Page 133 of Bloodwitch
Then he returned to himself and burst into a new world. Underwater, dark and cold. No chance to summon winds here, only swimming, aiming for a surface he hoped he would find.
Four kicks became ten before his head finally broke free. He gasped and spluttered, spinning around to search for the Northman in this dim world lit only by blue light off the door.
Water swept against Merik’s legs, and three rough breaths later, the Northman splashed up beside him.
“Where?” the Northman coughed.
“I do not know,” Merik replied, and it was mostly true. Hye, he knew he was inside of a mountain with magic doorways that somehow connected to the mythological Sightwitch Sister Convent. But this explanation was far beyond his ability to articulate in Svodish.
Hell-waters, it was beyond his ability to articulate in Nubrevnan.
In fact, his mind couldn’t seem to pin down the layers of it all. He might have heard about it from Esme and the Fury, but he had not trulybelievedsuch a thing existed until right now, when he was actually there.
And even right now, with a blue door glowing at the bottom of a pool, he still wasn’t sure he believed it. But as Evrane used to say,The shark will eat you whether you acknowledge it or not.And if Merik were facing a shark right now, his aim would be trying to escape it.
No Cleaved might be coming through the door yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. And there was still the issue of the Fury and the Raider King finding these doors soon.
Merik swam toward a hazy ledge five strokes away. After hauling himself out, he pulled the Northman up beside him. Already, he shook from the cold and the Northman’s furs dripped and splattered—but that was a remote distraction. What mattered was what lay beyond: a cavern, large enough to hold the city of Lovats.
It was large enough to hold the entire plateau actually, and somehow this basin of water was nothing more than a shelf hugging the cavern wall. Merik inched closer to the edge, peered down…
And for the first time in his life, vertigo engulfed him.
Ever since his witchery had awoken in him as a child, heights had never bothered him. But this was no mere drop-off. This was staring into another universe. Into the very heart of Noden’s court.
Merik sucked in a long, girding breath before pulling his gaze back up—and then up and up and up. Lights flickered across the cave, as well as other blue glows. And then, high at the top of it all, was a stretch of ice, almost like a bridge.
“Up,” Merik said, pointing toward the nearest ledge. One of the other blue glows had to be the door Merik needed to reach Lovats, and the only option before him was to try every one and see where they took him—and then, of course, pray to Noden that it didn’t eject him somewhere worse than Poznin with the Puppeteer.
At the Northman’s nod, Merik closed his eyes and called his magic to him.
He expected resistance. Underground, there was little air and no winds. And underground, there could be dangerous consequences if one tried to manipulate the air too much. Air currents led to storms, and storms in small spaces were never good.
Merik’s winds came easily, though. A huge rush that punched intohim and the Northman. They both toppled backward, but before they could fall into the water, Merik swirled his winds behind them. Beneath them.
Power, power, power.
Merik and the Northman flew. It was as natural as breathing—Merik couldn’t believe how easily the power came to him. And it wasn’t the Fury’s magic channeling over their bond either. Those winds were cold and vengeful.Thesewinds sparkled.
It was the only word he could find to describe the feeling. This sense that the glimmering galaxy below somehow fed his lungs and carried him faster, higher, stronger than he had ever managed on his own.
They reached the first ledge, where a second blue door glowed. It was identical to what he’d seen submerged in Poznin. “Wait,” he told the Northman, and he moved toward it.
But the Northman did not like that command. He shook his head and hurried after Merik. Two bracing breaths for each of them. Then together they stepped through, and like before, Merik felt compressed and elongated, paused yet pushed along. Then he and the Northman were out the other side.
Wind and night kicked against them. Pine trees shivered. Merik’s eardrums instantly swelled, as if he’d flown too high too fast, and a full moon shone down.
This wasnotNubrevna. Merik gripped the Northman’s forearm and hauled the man back through the magic door.
Crush, stretch, stop, and move. They stumbled onto the ledge they’d just left, both men panting. “Cold,” the Northman said, and Merik could only nod. He motioned up. Then once more, his winds twined beneath them and carried them high.
The next door, on a ledge scarcely large enough to hold them both, ejected them into a ditch. A narrow slope cutting upward toward a crack in the earth, and the scent of cedar and stale smoke hit his nose.
This was not the Lovats under-city either.
Back into the cavern they moved, and on to the next ledge, the next door. This ledge, next to the cavern’s falls, was slick with water.The Northman slipped; Merik’s winds caught him—but not gracefully. He shoved the man through the glowing blue…
And once again, cold snapped against them. This time, though, there was no wind. An icy staircase ascended before them, and Merik and the Northman quickly skipped up. All they found, though, was a vast, flat expanse of nothing. Moonlit and white. Shimmering and lifeless.
