The tent briefly constricted inward as they squeezed through, like a cat wrinkling into a doorway. The scent of cedar hit Safi’s nose, the city din quieted behind, and finally, iron bars crashed shut, closing them in.
With each step they moved through the cedars, the air seeming to tighten and coil. It pulled Safi’s heart into her throat, and she did not have to ask where they were. The answer called to her, and the spire gave it away.
They were at the Origin Well of Marstok.
Yet something about the forest grated against Safi’s magic as they walked on. It plucked at the hairs on her arms, and twice she thought she saw figures hiding in the trees. On the third instance, she said, “Someone is in the forest.”
But Rokesh merely nodded. “They are soldiers. This area might be private, but we still take no risks with Her Majesty’s safety.”
Safi supposed that explained it, yet despite Rokesh’s words, the fingers tripping down her spine did not go away.
After a hundred paces through the cedars and up a steep stairwell, the forest finally opened to reveal a long spring framed by sandstone tiles. Evenly spaced around the rippling waters were six massive cedars, bent and reaching for the sky. And set back from the Well, in the forest on the northern side, was the golden spire.
Vaness stopped before the water and eased down the tent. She carefully bent the poles and struts inward so the canvas creased like an inchworm, exposing them all to a purple sky.
Then the Empress of Marstok turned to face Safi.
Part of Safi was stunned this question had not come sooner—that in their two weeks since reaching Azmir, they had not visited this place before. Most of Safi, though, was stunned to be here today. This was the imperial birthday procession. There was no reason to travel here now.
“It is true then?” Vaness asked, observing Safi. Simultaneously contemplative and predatory. “You are half of the Cahr Awen?”
“I … don’t know.” Safi’s toes curled in her boots. “Where did you hear that?”
“It is my business to know such things. And if it is true, Safi, then it is also my business to protect you. For over a century, Marstok has been the only empire with an intact Origin Well. If there are more—if there could be more…”
Safi’s lungs loosened. Her shoulders drooped. For there it was, wasn’t it? Safi was valuable; Safi was a risk.
“I will ask you again,” Vaness continued, sharper now. Impatience flashing in her eyes. “Safiya fon Hasstrel: are you the Cahr Awen?”
Safi swallowed. She was suddenly too hot, the iron belt around her waist too tight. Without requesting permission, she tore off the Adder shroud. Air, glorious and free, kissed against her.
The truth was, Safi had no idea what she and Iseult were. According to Monk Evrane, they were the Cahr Awen—and they had swum to the heart of the dead Origin Well of Nubrevna a month ago, and a quake had shaken the land.
Monk Evrane had claimed this meant Safi and Iseult had healed the Well, and while Safi’s magic had told her unequivocally that Evrane believed everything she’d been saying, her good sense had suggested it was supremely unlikely. The last Cahr Awen had lived five hundred years ago. There was no reason they would return now, and no reason they would be—out of all the people in the Witchlands—Safi and Iseult.
Not to mention, Safi had already lived her entire life with a target painted on her back. Did she really deserve a second? Gods below, she missed the easy days of Veñaza City. And gods below, she missed her Threadsister.
Her lips parted to repeat that she truly did not know if she was the Cahr Awen, but at that moment, a scream sundered the darkening sky. Inhuman and ear-shattering.
A flame hawk, searing like the sun, burst up from the nearby trees.
TWENTY-TWO
Iseult was furious, and no amount of thinking Stasis made a difference. She had been so stupid. So careless and loud. She knew how to fight quietly. She knew how to approach undetected. Yet she’d charged that man like a drunken brawler in a street fight.
She had tied him up, and now he lay sprawled on the floor beside the bed, his bloodied face peaceful. Even his Threads hummed with the calm ease of a dreamless sleep. Owl had been fascinated from the moment Iseult had hauled him in, taking up sentry beside him and staring into his sleeping face. She’d made no move to touch him, thank the goddess, but there was a sunset shade of reverence in her Threads that had kept Iseult on edge ever since she’d shut—and bolted—the door.
As if she needed any more kindling for these flames.
