Bloodwitch

by Susan Dennard

  They had always been one. Set on a path toward each other. Unstoppable.

  Three black lines squiggled off him. Sever, sever, twist and sever. They writhed across the thick, smoking air before reaching Iseult and winding around her heart. Knotted, clotted. Corrupt.

  Threads that break. Threads that die.

  “No,” Iseult tried to say, but all that left her mouth was pluming darkness.

  She stumbled back two steps.

  And the dead man stumbled forward, a perfect mimicry of her movement. He cackled all the way. Clack, clack, clack.

  “You killed me!” he cried. “And you will kill me again. Over and over, for we are bound. I am yours and you are mine.”

  Iseult’s throat constricted. Her lungs sucked in only heat. This time, though, she managed to stammer, “I-I have to kill you. To save Aeduan. I have to.”

  “He has left you, though. And he will leave you again. Over and over, Iseult. The world will burn around you, but he will never come.”

  The Firewitch laughed again, a high-pitched keen like air whistling from logs trapped in a fire. Then, just like the wood, he popped. His Threads snapped taut, and his body snapped tall. His arms cracked backward, elbows and knees inverting. Then his mouth opened, and fire boomed out. It enveloped everything. All sight, all senses.

  BURN THEM! he screamed, a silent promise that conquered every space in Iseult’s mind. BURN THEM ALL!

  The fire reached Iseult. Heat, light, and pain that shredded. This was the end. This was her death. The Firewitch she had cleaved now cleaved her in return. She screamed too.

  Except death never came. The seconds slid past, the pain slowly misted away. So, so slowly, much too slowly—yet cresting back all the same. And the fire dissolved too, white holes speckling across her vision, as if this world were made of paper and a new world were punching through. Until at last, there was nothing left. Nothing save Iseult and white flecks drifting around her.

  Ash, she thought at first. This is the end and ash is all that remains. But then she realized it was cold to the touch. It gathered on her shoulders, holding perfect crystalline shapes.

  Snow.

  The nightmare was over.

  Except now Iseult had no idea where she was—and now, someone new approached, appearing from the very fabric of the Dreaming. Tall, looming, with broad shoulders and hands that hung stiffly at his sides. The only part of him that looked tangible, that had shape and texture, was a silver crown upon his head.

  It glittered like frostbite. He was a silver king in a world of falling snow.

  Cold. Iseult hadn’t realized until this moment that she was freezing. That her teeth chattered, her body shook. It was not like the fire, though—this did not hurt, this did not slay. It simply was.

  She was tired too, and suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to curl into the frozen calm and sleep. But she forced her eyes to stay wide and her mouth to form words. “Who are you?”

  No sound left her throat. No steam, either, to coat her breath. Only the snow and the cold and the king, now offering a brusque bow. He lifted his hands, black shadows trailing behind—and giving him the look of a huge black bird.

  Go, his wings seemed to motion. Wake up.

  So Iseult did, watching as the final dregs of the Dreaming dripped away. As his wings shrank inward, revealing a woman with silver hair and warm, worried Threads hunched above.

  Awake. Iseult was awake, but still shaking, still freezing. She didn’t know where she was. Lamps glowed so bright, they dazzled her eyes and turned the world to a mute, uniform amber. Even the glowing woman before her shone like a rising sun.

  After a ragged breath and three shuttering blinks, it hit Iseult: she knew this woman. She knew the lined face above her and the silver hair.

  Monk Evrane. She rubbed salves onto Iseult’s arms in gentle circles. A distant touch Iseult scarcely felt. She had numbed Iseult’s skin with … something, and Iseult’s vision sharpened the longer she watched Evrane. Circling, circling, always circling.

  “You are awake,” Evrane murmured in Nubrevnan, words compassionate. Threads compassionate, even as her focus remained on her work. “Noden has blessed me, indeed. I never thought I would see the Cahr Awen here, in their sacred home.”

  Iseult’s eyes stung at the sound of the monk’s voice. Her throat felt stuffed full of cotton. Evrane is alive. I didn’t kill her in Lejna. Aeduan had told Iseult this, but she supposed she hadn’t fully believed him until right now.

