Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

“Oh.” It was the last thing she expected him to ask, and for half a skittering moment, Iseult feared he had somehow seen the note from Mathew in her pocket. Somehow he knew that she had other options before her. Except that this was impossible—she had only just received the message. There was no way Aeduan could know that someone was coming for her.

And why do you care if he does know? her brain demanded. He knows that you seek your Threadsister. He knows that you have Thread-family and that you cannot stay beside him forever.

Well, he may know that, whispered the tiny secret corner above her lung. But do you?

“I … owe you life-debts,” Iseult offered eventually. It was the only explanation she had ever put into words for herself. “Many of them. Why? D-do you want me to leave?”

So hard to squeeze out those words, and Aeduan offered no response. Instead, he simply stared at her, unblinking and inescapable, and with each passing second, his eyes shed more sleep. Awareness hardened in his gaze.

All while the room grew hotter and hotter and Iseult’s tongue grew fatter and fatter. Now she realized her heart had never stopped, her lungs had never paused. It was just that they’d been hidden behind the expanse of him. Of his eyes, of his fingers, of his touch.

Beside her, Aeduan heaved himself into a sitting position. A moan of pain, a spasm of agony, yet Iseult made no move to help him. No. Instead, she simply watched as the seconds ground past and internally chanted, Stasis. A futile refrain really, for once Aeduan had straightened fully and set to removing his shirt, it became too frustrating for Iseult to endure. His pain shivered in the air between them. The urge to yank off his shirt for him—it made her fingers flex against her thighs.

She was a pot about to boil over.

Iseult pushed upright. A bit frantic, a bit loud, but no movement came from the bed, no shift in Owl’s Threads as Iseult returned to the now barren table. She gripped its edges, then forced her gaze to the mirror. To her own reflection, where hazel eyes glinted in the lantern light.

Stasis, stasis, stasis. How many times had Iseult’s mother made her stare in a mirror, forcing her to master her Threadwitch calm? How many times had Gretchya made Iseult observe her own face for every tic, every twitch, every failure to maintain smooth perfection? Iseult had hated it growing up. Now, though, in a room made of flames, she sank into the forgiveness of a cold, methodical lesson from the past.

She could master her face, and then true tranquility would follow.

“I could find no clothes,” she murmured at last, no stammer. No inflection. No more Aeduan to devour her senses. “I will try again tomorrow, when shops might be open.”

“I can get clothes…” A grunt of pain behind her. A savage exhale. Then, “At the Monastery outpost. I can get more clothes.”

“You still intend to go there?”

“I … must.”

Iseult swallowed a sigh, even as her reflection stayed still. She wanted to argue, but knew it to be pointless. This was not the first time she’d encountered behavior that contradicted a story told aloud. Aeduan claimed he disliked the Carawens, that he was not even part of their ranks anymore, yet he’d remained so scrupulous to their rules over the past two weeks of travel. He had meditated upon waking, he had kept his Carawen cloak fastened and clean, and he had regularly recited prayers at dusk.

Safi had been no different. She had always claimed to despise her uncle, yet she’d also gone out of her way to impress him. Finding reasons to show off her fighting prowess, dropping her latest history lessons into conversation, and twice even pulling heists while he watched on.

Iseult supposed it was as simple as rejecting that which might reject us. It hurt less when you were the one to act first.

She turned away from the mirror, stronger now. Cool, cool all the way through, and she found Aeduan dabbing at the wounds on his belly. Clumsy movements that splattered water to the floor.

Stubborn fool. It was a wonder Owl slept through all that splashing.

He dunked. He cleaned. He dunked. He cleaned. He dunked … he fumbled. The linen fell into the washbasin. It sank, and his dull fingers could not get it out again.

Silently, stoically, Iseult returned to his side and retrieved the linen. She wrung it out before offering it to him. But when his fingers curled around the cloth, she did not let go.

“Is it truly so awful to let me help you?” The words knifed out louder than she’d intended. Almost petulant in her ears. She wanted an answer, though, so she held on.

Water dripped to the floor.

“Your … touch,” he said eventually, “is … too much.”

Too much? she wanted to repeat. Too much what? There were so many ways that phrase could be taken. Logic, of course, told her that he referred to pain, except one look at the mess around them told her that couldn’t be true. Her touch was defter than his, her fingers gentler.

Iseult released the linen, released his hand. He had given her an answer; she would press no further—even if that tiny secret corner wanted her to. Even if it nagged her while she returned to the mirror: It is not too much pain that bothers him. It is too much of something else entirely. The same too much that makes your tongue fat and your face hot. The same too much that makes your body shut down.

And Iseult hated how much she wished that tiny secret corner spoke true.





FIFTEEN


The shadows were not kind to Merik. They taunted in a voice that was not Kullen’s. That was amused and probing and in a language he scarcely understood. They pulsed, they boomed, they grasped and coiled—and always, always, they laughed.

Twice, he managed to drag open his eyes. Twice, he saw a crisp, blue sky overhead and felt damp winds scrape against his face. Twice, he hovered into awareness firmly enough to sense that he was moving, being carried by someone with strong arms and a relentless grip.

That was all Merik saw before the laughing shadows returned.

When at last the shadows cleared entirely, the sky was no longer blue. Sunset was creeping in, a great slanting of the world against a sky painted pink. A chill air frosted Merik’s face, and as he shoved himself upright, he realized he was wet.

He was shivering, too.

A forest materialized around him, growing firmer with each breath as the final remnants of poison smudged away. Fog crept and curved around alders, their pale trunks speckled with black. Churned-up mud trailed out from the nearest trees, showing an oft-trod pathway across sodden grass.

It led to a towering slab mere paces from where Merik lay. It was like the standing stone Merik had seen Kullen destroy, except this one was carved with elaborate whorls. In some places, the marks had smoothed away to nothing. In others, pale lichen crusted overtop.

Whatever this stone was, it was ancient and it was revered. Trinkets and tributes covered the grass, some placed today and others left long ago to rot beneath the cold Arithuanian sun. Between a loaf of bread molded to black and a doll whose painted face had faded to nothing, three pears gleamed. Perfectly ripe, their green curves flared to red like the sunset beginning to gather above.