The guest in room twelve had seen her with the body. Stupid, careless, loud Iseult had attracted his attention, and now it was only a matter of time before soldiers came to the door. That man was going to tell someone, if he hadn’t already, and that left only one solution to this mess: Iseult and Owl were going to have to leave this inn. Before Aeduan even returned.
Wildfire shrieked inside Iseult as she stuffed supplies into their packs. She did not need to see her own Threads to recognize rage and terror when she felt them.
Outside, lightning flashed. Rain hammered down.
“Different,” Owl declared, the first words she’d spoken since Iseult had returned, towing a body behind her.
“Because he is Cartorran.” Iseult shoved the new healing supplies into her bag. “They have different skin and hair where he comes from.”
“Poke?”
“What?” Iseult glanced up and found Owl canted in close to the unconscious man, like a dog sniffing a cornered hare. Light glanced off something in her hand.
A knife. She must have pulled it from Iseult’s things.
“Poke,” Owl repeated, brandishing the blade. “Wake him?”
“That will kill him.” Hell-gates and goat tits, did the Moon Mother hate her? Iseult darted for the knife. “Owl, give that to me.”
The child swiped backward, laughing. First a childish squeal, then a wilder, gleeful giggle when Iseult grabbed for her waist instead. Iseult was tired; Owl was fast; and in a blur of high-pitched shrieking, she scampered for a corner behind the bed. “Poke, poke, poke—”
A knocking boomed at the door. Iseult froze. Owl froze. Then came Aeduan’s voice, “It’s me.”
Of course it was him. There were no Threads—it had to be him.
With a flip of her wrist, Owl unlocked the bolt. Aeduan strode in, drenched and splattering water to the floorboards. “There is trouble,” he said, eyes instantly finding Iseult’s. “You need to leave.”
It was like dropping a cannonball on a frozen pond, yet instead of the ice shattering—instead of Iseult or Owl bursting into movement at Aeduan’s return—the ice did not crack. Nobody moved. Aeduan’s words shivered in the air and stayed there while Owl and Iseult gaped at him from the other side of the bed.
In that odd pause between Aeduan’s declaration and Iseult’s comprehension she realized what a strange tableau must stand before him: Iseult stooped over Owl, Owl in the corner with a knife, and an unconscious man tied to the bed mere paces away.
Then Aeduan moved, and everyone else followed. He shut the door. Owl dropped the knife. And Iseult scrambled around the bed.
“He was following me.” Her words came out garbled and thick. “Th-then I thought he was going to attack, so I a-attacked him first.”
Aeduan simply repeated what he had said before: “You need to leave.” Then he added, words clipped and efficient, “Someone saw you attack him. Soldiers are coming to arrest you. I passed them on my return. I heard them name our room and your face. You and Owl cannot stay here, Iseult. Go to the Monastery. They will protect you.”
Iseult’s breath rushed out. She had known this might be coming. Yet despite that, her mind couldn’t keep up. “How close are they?”
“Minutes away, at most. The damage from the storm has slowed them. You can find horses in the stable, and I will deal with Prince Leopold.”
And there it was again. The cannonball to slam down and thud against the ice. Prince Leopold.
Prince. Leopold. Oh goddess save her, what had she done?
As if on cue, a voice thick with sleep drawled out in Cartorran, “Monk Aeduan? Is that you?”
Iseult twirled toward the man. Toward the prince. No more hazy Threads of sleep, but rather turquoise shock and hints of gray fear, spiraling straight into the sky.
“What is the meaning of this?” he began. Then his green eyes fell on Iseult. His expression faltered. “You.”
Iseult had no idea what that meant. You. He had been following her, he had been crouched outside the room, trying to get in—so obviously he knew who she was.
Although, suddenly her earlier theory that he worked for Corlant no longer made sense. Suddenly, she had a thousand questions fighting for space in her brain. Why was he hunting her? Why had he carried a pistol?
No time to ask them. No time to dwell. Soldiers were coming because Iseult had been so stupid.
In a flurry, she finished shoving gear into their packs while Aeduan turned his attention to Owl. The girl had crawled under the bed, her Threads shining with fear.
