Safi had never seen anything like it. They worked in perfect concert. Charge. Pause. Charge. Pause. While a brave few assaulted their formation from the sides or rear, the sailors were well trained.
In this pattern, the Cartorrans crossed the marsh. Time lost all meaning. It went from seconds and breaths to bursts and lulls. To blades arcing up and jaws snarling near. Charge. Pause. Charge. Pause. On and on beneath a perfect, cloudless sky.
Until at last, they reached the harbor.
Until at last, they reached a ship.
They weren’t the only ones to reach the Cartorran cutter at the end of the dock. Sailors already crawled across its deck while a woman with gray hair trumpeted orders from the stern.
She saw them approach before her crew did. She smiled—a false thing that scuttled over Safi’s magic—and then trilled, “You’re too late to reclaim your ship, lovelies!”
One by one, her men swiveled about to see who’d arrived. And one by one, they drew knives, cutlasses, and Firewitched pistols.
Vaness’s arms rose, and Safi saw exactly where this was headed. More fighting, more bloodshed, more wasted life.
Then she thought of initiative. Of bending and breaking, and she found herself shoving in front of the empress. In front of the Hell-Bards. “Wait!”
Kahina waited, eyebrows slinging high.
“We don’t have to do this,” Safi said. Merik might be dead—and countless others too—but that didn’t mean anyone else had to join him today.
“Walk away.” Kahina strode to the bulwark. Her own sword clanked against her hip. “I have no quarrel with you, but I claimed this ship. Now I keep it.”
“Play me for it.” The words tumbled out. Stupid—so stupid. But also something they would never see coming.
Caden and Vaness pivoted toward Safi, faces aghast.
Admiral Kahina, however, looked delighted. A feline smile spread over her face, and she leaned a hand onto the bulwark.
“Not taro,” she drawled. “But a duel. Me.” She splayed her fingers to her chest. “Versus you. No weapons. Just brains and brawn. Then, whoever comes out alive keeps the ship.”
“No.” Caden reached for Safi. “No.”
But he was too late. Safi was already agreeing, already nodding and marching for the gangway onto the ship.
Initiate, complete.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Aeduan couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Threadwitch. Smoke whispered up around her. Without the Firewitch to sustain the flames, only charred earth remained—and Aeduan could finally get his bearings.
He and Iseult were at the southernmost edge of the pillars, where the river smoothed out into ancient battlefields.
Aeduan sagged against a pillar and watched Iseult’s approach. She had cleaved that man. As easily as Aeduan stilled a person’s blood, she had cut the bonds that connected the Firewitch to life. He’d seen that magic before. Dark magic. Void magic like his own. But never—never in a thousand years of living—would he have guessed that the Threadwitch …
Was not a Threadwitch at all.
As he waited, the morning’s rhyme flickered through his mind. Dead grass is awakened by fire, dead earth is awakened by rain. That moment in the ruins felt like lifetimes ago. But it wasn’t. Iseult was still the same woman who’d sparred with him. Who’d raced him.
Who’d come back for him.
Rain began to fall, dowsing the Firewitched flames. Cannons continued to blast, and pistol shots popped. Voices charged in through the drizzle, a sign the battle had reached the gorge.
Iseult reached Aeduan. Ash ran down her cheeks, black rivers of rain, and for half a breath, she looked as corrupted as the man she’d just killed.
Then the illusion broke. Her fingers landed on Aeduan’s shoulder, and without a word, she angled him around. Not gently, but efficiently. She gripped the arrow lodged in his lungs and heart.
Aeduan knew what Iseult intended to do, and he knew that he should stop her. Now. Before he owed her any more life-debts.
He didn’t. Instead, he let her brace a foot against the pillar. He let her wrest the iron from his heart.
Pain washed over him, heavy as the smoke-choked rain. He sank forward against the stone. His chest gulped and heaved. Blood oozed.
“They have Owl,” Iseult said.
Aeduan nodded, his forehead scraping against the rock.
“She’s not merely a child,” Iseult forged on. “The Baedyeds and the Red Sails both want her. Whatever she is, she’s special.”
Again, he nodded. He’d guessed as much, though he’d yet to think through what it might mean.
“They’re coming for her, Aeduan.” Iseult’s voice was harder now. Louder than the dribbling rain.
Aeduan opened his eyes. Black droplets cut lines through the ancient striations of the pillar.
Two more arrows popped free from his flesh. One from his thigh, one from his shoulder. Instantly, his vision sharpened.
Another two arrows burrowed free, and Aeduan’s spine straightened to its full height. Three more arrows, and his magic expanded as well.