Wraith Walker

Chapter 19

     It was more than an hour before a light knocking came on the door. A sliver of magic, so soft, so gentle found its way under the small gap between floor and door and met her fingertips, just barely. She was in the bath, where she nearly boiled herself for the last hour.

      The bath chamber was the biggest she'd seen. The deep quartz tub sat near four wide windows that overlooked the city, currently covered in a thick layer of condensation from the steam. A few chairs, a dressing table, several mirrors and a wash basin were laid out stylishly in the sprawling chamber. 

      Merrant had some sort of system where the water was pumped directly from the wells through heated pipes, a system that year after year Helisant had tried to convince Sasha to copy at home. But Witches didn't need heated pipes, they had magic and now in the bath, Tamsin used it on the already warm water. The scalding against her skin was a welcome burning, gave her something to focus on instead of the ever rising panic that seemed to start in her chest and swell to her fingertips.

      Despite the horrors she'd seen in the last century, the way mothers pled for the lives of their dying children, the way men bled and screamed and begged for their lives, the corpses piled high from famine and fever, Tamsin felt like she managed to hold herself together pretty well. But this? This was bad. This was really, really bad and even after her skin had turned bright pink, verging on red, she hadn't even begun to think of a way out of the mess they were in.

     She waved away the thread of magic, dismissing it like a dog nudging her hand. Ignored the second knock at the door, Sasha's quiet voice that called her name through it. Sh sunk deeper into the bath, taking a breath and letting her head slip under, hair floating around her stinging face.

      Merrant himself was a solvable problem. Kill him, kill Eyvind, no more issues there. Their murders might spark a war if she was caught and tried. If not, if she could make it look like an accident, then Tyanth had a chance. Whoever came after Merrant would be an issue. For every Merrant in Kendecier, there were five worse than him waiting for their own chance to seize the Kingdom.

      The Seer could solve those problems, maybe. Filyrr had men tracking the girl, and within a few weeks she and the Wraiths would be in possession of her, the Canin scum bleeding out on their forest's floor. If Merrant was dead, the Seer could transfer power to a different Continent King, if that's what the Gods decided.

     But what if it was the will of the Gods that Tyanth be under Continent rule? She could ask the girl. And if she said yes? What would it be like for Tyanth to be under the Continent? Tyanth might not be under Merrant's rule now, but Sasha was still on the jury for Continent trials. Every year they attended the Council on the Continent with the other Taigslands rulers. As it was, the Taigslands tiptoed around Merrant, willing to call his bluff but not test his resolve in case something did occur. Merrant was as good as their High King anyway, did it really matter if it was official or not?

      Her lungs burned, screaming for air. She ignored them, pushed the need down, down, down. To spare her people, to save that many lives, wouldn't it be better to pair with Merrant? The wealth alone was life changing for so many of the poorest settlements and Merrant was a decent ruler. Strict and harsh, he never had a reputation for being likeable, not in the way Sasha was, but she couldn't deny that Kendecier wasn't thriving. The streets were safe, the Kingdom was rich, the people thrived. None of the territories that bowed to Merrant had lost their languages, their cultures. True, Merrant was a bastard, but a bastard who saw the value in keeping his territories happy, who would not rock the boat for fear of retribution.