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  But she had to drop her wind spell to do it, and Father stepped into the awful radiance inside the circle, his silver-bladed knife in one hand. He raised it over his head and brought the blade down, sinking it deep into Tristan’s chest.

  It staggered us all. The pain made our link falter, and Father reached for the power, trying to take it from us.

  Tristan clutched the handle and drew it out. Blood poured from the wound, spilled out of his mouth.

  “No!”

  Tristan didn’t let go of my hand. He raised his head and held onto the gate he’d made. He’d hold it until he died, the last thing he would ever do.

  No. I fused the nick in his lung closed, held the thick artery shut, and sealed it.

  “Let go of the gate!”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “You’ll die!” My heart beat too fast, too painful. But we had done it. The seal on Tristan’s artery held. Blood flowed through it without leaking. It throbbed, but he’d live.

  And then I couldn’t breathe. Beside me Grace choked, her free hand grabbing at her throat.

  Father. He stood in the Circle with us, the bloody blade still in his fist. “Stop this.”

  I gagged on my answer. He couldn’t wrest control of the Calling from Grace—from the link we three had made, the bond blending us and our power. I could stop Father from suffocating us, but if I let go of Grace or Tristan the link would break. The gate would collapse.

  But if we blacked out, it would anyway.

  Grace reached out and grabbed Father’s wrist. His bare wrist, pulse beating wildly under Grace’s fingers. Blood moved through the veins in Father’s skin. His lungs filled with the air he denied us. Rage and terror poured out of him, a desperate howling denial of what we had done to destroy everything.

  I reached out through Grace’s body and touched Father’s heart. I held it in tight bands. I squeezed it and made sure it hurt. He staggered and landed on his knees. I squeezed harder. He pulled on Grace’s grasp, trying to free himself.

  My throat unblocked, and I breathed in the damp subterranean air tinged with human effort and the smell of spilled blood.

  I squeezed again, and Father clutched his chest.

  But Grace let go of his hand and pulled us away from the gateway, staggering and bloody-nosed. She narrowly avoided the ebony hooves of a velvety black horse—no, white—no, piebald—ridden through the gate by a woman who held a horn bow in her left hand, ready to draw and loose the arrow poised in the fingertips of her right. Another horse like smoke and silver followed, ridden by another woman with her golden hair bannering out behind her, a horn poised to her lips.

  A dozen riders poured out of the gate we’d made. The archer slipped off her saddle-less horse and rushed to Tristan. A man dressed in white knelt beside me, uncaring of the blood spraying from my last desperate breaths.

  “Help them,” I gasped, and everything went black.

  * * *

  I wasn’t dead.

  Instead, I breathed around jagged tears in my throat and licked dry lips. I was in a tent heated by a brazier. Heavy blankets pressed me down, and when I shifted in the layers of bedding I knew I was naked.

  “Hello?” My voice was a croak. I coughed and tried again. “Hello?”

  No one answered me. I tried to sit up, and just pushing the blankets aside took enough of my strength that I had to rest before I could go on. I staggered across the tent and knelt before a hand-carved wooden trunk. It wasn’t locked, but I didn’t—

  What sort of clothes were these? I pulled out a silver tunic. It was long enough to cover me to my knees, and covered in embroidered ivy vines. Wasn’t there anything I could wear in here?

  I pawed through silk and suede, wool and velvet. I had to rest after I removed from the cedar-lined trunk clothing fit for a children’s tale. I was heaving for breath and covered in twinges, aches, and trembling weakness by the time the trunk stood empty, and I never found any trousers. I considered the heap of discarded finery and searched for the least embellished garments I could wear.

  A blast of cold air swirled into the tent. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.” The man in white headed straight for me.

  “I’m fine. Where’s Tristan? Is Grace alive?”

  “You’re a healer,” the man retorted, “so you are the worst sort of patient. You are not fine. I barely saved your life. And you will not die because you haven’t the sense to stay in bed and let your body heal.”

  “I can walk,” I protested, as he steered me back into bed. “What about Tris—”

  “You can lie down and rest. You can stop giving me trouble. And don’t you dare even try to heal yourself.”

  “How did you know—”

  “Because healers are idiots,” the man said, “and I should know. If you manipulate your energy to heal yourself, you will undo the web I’ve cast over you, and then you will collapse and die. You’re about as strong as a candle in a breeze, and you will not die by your own foolishness.”

  “You sound like Robin,” I grumbled.

  He settled the heavy blankets over me. “Do you respect Robin?”

  “Robin’s the best nurse I’ve ever met.”

  The healer touched the blankets, and warmth bloomed from them. “Good. There is someone who wants to see you. If I let him in, will you stay in bed?”

  “Is it—”

  “Tristan? Yes.”

  “I—that’s kind of you,” I said. “I’m Miles.”

  “Cormac.”

  “I’m glad to meet you, Cormac.” I licked my lips again, and Cormac helped me sit up and drink water, clean and icy cold.

  “Stay sitting up.” He piled more pillows up behind me, and I sank into them gratefully. “You’ll only have a few minutes before you need to rest.”

  He opened the tent and admitted Tristan. He rushed past Cormac and kneeled beside my narrow bed, catching my hand. He pressed my knuckles to his lips and closed his eyes.

  “Tristan,” I said. “It’s all right. I’m not dead.”

  “You don’t know how close you came,” Tristan said. “We sat by you for days, keeping you alive.”

  “How long?” I asked. “Where are we?”

  “We’re at the stones of Bywell,” Tristan said. “We couldn’t move you any farther.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Frostmonth eight.”

