Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

She liked the idea of that. It made warmth chuckle in her chest and a grin play along her lips. When she caught sight of Mathew’s familiar handwriting on a slip of beige paper, she let the grin rush in. Full force, ear to ear, not worthy of a Threadwitch, and she didn’t care.

Seeing her name in Mathew’s scrawl was nice. So, so nice.

Iseult,

Stay put. Wherever you are, I will send one of our people to meet you. They will then guide you to where you need to be.

I am sorry things went awry in Ve?aza City.

Much love,

Mathew



After reading the letter once, Iseult’s smile faltered. After two reads, it withered away entirely. And on the third read-through, she found her cheeks had scrunched into a frown. Surely this was not all he had to say. Surely there was a coded message hidden within the words—a common trick of Mathew’s—or … or perhaps some implied message tucked away. Say one thing and mean another. It had been a favorite game for Iseult and Safi.

Yet when, after the sixth reading, Iseult still found nothing, she was forced to accept that this was the entirety of the message. This was all Mathew had felt he needed to share.

Lightning gathered in Iseult’s shoulders as she read it for the seventh time. Things have gone awry? That is the best description a Wordwitch can find? Things had gone so much worse than awry—and he hadn’t even mentioned the spectacular mayhem that had crashed upon her since Lejna. Yet now Mathew expected Iseult to simply “stay put” and wait for one of his “people” to meet her. Well, they had told her to do the same in Ve?aza City, then again in Lejna, and look how well her waiting had turned out.

“‘Guide you to where you need to be,’” she whispered to herself, the squall now pushing up her neck. As far as she could see, where she needed to be was tending Aeduan. She needed to be helping him find Owl’s family, as they had agreed, and after that, where she needed to be was at Safi’s side.

Iseult loved Mathew and Habim. Fiercely. They were her Thread-family, and nothing in this world mattered more than Thread-family. But she was tired of being treated like some Fool card in the taro deck, to be tossed into the game whenever it was needed. Safi too had been played against her will, and now she was trapped in Marstok while Iseult was an impossible distance away.

With a long inhale, Iseult screwed her Threadwitch calm back into place. At least on the surface—at least for this young lady to see. “I am staying at the White Alder,” she said, words smooth as a sandy shore at low tide. “Room thirteen. If someone needs to find me, they can look there. However,” she added, arching an eyebrow in her best imitation of Safi, “they had better hurry. I leave Tirla soon, and I have no plans to ‘stay put’ longer than that.”



* * *



The first hints of sunset greeted Iseult by the time she left Mathew’s shop. Dusk came early in the mountains, and ringing chimes heralded the seventeenth hour as she returned to the White Alder.

Twelve beats in, Iseult realized she was being followed.

The first thing Habim had drilled into Iseult when she’d begun training six and a half years ago was to constantly—constantly—make note of who was around her. Every few heartbeats, she would sink into her magic and sense the weave of the city. The placement of its Threads.

Clang, clang. No one was following her. Clang, clang. Someone was. They were clever about it, though. Subtle and sly, staying just far enough back that if Iseult were to turn her head, she would see nothing out of the ordinary. But there was no hiding Threads, and this person’s were unmistakable.

They gleamed more brightly than anyone else’s on the street, like a flame burning in a field of wheat. Except this flame was dark green. This person was focused, and this person was hunting.

Learn your opponents. Learn your terrain. Choose your battlefields when you can. Habim’s second lesson tickled in Iseult’s ear as if her mentor stood right beside her. Iseult didn’t know this city, though, so learning her terrain and choosing a battlefield was impossible. For now, simple escape would have to be her aim.

Rather than calm her, though, having a plan seemed to stir her blood faster. There was only one person who had any desire to hunt her—and he had already hired men to do so. Likely, he was near Tirla too, since his arrows had cursed Aeduan only yesterday.

Corlant. This person following Iseult might not be that Purist priest, but she had no doubt her pursuer worked for him.

No, no, no. He had not gotten her at the Midenzi tribe. He had not gotten her in the Contested Lands. He would not get her now.

With a sudden twist, Iseult ducked down a side street. Wind-flags whipped overhead. As she’d expected, the man’s Threads gave pursuit. Three steps, and her pursuer turned too—but Iseult did not run. She did not shove at the crowds. Soldiers lurked on every corner in Tirla, and their uniforms mottled the evening traffic to green.

Her skin, her hair … she couldn’t risk drawing attention.

She reached another street and spun around a wagon of cabbages, then hurried—faster, faster—across a blacksmith’s front stoop. Heat billowed out from the open double doors. A woman shouted at her to come see her wares.

That shout—it reminded Iseult of a different chase in a different city. She had leaped from boat to boat to escape Aeduan that day. Perhaps she could do something similar now. No canals here, but there were carriages. And though she could not hop across them, she could use them for escape.

Red-topped carriage to the left. Too fine. Chicken cart to the right. Too foul. Refugee caravan coming behind. Perfect. It had three covered wagons, drawn by mules. Only the second and third wagons, though, had people crowded inside. Their Threads were almost colorless. A sign that loss and grief had numbed them to feeling.

Iseult slowed her pace, veering right so she could fall into step beside the caravan. Seconds plodded past; her pulse boomed inside her skull. Threads still following. Almost here, almost here—

The mules reached her, ambling and tired, and Iseult made her move. She circled behind the first wagon. A lift of a canvas flap, and she scrambled inside. Everything these people could carry had been stuffed inside the wagon, leaving Iseult’s body to bulge against the canvas. But the driver of the caravan could not see her, and her hunter did not either.

The person’s Threads had stopped at the edge of the intersection, and tawny confusion was rapidly taking hold. Red frustration too. Then they moved. Then stopped. Then moved. Then spun.

Iseult couldn’t help but grin, her fingers moving to her Threadstone. Safi would have been proud of her. Habim too, although he might have scolded her for not getting a better look at her opponent. Never rely on magic or weapons, he used to say. They can always be taken away.

Fine, fine, she thought, and ever so carefully, she peeled back the canvas and found Threads bright as sunshine.