Aeduan shoved to his feet. The night air froze against him. “Get behind me,” he told Iseult, even though she was already behind him, already on her feet and sinking into her own defensive stance.
How had he missed the raiders approaching? The Well’s power must have interfered with his witchery. Now, though—now there was no mistaking the onslaught of bloods, as diverse as the faces that matched them. And at the fore was frosted baby’s breath and bone-deep loss.
The Raider King, his father, strode out from the shadows.
“Aeduan,” he called, coming to a stop at the Well’s frozen edge. “Give me the girl.”
No, Aeduan wanted to say, but before he could respond, a new blood-scent whispered against him. Crisp spring water and salt-lined cliffs. He had just enough time to whirl about before Evrane stepped from the trees on the opposite side. Behind her came a hundred monks with blades drawn.
For half a breath, relief rolled through Aeduan’s muscles. Evrane had saved him; she was on his side; she would protect Iseult. Except Iseult was shaking her head. “No,” she murmured. Then louder, “No, Aeduan. She is not who she seems to be.”
Aeduan had no idea what those words meant, but he did not question them. If Iseult did not want to join Evrane, then he would keep Evrane away.
His veins hummed with power. His muscles with strength, and his heart with magic. A coruscation in his blood, bright as the light off the Well had been only moments before.
“Aeduan.” Now, his father pleaded, a flash of desperation to sparkle across his blood. “You know what this is. You know that I need her.” He lifted a single hand, not quite beseeching. Not quite demanding, either. “Give her to me, son.”
“No, give her to me,” Evrane called. “The Cahr Awen has come to save us, Aeduan. Remember your duty.”
I do, he thought, and in that moment, it was true. He turned to Iseult. “Take my hand,” he said, and without hesitation, she twined her fingers into his. Her golden eyes held Aeduan’s and did not look away.
She trusted him. She had claimed his Aether, and she would guide his blade. She was the dark-giver, the shadow-ender, and he would not betray her. Not again.
Aeduan inhaled deep, quieting his mind and stilling his body so his witchery could rise to its maximum power. A thousand blood-scents crashed against him, and a thousand more trickled and skipped beyond that.
All were his for the taking. All were his for the controlling.
But Aeduan already had enough blood on his hands, and as far as he was concerned, death did not have to follow wherever he went.
Not anymore.
* * *
Aeduan’s hand was warm in Iseult’s. Despite the cold wind scratching at them, despite the water burrowed deep within her clothes and bones.
“Follow me,” Aeduan told her. Then he walked toward the cedars, so Iseult walked too.
“Aeduan, what are you doing?” Evrane cried. “Give me the Cahr Awen! You know the vow.”
“Blood runs deeper than any vows,” shouted the man with the raiders. He looked like Aeduan, except older. And except with Threads—dark green with command, but also flickers of white fear and blue loss.
“Aeduan, please,” the man begged, and the fear and grief flashed brighter.
The same white panic soon hit Evrane’s Threads. “Aeduan!” she screamed. “Where are you going? Stop!”
Aeduan did not stop. Nor did Iseult. They were almost to the edge of the Well.
Anger erupted in Evrane’s Threads. “Catch them!” she barked at the same instant the man ordered, “Stop them!”
With those words, every figure, every set of Threads around the Well launched into action. A vast swarm that would reach Iseult and Aeduan in seconds.
Iseult’s heart guttered. Her muscles tensed, ready to flee, but Aeduan only squeezed her hand tighter, his pace steady. His pace calm.
Iseult had once thought Aeduan carried himself as if he came from another time. As if he had walked a thousand years and planned to walk a thousand more. Now, though, there was a new stillness about him—and suddenly a thousand years seemed a very short time indeed for a man with strength such as his.
Aeduan and Iseult left the ice; their sodden boots sank into snowdrifts. Two monks bore down, Threads blaring with focused blue and violent gray.
Then the first monk reached them. His sword swung back. His sword swung down …
He froze. Midstride with his arm high, his mouth wide—and only two paces away from carving through Iseult.
Then the second monk reached them, her knives extended and Threads frantic and shaking.
