Page 45 of Thornlight

“Don’t youeversay my sister’s name,” Celestyna hissed, so ferociously that the old woman flinched.

After a moment, Celestyna turned away and closed her eyes, remembering her parents’ final words. Her coughing mother, struggling to swallow her last mouthful of porridge. Her father, bright crimson blood dotting his lips from the strange sickness eating his insides, had smiled at her. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he had whispered.

And then Celestyna had lifted the spoon one last time...

“They said I would be the one to stop the Gulgot at last,” she whispered. “They believed it, they swore I was strong enough to mend the Break. That Orelia would never have to be a part of this.”

The Fetterwitch snorted. “They’d have told you anything. It was thecursespeaking, girl, don’t you see? That’s the way it lives on. Me, the witch who made it, having my long, horrible life.And your family, queen after king after queen. The rulers of the Vale anchor the curse, then their successor kills them and takes it on. Then the next, and the next. For years and years. That’s why we’re all alive. And the pain of each killing keeps the curse fed. I know your parents told you this.”

“I did it to save the Vale.” Celestyna stared east, toward the dark skies of Estar. The same words ran in circles through her mind. “They were suffering, and if I hadn’t...”

“Yes, if they’d died on their own, the curse would have died with them,” the Fetterwitch said quietly, “and the Vale would be lost. The Break would widen and widen, and the Gulgot would climb out and devour us all.”

She shook her head, dragged her blistered hands over her face. “The time between each of your deaths grows shorter. Since the day your parents died, it’s been anchored in you. And you could wake up tomorrow and be in such pain from the curse that you ask your sister to find a knife and help you along. And one of you had better have children quicky-split, by the way, or else this will all end very soon. Curse can’t live without a bloodline to feed it.”

The Fetterwitch sighed. “So much death, and yet the Fetterwitch lives on and on.”

The snowfall was becoming a storm, wind licking across the mountains.

Celestyna sat beside the Fetterwitch, her fingers and toes smarting with cold. “It isn’t fair that this burden should lie on my shoulders. I didn’t ask for it.”

“I understand that, Queenie,” said the Fetterwitch. “I didn’t ask to be the only witch to live past the breaking of the Vale, and yet here I am.” She looked up at the cloudy sky. “What would the world be like, I wonder, if those old witches from the stars had never gone to war, so long ago? Unbroken, the Vale would be. Full of magic too, and the Old Wild still alive and strong. No evil beast. No curse.”

The Fetterwitch lifted her chain-wrapped left hand. A knot of shifting black veins crowded her palm, resembling an unblinking dark eye.

Then she squeezed her hand shut and twisted.

From the distant swamps of Estar came low, rolling rumbles and a booming crash. A tremor shook the mountains, followed by a distant, angry roar of pain.

The Fetterwitch cradled her withered left hand against her chest and rocked back and forth, her breath wheezing.

Celestyna watched in horrified silence. So that was what herflesh and blood and bones gave power to. She had never seen the curse work up close.

Dark veins bulged on the Fetterwitch’s face, drawing cruel shapes across her sweat-slicked skin.

“Elegant, isn’t it?” she rasped. “I tell the curse to seek out the beast and hurt him. I knock him flat. And the Vale lives on for another day.” She wagged a gnarled black finger at Celestyna. “And it’s your blood that gives it power, only you don’t have to feel the icky part, not until the end. For now, only I feel it. Lucky me.”

“Lucky you,” Celestyna murmured, staring out at the darkening mountains. Her mouth was dry and sour. She found her little bag of supplies, reached inside. Her fingers hit something hard and cold.

“What ifIkilledyou?” she asked calmly, though her hands shook.

“I don’t know what would happen,” said the Fetterwitch. She sounded tired—and, Celestyna thought, a little glad. A hungry light came into her eyes. “No one’s ever tried to kill me before.”

Celestyna’s fingers curled around the smooth marble hilt of the blade her parents had given her. She had not been ableto stomach the idea of cutting their throats, so she had chosen instead two bowls of poisoned porridge. Not so quick, but less blood, and quieter all around.

Tears gathered behind her eyes. For a moment she imagined running away—but her mother had taught her an important thing:Don’t be scared where people can see.

“My parents did always tell me,” Celestyna said quietly, “to try new things.”

When she moved, it was fast, and quiet as the Fetterwitch’s lonely cave.

Pain raced through Celestyna’s body, dark and swift as the evil flooding out from the Break.

She dropped the bloody knife; it went clattering down the mountain. On her hands and knees, she sucked in air that tore at her lungs. She tried to scream but couldn’t.

Queenie,the curse hissed. With no Fetterwitch to protect her, it cut into Celestyna’s bones like a thousand gleaming knives.

She rose from the ashes of the Fetterwitch’s chains, flexing her blackened left hand. It crisped and smoked, as if lightning had struck it, but it didn’t hurt.

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