"Love is a poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."
—George R.R. Martin
Lin bit through her lip as she ducked beneath the witch's wild strikes. The creature wasn't experienced in combat, her flames flared out too far to do anything more than singe Lin's skin. The books, on the other hand, erupted in flames where they sat.
Her sigils twisted and bit into her, the silver moving beneath her skin. Not unpleasant, more like a lover's scratch than anything. It was nothing compared to the billows of heat rolling towards her.
The witch swung about, searching, the brightness of her wind-fed flames blinding her to the shadows. Lin took advantage of the moment of disorientation, clearing the four-meter distance between them and slashing the inside of the witch's outstretched wrist. The witch gave a shriek of pain, wind battering Lin frantically.
Lin's stance was too firm, her grip on the witch's wrist tight, smearing blood across her own skin. In the same breath, Lin worked the knife frenetically, the blade flashing against flame as it ripped into skin over and over again. She ducked beneath another flow of fire and dug her knife deep between the witch's ribs, leaping away from another attack.
The give of lung was enough to tell her it was over.
It should have been over.
Lin popped up at the end of the roll, brows furrowed and her red-stained knife raised. Her sigils lulled, their heat dying down enough for Lin to realize the skin of her left arm had been seared. Not that it mattered, her sigils set to healing it soon after she was aware of the injury.
The witch didn't die. Her lung pierced, her arteries cut, she still stood.
Lin cocked her head, half expecting the witch to fall over.
No dice. The witch choked and stumbled to the side, clutching the wound over her ribs. Her eyes lifted to Lin's, glazed and alight with rage.
Lin sidestepped to the open edge of the room. The tower's levels were all visible from there. She turned towards the witch, seating herself on the handrail. The damn creature did fall to her knees, a keening noise escaping her. But it wasn't over.
The air shook with power, books trembling and falling from their shelves. Lin gave an almost casual curse and swung her legs over the railing, dropping down into the void.
For a split moment, she couldn't breathe. Her hair tore upwards and her stomach floated in her throat.
Time to stop.
She reached forward and hooked her fingers around the curved railing. Her boots tapped against the wall, and she hopped over just as neatly.
The levels above her exploded in a torrent that outshone the sun. Screams echoed up the circular tower as the building shook and dropped flaming pages down on the ground below. The building itself would be alright—probably.
Lin's leg faltered beneath her when she took a step away from the railing. A hand reached out to grab the railing, not noticing the hot embers singeing her palm.
"No, not the time," she whispered, "not the time."
Her sigils warmed against her skin, soothing the weak jitters beneath her skin. Deep breath. She wiped her knife against her pants.
Lin swallowed blood and shook her head, veering off towards the stairs.
She nearly killed the girl—human—who stepped in front of her. Her knife stopped a breath away from the girl's olive throat. Lin's hand shot out to cover her mouth before the girl could scream, dragging her out of the staircase.
She slammed her into the wall, pressing close with an eye on the stairs.
"Why are you still here?" Lin hissed as she looked over the newcomer. She was a woman, really, likely a few years older than Lin.
She was around Lin's height—that is, stupidly short—but much slimmer. Her reddish-blond hair was frizzed out in soft waves, complementing her blue eyes. She stared at Lin with wide-eyed terror for a moment before lifting her trembling hands and forming a series of shapes.
Well, shit. And that wasn't what the woman was saying. Lin gritted her teeth and jabbed her finger at the woman's chest, then down the stairs. She added enough emphasis on the subject that the woman nodded vigorously. Lin stepped out into the staircase, checking for the witch.
Nothing. Her sigils wouldn't let her ignore it anyway. Lin jerked her head down the stairs, half-pushing the woman out.
Her shoes tapped against the stairs as she fled. Lin nodded to herself and started to follow her sigil's pulls when—
"Ealy!" Lin turned, eyebrows furrowed. The woman had stopped just at the stairs' curve, half a floor beneath Lin. Another woman, this one dressed in blue, stood gripping the woman's—Ealy's?—arms. She drew Ealy into a hug and looked over her shoulder at Lin.
