Alone.
Iseult was alone again and wondering what could possibly be worse than Bloodwitches in the Contested Lands. Aeduan had left her beside an overgrown gully. It was decent terrain, in case anything unexpected arose. The sight lines were good; the cover was better, with fat mossy trunks and thick upthrusting slabs of dark granite.
After finding a flat crag to stretch out upon, Iseult dropped her gear and finally turned her attention to the rabbit she’d caught that morning. All day, it had flopped limply from the satchel on Aeduan’s back, and each time Iseult had glanced at it, its dead eyes had stared right back.
She stretched the rabbit across the stone. Its body was stiff and cold, exactly as she’d told Aeduan it would be. She just hoped the meat hadn’t spoiled.
Only one way to learn.
She rolled up her sleeves. Aeduan’s coat was far too big, and the wool itched. But she felt safer with it on. It smelled like smoke and old sweat. Not a bad smell, just … there.
After she’d rinsed her hands from water in the canteen, she freed her cutlass. While the blade was excellent for cutting off the rabbit’s feet at each joint, it was not good for the second step: a tiny incision across the rabbit’s back.
So absorbed was Iseult in not cutting too deeply and puncturing an organ (thereby guaranteeing that the meat would spoil) that she didn’t feel the Threads approaching until they were almost upon her.
In fact, if she’d waited two breaths longer before reaching out to sense the world’s weave, she would not have noticed the men until it was too late. But thank the Moon Mother, her habit was stronger than her attention on the rabbit.
Six sets of Threads crept toward her, purple tinged with steel gray. A hunger for violence, a desire for pain—and close. Mere seconds away.
Iseult’s mind blanked out. No time to react, no time to plan. The only option before her was flight, so Iseult gripped her cutlass and leaped into the gully, where the substrate was flat and the undergrowth sparse.
The Threads flared with pink excitement and green determination. They moved faster too, launching into sprints behind her. But why, why, why? Who were they and why were they hunting her? Unlike the men Esme had sent, these hunters were definitely not Cleaved. Their Threads were whole and thoroughly focused on hurting Iseult if they caught her.
She kicked her knees higher. Time blurred, the forest streaked. All Iseult saw and all Iseult was, was the gully’s mud floor and the placement of ferns. Of stones. Of anything at all that might slow her.
A man behind her roared something in a language she didn’t know. The Threads flared hotter. Hungrier. A battle cry to cow enemies.
It certainly cowed Iseult. She almost tripped, but somehow her balance prevailed. She punched her heels faster and gripped her cutlass tighter.
Ahead. Trees ending. Sky opening up. The thoughts slashed through her brain, one after another. Unbidden and with no time to examine. No time to plan.
She reached the end of the forest. Her feet pounded onto exposed stone, where water sprayed up. It was the Amonra River, foamy with speed, black with cold. The sort of rapids that even a Waterwitch would avoid—and there was no crossing it.
Iseult veered right. The shore was brutal, rocks and logs and undercut riverbank. She looked back.
A mistake. The men were closer than she’d realized. Close enough for her to see pockmarks and scars and toothless smiles. To see binding Threads oozing between them—a sign they all followed the same command. A sign they were comrades working as one.
Iseult pushed herself harder, her breath coming in short fog-choked gasps. The Amonra Falls hummed ahead. First, a mere tickle at the base of Iseult’s spine. A mist to linger on the horizon. It grew louder with each step, expanding into a heavy rumble in Iseult’s gut, a rain that coated everything in fat droplets.
Stasis, Iseult! Stasis in your fingers and in your toes! But she couldn’t reclaim it. She couldn’t slow, she couldn’t plan. She was against a wall, and it was made of violent men and violent rapids.
This was a wall that Safi would hurdle in a heartbeat, though. No preparing. No worrying. Just action. If Safi were here, she wouldn’t wait. She’d see opportunity and she’d take it.
Stupid as it might seem, Safi had once told Iseult, stupid is also something they never see coming.
Yes, Iseult had answered at the time, and it’s also why I always end up saving your skin.
But hey! A sharp Safi grin. At least there’s a skin to save, Iz. Am I right?
She was right. Moon Mother save her, but Safi was right. Stupid was sometimes the best.
And sometimes, stupid was all that remained.