Through it all, Vaness looked thoroughly unfazed. “We sail to Azmir, Commander. I want your word that as soon as we are on a ship, you will take me there.”
Caden said something, but it was garbled. Lost to the splashing of his fists. To the writhing of his feet against the iron. Whatever he said, though, it sang with frantic truth.
Safi couldn’t help it. She reached for Vaness. “Please.” No man should have to endure … whatever this was.
“Not until he agrees.” Vaness leaned closer to Caden, and darkness wriggled over her like steam off a boiling pot. “Say that you will sail me to Azmir, Commander.”
“Yes,” Caden gasped. Then again. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES YES YES YES.”
It was too much. “He speaks the truth!” Safi shoved in, unconcerned when her elbows smacked against the empress. Unconcerned when Caden’s dark magic rushed over her, at once cold as a midwinter kiss, at once hot as black sand on a boiling day. She dropped to his side, patting his hands for the chain.
He no longer held it, so she smacked at the water, spraying it all ways. Frenzied. Desperate.
Still Caden screamed, “YES YES YES YES.”
The chain fell. Right onto his collarbone, and when Safi ripped her gaze up, she found Vaness holding an indifferent hand outstretched. Then the empress strode away, and the iron that had bound Caden chased after her like dogs at the heel.
Lev dived in to lift her commander while Safi clumsily groped the chain around Caden’s neck. Once the two ends were near, magic whispered between them. They fused together, and instantly, the darkness sucked inward, moving in vague spirals back through the scars across Caden’s face, his neck, his hands.
One of which, Safi now realized, was holding hers tight. White-knuckled and shaking. A grip to hold through hell-fire and back.
His eyes fluttered opened, the pupils swallowing everything, and he said, voice ragged and raw, “Thank you … domna. Thank you.”
THIRTY-ONE
Iseult had no idea what to do with the child.
When Aeduan had found Iseult, she had been standing on the Amonra’s shore watching the mountain bat streak off to the south. Her stomach had bottomed out with surprise. With fear.
He was so quiet. So Threadless.
He was also bloodied. At Iseult’s wide eyes, he said, “It isn’t my blood.” Then he beckoned for her to follow.
So she had, to a cluster of elderberry bushes tucked beneath a massive goshorn oak near the shore. Threads had pulsed within, a steady terrified gray. Iseult had ducked into the branches and found a girl huddled against the oak’s silver roots, almost blending into the tree. A trick of the light, no doubt, yet it had taken Iseult three blinks and a scrub at her eyes to get a good look. To establish the girl’s age, her frailty, her numb detachment.
The girl looked six years old, perhaps seven. She also looked lost and shattered. Her Threads hovered with endless shades of pale gray fear. No other colors. No other emotions.
Aeduan strode into the elderberries behind Iseult. He pushed past her to crouch beside the girl. “Where do you come from, Little Sister?” He spoke crisp Nomatsi. “Did the Red Sails take your family?”
No response. The child was staring with big hazel eyes at Iseult.
A child. A child. Iseult had no idea what to do with a child.
Iseult dropped her rucksack to the knobby earth. They needed a proper shelter, and the girl needed clothes. Shoes. A fire wouldn’t hurt either—assuming they could safely manage one with the armies approaching.
As Iseult inched toward Aeduan, the child’s Threads flared brighter, hints of white panic within the gray. She backed deeper into the roots.
“I won’t hurt you,” Iseult said, schooling her face into what she hoped was an expression of calm.
The girl’s Threads didn’t change.
“Monk.” Iseult wasn’t sure why she used Aeduan’s title. She supposed she didn’t want to utter Bloodwitch in front of the girl.
Aeduan stood. The child tensed, and when he turned away, she grabbed for him. Her fingers crushed into his cloak.
His expression didn’t change as he looked back. The stony stillness remained, yet he offered a gentle, “I’m not going anywhere, Little Owl.” Her grip unfurled.
And sunset pink softly hummed through her Threads. A dazzling splash amid the gray. The Threads that bind.
“What is it?” Aeduan asked, drawing Iseult’s attention back to the angles of his face. His pale blue eyes looked almost white in this frail light.
