So, as long as Safi was in this wall, then she did not have to fear her magic. She did not have to fear another sudden death. She could listen, she could evaluate, and she could choose her words carefully. Perhaps best of all, though, was that in the darkness, Safi could work.
She had already taken twelve books from the Empress’s personal library, and she had even taken notes on one of them. Iseult would have been wildly impressed. The book, Crafting Painstones, had seemed a logical starting point, and the text covered Painstones as well as bewitched tonics and tinctures. Healers, Safi had learned, embedded their power into the act of creation itself.
And that had given her an idea: if she could hold a piece of quartz while using her own powers, maybe she too could embed her power into the rock.
Vaness had kindly provided her with a fresh wedge of rose quartz as well as a handful of other gemstones—no questions asked, thank the gods—and now Safi was setting her plan in motion. She let her magic swell to the surface as she watched on.
And what Safi saw was utterly enthralling. In fact, she had no idea how she had ever considered Vaness boring. Now, she was anything but the Empress of Insipid.
Never in Safi’s life had she seen two such women competing for space in a room. She’d seen plenty of men do it, clucking about like roosters in a yard. And she had seen men try—and fail—to bend women whose spines were made of steel.
This was something else entirely. It was two women a thousandfold stronger than any man, each with agendas all their own and witcheries that could slay. They stood like rivals in a Cartorran pugilist’s ring, but instead of tile and sand to cloak the earth between them, an iron table and water carafes waited. Weapons for the taking.
The wind chimes twinkled, a soft prelude to what would certainly be a symphonic explosion. To compound the tension of it all, Safi’s magic trembled as truth and lie crashed against her in unison. Both women rang with honest clarity; both women grated with practiced falsehood.
The symphony began.
“The reason you are in my ‘blighted city,’” Vaness declared, “is because the last time I saw you, you were stealing one of my ships.”
“And the last time I saw you,” Vivia countered, “you had sabotaged one of your ships so that I would steal it.”
“A distraction.” Vaness flipped up a hand. “I wanted the cargo your brother carried. It was worth the price of those weapons.”
True, murmured Safi’s magic—and she imagined pouring that truth straight into her quartz.
Vivia seemed to also sense Vaness’s honesty, for she stiffened, briefly, as if surprised. “You mean it was worth losing your weapons to claim this Truthwitch you supposedly have. Let us see her then, if she is so special.”
“So that you can steal her from me too?”
“Perhaps.” A casual shrug from the Queen-in-Waiting. “Tell me: was she worth the cost of war?”
“Tell me: were my weapons?” The Empress’s eyebrows bounced high. “Your actions were the first to risk the Twenty Year Truce. It was pure chance that the magic in the document deemed my act the greater crime.”
“I stole a ship. You landed on Nubrevnan soil with soldiers. I think the magic gauged properly.”
“Says the woman who turned her own navy into pirates.”
“Says the woman who freed my Foxes from a Saldonican prison.” Vivia thrust out her chin. “Why did you do that?”
“Because the Truthwitch asked me to.” Vaness plucked an invisible hair off her gown. “I would have left them to rot.”
“And why would she have asked you to do it?” Vivia pressed. “Why would she care?”
“For the same reason she asked me to negotiate a treaty with Nubrevna in exchange for her peaceful surrender. Something, or perhaps someone, connects her to your homeland.”
“Merik,” Vivia said, and with that name, Safi forgot all about her plan. All about her magic or her stone.
In the two weeks since she had learned of Merik’s death, there were moments—like right now—when his face would bubble to the surface. The way he’d looked at her on that moonlit cliff in Nubrevna, part longing, part awe … and even part regret, for their short time together had seen them pitted as enemies. It was only as they were parting ways that they seemed to realize they were better off as friends.
Or perhaps as more than friends.
But now Merik was gone, and Safi would never know what might have been.
“I have brought you here,” Vaness said, “to finish my bargain with the Truthwitch.”
“What’s in that for you?”