The new woman was... Lin's tongue stumbled in her mouth. She should say something. A warning. A curse. Something.
Black-ringed eyes stared steadily up at Lin. Completely unreadable. The new woman was all wrong for the context. She was clean, regal, dressed in solid metal jewelry and an expensive blue dress that set off her near-black skin. Lin scarcely noticed her sigils scream at her until she felt heat prickle at the back of her neck.
Lin barely had time to scramble behind a conveniently placed vase before another wash of flame was upon her. She yelped and nabbed her hair before it got caught in the spiral of flame. Slamming her back against the heavy concrete, she hissed out a series of terrible words.
The women were already gone. Lin scowled at the scorched ends of her pale hair, giving it a hasty examination before twisting her hair into a ponytail and shoving it in her mouth.
The vase protected her surprisingly well, the brutal concrete barely warming. The witch must have been getting tired by that point. She had no visible protection against the might of magic, no gemstones or painted wards. Just her own flesh. She was burning out, one way or another.
Lin rolled her shoulders, adjusting herself into a crouch. The witch made no attempt at hiding her presence, her bare feet scraping on the stairs. When she was close enough, Lin swept low around the vase.
The fabric of the witch's dress ended at her calves, leaving enough room for Lin's knife. Lin swung around the witch, her blade biting into flesh repeatedly before slamming into the witch's throat. A scream ended in a soft gurgle, the witch's magic cutting off suddenly.
Lin worked the knife back and forth. Witches were... difficult to keep down. Her knife wobbled and bent as it met the witch's spine the long way. Lin finally spat out her hair and snapped what was left of the witch's neck.
She was soaked in red by the time she finished. Even her dark clothes were tinted the bright color of witches. She dropped the corpse with two distinct thuds.
Lin exhaled, her sigils finally quieting enough to think for a moment. The burns that had littered her bared arms were already gone, the tingle of healing leaving her skin tight. Lin stepped over the witch's body and kept walking.
The books around her were in ruins. She considered picking them up, to help the Librarians with repair and reshelving. No, she had transcribers to talk to. How could they have let a witch into the Library? She wasn't outwardly hiding her appearance.
Lin kept walking through the empty Library, her footsteps echoing eerily down the circular halls.
"Impressive." Or she'd thought it was empty. The person wasn't a witch, that much was certain. Lin's sigils were still sensitive from use, they would have jumped at the chance to slaughter someone else.
She leaned back onto her heels when she turned, sticking and unsticking her fingers from the soaked hilt of her knife.
It was the woman in blue. The cut of her dress suggested she was from farther south, but it wasn't unreasonable for the heat. Black braids swung past her hips, laced with gold bands.
"Do I know you?" Lin kept her face in a tight frown, scanning the woman over several times. Her skin was slightly gold-tinted, smears of metallic shimmer running across her face and arms. It reminded Lin of that minute during sunset, when the sky was black and the clouds red. The woman held herself like a King, round lips hinting at a smile.
"No, we haven't met before today," the woman punctuated this with a soft chuckle. "My name is Shabina, I'd heard of your work but I never thought I'd see it. I'd like to thank you for saving my wife."
Lin sighed through her teeth and looked down at her own boots. Wife. Damn. "You wouldn't happen to know how that witch got in, would you?"
Shabina was silent for a moment, then the shuffle of her skirts as she stepped closer to Lin.
"Do you think I'm involved?"
"Question for a question. Never a good sign."
"You're not answering my question. That's not a good sign either."
"Maybe I'm just not a good conversationalist."
"Maybe." Shabina was close. Lin's sigils hummed a gentle warning, enough to make her look up. And up.
Shabina was tall. She stood a good head over Lin, making Lin's eye level land at her chest. It was more distracting than Lin thought it would be.
Lin blinked hard and craned her neck to look at Shabina's face. Her high cheekbones shimmered in the sunlight and flames as she smiled.
"So?" Lin asked.
"No, I didn't know anything about the witch."
"You sure?"
"Of course." Shabina shrugged like it was nothing.