“Wh-why,” Iseult began, only to instantly clap her lips shut. She was tired. The mountain bat had unsettled her. “Why,” she tried again, steadier now, “is this child here? What do you plan to do with her?”
“I don’t know.”
Iseult peered sideways at the girl, whose wide eyes were pinned on them. With mud mottled across her pale Nomatsi skin, she looked exactly as Aeduan had called her: like Moon Mother’s littlest sister, Owl.
She needs a bath, Iseult thought.
“Did you find her with the Red Sails?” She looked back at Aeduan.
He nodded. “The same ones who hunted you.”
“And … w-where are they now?”
“Gone.” It was all the Bloodwitch said, but Iseult didn’t need more. He had killed them, and that explained the blood.
Iseult knew she ought to be shocked. Horrified. Repulsed. Life was not meant to be claimed by anyone but the Moon Mother, yet … she felt only cool relief. Corlant’s men couldn’t hunt her anymore. “Can you smell the girl’s family?” she pressed. “Or her tribe? Perhaps we can return her to them.”
When Aeduan said nothing, Iseult slid her gaze back to him. He watched her, his face immobile. His chest immobile too, breath held. Whatever he thought, she couldn’t guess.
A flash of heat raced up her spine. She snapped, “What? Can you or can you not track her family?”
The edge of Aeduan’s mouth ticked down. “I can track them. There are traces of a tribe on her dress. But…” Aeduan’s attention moved behind Iseult. His pupils pulsed. “Her family is north. Back the way we came.”
Iseult’s nose twitched. “If we don’t continue on now, though, we will not be able to pass. The Raider ships will land, their armies will block our way.”
“They will block your way, yes.”
It took Iseult three heartbeats to sort out what he meant. And once she did, ice dropped hard into her belly. A soft exhale escaped her lips.
This, then, was the end of their travels together. Their strange partnership would end, presumably forever.
“I cannot leave the child,” Aeduan said, no inflection to his tone, no expression on his face. Yet somehow Iseult knew he spoke defensively.
“No,” she agreed.
“She will be a burden to us if we continue on.”
“Yes.”
“The Truthwitch is southeast.” He pointed toward the river. “Likely she is all the way at the end of the peninsula. Or perhaps even at sea beyond.”
Iseult nodded. There was no argument here—nothing she could say … would say to try to keep Aeduan traveling with her. This was a divergence of paths, and that was it.
“If you stick to the river, it will be the most direct route. Though you must hurry if you intend to beat the Red Sails. I will carry Owl…” Now he was saying something about food. Something about sharing rations, and who should keep the Carawen cloak.
Iseult was no longer listening.
She looked at the girl again. Owl. The Moon Mother’s littlest sister. More animal than human, she trailed silently wherever the Moon Mother went. In all the old tales, Owl’s bravery came out only at night, and by day, she hid in the forest’s darkest corners—just as this little creature did right now.
Why did he have to find her? Iseult wondered, heat splintering through her shoulder blades. For if Aeduan hadn’t found this child, then Iseult wouldn’t have to continue alone.
Safi was southeast; Safi was all that mattered. S
afi was the rose in the sunshine, and Iseult was the shadow behind. Without her, Iseult was just a bumbling collection of thoughts that constantly led her astray.
Safi was the Cahr Awen. Iseult was merely the girl who wished she could be.
Iseult hated herself for that truth, but there it was. She wanted to go after Safi; she wanted Aeduan to lead the way; she wished this child would simply disappear.
Monster, she told herself. You’re a monster.
It was at that moment that Iseult realized Aeduan had ceased speaking. He stared at her; she stared back. One breath. Two. On and on, while a breeze rustled through the hedge and insects buzzed.
Iseult knew what she had to do. She knew what Safi would do in this position. What Habim or Mathew or her mother or anyone with a backbone would do. So why was she finding it so hard to summon any words?
Iseult swallowed. Aeduan turned to go. There was nothing left to say, really, and in seconds, he had pulled Owl to her feet. “Would you rather walk, Little Owl, or be carried?”
