Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

“Dead,” Owl replied.

“Yes, but lots of things are dead, Owl. The inn we stayed at was dead. The leather on the saddle you rode was dead. It doesn’t mean it isn’t safe.”

More confusion in her Threads. Then a tiny frown.

“It’s the only way we can reach the Monastery, Owl. We have to take the ferry.”

“You could tell the rocks to bring you.” A tremor waved across the earth. It wobbled Iseult and knocked stones straight off the cliff.

Leopold’s Threads flared with white alarm.

Iseult, though, kept her face neutral and body calm. “I don’t have the magic you have, Owl. Remember? Neither does the prince. So we cannot ask the rocks to carry us. We have to take the sky-ferry instead. I bet Aeduan has ridden it, you know.”

It was the right thing to say. Green curiosity wavered in Owl’s Threads. “Will he be there?”

Iseult scratched her nose. She did not want to lie, but she also feared what might happen if she said no. “Maybe,” she offered casually, and she supposed it might even be true. He might be there. One day.

The green sharpened, Owl’s interest growing keener. Any moment now, she would abandon her camouflage.

So Iseult turned a cool eye toward the ferry, where the prince, to his credit, leaned against the railing and inspected his fingernails. A perfect display of fearlessness. See? he said with his body. This is easy. No need to be afraid.

His Threads, however, matched Owl’s. Bright green interest, and a hint of beige anxiety.

“Aeduan grew up at the Monastery,” Iseult went on. “Don’t you want to see what it looks like? I know I do.”

And there it was: a rumbling crunch of rocks, and soon, Owl herself appeared. The girl still shook, though, and the gravel still danced. Subtle enough to be mistaken for wind, but if the pebbles bounced higher at the Monastery … If Owl decided to bounce boulders instead …

“Owl,” Iseult said, pumping authority into her tone now, “you will have to stop using your magic once we reach the Monastery. Just like Aeduan told you before we entered Tirla, you will have to keep it hidden away from the monks.”

For once, the girl did not ask Why? But the question was evident in her wide, frightened eyes.

“Magic can always be taken away,” Iseult explained. “There are Cursewitches out there who can steal a person’s magic. Did you know that?”

Owl’s head wagged ever so slightly. The fear pulsed brighter in her Threads—but Iseult was going somewhere with this. Following a trail Habim had once followed with her, long ago when she’d been a fresh arrival in a city fraught with things to hide from.

“This is why,” Iseult explained, “it is always better to do things quietly. If you hide your powers, then people will underestimate you. And if they underestimate you…” She pointed at Owl’s chest. “Then you’re the one with all the power. And you are, aren’t you, Owl? You have Blueberry, and you have the stones. As long as you have that, and as long as no one knows you have them, then no one can ever, ever hurt you.”

Owl blinked. Three contemplative shutterings before aquamarine understanding melted across her Threads. The gravel stilled around her feet.

“No one,” she said softly, and Iseult couldn’t help it: her lips slipped into a smile.

And her grin only widened when Owl abruptly said, “Go. Now.” Then, without waiting for Iseult, she hurried for the sky-ferry, impatience bright in her Threads.

It took every ounce of Iseult’s Threadwitch training not to punch the air in triumph. She had coaxed Owl all on her own. No argument, no frustrated fire sparks.

Take that, Aeduan.



* * *



Aeduan did not know how he held his seat atop the donkey. The world bled around him, consumed by the perpetual throb in his chest and belly. It devoured all thought, all desire, until there was nothing left but fiery talons that leached away shapes and colors. Until the whole world was gray. Gray trees, gray sky, and gray Lizl atop her gray mare.

At first, when they’d set off, aiming vaguely northwest and into the mountains, Aeduan tried to warn Lizl. He’d told her the Fury was coming for him, that the man was a killer, yet all she’d done was laugh. “I’m a killer too, and he doesn’t scare me.”

It would seem she had seen the Fury in Tirla. She had taken shelter from the storm and overheard Aeduan talking to him. But not when the man’s winds had raged around him. Not when his cyclone had wrecked and ruined, nor when his cleaving magic had turned his veins to black.

So she did not believe Aeduan when he warned her, and soon, the argument was too difficult to sustain. So Aeduan shut up and turned his attention to escape—for he could not stay with Lizl. If the Fury came, she would die.

Aeduan had enough blood on his hands already.

The Aeduan of two days ago would have simply taken control of her blood, trapping her in place long enough for him to flee. Of course, the Aeduan of a week ago would never have been caught in the first place.

Now, he could scarcely smell her blood, much less touch it. And the more he drifted in this half-life, the more he feared it was not the fire in his veins that kept him from summoning his powers, nor the weakness as his body fought to heal.

The curse was erasing him. Drip by drip, it was draining away his magic until soon there would be nothing left. His body, he thought, might still have a chance to heal and recover. His Bloodwitchery, he feared, never would.

Eventually, even planning became too difficult to sustain. It took all Aeduan’s focus just to remain upright. The roads, if they could even be called that, were slender and uneven. Overgrown hunting paths and shepherds’ trails rife with branches to poke at Aeduan’s eyes and scratch apart his skin.

The donkey trundled ever onward. The sun ascended ever higher.

Once, Aeduan thought he heard a dog barking. Close, as if some farmer’s hut waited nearby. It was a nice sound. A welcome respite that chased away the shadows. He liked dogs. He had liked Boots too, until the day he’d killed him. Then he’d hated Boots for dying so easily.

Now, Aeduan knew everything died easily.

“You move too slowly.” Lizl’s voice knifed through the fading day. She had stopped her horse. The donkey had stopped too. Somehow Aeduan had not noticed, perhaps because the leash around his neck had grown no easier. “It will be midday soon, Bloodwitch, and we need to cover more ground.”

“Give me … that Painstone,” he rasped. “Then I’ll move faster.”

She snorted, and in an easy swoop, dismounted. Three sluggish heartbeats later, she reached Aeduan’s side. “Down,” she ordered, yanking at the leash—and leaving Aeduan with no choice but to obey. He tumbled from the saddle.