10 Fritzi

10

Fritzi

There is a wall of cedar trees. Ancient, wild, with snarled, interlocking branches of green boughs that should be wool-fluffy, alive and vibrant—but they are dense. They are bent in jointed lines like fingers prying at one another, gripping to form a wall, a wall that stretches forever, forever—

Cedar is for protection , I think, woozy. What are they protecting me from?

The center of the wall erupts in a single spout of flame, so intense and sudden that I cry out and stagger back, dropping to the forest undergrowth. Pain flares through me—heat from the fire, but something else, burning along my spine and arms, stinging on my lip, my face, a cracking agony in my hand. It leaves me sitting there, limp and mangled, staring up at the fire that eats a hole in the cedar wall.

"Fritzichen," comes Dieter's voice. "Let me in."

No.

No.

It's not him. He's dead. Gone. It isn't—

The fire burns. Burns. Eats .

It is hungry.

And he's there, through the gap it makes. Grinning. Manic in his victory.

My ravaged body screams to run, but I can't even stand. I'm held on the ground by my pain and horror as Dieter walks through the cedar trees, their boughs crackling around him.

"No," I manage, and drag myself back. " No ."

"Oh, sweet Fritzichen," Dieter coos. "You can't escape me. I told you. You're mine . Not his. Not Mama's. Mine." He touches his sternum. "Mine." He touches his stomach. " Mine ." He touches his thigh.

All the places he branded me.

What did he do to me? How does he still have magic? How—

Not his magic.

Mine. My magic.

He connected himself to my magic. With the brands he left on me.

Somehow, perhaps unknowingly, he used wild magic to bond me to him with those brands.

People used to fear witches when wild magic was all we had, when our power was unchecked, before the goddesses capped it with the Origin Tree.

Now, I know why. Intimately.

He shouldn't have been able to do that.

"And, sister..." He crouches in front of me. So close I can see the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes when he grins. "You will get me what I need. They have one of the stones there, in the Well. You will bring it to me."

"A stone?" My breath stutters, and I try, I try to be strong, but everything shakes. "I will bring you nothing. You're dead ."

He has to be. Please.

Dieter giggles. It's high and thin. "No, no, I do not die, Fritzichen. Why would you want me dead? Now, my sweet, sweet sister, you will bring me the stone ."

"What stone? What are you talking about?"

"The stone !" he shrieks, voice shattering in desperation, and he reaches for me. I flail back with a whimper—

But then Dieter screams .

He arches, body bowing unnaturally, and the fire behind him snuffs out. The wall of cedar trees vanishes, sucking away in an ear-popping abyss that leaves only me, him, and—

Otto.

Otto, standing with his back to me, Dieter in front of him, his arms up in defense.

Relief chokes me, gives my body permission to feel all this pain even more. He's here. How is he here?

Where is here?

Dieter doesn't hesitate. He lunges, toying amusement gone, all primal fury now as his hands wrap around Otto's throat.

" Mine! " Dieter screeches.

Otto fights. Punches and kicks, wrenches to break Dieter's hold, but my brother is a thing beyond now, untethered. His grip on Otto's neck tightens, and Otto's face purples, a sputtering gasp escaping his lips, and I feel that gasp in my own body, a choked release of air.

The word Dieter has been screaming echoes down into me.

Mine.

My warrior. My bonded. Mine.

I shove to my feet, wobbling, but I teeter toward them, one hand extended.

"Let," I demand, sweat beading on my forehead, "him"—my body cries out with each movement, each step, each thud of my heart—"go."

I flare my palm at Dieter. The cedar trees launch back up, but there are other things now too, marjoram and nettle and rosemary and everything , everything I can think of that protects.

But I don't need these things, do I? I don't need anything but wild magic.

And Otto.

Hands out by my sides, I scream, and everything goes dark.

"Fritzi! Fritzi— "

"Don't move—the Three save me, what happened?"

"I didn't—Dieter—"

" Dieter ? Scheisse, Fritzi, what did I tell you? Don't move ." Cornelia. She's talking to me, I think, but all is dark still, dark and—

Pain explodes, bright and consuming, and there's a ringing shriek, like a bell—no, it's me. I'm screaming, and hands are on my shoulders, pushing down.

"Please, Liebste, please," Otto begs, his voice thick. "Please stay still—Cornelia's here, she's here, and we'll help."

"Scheisse," Cornelia curses again. "Why did Holda call me here? She couldn't have woken up the healers, no— hold still —"

The air bursts with a smell like lightning, static and ether, and the pain retreats. Not gone, but not overwhelming, and I gasp in air and vault upright.

"Where—" My eyes fly around, expecting Dieter hunched in a corner, wounded and ready to attack again.

But I'm in…the library? The council's library.

And the room is destroyed .

Most of the books are off the shelves, scattered across the floor. The table is half burned, charred and blackened, and blood streaks some of the walls.

My focus flares to Otto, panicked, and I sweep him head to toe for injuries. He has a thin cut on his neck, but that's the only wound—so the amount of blood on the walls can't be from him.