  “H-how?” Iseult croaked. She tried to sit up, but Evrane easily stopped her. A single firm hand to her shoulder, and all Iseult could do was topple back. Her head sank against rosemary-scented velvet, and another realization swept through her: I am alive too.

  “You are at the Monastery,” Evrane explained. “In the main fortress. We were able to reach the wreckage of the sky-ferry before the others.”

  “Others?”

  A sweep of cobalt hit Evrane’s Threads. Regret. “I fear the Monastery has split into two factions. Those who support the Abbot, and the insurgents, who do not. I,” Evrane added, “support the Abbot.” Her ministrations paused. She cocked her head. “Can you hear them? They lay siege even now. Ever since we brought you in.”

  Iseult felt a frown hit her brow as she listened. Yes, yes—there was a distant roar, like voices shouting. Then every few moments, a boom would shudder out. More ripple in the bed than audible sound.

  “Ceaseless catapults,” Evrane said. “Though they have run out of pitch and use only stone now.”

  “Wh-why?”

  A sigh. More sadness and regret in Evrane’s Threads. “Because they have lost their way and forgotten their vows to the Cahr Awen. It is a wonder you did not die, Iseult. I suppose, though, that Noden protects those He needs most.” Her dark eyes briefly met Iseult’s, a smile flitting across her lips. Then her gaze slid to a corner beyond Iseult. “The prince came out almost unharmed. He says you protected him in the crash.”

  For the first time since awakening, Iseult sensed the second set of Threads inside the room. Pale with sleep, they hovered in the shadows. This time, when she tried to rise, Evrane allowed it—though not without a gentle hand to assist and an insistent, “Careful, careful.”

  The full room materialized around Iseult. Heavy, rich fabrics in hunter green and navy draped her four-poster bed. Curtains hung floor to ceiling beside an ornate wardrobe with a ram’s head mounted to the wood above and a gold-framed mirror beside. Gold candlesticks, gold sconces, gold chandelier. Even the two braziers warming the space were painted gold.

  The man in the corner, though, captured Iseult’s attention. Prince Leopold slouched in a satin armchair. A sling cradled his left arm and bandages covered his hands as well as one side of his face. His Threads, faded with sleep, curled languidly above.

  “He would not leave your side,” Evrane said testily. “Though he did at least allow me to heal him.”

  “Oh?” Iseult murmured, though the truth was she scarcely listened. Her eyes racked every inch of the room, every stone and shadow. But there was no third set of Threads.

  There was no Earthwitch hiding.

  “Where is Owl?” Iseult turned stiffly to Evrane. “What happened to her?”

  Evrane shook her head, Threads blanching with confusion.

  “Owl,” Iseult repeated, louder now. “She was a child. A girl. A special girl.”

  “There was no one else in the crash—”

  “But th-there was. There had to be!” Iseult’s words came faster, her stammer closing in.

  They had lost Owl. How could they have lost Owl? Moon Mother, no.

  “She was with us on the ferry, Monk Evrane. Sh-she must be somewhere!”

  “Calm yourself.” Evrane laid a hand on Iseult’s shoulder.

  “Was there no body?” Iseult’s voice slung louder, higher. Leopold stirred in his armchair.

  And Evrane’s Threads darkened to mossy concern. “Iseult,” she murmured, “you must calm dow
n. You cannot heal if you are hysterical.”

  Iseult wasn’t hysterical, though. She had lost Owl. A child she had never liked, but whom she had finally started to understand—she was out there somewhere. Possibly trapped in a war between monks …

  If she was even alive at all.

  But Iseult’s voice was now dammed behind her tongue and waves of sleep were rippling down her spine. She knew this magic. It was Evrane’s, meant to tow her under where she could better heal.

  She didn’t want to be towed under. Not yet. Not when Owl needed her. But the monk’s magic was stronger than Iseult’s desperation, and although Iseult tried to argue, all that came out was a distant groan.

  The last thing she saw before Evrane’s magic pulled her under was darkness. Shadows skating over Evrane’s face, and over her Threads too.