“Take me with you,” the prince said. No one listened. He strained against his bonds, body half upright beside the bed—and gaze still transfixed on Iseult. “Please,” he said. “Please, Iseult det Midenzi. Take me with you.”
At the sound of her name, cold hardened in Iseult’s lungs. She paused, her pack halfway onto her back and confusion swiping across her face. Her eyes bulged, her lips parted, and with the onslaught of emotion came an onslaught of theories and contradictions.
He must be Mathew’s contact and I’m supposed to meet him.
But then why was he following me? Why not go to the coffee shop?
No, he must be working with Eron fon Hasstrel. How else would he know my name?
But why would he work to depose his own uncle, then?
Before Iseult could organize her thoughts into any logical, cohesive order, Threads drifted into the periphery of her magic. Hostile, focused, and bound in a way that suggested they followed the same orders. They filed into the yard outside.
Oh, the Moon Mother hated her indeed. She should never have attacked Leopold—a thrice-damned prince—and she should never have dragged his body into their room.
She dropped the pack and vaulted for the lantern beside the door. A rough exhale across the flame. “Soldiers,” she told the sudden darkness. “They’ve reached the inn.”
At those words, a rattle took hold of the room. A faint trembling—so subtle at first, Iseult didn’t know what the sound was. Like insect wings or ferns on a breeze. Then she realized it was the glass in the mirror, the glass in the window.
Then she realized she had spoken in Nomatsi. Owl had understood, and now the girl’s Threads were pulsing brighter, and then brighter still in a terror that split the shadows of the room. All while the faint, almost invisible Threads of her earth magic tendriled outward, reaching for whatever substance she could control. First the window, then the mirror, and now the sconce that had held the lantern’s flame. How much longer before her magic latched onto the screws and bolts? The bricks and the stones that kept this inn upright? Iseult had worried she’d burn them all to the ground, but it was far more likely Owl would topple them first.
In moments, Iseult’s vision had adjusted to the darkness. Aeduan now knelt beside the girl. The prince still strained against his bindings, bed creaking, and beneath the shaking glass around them, shouts now trembled through the floorboards. The soldiers were inside the inn.
“I can help you.” It was the prince, his voice and Threads intense with concentration. No panic here, only calm insistence. “I have a gelding in the stable—take him, and I will handle the soldiers.”
“How?” Iseult asked at the same time that Aeduan snapped, “No.”
“I can distract the soldiers long enough for you to get away. But you have to untie me.”
Again, Aeduan said, “No,” but Iseult ignored him. She had caught this man and brought hell-fire onto their heads. Maybe … maybe that act need not be a total waste. Especially if Leopold was the one meant to meet her all along.
She crossed the room in four long strides and glared down at the prince. Moonlight flooded in through the rain-speckled window, draining him of color. “Why should we trust you?”
“What other options do you have?” he demanded, and Iseult was inclined to agree. There was no time left for subtlety, nor time for clever word games. Iseult needed a straight answer from the prince. Now.
“Do you work for Safi’s uncle?”
Surprise and a quick skittering of confusion spiraled through his Threads. “You know about that?”
“Iseult,” Aeduan cut in, Owl clinging tightly to his leg. “You cannot trust him. Leave him.”
She couldn’t, though. Not when she had so many questions and so little time. Lips pressing tight, she withdrew the knife she’d reclaimed from Owl. She dug the blade into Leopold’s lowest vertebrae, and whispered, “If you betray us, if you so much as breathe a word to those soldiers about where we are going, then I will burn you alive and shred whatever bits of your body remain. Do you understand?”
A gulp. A shiver of unsteady Threads. “I understand.”
“Good.” She hauled him upright, then cut his bindings. He stumbled into Aeduan, who caught him and slung him out the door. A shallow breath later, and the prince was gone.
* * *
The seconds slithered past as Aeduan, Iseult, and Owl waited for some sign the soldiers below were busy. The glass around them shook faster and faster. Even the floorboards trembled, and no amount of whispered words could calm Owl. Terror had sent her magic spinning out of control. Aeduan knew what that felt like.