It's from me.

I feel it now, wounds here, there, some healing from whatever Cornelia did, but it isn't enough to stop the agony from grabbing me with relentless fists.

"What happened." It comes out as a statement, a demand.

Talking hurts. My throat is rough, and I reach up, touch the skin, feel swelling.

Otto sits next to me, one hand going to my forearm. I wince, and he pulls back, and I see a burn there, barely healed; it leads up my arm and vanishes beyond what I can see. Shock takes over where Cornelia's magic left off, and I go numb.

"Dieter." I answer my own question.

Otto nods.

Cornelia drops back to sit on her heels. She's in a chemise, a robe hastily thrown on, her red hair in a messy braid, and her face wide in shock.

"Dieter possessed you," she clarifies.

"This is the second time he's done it," says Otto, and I whip towards him. "At least."

"What?"

He doesn't look at me as he explains how this isn't the first instance he's followed me to the library. How tonight, when Dieter attacked and tortured me in my own body, Otto used the bonding connection to drag Dieter's consciousness out of me long enough for me to fight him with magic.

Cornelia goes quiet when Otto's voice trails off.

He still won't look at me.

"The Well's barrier wasn't enough to keep him out," Cornelia says. "That's…troubling."

" That's what's troubling?" I gag. "My brother is alive. And he can still access magic. My magic. That's why the bonding potion with Otto didn't fully work. Because Dieter bonded me to himself first. He stole me—"

I rock forward, body shaking, hurting; I'm a tangle of grief and pain.

Otto leans toward me. "Fritzi, I—"

I throw myself into his arms, pain be damned. "You feel guilty. Stop. There's nothing you could have done to prevent what happened."

Tentatively, Otto returns my hug, wary of the injuries on my back.

He says nothing. But I can feel his guilt. It nudges at me, and I'm aware of the thread, warm and sturdy connecting us. It's there , whatever bond the potion was able to make against Dieter's influence, the reason Otto was able to pull Dieter out of my body.

I try to tell Otto again. It wasn't your fault.

But I don't want to talk more. I don't want to think or feel or connect to realize what this means. I'm so tired, inside and out, and I just want—

I want—

Before I can realize that Otto just felt all of that, the same way I can feel his guilt, he pulls me up. "Come. We can deal with this in the morning."

I stand but plant my feet. "No. We really can't."

"I agree."

Philomena is in the doorway. Hands on her hips. Face in a disgusted scowl. At her back is Rochus, who gapes at the library in horrified shock before he shoves around her and drops to his knees over a pile of ravaged books.

"What—" he starts. "What have you done ?"

Cornelia pushes to her feet. "We had a breach."

Philomena glares at me, sharp with accusation. "A breach . From her ."

"From Dieter Kirch ." Cornelia steps around us, putting herself between Philomena and me, and as Philomena tries to keep the blame on me, Cornelia explains in an ever more shouting voice what Otto just told her. Rochus half listens, gathering salvageable pieces of books into a pile.

Back through the door, shapes move. Brigitta, members of her guard, all listening, staring in shock.

I'm shaking. I only realize it when Otto touches my shoulder, and his steadiness counters my tremors.

"The hexenj?gers didn't kill Dieter," I whisper.

Philomena is yelling. Cornelia too. Their argument gives Otto and me some semblance of privacy, for a moment.

"No," Otto says, his jaw tight. "I don't know why. I was so sure they would."

I don't want to think. I don't want to do this. My body is broken and in agony and all the things I've most feared have just come to light.

But I'm the goddess-chosen champion.

And where were you? I ask Holda. I don't know whether I intend to sound accusatory.

Who do you think was the cedar trees? she asks. He has hidden his true intent. His lack of magic—I never suspected—I should have. I'm sorry, Friederike.

You weren't enough to keep Dieter out. Did you know he was bonded to me?

I sensed something connected to you, but I was not sure what it could be. Dieter has no access to magic—or he shouldn't. It did not even occur to me to see if he was the cause.

But he is. He's bonded to me. And I underwent the bonding ceremony with Otto, so we're all connected now?

The thought of Dieter having access to me is nauseating.

The thought of Dieter having access to Otto is unbearable.

My body swells with defense, the instinctual lurch that fueled me in the dream-state to push Dieter away— out —of Otto. But something comes with this pull now, some weird surge that fills my gut with a sense of effervescence, and I'm hit with a memory so potent I go completely still.

Dieter, in Birresborn, back before Mama and the Elders kicked him out. Before we knew the depth of his insanity, he was training under our healer to be the next caretaker of our village, to tend injuries and illnesses with his affinity for body magic.

I'd fallen out of a tree in a quest for mistletoe. There was a nasty scrape down my calf, and I'd been sobbing into Mama's chest at the pain and the fear, until Dieter knelt by my leg. His hand laid over it, coated in a salve, featherlight, and he whispered a spell as I wept and Mama shushed me.