  Then darkness took hold of Iseult too, and she slept.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Two weeks after saving Boots, the boy helps his mother tend the dog’s wounds. Each day, they rub salve onto the stitches in his belly, and the boy knows his terrier is happy, even if his body aches and he will never walk or play quite the same. Whenever the boy is near, Boots’s tail thumps and the boy smells flickers of contentment on the hound’s loyal blood.

  That monster will never get you again, the boy whispers to Boots every night, scrubbing at black, fluffy ears. I will always keep you safe.

  He is lying, though, and three weeks after saving Boots, the boy kills him.

  It happens when he is scratching at Boots’s ears one night. His parents sit outside the tent, talking in the low voices they always use when they think the boy is sleeping. His mother laughs softly. She often does.

  Scratch, scratch. “The monster will never get you again,” the boy reminds Boots, who is curled by his side upon their mat. “I will always keep you safe.”

  Boots’s tail thumps. Scratch, scratch.

  Then stops.

  Alarmed, the boy sits up. “Boots?” Boots does not react, and the boy realizes that the power in his veins has latched onto the freedom that thrums inside Boots.

  Then it sinks into the loyalty too.

  And now, Boots’s blood is slowing. His heart is slowing … and stopping.

  The boy didn’t meant to grab hold—he doesn’t even know how he did it. He just knows that he did, and now that the talons are in, he cannot let go.

  He tries! He tries, he tries, he tries. His lungs billow. He even scrabbles to the other side of the tent and starts crying.

  Let go, let go, let go, he thinks, terror tangling in his chest.

  Then the boy screams, “Let go! Let go! Let go!”

  His parents rush into the tent, Mother panicked. Father ready to defend.

  But they can’t fix this, and no matter how much the boy shouts and cries, he can’t make this power inside let go.

  As the boy’s heartbeats judder past, he feels Boots’s weaken. His mother tries to calm him. She hums, she holds, while his father tries to rouse the dying dog.

  Then Boots’s heart stops entirely.

  Yet all the while, throughout the shrieking and the begging, the scratching and the sobs, Boots stares with loving eyes at the boy. His best friend in the entire world. Right up until the last flickers of life leave him, his tongue lolls happily and loyalty sparkles bright upon his blood.

  Because he does not understand that the boy has broken his promise. He doesn’t understand that the boy did not keep him safe at all.

  And he doesn’t understand that the boy was the true monster all along.

  * * *

  The sun had fully set by the time Lizl forced Aeduan on the move again. The salves had helped. A slice of hard cheese and harder bread had helped too. But the anger stewing in Aeduan’s heart helped most of all.

  Cold hardened the night. Fog rose, and they ascended ever higher until they reached a river too wide and too rough to cross. They were forced to slow and follow the rapids upstream to a stone bridge. Here, a waterfall tumbled steeply down a cliff fifty paces away, stealing the night’s sounds and thickening the fog to icy mist.

  Aeduan’s donkey was halfway over the bridge when he smelled it: hundreds of scents, sharp and burning. Exposed to the night air. Even weak as his magic was, there was no missing the slaughter.

  “People,” he said hoarsely. The first word in hours. “Ahead. Fighting.”

  Lizl glanced back, though she waited until they were off the bridge to call, “Where?”

  Aeduan inhaled, grappling at whatever magic he could find. “North,” he said at last. “On the other side of the falls.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know.” And it was true—though the old Aeduan would have known immediately. The old Aeduan would have sensed how many people there were and how many open wounds too. Now, all he sensed was bloodied turmoil and death.

  Lizl squinted in the direction of the waterfall, lips puckering sideways. “I don’t know this area,” she admitted. “I took a shortcut to save time, but a shorter journey is not worth losing a life over. We will head south at that fork up ahead.”

  She kicked her mare into a three-beat canter. The donkey followed, jolting Aeduan with pain. Each impact sent fresh blood sliding down his chest. Each hoofbeat snapped the leash tighter into his neck.

  They reached the fork in the road. A crack sounded. A pistol, Aeduan realized as more tore out across the sky. Then came screams. High-pitched and closer than he expected.

  His magic rustled. It nudged, it dug. A familiar scent swelled in his veins. Someone he knew had been hit; someone he knew was dying.

