Truthwitch

by Susan Dennard

  Until a crack! of heat slashed through her. Then a coiling in of Threads, so violent that Iseult’s knees almost caved.

  In the space of a single breath, countless Threads had simply snapped. Broken.

  Cleaved.

  The nearest soldier twisted all the way toward Iseult, his eyes black. His skin boiling.

  Then he started shredding at this sleeves—at his skin—while behind him, more and more soldiers were lurching back around toward Iseult.

  And all of them were cleaving.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  From behind a bleached alder, Safi watched the ramshackle wharfside street. Her toes tapped, her fingernails dug into rough bark, and the urge to help Iseult was practically shredding her spine.

  But she stuck to the plan, and she waited until every single Marstok had followed Iseult down the alley. Then she scooted toward Lejna.

  She kept her eyes on the ship, rocking wildly at the first pier. Several sailors scurried about, but they were too busy with the growing thunderstorm to look Safi’s way. Still, Safi unsheathed her Carawen sword just in case.

  Her eyes skipped between the approaching road and the nearest pier. Empty¸ empty … all of them were empty of life. One of those docks had to be Pier Seven that Uncle Eron had specified in his contract.

  Although, at this point, Safi wouldn’t have been surprised to learn there was no Pier Seven at all—that Uncle Eron had never had any intention of fulfilling his end of the deal.

  Well, the joke was on him, then, because come hell-flames or Hagfishes, Safi was getting Merik that contract.

  A fat raindrop smacked Safi’s head right as she stepped onto the first cobblestones. She glanced at the sky—and then promptly started swearing. The storm was almost to Lejna, and it was definitely not a natural one—not with all those black clouds.

  What are you doing, Prince?

  The rain picked up speed. A sudden wave crashed over the high-water mark, submerging the first dock and swathing the cobblestones in slime.

  So much for stealth, then. Safi kicked into a jog … then into a full sprint. At the storm’s current rate, all three piers would be swallowed entirely in minutes.

  Safi reached the first expanse of wood. It was coated in algae and creaked dangerously beneath her heels. She took four steps out, her eyes never leaving the tipping warship at the end, and then turned back, ready to barrel for the next pier.

  But the dock was slick, the waves too rough and the wind far too strong. Safi was so focused on where to put her feet, on when to hop over the next surge of waves, that she didn’t notice the dark figure slinking nearby.

  Not until Safi was on the street again did she finally catch sight of the Marstoki Adder thirty paces away and right between her and the next pier.

  “If you come with me,” the Adder shouted, her voice—and shape—decidedly feminine, “then no one gets hurt!”

  No thank you, Safi thought, flinging up her sword. This woman was weaponless, and Safi was not. She flung up her sword.

  “I’m giving you one chance, Truthwitch! You can either join the Marstoks as an ally or you can die as our enemy!”

  Safi almost laughed at that. A dark, angry laugh, for here was the moment she’d spent her whole life waiting for: the moment when her witchery put a target on her forehead and soldiers came to claim her.

  Admittedly she’d excpected Hell-Bards all these years, but Adders would more than suffice.

  Safi sank into her stance, ready to attack. Lightning burst. She blinked—she couldn’t help it—and, by the time she got her eyes wide, wind was slashing into her. Rain piercing her. And, of course, the woman was no longer weaponless. Where heartbeats before her hands had been empty, there was now a flail, its iron ball the size of Safi’s skull.

  “Where the rut did that come from?” Safi muttered. “And are those spikes on that ball?” She skipped back—though the wind would hardly let her move—and briefly considered if Carawen steel was strong enough to slice through iron.

  She decided it wasn’t—right as the spiky mass of death flew at her head.

  Safi ducked sideways. The flail zoomed past her forehead. A single barb slashed across her skin. Blood gushed into her eyes, and for the smallest fraction of a moment, the contract’s words blazed behind her eyeballs: All negotiations will terminate should the passenger spill any blood.

  Then the Adder’s boot was kicking at Safi’s face and she had no more space to think.

  Safi smacked the foot with her elbow, successfully tipping the Adder’s balance—and also successfully bringing down the flail.

