Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Aeduan led the way, a snaking path across the ice, between the flames. Around frozen fighters—and corpses too—they twisted and raced. Black smoke burned Iseult’s eyes. Heat blasted against her, and in the back of her mind, she wondered how many times she and the Bloodwitch named Aeduan had raced together like this. Through hell-fire and beyond.


The longer they ran, though, the more people began to move. As if trapped in quicksand, a subtle inching forward.

Aeduan was losing control. So Iseult ran faster, and Aeduan ran faster beside her. Soon enough, the heat reared back, and through the smoke, a dark cliff face appeared. At its base, surrounded by frozen marsh, was a shadowy door.

Iseult tried to stop at the sight of it, but Aeduan tugged her on. His breaths were rough and erratic now. His eyes had darkened from red to rust, like blood drying upon a blade.

“That goes to the Monastery, Aeduan!” She had to shout over the seafire.

“It also goes outside,” he shouted back—or tried to, but like his breathing, his words were weak, unstable. “There is … a fork.”

Yes, yes. Iseult remembered that split in the tunnel. She and Leopold had chosen down …

Leopold. Goddess, where was he? She had left him without thought upon the battlefield, and she had not considered him since.

“If we go right at the split,” Aeduan continued, “then it will lead us beyond the Monastery…” His voice faded, and Iseult flung a backward glance, worried his exhaustion had finally caught up to him.

It had. The battle moved faster now, a thousand figures slogging through mud and writhing this way. Still, Aeduan ran. Still, he held Iseult’s hand tightly and did not stumble.

Above, she felt silver Threads blaring. Blueberry, she thought hazily. The bat was near; Iseult prayed Owl was not. Before she could search the sky for the creature, though, a new set of Threads cut into her awareness. A shivering, melting, dangerous set that bled from death to hunger to pleasure to rage.

The Abbot.

Iseult snapped her gaze forward once more, to where Natan fon Leid emerged from the cave’s entrance, sword in one hand and buckler in the other. His Carawen hood was towed up, a fire flap fastened—but Iseult didn’t need to see his face. She knew those Threads. She knew that cloak too, with its red trim.

Aeduan’s hand lifted. He reached for the Abbot, stride slowing ever so slightly. His hand shook.

Nothing happened, though. The Abbot did not freeze; no shock overwhelmed his bleeding Threads. Instead, he laughed.

“Salamander fibers,” he called. “A trick I learned from you, Bloodwitch. Now give me the Cahr Awen.” His Threads wore sky blue calm, as if he intended to wait patiently. As if all he had requested was a bit more salt for his lamb.

Which was why there was no warning before he rushed at them. Far quicker than his bland shape had suggested; he was still a fighter trained by the Carawens.

Aeduan barely swept back in time. Iseult had to yank him and shove. Their hands released. They evaded.

Behind them, the battle picked up speed. Threads shifted this way, and it was only a matter of time before Aeduan lost control entirely. He could not fight and hold the raiders and monks. He could barely keep standing and hold them too.

Burn them, Iseult’s heart said, and this time it was not the Firewitch speaking. She knew what to do here. She had done it before, and she did not need flames to do it. A different kind of fire lived inside her: the power that broke through enchanted ice and Origin Wells.

She lifted her arms, fingers stretching wide. Just as Esme had shown her. Just as she had done before in the Contested Lands.

But when she reached for the Abbot’s bleeding Threads, Aeduan lunged at her. “No.” He knocked her arm, and in that same instant, the Abbot’s sword whistled through the air. Right where Iseult had been.

A wisp of cold wind brushed against her. Then Aeduan was hauling Iseult backward, sideways, out of reach. Until they were the ones standing before the cave—and there was no missing just how fast the battle was thundering toward them now. Half-speed, if not more.

“Run,” Aeduan commanded, pushing Iseult behind him. “Run and do not look back.”

“I can cleave him,” she tried.

“Can … but should not. You do not want his mind inside yours.”

So Aeduan had figured that out then.

“I will handle Natan.”

“No.” Iseult gripped his forearm. “Come with me. I didn’t save you so you could die again.”

“I will be right behind,” he said, and she realized there would be no changing his mind. So she nodded and patted the bloodied coin beneath her shirt. “Find me.”

“Always,” he promised, and for a brief pause in the chaos, he looked into her eyes. So pale, so blue. When she had seen those eyes in Ve?aza City, she had thought they were the color of understanding.

She had been right.

“Te varuje,” she told him. “Te varuje.”

Then Iseult did as Aeduan had ordered, and she ran.





FIFTY-SIX


The cavern had changed since yesterday. An ice-bridge now spanned overhead, cold coiling off it, while a harsh wind blustered and kicked.

How wind could build underground, Safi had no idea, but she suspected it wasn’t natural—and that it had something to do with the voices filling the darkness far across the cavern. Distant, echoing sounds that tangled inside her gut. That seemed to call to her, even as she knew such a thing made no sense.

Nothing in this place made sense.

Beside Safi, the Hell-Bards tried to catch their breaths while Vaness lay limp upon Zander’s shoulder.

“You know,” Caden said between gasps, “we have a saying in the Ohrins. Over the falls and into the rapids. That’s what this feels like, Safi. Where the hell have you taken us?”

“I too,” Lev panted, raising a hand, “would like an answer to this question.”

“Magic,” was all Zander offered, his mouth agape as he ogled the blue-lit door.

“I don’t know,” Safi admitted. “I found it by accident while I was evading the flame hawk, and now…” She shrugged, a helpless gesture—because really there was nothing else she could say.

“Well, where does it go?” Caden squinted into the darkness, inching closer to the cliff’s edge. “Those soldiers will find us eventually, you know. Assuming they aren’t already on their way. We need to get moving.”

“Magic,” Zander repeated, louder now, and pointing at the door. “Magic.”

“Yeah, Zan.” Lev patted his shoulder. “We know.”

Wind thrashed harder, pulling at Safi’s hair, and the distant voices pitched louder—loud enough for her to catch a single word: Threadbrother.

Safi snapped her gaze toward it, straining to see, straining to listen. Because that word had been shouted in Nubrevnan. And it had been shouted in a voice she knew. His voice, even though he’d died in an explosion two weeks ago—

“Safi,” Caden said. “Are you listening?”

It can’t be, she thought, head shaking. It can’t be him. Merik’s dead, he’s dead. And yet, that voice had sounded exactly like she remembered from the Jana. Just like she remembered from that night on a dusty road.

And these winds—could they be his?