Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Unnatural flames, summoned by magic. Dominated by will.

But it was not the Firewitch who had summoned the flames this time, nor was it the Firewitch who controlled them. Iseult knew it was her own power, her own will—for she and the Firewitch were one now.

They had always been one. Set on a path toward each other. Unstoppable.

Three black lines squiggled off him. Sever, sever, twist and sever. They writhed across the thick, smoking air before reaching Iseult and winding around her heart. Knotted, clotted. Corrupt.

Threads that break. Threads that die.

“No,” Iseult tried to say, but all that left her mouth was pluming darkness.

She stumbled back two steps.

And the dead man stumbled forward, a perfect mimicry of her movement. He cackled all the way. Clack, clack, clack.

“You killed me!” he cried. “And you will kill me again. Over and over, for we are bound. I am yours and you are mine.”

Iseult’s throat constricted. Her lungs sucked in only heat. This time, though, she managed to stammer, “I-I have to kill you. To save Aeduan. I have to.”

“He has left you, though. And he will leave you again. Over and over, Iseult. The world will burn around you, but he will never come.”

The Firewitch laughed again, a high-pitched keen like air whistling from logs trapped in a fire. Then, just like the wood, he popped. His Threads snapped taut, and his body snapped tall. His arms cracked backward, elbows and knees inverting. Then his mouth opened, and fire boomed out. It enveloped everything. All sight, all senses.

BURN THEM! he screamed, a silent promise that conquered every space in Iseult’s mind. BURN THEM ALL!

The fire reached Iseult. Heat, light, and pain that shredded. This was the end. This was her death. The Firewitch she had cleaved now cleaved her in return. She screamed too.

Except death never came. The seconds slid past, the pain slowly misted away. So, so slowly, much too slowly—yet cresting back all the same. And the fire dissolved too, white holes speckling across her vision, as if this world were made of paper and a new world were punching through. Until at last, there was nothing left. Nothing save Iseult and white flecks drifting around her.

Ash, she thought at first. This is the end and ash is all that remains. But then she realized it was cold to the touch. It gathered on her shoulders, holding perfect crystalline shapes.

Snow.

The nightmare was over.

Except now Iseult had no idea where she was—and now, some one new approached, appearing from the very fabric of the Dreaming. Tall, looming, with broad shoulders and hands that hung stiffly at his sides. The only part of him that looked tangible, that had shape and texture, was a silver crown upon his head.

It glittered like frostbite. He was a silver king in a world of falling snow.

Cold. Iseult hadn’t realized until this moment that she was freezing. That her teeth chattered, her body shook. It was not like the fire, though—this did not hurt, this did not slay. It simply was.

She was tired too, and suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to curl into the frozen calm and sleep. But she forced her eyes to stay wide and her mouth to form words. “Who are you?”

No sound left her throat. No steam, either, to coat her breath. Only the snow and the cold and the king, now offering a brusque bow. He lifted his hands, black shadows trailing behind—and giving him the look of a huge black bird.

Go, his wings seemed to motion. Wake up.

So Iseult did, watching as the final dregs of the Dreaming dripped away. As his wings shrank inward, revealing a woman with silver hair and warm, worried Threads hunched above.

Awake. Iseult was awake, but still shaking, still freezing. She didn’t know where she was. Lamps glowed so bright, they dazzled her eyes and turned the world to a mute, uniform amber. Even the glowing woman before her shone like a rising sun.

After a ragged breath and three shuttering blinks, it hit Iseult: she knew this woman. She knew the lined face above her and the silver hair.

Monk Evrane. She rubbed salves onto Iseult’s arms in gentle circles. A distant touch Iseult scarcely felt. She had numbed Iseult’s skin with … something, and Iseult’s vision sharpened the longer she watched Evrane. Circling, circling, always circling.

“You are awake,” Evrane murmured in Nubrevnan, words compassionate. Threads compassionate, even as her focus remained on her work. “Noden has blessed me, indeed. I never thought I would see the Cahr Awen here, in their sacred home.”

Iseult’s eyes stung at the sound of the monk’s voice. Her throat felt stuffed full of cotton. Evrane is alive. I didn’t kill her in Lejna. Aeduan had told Iseult this, but she supposed she hadn’t fully believed him until right now.

“H-how?” Iseult croaked. She tried to sit up, but Evrane easily stopped her. A single firm hand to her shoulder, and all Iseult could do was topple back. Her head sank against rosemary-scented velvet, and another realization swept through her: I am alive too.

“You are at the Monastery,” Evrane explained. “In the main fortress. We were able to reach the wreckage of the sky-ferry before the others.”

“Others?”

A sweep of cobalt hit Evrane’s Threads. Regret. “I fear the Monastery has split into two factions. Those who support the Abbot, and the insurgents, who do not. I,” Evrane added, “support the Abbot.” Her ministrations paused. She cocked her head. “Can you hear them? They lay siege even now. Ever since we brought you in.”

Iseult felt a frown hit her brow as she listened. Yes, yes—there was a distant roar, like voices shouting. Then every few moments, a boom would shudder out. More ripple in the bed than audible sound.

“Ceaseless catapults,” Evrane said. “Though they have run out of pitch and use only stone now.”

“Wh-why?”

A sigh. More sadness and regret in Evrane’s Threads. “Because they have lost their way and forgotten their vows to the Cahr Awen. It is a wonder you did not die, Iseult. I suppose, though, that Noden protects those He needs most.” Her dark eyes briefly met Iseult’s, a smile flitting across her lips. Then her gaze slid to a corner beyond Iseult. “The prince came out almost unharmed. He says you protected him in the crash.”

For the first time since awakening, Iseult sensed the second set of Threads inside the room. Pale with sleep, they hovered in the shadows. This time, when she tried to rise, Evrane allowed it—though not without a gentle hand to assist and an insistent, “Careful, careful.”