  Safi met the iron chain with her blade. Yet where she thought the ball’s momentum would carry the chain around her sword—and allow her to yank the flail from the Adder’s grip—the iron seemed to melt apart … to slide over the steel … and to re-form on the other side.

  Safi blinked blood and rain from her eyes, thinking surely she had mis-seen. But no. The woman was shifting chain link after chain link down to the iron ball—making the flail even bigger, the spikes even larger.

  Oh, shit. Safi was facing an Ironwitch. Oh, shit, shit, shit. She had severely misjudged her opponent. She couldn’t fight this woman alone. Carawen steel was still iron, so her only chance would be to lose the sword, get past the Adder, and then run like the Void was at her heels.

  So that was exactly what Safi did. She flung her sword sideways—silently apologizing to Evrane—and when the Adder snapped out her flail, aiming for Safi’s thighs, she jumped as high as she could.

  Not high enough, though. The flail zoomed for her ankle, spikes and iron to crush her bone.

  Instinct took over. Midair, Safi twirled and punched out her right heel. It crunched into the Adder’s throat.

  She didn’t get a chance to see what happened next. A charged wind exploded behind her, and the next thing she knew, she was flipping over the Adder, carried by the cycloning storm. Then cobblestones were careening toward her face—much too fast—and Safi crashed down. Pain jarred through her.

  Rain fell now. Lightning crackled and hissed, carried on this raging wind.

  Safi scrambled up, blinking away water and teeth-shattering aches. Then she set off, stride determined, for the second pier. As before, she took four steps onto the slick wood before racing back to the quay.

  To where the Adder had caught up to her.

  So Safi did the only thing she could conjure: she tossed up her hands and shouted, “You can have me!”

  But the Adder didn’t lower her flail. “Allow me to shackle you, Truthwitch, and I will believe you!”

  “Truthwitch?” Safi called, shrugging innocently. “I think you have the wrong girl!” False, her magic scraped. “I’m only a domna, and not even from a good estate!”

  “You can’t trick me,” the woman roared. Her uniform rippled in the wind. Her scarf was unwinding, a black flag that flipped and flew.

  For some reason, Safi couldn’t stop staring at that black flap of fabric … and she couldn’t push past her witchery. False, false, false! it shrieked over and over. Wrong, wrong, wrong! It was far too great a reaction for a simple lie.

  Then Safi understood. Then she recognized.

  Cleaving.

  As soon as that word sifted through her consciousness, the sky exploded.

  A blast of heat and light erupted from the clouds. It blanketed all sight, swallowed all sound, masked all feeling.

  Safi’s knees gave out. She toppled forward, blinking and reaching and straining for some sense of where she was, where the Adder was …

  And above all, who was cleaving.

  A fuzzy image coalesced—the Adder. On her knees. Staring at her arms in horror—arms that Safi noticed hazily had the sleeves ripped back.

  Was this woman cleaving?

  Safi pushed all her strength into sitting upright, into fighting the wind and the static so she could search the woman for signs of black or oil …

  Then she realized the Adder’s scarf was missing. It
had unwound completely and now the woman’s black hair sprayed in all directions, framing a bronze, sharp, beautiful face.

  Safi was staring at the Empress of Marstok.

  * * *

  The Airwitched storm had disrupted Aeduan’s magic—blocked Safiya’s scent from his blood. Or maybe she wore more salamander fibers. Either way, he’d had no choice but to push his power aside and simply follow the Marstoks by sight through Lejna, hoping they led him to Safiya. When he’d realized the sailors were converging in a courtyard, he ascended to the rooftops, for a better view—and hopefully better speed.

  Yet by the time Aeduan had reached the courtyard, he’d spotted the sailors sprinting back toward the sea … And the Nomatsi girl with no blood-scent standing beside a statue of the Nubrevnan god. She had duped them all. A decoy.

  Aeduan cursed, instantly flinging out his magic to search for the Truthwitch. He would deal with the Nomatsi girl later. But then Aeduan caught the scent of something familiar: Black wounds and broken death. Pain and filth and endless hunger.

  Cleaving.

  Aeduan’s witchery fell into the background, briefly dulled by surprise. By revulsion as the Marstoks ripped at their uniforms. As black oil bubbled beneath their skin. As the Nomatsi girl squared off to fight them.

