THIRTY-NINE
Iseult sat in the cupboard, her eyes squeezed shut and her senses extending outward, her witchery reaching for some sign of life. Of the Cleaved.
As for the Bloodwitch named Aeduan, she was as blind to his Threads as she had been. Only by looking at his face had she had any idea of what he’d felt—which was nothing at all as far as she could tell. And though Iseult had trusted Aeduan not to kill her—and to probably not feed her to the Cleaved—there had been no verujta there.
Mhe verujta. It was the most sacred of Nomatsi phrases—a phrase that meant trust me as if my soul were yours.
It was what the Moon Mother had told the Nomatsi people when she guided them out of the war-filled far east. It was what parents said to their children when they kissed them good night. It was what Heart-Threads said in their marriage vows.
For Aeduan to know such a phrase could only mean he’d lived with a Nomatsi tribe … Or that he was Nomatsi.
Whatever the source of his knowledge, though, it didn’t matter. He had helped Iseult; now he was gone.
Iseult’s magic pricked up—she sensed a cleaved Marstok stalking by the broken window. Three wriggling strands of death moved with it, just like the ones she’d seen over the corpse in Ve?aza City. Just like the ones she’d seen through the Puppeteer’s eyes.
These Threads were bigger, though. Fatter and strangely long. Stretching into wispy tendrils that vanished into the sky, like a marionette on a stage …
Iseult’s breath punched out. Puppeteer. She was looking at the Puppeteer’s work right now. These Severed Threads stretched all the way to Poznin—Iseult was sure of it—which meant the Puppeteer had somehow cleaved all these men from afar.
No, not somehow. She’d done it with Iseult’s help.
All those plans and places tucked away in your brain, the Puppeteer had said, have made the Raider King very happy. That’s why he gave me this grand mission for tomorrow. So, thank you—you made all of this possible.
The Puppeteer had realized Iseult and Safi aimed for Lejna, and she had cleaved whomever she could grab hold of.
Iseult was suddenly boiling beneath her cloak. Suffocating inside this cupboard. Burning inside her own head. She should have fought the Puppeteer harder. She should have avoided sleep and stayed away from that woman’s shadowy grasp.
Iseult was going to retch …
No, she was retching. Dry heaving and hacking because these Cleaved were on her soul now. She had killed them by being weak.
A new set of Threads flickered into Iseult’s awareness. A bright, living set that shoveled through Iseult’s sickness. She knew these Threads—that particular shade of determined green and worried beige.
Evrane. The monk was right outside the window.
In a heartbeat, Iseult was out of the cupboard. She couldn’t let Evrane die too. She leapt through the shattered window. Glass grabbed at her cloak, but its buckle held fast. Then she was pounding down the narrow street—aiming right, in the direction she sensed Evrane’s Threads.
Rain cut her, burning the wound on her face. The storm was getting worse—the sky had come alive. It all roiled and tossed in a single direction: toward the wharf.
Through the rain, Iseult glimpsed white. She pushed her legs faster, screaming, “Evrane!”
The white paused. Materialized into Evrane’s shape and silver head. She glanced back, her face a mask of surprise but her Threads blue with relief.
Black moved along a rooftop. Streaked from a shadowy storefront.
The Cleaved.
“Behind you!” Iseult shrieked, heaving out her cutlass.
She was too late. The Cleaved converged on Evrane, and the monk vanished beneath a horde of death.
Iseult burned up the road as fast as she could, screaming and slashing the entire way. Her blades severed necks, sliced through legs. Pustules burst and acid hissed on the walls. On Iseult’s cloak.
Yet she swung and heaved and chopped, screaming Evrane’s name all the while.
Soon enough, there was no one left to kill. The Cleaved were running … and where Evrane had fallen, there was nothing but a wide stain of red.
Iseult spun, frantically searching doorways and shadows.
But the monk was as gone as the Cleaved.
So Iseult squeezed her eyes against the storm and reached for Threads. There. On the other side of the nearest alley was a set of frightened white Threads, swirling with gray pain. A lot of gray pain.
Iseult pushed into the wind and hugged Aeduan’s cloak tight. He had told her the truth: the Cleaved didn’t seem to smell her.
She reached an intersection of narrow row houses. Blood dragged along the ground, already splashing away with the rain.