She froze too. Then the third monk behind her as well, and then two raiders closing the gap on the left. One by one, every person that came near enough to attack stopped dead in their tracks.
And Aeduan showed no reaction at all, no change in his purposeful, forward stride through eternity.
He guided Iseult into the cedars. Ruddy trunks and glittering needles, so surreal and vivid amidst the smoke pluming ahead. Amidst the figures charging in from all angles.
Still, though, Aeduan did not rush. His eyes swirled red. His breaths were even and pure, and Iseult could feel his heartbeat thumping through his grip. Blood. Witch. Blood. Witch. A beat to walk by.
Every step brought more people rushing in. Monk and raider. White-cloaked and fur-clad. All with the forest green Threads of people on the hunt—until they reached Aeduan and Iseult. Then, as their bodies locked into place, a uniform brilliance overtook all other shades: shock. Only hair and cloaks and beards moved then, shivering on a cold breeze.
And their eyes moved too. Countless eyes to slide sideways. Watching, furious and powerless.
Iseult had not known Aeduan could hold so many people at once. She wondered if he had known either—or if he would ever be able to do it again.
They broke from the trees, and the island ended. A battle spanned before them, raging across the frozen river. Raiders and monks caught in combat. A seething mass of bodies and Threads, crammed wherever seafire did not rage.
As far as Iseult could see, there was no way through the chaos. She felt no affinity for those flames, no desire—or ability—to control them. The Firewitch trapped within her had gone silent. Released, she supposed, by the magic of an ancient Well.
Iseult turned to Aeduan. Behind him, raiders and monks stood stiff as stone, a trail of statues through the trees. A silent tribute to the flames’ howl and the screams of the fighting, of the dying.
A deep breath swelled in Aeduan’s chest. He rolled his shoulders. Just once. Then he lifted his free hand, arm trembling. His eyes screwed shut, and like a wave lapping against a sandy shore, Aeduan’s power rippled outward. Swords paused mid-thrust, shields stilled mid-defense. Blades stopped, embedded in flesh, while faces went rigid, trapped in agony or anger or surprise.
And on that wave rode a tide of shock. In moments, the weave of the battle shone brighter than the moon.
Aeduan’s eyes opened. There was no white left within them, no blue, only red from rim to rim.
“Now we run,” he told Iseult, a ragged sound against a battle suddenly silenced. Only the flames sang now.
“Yes,” Iseult agreed. “Now we run.”
She squeezed his hand.
Aeduan led the way, a snaking path across the ice, between the flames. Around frozen fighters—and corpses too—they twisted and raced. Black smoke burned Iseult’s eyes. Heat blasted against her, and in the back of her mind, she wondered how many times she and the Bloodwitch named Aeduan had raced together like this. Through hell-fire and beyond.
The longer they ran, though, the more people began to move. As if trapped in quicksand, a subtle inching forward.
Aeduan was losing control. So Iseult ran faster, and Aeduan ran faster beside her. Soon enough, the heat reared back, and through the smoke, a dark cliff face appeared. At its base, surrounded by frozen marsh, was a shadowy door.
Iseult tried to stop at the sight of it, but
Aeduan tugged her on. His breaths were rough and erratic now. His eyes had darkened from red to rust, like blood drying upon a blade.
“That goes to the Monastery, Aeduan!” She had to shout over the seafire.
“It also goes outside,” he shouted back—or tried to, but like his breathing, his words were weak, unstable. “There is … a fork.”
Yes, yes. Iseult remembered that split in the tunnel. She and Leopold had chosen down …
Leopold. Goddess, where was he? She had left him without thought upon the battlefield, and she had not considered him since.
“If we go right at the split,” Aeduan continued, “then it will lead us beyond the Monastery…” His voice faded, and Iseult flung a backward glance, worried his exhaustion had finally caught up to him.
It had. The battle moved faster now, a thousand figures slogging through mud and writhing this way. Still, Aeduan ran. Still, he held Iseult’s hand tightly and did not stumble.
