Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, ignoring him. “Nomatsis do not, but Safi always swore they were real.”

“Oh?” He blinked, pallid confusion in his Threads. “Yes, well, she would believe in them. The Hasstrel castle is full of ghosts. But … why do you ask?”

Iseult wet her lips. “So you do believe?”

“Most Cartorrans do. We are not a worshipping people, but we take our ancestors very seriously.” He planted his good hand on the bed and leaned toward her, a frown knitting across his face. “Again, Iseult, why do you ask?”

She scratched her nose. More gauze scraped. It was one thing to ask for his insight, and quite another to tell him she had ghosts haunting her dreams. “No reason,” she said at last.

His expression and Threads wore open disbelief, but he did not press her further—for which Iseult was grateful. She grew more tired by the second. Heavier, too, like a cave had collapsed atop her.

“Owl,” she said, but the name came out as a long, slurring moan.

Shock brightened Leopold’s Threads. In an instant, he was on his feet. “You are ill again. I will get Monk Evrane.” He moved away, so fast. Too fast. Streaks trailed behind him. A hundred Leopolds, a hundred versions racing across time.

“No,” Iseult called out, but like before, that was not what left her tongue.

By the time Evrane rushed in, shadows veiled Iseult’s vision. Evrane looked made of darkness, black waves coiling off her.

Wings, Iseult thought before the healing magic dragged her under. It looks like she has wings.



* * *



When Iseult next awoke, it was to someone barking, “Get her up,” in Cartorran. A man’s voice attached to vague, hazy Threads.

She stretched her eyelids high. The world wheeled into weak focus. Threads, Threads, Threads—the man who had spoken, as well as two more people now striding toward the bed. Monks she did not know.

For a brief, disoriented moment, their white cloaks looked fused together, a single entity crossing the room with Threads of hostile gray and green focus. Then the white smear reached Iseult, split once more into two, and faces materialized above her.

A woman, a man. The woman seized Iseult’s left arm, the man seized her right. Then, with grips that dug beneath her bandages and into her flesh, they wrenched Iseult into a sitting position and heaved her backward until her spine hit the headboard.

The world reeled around Iseult. No pain, only vertigo and confusion. Sleep still clung to her. The Firewitch still laughed in her ears.

Then the monks strode away, no longer melded into one, even as their Threads aligned in a single color: silvery revulsion. They were disgusted by Iseult’s weakness. Or perhaps disgusted by the touch of her. But Iseult was accustomed to disgust and hate, and if those feelings could kill, they would have slain her a long time ago.

She drew in a long breath, relieved when she felt her lungs press against her ribs. When her vision grew clearer and clearer by the second. White moonlight slashed through open curtains. She neither saw nor sensed Evrane or Leopold nearby.

She had little time to puzzle over their absence before the third monk—the man who’d first spoken—stalked into view.

At first, as Iseult watched his Threads approach, she thought the colors blended because of her own exhaustion. Because of the shadowy sleep that refused to fully release its hold. Except everything else in the room had crystallized. She felt alert, awake. Even her muscles felt light enough to move of their own accord.

Then she realized: He’s a Bleeder. Someone who bled from one emotion to the next, feeling each with frenetic intensity, yet never staying in one place for long. It gave their Threads a muddy weave. They are unstable, Gretchya had warned Iseult years ago. Each emotion is frayed and somehow simultaneous. There is no predicting what a Bleeder will do next.

Instantly, Iseult’s body tensed. Cold shoveled through her—hard ice after so much sleep saturated by flame.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked. He was young. Perhaps only a few years older than she. With his sallow skin and fair hair, his features bled together like his Threads, and the illusion was only compounded by the softness of his jaw and figure.

If Iseult didn’t know of the rigorous monastery training, she would have thought he’d never worked a day in his life.

He also stank of incense.

“You are the Abbot,” she said. The red trim on his cloak gave it away. Then she recalled something Evrane had said in passing and added, “Natan fon Leid.”

Gray displeasure darted across his Threads, somehow moving in sync with rosy pleasure too. There was red irritation as well, along with sprays of lilac hunger and orange impatience. They flitted past, quick as flies and too many for Iseult to catch.

“Your guardians”—he flung a hand toward the door—“will let no one enter. Not even me, in my own sodding Monastery. But I want to know who has brought us so low. I want to see the face of the woman destroying my home.”

Iseult stiffened, thrown by his words. Thrown by his venom. “I don’t destroy your home,” she said.

He only laughed. “This insurgency wants you, and they will do whatever it takes to get you.”

“Why?”

He did not answer. Instead, he leaned closer, his eyes scraping up and down the length of her. Violence frittering brighter with each heartbeat.

“What is your name?”

“Iseult det Midenzi.”

“You are a ’Matsi.”

An observation, she decided, not a question. So she stayed perfectly still. Never in her life had she felt it more important to keep her expression devoid of emotion. Her stasis unwavering and screwed tight. Natan fon Leid was the viper hiding on the forest floor; his danger lay in how plain and unassuming he appeared on the surface.

Now she understood what Leopold had meant by Men like that are useful to princes. The sixth son of a nobleman, he had likely been overlooked his whole life. Now, as Abbot, he had something to prove.

Iseult had no idea why Monk Evrane would support such a man. Unless, of course, the insurgent monks were even worse.

“Five hundred years,” the Abbot muttered to himself, Threads jumping, bleeding, unreadable. “Five hundred years with no one, and now two Aetherwitches claim they are the Cahr Awen.”

He lunged, too fast for Iseult to react. No warning inside his Threads, no warning in his body. One moment, he spoke. The next, he had his hands around her throat and was slamming her against the headboard.

Her skull cracked. Instinct took over.

Her fists shot up, ready to punch beneath his arms. Invert his elbows and snap his bones in two. Burn him, burn him.