The girl gave no spoken answer, yet Aeduan nodded as if he were the one who could see green determination flickering in Owl’s Threads. A sign she wanted to walk on her own two feet.
Iseult turned then and dug herself back out of the elderberry tangles. Something wrestled in her chest. Something she didn’t recognize, at once fiery and frozen. If Safi were here, she would know what she felt.
Which was why Iseult had to keep going.
A patter behind her. Owl stepped free from the leaves. Then came Aeduan. Iseult looked at neither of them, her thoughts on the south. On the best route past the Red Sails.
A moment later, Aeduan silently—so silently—appeared directly beside Iseult. In his outstretched hand was the arrowhead.
When Iseult made no move to pluck it up, he gently grabbed her wrist and twisted upward. Then he dropped the iron into her waiting palm. It was warm against her skin, as were his fingers—fingers he now unfurled.
No words left his lips, and no words left Iseult’s. She simply examined, almost numbly, the iron needle head as it glittered in the speckled sun.
Aeduan was back to Owl’s side before Iseult could angle toward him, and they were already stepping out of sight, a sliver of movement amid the whispering green, before Iseult finally found her voice.
“Aeduan.” She’d never said his name aloud. She was surprised by how easily it rolled off the tongue.
He looked back, his expression inscrutable as always. But laced with … with something. Hope, she found herself thinking, though she knew it was fanciful.
Aeduan was not the sort of man to ever hope.
“The talers,” she went on, “are in Lejna. There’s a coffee shop on the hill, and I discovered a lockbox full of coins in the cellar. I don’t know how they got there. I simply found them, and I took them.”
Aeduan’s chest fell with a sigh. He wanted to ask more—Iseult could see it in the way his lips tightened. Readying for words.
But then he changed his mind and turned away.
So Iseult matched his movement, pivoting toward the river and setting off.
She did not look back.
* * *
Merik dropped to his knees beside Cam, all thoughts of Vivia or Garren or any of the Nines forgotten. Cam was curled in on herself, her left hand clutched to her belly. Blood streaming.
“We need to get you help,” Merik said. He tried to lift her, but she resisted. Her head wagged.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what Garren was gonna do—”
“And I don’t care about that, Cam. Stand up, damn it. We need to get you help.”
Vivia’s shadow stretched over them. “Pin’s Keep,” she said. “We can get a healer there, and it’s that way.” She motioned across the square.
“Then let’s go.” Ignoring Cam’s arguments, Merik eased a hand behind the girl while Vivia moved to Cam’s other side.
But Cam, stubborn as ever, shrugged them off. Her face was pale. Blood stained everything. “I can walk,” she huffed. “It hurts like hell, but I know the fastest way. Come on.” She stumbled over the corpses, leaving Merik and Vivia with no choice but to hurry after.
It was then, as Cam led them onto a side street, that Merik felt it—a cold draft from an unlit hearth. A frost to trickle against his ever-present rage.
He spun toward the sensation, and just as he knew he would find, just as he felt tugging in his belly, a wall of shadows met his eyes. It towered above the buildings. Blacked out the entire city, the entire cavern.
The wall moved this way.
“Run.” The command fell from Merik’s tongue, alive. Undulating like the creature he knew came toward them. Then louder, “Run!”
He grabbed for Cam, tugging her faster toward Pin’s Keep—or whatever might lie ahead. But definitely away from the shadow man.
No one argued. Everyone ran.
Each step made Merik’s chest clench. He was a fish on the line being reeled the wrong way. Block after block. Trying to keep panic at bay.
A distant voice began chanting.
It carried the words Merik had grown used to, the song that lived inside him now. These were the verses he’d forgotten, or perhaps never heard, and the song came from the city’s heart. Far away, yet frizzing ever nearer.
“So on they swam deeper, till darkness took hold
and the only sound was click-click.
Daret feared it the sound of her claws,
but Filip assured him it wasn’t.”
Cam almost tripped. Merik caught her, keeping his arm sturdily at her back.
“What was that?” Vivia asked.
Merik didn’t answer. He simply spurred them on, for the wall of darkness was catching up.