Above, she felt silver Threads blaring. Blueberry, she thought hazily. The bat was near; Iseult prayed Owl was not. Before she could search the sky for the creature, though, a new set of Threads cut into her awareness. A shivering, melting, dangerous set that bled from death to hunger to pleasure to rage.
The Abbot.
Iseult snapped her gaze forward once more, to where Natan fon Leid emerged from the cave’s entrance, sword in one hand and buckler in the other. His Carawen hood was towed up, a fire flap fastened—but Iseult didn’t need to see his face. She knew those Threads. She knew that cloak too, with its red trim.
Aeduan’s hand lifted. He reached for the Abbot, stride slowing ever so slightly. His hand shook.
Nothing happened, though. The Abbot did not freeze; no shock overwhelmed his bleeding Threads. Instead, he laughed.
“Salamander fibers,” he called. “A trick I learned from you, Bloodwitch. Now give me the Cahr Awen.” His Threads wore sky blue calm, as if he intended to wait patiently. As if all he had requested was a bit more salt for his lamb.
Which was why there was no warning before he rushed at them. Far quicker than his bland shape had suggested; he was still a fighter trained by the Carawens.
Aeduan barely swept back in time. Iseult had to yank him and shove. Their hands released. They evaded.
Behind them, the battle picked up speed. Threads shifted this way, and it was only a matter of time before Aeduan lost control entirely. He could not fight and hold the raiders and monks. He could barely keep standing and hold them too.
Burn them, Iseult’s heart said, and this time it was not the Firewitch speaking. She knew what to do here. She had done it before, and she did not need flames to do it. A different kind of fire lived inside her: the power that broke through enchanted ice and Origin Wells.
She lifted her arms, fingers stretching wide. Just as Esme had shown her. Just as she had done before in the Contested Lands.
But when she reached for the Abbot’s bleeding Threads, Aeduan lunged at her. “No.” He knocked her arm, and in that same instant, the Abbot’s sword whistled through the air. Right where Iseult had been.
A wisp of cold wind brushed against her. Then Aeduan was hauling Iseult backward, sideways, out of reach. Until they were the ones standing before the cave—and there was no missing just how fast the battle was thundering toward them now. Half-speed, if not more.
“Run,” Aeduan commanded, pushing Iseult behind him. “Run and do not look back.”
“I can cleave him,” she tried.
“Can … but should not. You do not want his mind inside yours.”
So Aeduan had figured that out then.
“I will handle Natan.”
“No.” Iseult gripped his forearm. “Come with me. I didn’t save you so you could die again.”
“I will be right behind,” he said, and she realized there would be no changing his mind. So she nodded and patted the bloodied coin beneath her shirt. “Find me.”
“Always,” he promised, and for a brief pause in the chaos, he looked into her eyes. So pale, so blue. When she had seen those eyes in Veñaza City, she had thought they were the color of understanding.
She had been right.
“Te varuje,” she told him. “Te varuje.”
Then Iseult did as Aeduan had ordered, and she ran.
FIFTY-SIX
The cavern had changed since yesterday. An ice-bridge now spanned overhead, cold coiling off it, while a harsh wind blustered and kicked.
How wind could build underground, Safi had no idea, but she suspected it wasn’t natural—and that it had something to do with the voices filling the darkness far across the cavern. Distant, echoing sounds that tangled inside her gut. That seemed to call to her, even as she knew such a thing made no sense.
Nothing in this place made sense.
Beside Safi, the Hell-Bards tried to catch their breaths while Vaness lay limp upon Zander’s shoulder.
“You know,” Caden said between gasps, “we have a saying in the Ohrins. Over the falls and into the rapids. That’s what this feels like, Safi. Where the hell have you taken us?”
“I too,” Lev panted, raising a hand, “would like an answer to this question.”
“Magic,” was all Zander offered, his mouth agape as he ogled the blue-lit door.
“I don’t know,” Safi admitted. “I found it by accident while I was evading the flame hawk, and now…” She shrugged, a helpless gesture—because really there was nothing else she could say.
“Well, where does it go?” Caden squinted into the darkness, inching closer to the cliff’s edge. “Those soldiers will find us eventually, you know. Assuming they aren’t already on their way. We need to get moving.”