  “Wait!” Aeduan tried to slow the donkey. “Wait,” he shouted, louder. “There’s a monk back there!”

  At that, Lizl reined her horse to a stop. She swiveled in her saddle, eyes immediately latching onto Aeduan’s ear—onto the opal he wore. But neither his nor hers glowed, meaning no monks nearby had called for aid.

  “You lie,” she spat, already angling forward once more. “You try to trick me so you can escape.”

  “No,” he protested.

  “Then who is it?”

  That, he could not say. It was possible he had never learned the person’s name—his magic cataloged so many bloods. Some it retained, some it did not.

  Before Lizl could push her mare onward, though, more shots echoed out. Closer, and with them came voices and shrieks.

  A woman in Purist gray burst from the trees beside the path. Clutched to her chest was a babe, wailing. She saw Aeduan and Lizl.

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “Please,” she begged in Marstoki. “Please don’t kill me. I beg you, please. My child—”

  Her words broke off. An arrow hit her in the back. It cut through her chest, piercing her heart. Then piercing the babe. Blood cascaded into Aeduan’s senses.

  He stumbled off the donkey, magic grasping for the woman. To stop her blood and save her before she and her child died. He was too weak, though, and too slow—and the leather leash sliced into his neck, holding him back.

  Until Lizl dismounted too, and together, they raced for the woman. Aeduan dropped to her side and stared into dark eyes. But he was too late. The last flickers of life had already fallen away. Her babe was silent, his body limp.

  Distantly, Aeduan wondered if his own mother had looked the same on that night all those years ago. The arrow wound, the blood—endless blood. Aeduan had not been able to save her either.

  Death follows wherever you go.

  His leash yanked, forcing him to rise. Lizl dove into the woods ahead of him, sword drawn, leaving him with no choice but to follow.

  He was glad for it. He wanted to follow. He wanted to kill.

  They passed more bodies. Another woman, two children. Each dead, each pierced by bolts with yellow fletching. Lizl did not slow; Aeduan did not slow behind her.

  The sounds of fighting drew nearer. More pistols popping and screams filling the air. Swords clanged too, and a man’s voice shouted orders. They reached t
he forest’s edge and a moonlit massacre met their eyes. It was a Purist encampment, walls high but gate opened wide. Bodies covered the rocky earth in rows, as if people had fled in a great stampede only to be picked off one by one from behind.

  Blood dribbled and drained. It was not merely Purists that tarnished the soil with red, but Nomatsis too. Different ages, different genders, different glassy eyes and splayed limbs. The blood, though, always looked the same.

  A shout, and a lanky boy charged from the gate, no older than fourteen. On his back was a Nomatsi shield. He had no weapon. He simply ran.

  As one, Lizl and Aeduan abandoned the trees to defend him. Yet like before, the boy slowed to a stop when he saw them, hands rising and mouth bobbing. No words, only terror.

  Two arrows thunked into him. One through his ear, the other through his throat. Blood burbled from his mouth. His legs gave way beneath him.

  Lizl gasped. Aeduan stumbled forward.

  He stopped short, though, when the shooter strode from the woods. The man’s white cloak, streaked with filth and red, billowed behind him. His eyes met Lizl’s, then Aeduan’s, and he nodded. “Keep herding them to me,” he called, motioning to the encampment with his crossbow, “and I will take them out as they come.”

  Lizl blinked, confused, yet between one sluggish heartbeat and the next, the truth careened into Aeduan: he had misunderstood everything. The massacres he had found, the dying monk he had buried. He had interpreted it all wrong.

  It had not been Purists and raiders against the Nomatsis. It had been Purists and raiders with Nomatsis.

  Against the Carawens.

  Aeduan turned to Lizl, words rising in his throat to warn her, to explain what lay before them. He did not need to, though, for a moment later, a girl sprinted from the encampment. Her gray gown tangled in her legs. She tripped over a corpse. She fell.

  Beside them, the monk reloaded his bow.

  Lizl lurched at the man. “Stop!”

  He did not stop. The girl tried to get up, whimpering, but she had broken something. Her hands clawed, her cries lifted louder.