plastered back as he angles the plank and tries to drag the pale thing closer in. From where I stand, I can’t see if it’s working.
He straightens and braces the plank over his shoulder, then wades in deeper. A wave smashes against his chest and my breath catches. He’s in far too deep for the wildness of the storm.
“Careful,” I snap. “Don’t be—”
I can barely see him in the dark. The lantern isn’t strong enough. A wave swells between us, obscuring him, and when it falls, I don’t see him at all. I squint hard into the dark, desperate for even a ghost of him.
“Witch?” I call.
A moment later he emerges, his shoulders rising up out of the dark sea as he strides towards the shore. My shoulders go slack. He’s gotten the pale shape, whatever it is.
When he’s only hip-deep, I finally make out that it’s a splintered trunk of a fallen white-bark tree. It’s a big piece of driftwood. Taller than either of us. It will have come from the far north, the inner empire, where trees still grow in abundance without witches to drain the soil.
I bet that tree traveled nearly as far as I did.
The golden glow of his eyes is eerie. The witch reaches the tideline, stopping a foot in front of me and dropping the wood at myside. It clatters on the stone. The witches’ shoulders heave and I have to remind myself that he can’t attack me, even if he’s standing so close that every inch of my body is tense and humming with nerves.
“Good enough. We’ll head back,” I tell him. He keeps staring. If he’s expecting me to thank him, he’ll be waiting a long time.
I gather the planks in my arms and let him drag the log. We walk back in silence. My feet have gone numb in the cold, and my teeth chatter, but the storm lightens with every step. By the time we reach the castle it isn’t raining anymore and the wind has died down. The moon peeks through shredded clouds that race across the sky.
Silently, I lead the way into the castle. Skeinn isn’t there to stop us or inspect what we’ve found, so I guess we could have come back empty-handed after all. I dump the wood to the side of the drafty entryway and have him do the same.
I don’t need my prisoner dying of cold. The store room has a set of dry clothes big enough for the witch, no better than the rags Harfor dressed him in, but they’re clean. I give him a rag to towel dry with. When he strips the wet shirt off over his head, I bite back a gasp at the sight of the enchantment marks.
I already knew they must cover all of him, from the lines emerging from the edges of his clothing. But the sight of his bare, muscle-corded skin covered in those cruel marks makes my fists curl. When I still rode Hellions, I didn’t like seeing the enchantments on convicted murderers, either.
There’s a white line of scar across his abdomen, just below his pectorals. It’s barely visible beneath all of the enchantment lines, but I notice it anyways, and feel a smug satisfaction warm my heart.
My body isn’t the only one carrying the memory of our fight. I huff a laugh.