“Then fool brother Filip swam faster ahead,
forgetting his brother was blind.
For fool brother Filip had heard tales of gold
that Queen Crab hoarded inside.”
The voice had reached a nearby street. The shadows grew thicker. Any moment now, they would roll over Merik and Vivia and Cam too, leaving all of them blind. Leaving all of them trapped.
“Queen Crab avoids fishes, she only hoards riches—
at least so Filip believed.
He also believed that money bought love,
and that riches could make him a king.”
The road ended ahead, and a curl of air kissed Merik’s face. A breeze. Cool, refreshing …
“Turn right,” Merik barked, and Vivia and Cam obeyed.
“But this is the secret of Queen Crab’s long reign:
she knows what all fishes want.
The lure of the shiny, the power of more,
the hunger we all feel for love.”
Two more streets, two more turns, and more cold wind slithered over Merik. Yet as his lips parted to holler that they veer left, he realized—with a punch of dread in his belly—that he had taken them in a circle. That now, somehow, the wall of black waited directly ahead.
This was a trap. The baited line of Queen Crab, and he was indeed the fool brother. This wind he had been following belonged to the shadow man.
“Stop.” The word slipped from Merik’s throat as he skittered to a clumsy halt, pulling Cam closer. “I’ve led us wrong.”
Cam kept her calm even as she bled. “That way.” She jerked her chin toward a new street. Thirty paces later, they hit the cavern’s farthest wall, where a door waited.
Just in time, for the shadows were almost to them. Tendrils reached outward, like death across the sea floor. Heavy. Hungry. Unnatural.
Vivia shoved through the door first, with Merik and Cam behind. The stone passage looped up in sharp spirals before it abruptly reached a flurry of floods. Just like the Cisterns, the water funneled past at a speed no man could fight. Vivia lunged forward, as if to try.
“Wait!” Cam shouted. “The flood stops! Every sixty heartbeats, it stops for ten! You just gotta know how to count!”
“But we don’t know how many heartbeats have already passed!” Vivia shouted. “In case you missed it, there’s a monster hunting us!”
As if in reply, the shadow man’s laugh oozed down the tunnel. “You need not fear me.”
“I don’t,” Merik said, though he wasn’t sure why he answered. He wasn’t sure why he even heard that voice atop the water’s boom.
It was then that the floods broke off. A tail of choppy white flung past, leaving damp stones and a matching tunnel ten paces beyond.
Cam pulled free from Merik and ran. Vivia followed.
Merik did not.
Oh, he tried to follow, yet his feet felt bolted to the floor. It took monumental effort to manage one step. A second.
Then it was too late. The shadow man reached him.
Black crushed over Merik, just as it had in Linday’s greenhouse, but tenfold stronger. A thousandfold stronger. This was not the soft snuff of a pinched wick or the gentle shrink of a Firewitched flame. This was sudden, and it was complete. One moment, Merik could see the tunnel ahead, could see Cam and Vivia wheeling into it.
The next moment, Merik was trapped in black. No up. No down. No sensing where he ended and the shadows began. Eclipse. That sensation of light where there was none, of pain with no source.
He fumbled forward, but there was no wall to guide him. Nothing at all to grab hold of. Only the words slinking up from behind.
“That song isn’t Nubrevnan, you know.” The voice was so close. A claw to scrape down Merik’s spine. “The fool brothers are older than this city, their tale brought down through the mountains. Back when I had a different name. Back before I became the saint you call the Fury.”
A wind trickled against Merik’s face. He inhaled deep, letting air circle to him. Letting magic gather in. He could feel the tunnel now. Could feel the floods approaching to his right. All he had to do was run.
Or so he thought as he kicked into a jog. The shadow man laughed. “Oh, Threadbrother, you should not have used your magic near me.”
With that statement, Merik went rigid. Threadbrother. It … couldn’t be.
As if in reply, the darkness slithered away. Light resumed from the glowing fungus that had been masked by the shadow man’s storm. It covered every inch of this tunnel—and it illuminated floods now hurtling this way.
Windwitch Page 28
