Iseult’s laughter weakened. Then rattled off completely. “You’ve been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe—which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?”
Aeduan’s eyes thinned—not because of what she said but rather how she chose to say it. She was blaming him for the Purist priest Corlant. Blaming him for everything, yet it wasn’t as if he had asked for this either.
“If I had never met you,” he countered coolly, “then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died, and I would not be forced to work for—”
“Monk Evrane lives?” The Threadwitch pushed to her feet, a new expression washing away her hysteria: eyes huge, lips parted. Hope. “I thought the Cleaved had claimed her in Lejna. But … she lives?”
At Aeduan’s nod, Iseult’s head tipped back. Her eyes closed. When she spoke again, it was in Nomatsi, once more and with no stutter to trip her words. “Whatever has happened between us,” she said evenly, “whatever events have passed to lead us here, they cannot be undone. And now I owe you my life. Twice.”
Aeduan stiffened at the mention of a life-debt. She wasn’t finished, though.
“In Lejna, you promised to kill me if we ever met again. You said your life-debt had been repaid. By your own accounting, I owe you once for not killing me last night. Twice, for saving me from the Amonra. Maybe even three times, for warning me against Corlant.” She laughed, that same hysterical sound—but gone in an instant, her face cold and somber as she said, “I don’t know how to repay you, Monk Aeduan, but I know the Moon Mother would want me to try.”
Aeduan’s jaw muscles twitched at that. He spun away from her with too much force. “I’m not a monk anymore,” was all he said before striding out of the ruins.
Someone had to salvage their forgotten supplies.
His careful walk soon became a jog. A gallop, with ferns to snap against his calves. Branches to scrape his skin.
Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was …
A first.
A first that he didn’t know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river’s water because he had saved her life.
Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls.
But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, only that he absolutely would.
TWENTY-THREE
Despite its dubious exterior, the Gilded Rose catered to the richest of Red Sails. It was the slaves that proved it—their clean faces, their tailored clothes.
The air seemed to tighten as Caden and Safi entered, and Safi’s magic instantly stirred against the back of her neck. There was some sort of glamour at work here. A spell to smooth away flaws, soften the truth, and leave everyone awash in an unnatural but flattering glow.
False, false, false.
The couples on the low sofa and the people dining at the tables all looked as if they’d stepped from a painting.
Beauty, Safi realized as she followed Caden toward a curtain-covered doorway in the back. Whatever spell was at work here, it gave everyone beauty.
Though not Caden. The glamour of the room didn’t sparkle over him, and whatever beauty he possessed—Safi couldn’t deny it was there—was all nature’s doing. Then they were through the curtain, where knee-high tables were spread evenly over the elaborate rugs and floor pillows. Every table was crowded with cards and coins, while thick smoke from pipes curled over the bare flesh of Gilded Rose slaves.
Safi’s magic grated and scratched as they crossed the room. Wrong didn’t even begin to describe what this place was. What the Red Sails were.
Caden motioned to a table in the farthest corner, where a woman sat alone. Her gray hair was piled atop her head, and like everyone else in the establishment, her black skin glowed with perfection. Winnings and cards lay scattered before her, and a self-satisfied grin implied she’d just sent some taro losers running.
So absorbed was the woman in counting her coins that she didn’t notice Caden or Safi’s approach until Caden was dropping onto the bench beside her.
A frown. “Who are you—” She cut off, the frown deepening. “Is that a knife you have poking into my kidney?”
“It is,” Caden replied, speaking in Dalmotti as the woman had. “I have only a few questions to ask, Admiral Kahina, and then my companion and I will leave you to your card game.”
“And if I don’t answer … then what? You’ll gut me?” With an indifferent flip of her wrists, she drawled, “Oh, no. Someone protect me from the bad man with a knife.”