Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

They had left the inn, pistols firing. Final thunderclaps to fill Iseult’s ears. To fill her heart. But Aeduan had not followed. He had left her, after everything. After she had saved his life, and he had saved hers. After she had cleaved a man for him.

She had gone back for Aeduan that day in the Contested Lands, but he was not coming back for her. He was never coming for her. No us, no we, only a means to an end.

“I’m sorry,” Iseult said, and she meant the words as much for herself as she did for Owl.

“He will come back,” Owl said, a strand of certainty wending through her Threads.

Iseult said nothing in reply. It was too familiar, that hope. That hunger. That belief that there had been some mistake, and that at any moment, the abandoner would change their mind. Aeduan would not, just as Gretchya had not six and a half years ago.

Fortunately, Iseult was saved from having to speak. First came burning silver Threads, then the mountain bat himself appeared, a silent silhouette across the moon. Before Iseult could tell Owl to keep the creature away, Blueberry had dropped into a nosedive, aiming toward them.

The horses bolted.





TWENTY-FIVE


When Esme sang, Merik could almost pretend he was somewhere else.

Curled beside the cold wall of her tower, with only a frayed blanket to offer warmth, he could shut his eyes and let her voice carry him away.

He did not know the song. He did not need to. As long as she was singing, he was not chained in her tower with no magic. He was not a puppet, bound to her by cleaving Threads.

She was like a sea fox, Merik decided, singing with a voice from another realm. In the stories, the sea foxes would shed their skins and lull unsuspecting sailors to the shore. Then they would drown them. A nice clean death, really, compared to this half-life Merik was trapped in.

When the last of Esme’s song trilled out, a vibrato to bounce off the stones, her bare feet padded across the room. Merik was careful to keep his eyes shut, his breaths even. I am still asleep. Leave me alone. I am still asleep.

“I know you are not sleeping, little Prince.” She sank to the stones beside him. “I can see from your Threads that you’re awake.”

Merik winced and opened his eyes.

She grinned down at him, her face closer than he’d realized. Then silver flashed in her hand and she stabbed him in the heart.



* * *



The shadows were not kind to Merik. They sang to him from a little girl’s face framed by blond braids, and when she smiled, it did not stop at the edges of her face. It stretched beyond, off her jaw and into the air, singing and giggling forever.

Merik wanted to wake up, but the shadows wouldn’t let him. There was only laughter and darkness and hate.



* * *



Merik awoke to a night sky and rainfall. He did not know how long he had been unconscious. All he knew was that candlelight flickered around the tower, and his chest ached.

My heart. He scrabbled to a sitting position and gaped down at where the wound should be. There was blood, almost black on his shirt, and there was a hole in the linen …

But no wound. Only a shadow-tinged pucker where the knife had gone in. And pain—always the pain.

“Fascinating, is it not?” Esme’s words skated over him, and then the woman herself appeared, slinking around the wall. She wore a different dress now, honey-colored velvet as fine as any noblewoman’s. It was too big, though, dragging as she skipped toward him. Clutched to her chest was the book she’d shown him when he’d first arrived. “You died, Prince Merik! And then came back to life—although not entirely. The Threads that bind you to the Fury are still intact. It keeps you from life, but it also keeps you from death.”

She dropped to the stones, her gown pooling around her. It shimmered in the candles’ glow. Then she placed the book on the floor and flipped back pages, no gentleness in the movement, even when the pages protested and the binding squeaked.

“Imagine the implications,” she gushed, once she’d found the page she desired, covered in hand-drawn diagrams. “Imagine the applications! It is very similar in premise to the first Loom Eridysi made a thousand years ago.” She pointed to a sketch on the page that Merik supposed looked vaguely like a loom. “If we did not need the Fury alive, I would try other deaths. Drowning. Burning. Eventually decapitation. But I fear that sort of death might be too much for you in the end.”

She smiled.

Merik shuddered.

“I have more work for you today, Prince.” She searched her book impatiently. Merik thought he heard a page rip. Then she found what she wanted, and let the book fall open. “I need more stones like these.”

He glanced at them. “Like what I found before?”

“No.” She traced her finger over a stone with lines coiling around it. Beneath it, in a script that looked like old Arithuanian, were the words Arlenni Loop. “These will have thread wrapped around them, or perhaps yarn.”

“Why do you need them?”

Her eyes thinned, and for half a breath, Merik feared he had gone too far. His muscles tensed for pain. The chain scratched against the stones.

But then a smile rippled over Esme’s cheeks, and she sighed—a contented sound. “You are fun, Prince. No one has ever asked about my magic before. Only Iseult, but she so rarely visits anymore.”

Iseult? Surely Esme could not mean the same girl Merik knew. There was no time to ask, though, nor time to wonder, for Esme had launched into a detailed explanation of Threads. She poked at pictures on the page, clearly expecting Merik to listen and observe.

“Threads,” she declared, “are everywhere. They hum in the stone.” She patted the floor. “In the clouds.” She waved to the window. “In the trees, in the birds, in your heart.” A sly smile and she mimicked stabbing him in the chest again. “All magic is nothing more than manipulation of Threads, Prince, and once upon a time, it was only the Paladins who could do so.

“Except in the Fareast, where my people first lived.”

Merik frowned. “The ’Matsis?”

Her lips curled back. Her chin thrust forward. “That is a hurtful word, Prince.”

Merik recoiled, bracing for the fire. For the pain.

“It is offensive. Dismissive of who we are. Is it really so hard for you to say the whole word? No-matsi. Or, as we were long ago, No’A-matsi.”

“I am sorry,” he tried to say. “I did not know—”

“You mean you did not care.”

“No!” His hands rose in apology. Flames, flames, at any moment the cleaving fire would consume him. “I’ve never heard that before—I’m sorry.”

“You have heard it, but you chose not to listen. All men in the Witchlands are the same.” Her nostrils flared. “Say it.”

For a moment, he did not know what she meant. Then he realized. “Nomatsi.”

“The right way.”

Noden hang him, what had she just told him? Shit, shit. He had not listened, and she was right. In his holiest of conceit, he had chosen not to hear—