Lin huffed and cast a charred bit of hair away from her face. "Then I've got some Librarians to mess up. Goodbye."
"Wait," the woman stepped forward and grabbed Lin's arm. Her hand wrapped all the way around Lin's wrist, where the blood was still wet, and did not let go.
Lin stared at the offending limb, close to dumbfounded. Shabina drew her hand down Lin's arm, pressing a folded piece of paper into her hand.
"Come see me. Anytime."
Lin raised her eyebrows as the woman stepped away from her, following the sway of her skirts as Shabina walked away. Her stride was far too elegant to be thought of as scurrying, but it was a hasty retreat.
Only when she was sure the woman wasn't going to return did Lin glance down at the folded paper. The witch's blood stuck it to her skin, and Lin smirked at the knowledge that Shabina's pretty dress would be sporting a bloodstain.
She slid the paper into her back pocket to avoid getting more blood on it, resolving to read it later.
Lin breathed in carefully, twinges of pain lancing up and down her body. Her arms had been wrenched by the fall, but her sigils didn't allow permanent injury. It shouldn't have hurt. It did.
Psychosomatic, Alekhine said in her mind. You're expecting the pain. You think you deserve it.
Do I?
Oh yeah, totally.
She stared down at her knife, examining the edge. The curve was still pristine, but it had been dulled. She wrinkled her nose and pulled a cloth from her jacket.
As she walked, she wiped down the knife, working into the grip for the sticky remnants of the witch. She winced as the roar of a confused crowd reached her ears through the Library walls. Damn. Damn, damn.
She stopped at the top of the stairs, eyeing the open doorway. Three Librarians stood there, whispering frantically amongst each other and glancing at the roiling crowd outside the door.
Lin deemed her knife clean enough to be sheathed and slotted it back on her belt.
"Morning!" she said, descending the stairs with a jaunty swing in her step. The Librarians startled, falling silent. The crowd continued, oblivious.
Lin knew what she looked like. A bloody hot mess, as literal as the phrase could be. Her singed hair bounced in her wake, bits of it dappled with blood and sweat. The older Librarian, a man she'd seen in passing before, cleared his throat and stepped forward.
"Is she—"
"Dead? Yeah. Thanks for the help, by the way." She clapped her hands together in front of her and looked around. "Now, can you tell me where the hell I can find the morons who let her in? I'd love a chat."
Something in her smile must have betrayed venomous intent, because they faltered and said nothing.
Her smile dropped and she leaned back, laying a hand on her knife's hilt again. Shame she might get into trouble if she tried to kill them.
"We will handle it ourselves." The older man said. "But thank you for getting rid of that..."
When it became clear he wasn't going to finish the sentence, Lin rolled her eyes. "Witch. You can just say witch. It's not a bad word."
It may as well be.
They swallowed and nodded. Golden bands clinked on their wrists and collars as they parted for her.
Lin stopped just shy of the sun's noon rays. "You're lucky she didn't get to the gunpowder storage. We'd all be dead."
"The stores and the weapons chambers are always under guard, no-one is permitted entry unless they are accompanied by a Librarian," one of the younger Librarians said, pink tinting his features.
"Of course, because making guns for the Kings is your primary responsibility." Lin rolled her head and stared at the Librarian. "Fix your security or you'll be taking it up with my boss next time."
She doubted she'd be able to convince Greymark himself to care about the Library, but she would find a way. "And the next time I come here, the fantasy section had better be spotless."
"Thank you, huntress," the older librarian said, dipping into a bow. A firm dismissal if she'd ever seen one.
She scoffed and walked past him. The crowd scrambled away from her when she stepped out. Not horrified exactly, but disturbed, all their eyes fell to her bloodied figure..
They all cleared a path for her as she walked out. She grinned at them. Red streaked her teeth.
--
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" - Exodus 22:18 (22:17 in Hebrew)
This quote, found in the King James Version of the Bible, has been widely held responsible for the witch burnings that plagued Europe, and later America, in the Early Modern Period (1450 C.E. – 1750 C.E.). —Elizabeth Sloane, Haaretz