“Nothing is in it for me, but I made a promise to her, and I never break my promises.”
“I see.” Vivia spread her hands wide. “Originally, you would only treat with my brother. Now he is dead, so you are forced to treat with me—even though we both know that you and I will ultimately negotiate nothing. You will still come out with clean hands, because, after all, you tried.”
“Absolutely not.” Vaness bristled, a reaction so true it caught Safi by surprise. Never did the Empress let her mask slip.
And suddenly Safi remembered her plan once more. She focused on her magic; she focused on the quartz; she focused on the conversation.
“Surely Nubrevnans possess something,” Vaness said, “that is worth trading for.”
“You know my nation has nothing to offer.”
“No, I do not know that.” Vaness sucked in a long breath, examining the Queen-in-Waiting. “You are a fascinating case study,” she said. “It takes a great deal of audacity to make a move such as piracy.”
“More like desperation.”
A soft chuckle from Vaness—again, humming with truth in a way that threw Safi off guard. “I appreciate,” Vaness continued, “that you do not try to hide the reality of your circumstances from me. No attempts to inflate what you have.”
“What would be the point?” Vivia shrugged. “You know the true state of Nubrevna. You have spies.”
“Not as many as you might think,” Vaness countered. “Your house is difficult to infiltrate. You instill an incredible amount of loyalty among your people.”
“Perhaps. When they are willing to look past my gender.” Vivia glanced toward the door, beyond which her officers waited. Impatience shivered off her. She tugged at her coat collar and adjusted her cuffs.
Right as she directed her gaze once more to the Empress, though, Rokesh materialized from the cypress trees. He stalked into the sunlight.
Before Safi could even blink, two ropes of water had lashed from the carafe and were racing toward the Adder.
“Stop,” Vaness barked.
The water stopped. And Rokesh stopped too, dropping to one knee—though out of respect or to avoid the attacks, Safi could not say.
“What game are you playing?” Vivia snarled, her water whips steady.
“No game,” Vaness snapped. Then to Rokesh: “Why do you interrupt?”
“My apologies, Empress.” Rokesh bent his head to his knee. “There is an emergency that requires Safiya.”
Ah. Safi straightened inside the wall, fingers crushing around the quartz. It would seem she was needed elsewhere. Please don’t be the throne room. Please don’t be someone corrupted.
“We have a guest,” Rokesh explained, “and I presume you will want to assess him for untruths.”
“Who is it?” Impatience steamed off the Empress. “No family was meant to arrive today.”
“This man is not family. He is a former Firewitch general, and it seems he has decided to end his retirement.” Rokesh glanced in Safi’s direction, his eyes briefly catching hers through the spyhole. “Habim Fashayit awaits you in the library, Your Imperial Majesty, and he claims he is here to help us win the war.”
TWELVE
Iseult was glad to be away from the inn. Glad to be away from Aeduan and the girl who never listened.
That room was much too small for them. The nearness of Aeduan … and Owl too … had addled her m
ind. Or maybe it was the cleaved Firewitch that steeped her blood with his flames. Or maybe it was simply exhaustion or the sudden, unsettling need to keep her face hidden.
No matter the cause for her idiocy, Iseult was still scolding herself by the time she reached the healer’s packed clinic. She could not believe she had thought to remove Aeduan’s shirt. It was one thing to pull off a man’s clothes and tend his wounds when he was unconscious. It was quite another when he stared back at you, breath catching and eyes blazing.
Something had wrestled in her chest at the sight of him like that. His hands resting over hers. Something she didn’t recognize, at once fiery and frozen.
It still wrestled. Goddess, what had she been thinking?
Iseult practically ran through the streets of Tirla, shame chasing fast at her heels, and haggling over healing supplies was a welcome distraction. She bought salves and tinctures, bandages and gauze, and unlike the innkeeper, the harried attendants had no problem with Iseult’s silver taler. Unfortunately, though, an extra silver taler would not get her name moved up on the fourteen-page list for a healer’s visit. She scribbled her name at the end anyway, though the odds were not in Aeduan’s favor that the lone healer would come before they departed.