  Aeduan knew he should leave—now. Yet he didn’t. He waited. He watched … Then he decided.

  A snarl broke through his lips. This was the Puppeteer’s doing. Aeduan recognized her work by now. She must have figured out where the Truthwitch was—and now she tried to help Aeduan in her own twisted, cleaving way.

  Which meant that if Iseult died here, Aeduan would be to blame—the exact opposite of a life-debt repaid.

  So Aeduan ran to the roof’s edge and jumped. He flew three stories toward the fountain. Air rushed into his ears. Loud, fast. His right foot touched down. He pushed the power into a roll and tumbled to his feet—with barely enough time to keep from careening into the Threadwitch.

  Who was swinging her cutlass at Aeduan’s head. He dove low and steel whistled through the air.

  “No!” was all he could shout before he unsheathed his sword and rounded on the nearest Cleaved. The man was an Adder, his black hood scratched off and his skin oily and writhing. He chomped at the air, searching for someone worth devouring.

  Aeduan drove his blade through the Adder’s shoulder … then ripped it back out. Hot acid sprayed harmlessly onto Aeduan’s cloak. Yet a drop landed on his exposed face, searing into his cheek.

  So their blood really is poison.

  There was no time to dwell on that revelation. The cleaved man was already dragging himself onward. His acid blood eating through his uniform, revealing chest and arms fit to erupt from the roiling pustules.

  “The head!” the girl shouted before spinning her blade wide.

  Steel bit through flesh. Through nerve and bone. The Adder’s head went flying, his body wobbling uncertainly while acid spurted like a fountain into the courtyard. It splattered the girl’s clothes, eating through the fabric. She stumbled back … then front-kicked the headless body. It collapsed.

  The girl gaped at her sleeves, as if shocked by the holes. Fool. Hadn’t she seen the acid at work? It was her fault she’d stepped into it like that. Yet Aeduan still found his mouth opening and the words “Stay behind me” coming out.

  Then he angled toward four more Marstoks and set to work. They lurched at Aeduan … and, of course, the stupid Threadwitch did not stay behind him as ordered. Instead, she swooped out, blade arching at neck height.

  She missed; the nearest Cleaved hopped back with unnatural speed. Windwitch, Aeduan realized as he lanced out with his own blade. Again, the man leaped backward, skin brewing with black.

  Air blasted into Aeduan; he staggered toward the fountain. The Threadwitch listed too, though she held her stance better.

  A deafening crack sounded behind Aeduan. He had just enough time to twirl around—to see a rift splintering the fountain—before the Threadwitch grabbed his cloak and yanked.

  The fountain exploded in a blur of ancient stone and water—but Aeduan and the girl named Iseult were already soaring for the nearest alley. Clearly one of these Marstoks was a Tidewitch, and now that he had a source, Aeduan would be no match.

  A magicked wind battered into Aeduan’s back, knife-like and meant to flay apart his skin. Yet Aeduan’s cloak protected him, and he protected the girl.

  Aeduan pumped his legs faster, pushed Iseult on. “Right!” he bellowed, and she skittered down the new passage.

  Rain fell hard now. Biting. It only added to the cleaving Tidewitch’s power. A bloodthirsty screech lifted over the streets. Several screams—tens of them, even.

  “Left!” Aeduan barked at the next shadowy intersection. He had no idea where he was going, only that he needed a larger gap between him and the Cleaved. He could hide the Nomatsi girl until this ended.

  Yes, Aeduan would repay his life-debt to Iseult, and then he would never think of her again. She wasn’t the Cahr Awen; she wasn’t his problem.

  Aeduan spotted a recessed doorway at the end of the road. The door was loose on its hinges. “Ahead!” he shouted. “Inside!”

  The Threadwitch’s sprint faltered. She flung a look back, eyes wide.

  “Do it.” He grabbed her arm, grip vicious, and pumped his witchery through his blood. His speed doubled, the alleyway blurred, and the girl cried out. She wasn’t running as fast, and he couldn’t push her blood faster.

