Just as Aeduan aimed into the waves, his mare decided the other horses had the right idea. Aeduan gave up on her. With a splash, his boots hit the water and he kicked into a jog.
Yet he only made it halfway to the tower before the four Carawens wheeled around it and out of sight. Moments later, a figure plummeted from the sky. Windwitch.
Aeduan rounded the tower … and a gale slammed into him. He barely managed to grab hold of the lighthouse stones before two monks hurled past in a tornado of air and water. Twenty paces, fifty … They crashed limply to the beach—and they probably wouldn’t rise for a long while.
As the wind died down, swirling over the shallow waves, Aeduan clawed himself back to his feet and sprinted onward, to a set of steps. The Truthwitch’s scent had ascended, so Aeduan would as well.
But he’d only circled one set of barnacle-laden stairs when two monks staggered into his path. Aeduan grabbed at the first man’s cloak. “What is it?”
The monk jolted, as if woken from a daze. “Cahr Awen,” he rasped. “I saw them. We must stand down.”
“What?” Aeduan reared back. “That’s impossible—”
“Cahr Awen,” the monk insisted. Then in a bellow that blasted over Aeduan, over the sounds of winds and waves, “Stand down, men!” The monk wrenched his cloak from Aeduan’s grasp and pushed down the remaining steps.
Aeduan watched in horror as the second monk followed.
“Fools,” Aeduan growled. “Fools!” He leaped up the last few steps, reached the top floor … and skittered to a stop.
The Nomatsi girl was there, dressed in black and sunk low in her stance. She held a cutlass, arced up in a stream of silver steel, while her black Threadwitch gown swept in the same direction … And beside her, standing tall, was the white-gowned Safiya with a pitchfork swooping in a blur of dark iron, her white, shorn skirts swinging downward.
It was the circle of perfect motion. Of the light-bringer and dark-giver, the world-starter and shadow-ender. Of initiation and completion.
It was the symbol of the Cahr Awen.
Cahr Awen.
In that tenth of a frozen heartbeat as all the images clamored for space in Aeduan’s brain, he allowed himself to wonder if it was possible—if these two girls of moonlight and sunshine could be the mythical pair that his Monastery had once protected.
But then the girls moved apart—and a Windwitch appeared behind them. The man, wearing a Nubrevnan naval uniform, was hunched over as if too exhausted to fight. His face was hidden in shadows, his fingers flexed, and wind gathered slowly toward him.
Aeduan cursed himself. Of course these girls would look like the Cahr Awen with air currents spiraling around them.
“Stay back!” the Truthwitch shouted. “Don’t move!”
“Or what?” Aeduan muttered. He lifted his foot to move forward—
But the Nomatsi girl actually answered. “Or we will decapitate you, Bloodwitch.”
“Good luck with that.” He stepped forward, and Safiya darted at him, pitchfork out. “Get away from us—”
Her voice ripped off as Aeduan took control of her blood.
It was his secret weapon. A blood-manipulation he only used in the most dire of situations. He had to isolate the components of Safiya’s blood—the mountain ranges and the dandelions, the cliffsides and the snowdrifts—and then he had to pin them down. It was exhausting work, and took even more energy and focus than the high-intensity sprint. Aeduan couldn’t maintain this control for long.
Safiya’s body was stiff, her pitchfork extended like a glaive. She looked trapped in time. Not even her eyes moved.
In a rush of speed, Aeduan darted toward Safiya. Yet just as he reached her—just as he crouched down to heave her onto his shoulders—the Windwitch burst into action.
The man’s arms flung upward, and both he and Safiya rocketed off the tower in a roar of wind. It kicked Aeduan backward—propelled him toward the tower’s edge.
Aeduan lost control of Safiya’s blood.
He launched into a sprint. Safiya was ten feet high now and flying backward, her body a frantic spin of limbs and skirts. She was screaming over the wind: “Iseult! Iseult!”
If Aeduan ran, he could leap into the Windwitch’s air-funnel—
A body hurled into him. He toppled sideways, barely transferring into a roll before the Nomatsi girl thrashed him to the ground.
Yet Aeduan was already spinning, fingers clawing for any wrists or elbows he could break, his Bloodwitchery grabbing for any blood to lock down.
But just as Aeduan’s fingers caught empty air, his Bloodwitchery found nothing—the girl was already flipping off him, already charging toward the edge of the tower.
She would jump. Aeduan knew she would jump.
So he leaped to his feet too and bolted after the girl named Iseult.
She hit the edge of the lighthouse; she jumped.
Aeduan hit the edge too; he jumped.
And they fell. Together. So close Aeduan could grab her if he wanted to.
But it was like she knew it. Like she’d planned it that way.