Iseult’s hand closed over Aeduan’s elbow. His breath hitched.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You are ill, and now we have to run—all because I was a fool. I had no idea who he was, I swear.”
Aeduan hesitated. They had come so far in this odd partnership to now be apologizing to each other.
He pulled away from her. “I found a Painstone at the outpost. I will be fine.”
Iseult’s lips parted as if to reply, but then Leopold’s voice sang up from downstairs—“Why are all these soldiers here?”—and there was no time for conversation or explanation.
Aeduan and Iseult each carried a pack, while Owl clutched Aeduan’s hand. Every shift of their belongings, every groan of a floorboard, every pause in the arguments below, sent Aeduan’s pulse spiking higher. Before they even reached the back stairwell, his fingers were numb from Owl’s squeezing.
Worse, she had started to cry. It was just a soft sniffle for now, broken up by muted whimpers every few seconds, but Aeduan knew a full storm might break loose at any moment. Iseult knew too, and she took the lead, whispering, “There are no Threads ahead.”
They reached the first floor just in time to hear Leopold bellow, “Your superiors will hear about this!” and then Iseult was guiding them for a low door. Boot steps echoed out from the hall as the soldiers stomped up the main stairs.
Aeduan reached for the door’s latch. This was a side entrance to the stable. It had to be, for he sensed horses beyond—the wild blood of freedom and open roads. But Iseult grabbed his wrist. “People. Three of them.”
He flinched. Owl whimpered. How had he missed those people? How had his magic missed them? For Iseult was right: when he drew in a lungful of air, he could smell the faintest flicker of human blood. Weak, though, as if his Painstone were failing him already. As if his witchery were fading, carried away by a curse.
Anger rippled through him. Anger that those arrows could do this to him. Anger that the Painstone had not lasted longer. Anger that Lady Fate had struck so decisively and so fast.
“I will deal with them,” Aeduan said, the words a snarl beneath his breath. He opened the latch.
Again, Iseult grabbed him. Wariness flickered in her eyes. “Aeduan.”
His anger flashed hotter. “I will not hurt them.”
“It’s not them I’m worried about.” Her fingers tightened on his forearm. Five pressure points he wished would let go.
And that he also wished would stay.
Then Iseult did release him. “Owl, come to me.”
For once, the child obeyed, and after easing his pack to the floor, Aeduan crept into the stable. Pine shavings and horse filled his nostrils. A comforting smell, were it not laced with human blood. Three distinctive scents that grew sharper with each of his cautious breaths. Wind-flags and winter. That came from the nearest stall, and with it the sound of water dripping down. “Damned storm,” a girl muttered. Two stalls later, where the stable bent left, waited another scent. Cinnamon and horsehair.
But the third scent, the third—no amount of inhales was pulling the third scent to Aeduan. Perhaps the stable hand had left.
“May I help you, sir?”
Instincts laid claim to Aeduan’s muscles. He spun, he kicked, his boot heel connected with a jaw. A crunch sounded, and before Aeduan could lower his foot, the stable hand crashed to the hay-strewn floor.
Blood filled Aeduan’s nose. No missing it now, fresh and free. Cut grass and birdsong. Warm blankets and bedtime stories.
A boy. The person Aeduan had felled was only a boy, and now his jaw was broken. Pain watered in his eyes—dark eyes that held Aeduan’s while his dangling mouth tried to form shouts of alarm. Betrayal. Horror.
Heat coiled into Aeduan’s fists. Demon, monster. He couldn’t escape what he truly was. “Stay down,” he ordered before whipping away.
The boy did stay down, but distorted cries left his throat. The horses stamped and snuffed. The remaining hands hurried to their stall doors. As one, they saw Aeduan. As one, they saw their friend. And as one, their lips parted.
Aeduan stilled their blood. It was not a graceful move, nor even a powerful one. He fumbled to even find the folds of winter and sprays of cinnamon that made these stable hands who they were. But it was enough, and he held fast. Long enough for unconsciousness to seep in. Long enough for their bodies to crumple to the floor, one by one.
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