  But then they were to the doorway and he was shoving her in, yanking her toward the back of the house, pushing her through a kitchen—their gasps for air almost as loud as the howling wind and beating water outside.

  Pantry. Aeduan saw the tall cupboard at the back corner of the room, dangerously close to a shattered window … but the only hiding place he could spot. He shoved the girl toward it. “Get inside.”

  “No.” She spun around to face him. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Repay a life-debt. You spared me; now I spare you.” With a flick of his wrist, he unfastened his salamander cloak. “Hide beneath this. They won’t smell you.” He offered it to her.

  “No.”

  “Are you deaf or just stupid? Those Cleaved are seconds away. Trust me.”

  “No.” Her hazel eyes shook—but not with fear. With stubborn refusal.

  “Trust. Me.” Aeduan spoke more softly now, ears and magic straining for signs of the Cleaved. They would be here at any moment and this Nomatsi girl still wasn’t budging.

  And if she didn’t budge, then Aeduan’s life-debt would remain unpaid.

  So he summoned the only words he could find that would make her go: “Mhe varujta,” he said. “Mhe varujta.”

  Her eyebrows shot high. “How … how do you know those words?”

  “The same way you do. Now get inside.” Aeduan shoved her into the cupboard—hard. His patience was spent, and he smelled the approaching Cleaved. Bloodstained secrets and filth-encrusted lies.

  The girl did as she was told. She stepped into the pantry, staring back at Aeduan with that odd face of hers. He tossed her the cloak. She caught it easily.

  “How long should I wait?” she asked. Then her gaze raked over his body. “You’re bleeding.”

  Aeduan glanced down at bloodstains from the old wounds and new patches from Evrane. “They’re nothing,” he muttered before easing shut the door. A shadow fell over the girl’s face, but Aeduan paused before he shut her out entirely. “My life-debt is paid, Threadwitch. If our paths cross again, make no mistake: I will kill you.”

  “No, you won’t,” she whispered as the door clicked shut.

  Aeduan forced himself to stay silent. She deserved no response—it would be her mistake if she thought he would spare her.

  So, lifting his nose and pushing his Bloodwitchery high, Aeduan whirled away and strode into a world of rain, wind, and death.

  * * *

  Merik flew in a blind terror. Kullen was almost to Lejna, h
urtling down to the first pier. But something was wrong. He had torn away from Merik quicker than Merik could fly—and with an uncontrolled violence that Merik had never seen before. It had sent him spinning wildly behind, grappling for any sort of control he could find.

  When Merik finally reached the city, he slammed onto the splintered first pier—to where he’d seen Kullen go down. Yet he saw nothing in the cycloning storm. Even more frightening, his magic pulsed against his insides. Scratched wildly beneath his skin—as if people were cleaving nearby. As if they would soon send Merik teetering over the edge.

  In leaping bounds, Merik crossed the pier toward shore. Lightning cracked beside a storefront, and Merik caught sight of Kullen. He knelt at the mouth of an alley, and fat, blinding veins of electricity ran the length of him. Then the lightning faded, and Kullen was hidden by air and seawater, kelp and sand.

  Merik reached the street. He flew headfirst toward the spinning wall of lightning and wind.

  No—there was more now. Glass and splintered wood. Kullen was felling entire buildings.

  Merik crashed against it all in a roar of light, sound, and static. Then it swept him in. The wind bent him. The water beat him. The magic engulfed him.

  And Merik couldn’t fight it. He wasn’t half the witch Kullen was, and with his own powers feeling as if they might cleave at any second, Merik could do nothing but let himself go.

  The cyclone funneled him upward, so fast he left his stomach somewhere far below. Up, up, up he flew. His eyes clenched shut. Debris pelted him. Glass peeled off his exposed skin.

  But then, as quickly as he’d been sucked into the storm, Merik was released. The spinning stopped; the wind let go. Yet the storm raged on—Merik heard it, felt it …

  Below.

  He forced his eyes open, forced his witchery to keep him aloft just long enough to gauge what had happened.

  Merik was in the clouds above Kullen’s storm. Yet the cyclone was climbing, sucking in the clouds around Merik and, soon enough sucking at him too.

  But there, hundreds of feet below, was a dark speck amidst the storm. Kullen.