Hopefully their new supplies would be enough to keep the curse away. At least until a better solution presented itself.
As Iseult ducked back into the tangling traffic of the day, she was struck by a tightness behind her ribs. A sharp pang that skittered atop her heartbeat. Regret, she decided after a moment. But no, that wasn’t quite it. This was a softer pain, laced with something almost like … like hunger.
It wasn’t until Iseult passed a Purist holding a Repent! sign that she finally pinpointed the feeling. Homesickness. Tirla was so much like Veñaza City. Cleaner certainly. Colder too, and with green-clad soldiers to thicken the crowds, but it still felt like home. A few hours here and already she’d found her weft inside the city’s weave. The noise was no longer a bother but instead a comfort, as reliable as the tides, and checking her hood was once again second nature.
What if, what if, what if—for the past month, that question had come to her at least once a day while her fingers clung white-knuckled to her Threadstone. Always it hit in the lulls between chaos, when no threat hounded Iseult’s heels. When there was too much time for her brain to flitter to the past and catalog all she had left behind. When there was nothing to keep her mind from wishing—and wondering—what might have happened if she and Safi had never pulled that roadside heist north of Veñaza City.
What if, what if, what if. A useless refrain with no satisfying answers. For without the misfired holdup, Iseult and Safi would never have drawn Aeduan’s mercenary attention—and without that, she would never have returned home to the Midenzi tribe. Then she would never have been cursed and fled for Nubrevna, where she would never have encountered the Origin Well …
And she would never have learned that she might be half of the Cahr Awen. That she and Safi might be the mythical pair of legend meant to heal the Origin Wells and cleanse the world of evil.
Iseult would never have made a bargain with Aeduan—whose Carawen order was meant to protect the Cahr Awen—and they would never have saved Owl from the Red Sail pirates. Then she would not be here now, chest hollowed out while she towed healing supplies through a foreign city that did not feel so foreign at all.
In fact, if Iseult let her gaze drop to the cobblestones, let her awareness settle back and her witchery guide her through the throngs, she could almost pretend she was on her way to meet Safi. That at any moment, her Threadsister would shove in close, grumbling about the crowds, and they’d head for Mathew’s shop. Why, that storefront over there looked just like his, right down to the sign declaring Real Marstoki Coffee, Best in Tirla.
Iseult halted midstride, heart punching into her throat. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. Surely she would not be so lucky as to find one of Mathew’s coffee shops here. She had lived for over six years in Mathew’s shop in Veñaza City, training with the Wordwitch confidence man—and with his Heart-Thread Habim too.
Hugging her sack close, Iseult cut across the street and in a flurry of speed—of desperation, even—she shoved through the shop’s front door. It was like coming home. First came the smell of coffee, rich and rounded against her nostrils. Then the color hit her eyes, the rugs, the tapestries, and the pillows all arranged exactly as they were in Veñaza City. Even the people lounging on sofas and low stools looked the same. Even the porcelain cups from which they drank looked the same.
This was his. This was Mathew’s, and that meant she could contact him. Oh, Iseult could not believe her good fortune—the Moon Mother had blessed her today indeed. She hurried toward a high counter at the back of the room, where a young woman with skin as dark as the coffee she ground and Threads an attentive green glanced up at Iseult’s approach.
“Would you like to order?” she asked, her Marstoki accented like Habim’s was—which meant she was from the capital. “You can order a full carafe or by the cup.”
Iseult slowed to a stop before the counter. Excitement was making her tongue fat. She had to swallow. Then swallow again before she could say, “I-is Mathew fitz Leaux in?”
A beat passed. The woman’s Threads stretched taut with turquoise surprise. Then tan wariness. Then finally a shuddering mixture of the two. She set down her cylindrical grinder and scooted aside the bowl in which the grounds had been gathering, all while her gaze swept up Iseult. Down.