A sensation wrapped around my leg. Warm and comforting and soft. And when Dieter peeled his hand back, the cut was gone.

That's the feeling I have now. A wave of healing, my mind a jumble of Dieter and Otto and protection, and I try to shake it off, the memory, the warmth —

"Fritzi." Otto's voice is thin with wonder and caution.

I glance at him, then follow his gaze down.

The wounds on my knuckles are…gone. The pain I'd felt in my back, from the burns—gone.

All of the injuries Dieter inflicted on me.

Healed.

I gape at the tatters of my nightgown. The only proof of the attack is now the smears of blood in the torn cloth.

"What—" Otto's hands go out, but he doesn't touch me, like he wants to leap to some action but can't figure out what that action should be.

My eyes go to Philomena, Rochus, Brigitta—they are all too locked in their own grief to see what I've done. I need to be more careful with wild magic, but this was an instinctual reaction, a desperate grab at relief.

That came because of a memory of my brother.

I can't focus on this now. I can't linger on anything other than what is in front of me.

"What did Dieter want here?" I ask Otto. "What did he say?"

Otto's face goes briefly emotionless. But I feel the spark of all the things he's fighting to push away—terror, revulsion, anger, remorse, shame.

"He didn't say." Otto's frown deepens, and he turns towards the half-burned table. "He was looking at something, there."

I cross the room. Rochus stares up at me from his pile of books, and he speaks, but it's like I'm in a tunnel.

Most of the materials on the table are destroyed. Books, scrolls. I poke through them—the spine of one book remains, showing a design I recognize immediately.

"He was researching the Origin Tree," I guess.

The flashes I'd had earlier pulse through my mind. The Tree, four elements wrapping around it—

Otto uses the point of his dagger to sort through the ash and debris on the table. "He wanted to break the Well's barrier to corrupt the Origin Tree's magic. Maybe that's what he still wants."

"Did he not know how to do it before, then? Why would he need information on it?"

"Perhaps he realized his original plan wouldn't work now."

"I don't know if—" My eyes catch on something under Otto's blade. "Wait—there."

He stops, picks up a piece of parchment that looks like it was ripped out of a book. It survived the fire and fighting underneath another book, and Otto runs his eyes over it once before extending it to me.

At our backs, Philomena is still yelling. Cornelia glowers at her, shouting back when appropriate. Rochus is instructing Brigitta's guards to start cleaning the library.

I take the parchment, and read.

It shows a picture of the Origin Tree, those three interlocking trees twisting in on each other, boughs reaching for the sky.

Beneath the drawing is a—spell? Or ingredients, maybe?

Three stones and one spark:

Water, air, earth,

And fire in the heart.

I read it over again. Again.

Stones.

Dieter had said I would bring him a stone. That they had one of them here.

What do these stones do?

No, Friederike , comes Holda's voice, a desperate gush. Destroy this paper.

Destroy this? What is it?

But if Dieter has already seen it—

She trails off, and I feel her panic. Can Otto feel it now too? I look up at him, but he's watching me with that considering frown.

What is this, Holda? I ask.

Your duty is to show the council and other witches that wild magic is a resource they can use without fear , she says.

Yes, but—

This is not that. The Origin Tree is a cap on magic. It is a dam; this would destroy that dam.

I scowl down at the table. Isn't that what you want?

I want our people to know that they don't need the limitations we put on them and that they can access the wild magic that is still outside of the Origin Tree. But this—this would flood the world with all of the magic that has been held back.

This spell , I start, laying each word out slowly, would destroy the Origin Tree?

Another of her infuriating pauses. When we created the Origin Tree, we built in a way to undo it, should it not accomplish what we envisioned. But so much magic is gathered in the Origin Tree that I do not know what the ramifications would be if it were destroyed now. I do not know what a surge of magic would do to the world. The force of the magic being unleashed, for witches and non-magical mortals, could be catastrophic.

Someone says my name. Shouts it, maybe. Cornelia snaps about letting me see a healer first—she hasn't noticed the absence of my wounds, sees only the smears of blood still on my clothes—but all my concentration is on the goddess.

It's what Dieter wanted originally, though?

No. Her rebuke is sharp and certain. He wanted to corrupt the Tree. A crack in its walls to ruin the magic within. This spell—this spell would obliterate those walls entirely.

The Origin Tree keeps a cap on magic. Witches access it by adhering to rituals and spells and ways that the goddesses, via the council, instruct.

Wild magic is that same magic but without boundaries. Without requirements. A free flowing brook instead of a walled-off well.

And the Tree is the dam that keeps that well from flooding the world.

My gut roils, discomfort and unease, and behind me, Philomena is still arguing, Cornelia too, and now Rochus. Their noise builds, my frustration builds, and I snap.

I spin around with the paper in hand. "Regardless of what you think of me," I push my voice into a shout, "my brother has the knowledge he needs to destroy the Origin Tree. So maybe you should stop trying to find a way to blame me and let the champion go out to stop him?"