“Magic,” Zander repeated, louder now, and pointing at the door. “Magic.”
“Yeah, Zan.” Lev patted his shoulder. “We know.”
Wind thrashed harder, pulling at Safi’s hair, and the distant voices pitched louder—loud enough for her to catch a single word: Threadbrother.
Safi snapped her gaze toward it, straining to see, straining to listen. Because that word had been shouted in Nubrevnan. And it had been shouted in a voice she knew. His voice, even though he’d died in an explosion two weeks ago—
“Safi,” Caden said. “Are you listening?”
It can’t be, she thought, head shaking. It can’t be him. Merik’s dead, he’s dead. And yet, that voice had sounded exactly like she remembered from the Jana. Just like she remembered from that night on a dusty road.
And these winds—could they be his?
“Safi!” Caden clapped a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. “We need to follow this bridge.” He dipped his head until his eyes bored into hers. “We can’t stay here.”
She blinked, confused now. Lost, even. She had been so certain that voice belonged to a dead man.
“Bridge?” she murmured at last, gaze finally latching onto Caden’s.
“That one.” He pointed straight into the crevasse, and when Safi followed his finger she saw only shadows.
While far, far below, a galaxy swirled.
“Magic,” Zander repeated once more, and for the first time since stumbling through the doorway, he moved, striding right off the ledge and into the abyss.
Safi lunged forward to grab him, but she was too slow, and …
And Zander didn’t plummet to his death. Instead, he marched right across the cavern while Vaness bounced upon his shoulder.
“Another glamour,” Lev explained, moving to Safi’s side. “I bet you’re getting real sick of those.” Then with a rakish grin, she too strutted onto invisible nothing.
“Stay close,” Caden murmured, and his fingers laced into Safi’s. “This bridge is narrow, and it’s a long way down.”
* * *
Merik met the Fury head-on. A collision of winds, a clashing of magics. Cold and ice-bound against stars that now sang inside his blood. The two winds plowed against each other …
And stopped. A wall of noise, a wall of s
torm.
“Run!” Merik bellowed at the Northman on the steps behind. A refrain he’d yelled so often to this man—but that had never mattered more than it did right now. “RUN!”
The Northman ran, vanishing from Merik’s peripheral gaze.
Does he have them? Kullen’s voice raged atop his winds—or perhaps he only raged it inside Merik’s skull. Either way, it jolted the gale in his favor. A sudden lurch of shadowy power that thundered against Merik.
He skidded backward. His calves hit stairs, and his balance was thrown. He fell. Winds pulverized him, and suddenly Kullen was there, sweeping past in a swirl of shadows that aimed for the Northman.
Merik did not think, he did not evaluate. He moved, flying full force toward Kullen. And right as Kullen landed—right as the Northman flung himself through a glowing doorway that led only Noden knew where—Merik blasted into him.
He tackled the Fury in a graceless tangle of limbs. Together, they keeled over the edge, tumbling into the chasm below. They spun, they fell, and for several eternal heartbeats, gravity gripped harder than any magic or any storm.
Then Kullen’s frozen winds pummeled in, and Merik’s swooped in just behind. Now, they shot back up toward ledges, toward glowing doorways half masked by dust.
Where are they? Kullen’s words severed into Merik’s brain. Where have you put them?
“Put what?” he tried to scream, but there could be no out-screaming this storm. And there was no out-flying Kullen either. Every flip Merik attempted, Kullen flipped faster. Every evasion, every sweep, Kullen was there before Merik could twist away.
You took the blade and the glass. But I will get them back, Threadbrother. You cannot hide them from me.
The Fury grabbed, his magic clawed. Twice, ice-fingers scraped at Merik, sharp enough to cut. Cold enough to cauterize. First his face, then his chest. And twice, it would have been Merik’s throat if he hadn’t punched his winds between them.
The harder Merik flew, the harder the Fury flew to catch him—and the more winds they sucked in, forcing the air to thicken. Ice-laden, yet hot with rage. Snow streaking, yet charged and building.
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