“It’s … you.” She spoke in Marstoki, but then she hastily shifted to accented Dalmotti. “Welcome. It is good to see you, Iseult det Midenzi.”
Now it was Iseult’s turn to feel surprise and wariness. Only years of training kept her from reeling back. “You … know me?”
“Of course! Every shop has been told to look for you. Though I will admit, I did not think you would walk into mine. But, oh—wait here!” The woman’s hands flung up, beseeching. “I have a message for you.” She spun in a cloud of saffron skirts and disappeared into a back room.
The woman returned in less time than it took the nearest patron to drain his cup, and excited streaks of color had gathered on her cheeks and in her Threads. Iseult could only assume there was some kind of reward for finding her.
She liked the idea of that. It made warmth chuckle in her chest and a grin play along her lips. When she caught sight of Mathew’s familiar handwriting on a slip of beige paper, she let the grin rush in. Full force, ear to ear, not worthy of a Threadwitch, and she didn’t care.
Seeing her name in Mathew’s scrawl was nice. So, so nice.
Iseult,
Stay put. Wherever you are, I will send one of our people to meet you. They will then guide you to where you need to be.
I am sorry things went awry in Veñaza City.
Much love,
Mathew
After reading the letter once, Iseult’s smile faltered. After two reads, it withered away entirely. And on the third read-through, she found her cheeks had scrunched into a frown. Surely this was not all he had to say. Surely there was a coded message hidden within the words—a common trick of Mathew’s—or … or perhaps some implied message tucked away. Say one thing and mean another. It had been a favorite game for Iseult and Safi.
Yet when, after the sixth reading, Iseult still found nothing, she was forced to accept that this was the entirety of the message. This was all Mathew had felt he needed to share.
Lightning gathered in Iseult’s shoulders as she read it for the seventh time. Things have gone awry? That is the best description a Wordwitch can find? Things had gone so much worse than awry—and he hadn’t even mentioned the spectacular mayhem that had crashed upon her since Lejna. Yet now Mathew expected Iseult to simply “stay put” and wait for one of his “people” to meet her. Well, they had told her to do the same in Veñaza City, then again in Lejna, and look how well her waiting had turned out.
“‘Guide you to where you ne
ed to be,’” she whispered to herself, the squall now pushing up her neck. As far as she could see, where she needed to be was tending Aeduan. She needed to be helping him find Owl’s family, as they had agreed, and after that, where she needed to be was at Safi’s side.
Iseult loved Mathew and Habim. Fiercely. They were her Thread-family, and nothing in this world mattered more than Thread-family. But she was tired of being treated like some Fool card in the taro deck, to be tossed into the game whenever it was needed. Safi too had been played against her will, and now she was trapped in Marstok while Iseult was an impossible distance away.
With a long inhale, Iseult screwed her Threadwitch calm back into place. At least on the surface—at least for this young lady to see. “I am staying at the White Alder,” she said, words smooth as a sandy shore at low tide. “Room thirteen. If someone needs to find me, they can look there. However,” she added, arching an eyebrow in her best imitation of Safi, “they had better hurry. I leave Tirla soon, and I have no plans to ‘stay put’ longer than that.”
* * *
The first hints of sunset greeted Iseult by the time she left Mathew’s shop. Dusk came early in the mountains, and ringing chimes heralded the seventeenth hour as she returned to the White Alder.
Twelve beats in, Iseult realized she was being followed.
The first thing Habim had drilled into Iseult when she’d begun training six and a half years ago was to constantly—constantly—make note of who was around her. Every few heartbeats, she would sink into her magic and sense the weave of the city. The placement of its Threads.
Clang, clang. No one was following her. Clang, clang. Someone was. They were clever about it, though. Subtle and sly, staying just far enough back that if Iseult were to turn her head, she would see nothing out of the ordinary. But there was no hiding Threads, and this person’s were unmistakable.
They gleamed more brightly than anyone else’s on the street, like a flame burning in a field of wheat. Except this flame was dark green. This person was focused, and this person was hunting.
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