“It might augment my witchery, though,” Evrane countered. “At the very least, we can wash Iseult’s wound there, where the water is completely pure.”
“It ain’t far,” said a new voice. Yoris. He stepped over the knee-high threshold and mopped his sleeve on his brow. “There’s a path along the river. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to reach.”
“What about your men,” Merik asked, brow still folded. “Do they patrol that area?”
“Of course. All the way to the edge of the Nihar lands.”
A pause. Then Merik nodded, and his expression melted into something almost calm. “Aunt,” he said, twisting toward Evrane, “you can take Iseult to the Well. Heal her, if you’re able, and I’ll come for you at the next chime.”
Evrane’s breath sighed out. “Thank you, Merik.” She slid a hand behind Iseult’s back. “Come. We’ll go slowly.” Iseult rose, and Safi moved to follow … but then paused.
She turned to Merik, who stared at her. “I would like to join,” she said. “But I won’t go if you think it’s a risk to the contract.”
He straightened slightly, as if startled she’d considered the contract. Considered him. “The contract should be fine. Although…” He stepped in close, and with aching slowness, he reached out to slide his fingers around Safi’s left wrist. When she didn’t resist, he lifted her hand, palm up.
“If you run, Domna,” his voice was a low thrum that shivered into Safi’s chest, “I will hunt you down.”
“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow, pretending Merik wasn’t touching her. That his voice wasn’t making her abdomen gutter and spark. “Is that a promise, Prince?”
He laughed softly, and his fingers slipped behind her wrist. His thumb trailed fire over her palm … Then he dropped her hand, leaving no indication of why he’d picked it up in the first place.
“It’s a promise, Domna Safiya.”
“Safi,” she said, pleased to note her voice was steady—and that Merik was actually smiling now. “You can call me Safi.”
Then she bowed her head once and left the room to follow Iseult and Evrane to the Origin Well of Nubrevna.
*
The path to the Water Well was no easy walk, and Iseult was bone-tired before Noden’s Gift was even out of sight. In fact, she wasn’t even convinced that Evrane followed a real path. It was steep, overgrown by stinging nettle (that Safi stepped in and proceeded to howl over), and the insects and birds chattered so loudly, Iseult thought her ribs might shatter from the vibration of it all.
The hardest part, though, was the steep climb to the double-ridged peak on which the Origin Well stood. With Safi’s and Evrane’s help, though, Iseult finally reached the top of the black-rocked hill, and promptly gasped.
For she was at an Origin Well. The Water Well of the Witchlands. There had been an illustration of it in her Carawen book, yet this, the reality …
It was so much more in person. No painting could ever capture all the angles and shades and movement of the place.
The narrow basin, with its six cypress trees (albeit skeletal and leafless) spaced evenly around the sides, held water clear enough to reval a sharp, rocky bottom. The flagstone path circling the Well had always looked gray in the book, but now Iseult saw it was actually a million shades of ancient white. Beyond the Well’s ridge of stone was the Jadansi, blue and endless—yet strangely calm. Only the lightest salty breeze swirled up to ripple tenderly at the Well’s surface.
“It looks nothing like the Earth Well,” Safi said, her expression and Threads as reverent as Iseult knew hers must be.
Evrane hummed an acknowledgment. “Each Well is different. The one at the Carawen Monastery is on a high peak in the Sirmayans and covered permanently in snow. We have pine trees, not dead cypresses.” She raised questioning eyebrows at Safi. “What did the Earth Well look like?”
“It was beneath an overhang.” Safi’s gaze turned distant as she rummaged through her past. “There were six beech trees, and there was a waterfall that fed into the Well. But it only flowed when it rained.”
Evrane nodded knowingly. “The same happens here.” She pointed to a stone dam splitting the eastern ridge in half. “That used to feed into the river, but now it only flows during a storm.”
“Can we look?” Iseult asked, curious as to what the canyon looked like. There’d been no mention of that in the book.
“Don’t you want to rest first?” Safi asked, brow furrowing and Threads concerned. “Or try to heal?”
“Yes,” Evrane chimed. She swooped an arm behind Iseult and led her to a ramp descending beneath the water. “Let’s get you undressed and into the Well.”
“Undressed?” Iseult felt the heat drain from her face. She braced her heels against the flagstones.