  It had been a week. “Are the Amaranthines angry? Was there an attack on the Queen? Are we at war?”

  “Furious, no, because you saved nearly every man possessed by the spell, and not yet.” Tristan stroked my hair. “Don’t worry. Grace is doing her best.”

  “Grace? She’s all right?”

  “We’re both fine, Miles. You need to recover.” He leaned in and kissed my brow. “Do what Cormac tells you. Don’t try to speed up the healing. The fact you got out of bed and managed to toss your clothes all over the floor is a testament to his skill.”

  Those were my clothes? Oh. “Tristan.” I licked my lips again. “What do you mean, we’re not at war yet?”

  “The Solace and Aeland are waiting to see if you live,” Tristan said. “Sir Percy is calling you a traitor. Grand Duchess Aife has declared you the Liberator. Intruders have been shot trying to cross into the camp.”

  Assassins, he meant. “I’m going to live. Tell them.” As I said it, I realized that it might be easier to prevent war if I died. “How many soldiers rose up?”

  Tristan shook his head. “Scattered incidents. Nothing like what it could have been. “

  I shut my eyes. “The people?”

  “The power’s out everywhere. There are lost souls all over the country. Aeland is reeling in shock.”

  I kept my eyes shut. They needed me, and I wasn’t there for them. “Father?”

  “Is in Aeland’s diplomatic party. He’s demanding to see you,” Tristan said. “No one will let him near you. Grace has deserted the Invisibles and is in our camp. Do you want to see her?”

  “Yes.
”

  “After you rest,” Tristan said, and leaned down to kiss my dry lips. “She’ll come to the Solace with us.”

  I struggled to sit up. “What? I can’t go to the Solace, Tristan. I have to stay here.”

  He kept his hand on my chest, pushing me back into the fur and cushions. “You can’t touch magic for at least the next month. If I could show you the web keeping you alive—”

  “But you can,” I said. “You can see it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then show me what it looks like.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “I need to understand this. Show me.”

  Tristan nodded, and a latticework of green light sprang to life over my hand. The threads were thin as a hair, crossing each other in a network that mimicked the complex branching of my veins, my nerves, the fiber of my muscles, right down to the marrow in my bones.

  “How…?”

  “Cormac’s a genius.”

  I turned my hand this way and that, able to see the full depth. It was stunning. It would take power—too much power. “How is it maintaining? What’s powering it?”

  Tristan held my hand. “Me.”

  I shook my head and the tent spun. “You didn’t.”

  “I did. I bound myself to you. It was the only way.” Tristan lifted my hand, now free of the illusion, and kissed it. “I’m eating like a horse to keep this web going.”

  “I owe you my life.”

  Tristan shrugged. “My life is yours.”

  “As soon as I can, I’ll release you.”

  “I know,” Tristan said. “But I’d ask you to do it again.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He covered my hand with both of his. “Amaranthines do bond sometimes.”

  “Really? What do they use it for?”

  “Marriage.”

  I couldn’t speak. All the pain I endured melted in the warmth that played over my skin.

  “Marry me, Miles. Spend your life with me. And whatever we do after this, let’s do it together.”

  “We can do that?”

  “We can. Our people do.” Tristan kissed my hand again. “Say you will.”

  I had no idea what had happened in the week I’d lain insensible. The power of aether was gone, the Invisibles in the hands of a man who counted me as his enemy.

  But Tristan would stand by me through all of it. I propped myself up on one elbow and freed my hand to touch Tristan’s face. His true face, ethereal with inhuman beauty, but it didn’t drag me down into enthrallment. It was him, the truth of him, and it hardly hurt when I smiled.

  “I will.” I clenched his hand, and his happiness spread from the center of his chest to his fingers, wrapped around mine. “I can feel you.”

  “Part of the binding. Do you mind?”

  I didn’t mind. Joined with him, I was free.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  So many people had a hand in helping me through the process of writing and producing this book. I’m going to miss some, I just know it.

  For Tom. You are my rock, and I leaned on you all through this book. Thank you.

  For Bear. You never doubted that I could do this, not once, and you are a mighty vanquisher of brain weasels. Thank you.

  For AJ. Everyone needs a scientist asking them questions about your book. Yours always made me think. I can’t believe how many times you read this thing. Thank you.

  For Liz. I was hoping for feedback on what to fix. What happened next was totally unexpected, and led directly to this moment. Thank you.

  For Kim. You were right about the opening scenes, and you wouldn’t let me take one more step without being sure I knew my characters. Thank you.

  For Caitlin, Justin, Carl, and Irene. I’m still amazed by how much you like this book. I think we made a good one. Thank you.

  Thank you so much, drowwzoo. You kept my head on straight, you read my draft, you told me to suck it up and send another query. To Isle of Write, my friends, thank you for entertaining every idle, random question I came up with. To #rwchat, and all the writers who helped make a space where I found I wasn’t alone, that everyone experiences all the ups and downs of writing.

  And thank you, reader, thank you. I’m so pleased that you’re here.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. L. POLK wrote her first story in grade school and still hasn’t learned any better. After spending years in strange occupations and wandering western Canada, she settled in southern Alberta with her rescue dog Otis. C.L. has had short stories published in Jim Baen’s Universe and contributes to the web serial Shadow Unit. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  WITCHMARK

  Copyright © 2018 by Chelsea Polk

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Will Staehle

  Edited by Justin Landon

  A Tor.com Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

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  New York, NY 10010

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  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-16268-7 (trade paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-7653-9897-0 (ebook)

  eISBN 9780765398970

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  First Edition: June 2018