Bloodwitch

by Susan Dennard

  “You do realize what my last name means. Fitz Grieg?”

  A pause. Then: “You bastard!” Safi cried, and a sound like punching filled the forest. “You are literally a bastard! Why the rut didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s implied in the name! I’m sorry if you were too dense and self-absorbed to notice.”

  Iseult couldn’t believe it. Her hand shot to her throat, to the Threadstone. Then without a single thought, a single precaution, a single lesson Habim or Mathew had taught her, she broke into a run.

  The underbrush thrashed and slapped. She almost tripped on a root. Her elbows cracked against trunks, and ahead, four sets of Threads flashed bright with alarm. Then voices lifted too, and Iseult knew that they heard her—that they were drawing weapons or getting ready for an attack.

  But Iseult didn’t care. Her heart was so big, she thought it would pummel through her rib cage. And like before, tears had started to fall—these tears she understood, though. These tears she welcomed.

  She reached a clearing. Four shadows glowed in the moonlight, arms high and stances ready. But Iseult had eyes for only one person. How had she not recognized her Threads sooner? So vibrant and alive.

  “Safi,” she breathed, a whisper of sound. Then again, “Safi.”

  And that was all it took. Her Threadsister’s hands fell. “Iseult?” She gaped. Then without waiting for a reply, she charged forward and tackled, arms grabbing and laugh burbling out. “It can’t be, it can’t be.”

  Never had Iseult been squeezed so tightly, and never had she squeezed so tightly back. What if, what if, what if. None of those speculations and daydreams mattered now.

  Because now Iseult was back where she belonged. Initiate and complete. Threadsisters to the end.

  And together once more while a sky sang with stars and a child whispered, “Finished, finished, finished.”

  * * *

  Stix did not remember picking them up.

  In fact, she remembered very clearly doing as Ryber had ordered and leaving the items behind.

  Death, death, the final end.

  Yet somehow, here they were, resting upon a broken slab of granite. Ice covered the soil, the remnants of a standing stone. Already, it melted, shrouding the dawn in thick, white fog.

  Stix walked slowly, each step cautiously placed as she approached the granite. Each inch examined with squinting eyes. She and Ryber might have successfully destroyed most of the standing stones to which the mountain’s magic was bound, but there were still raiders inside that mountain, inside the Crypts leading to it, and inside these woods nearby.

  Then Stix reached the two items she knew she had left behind.

  A broken sword lay on the right, only its hilt and cross-guard fully intact, while a jagged slash of blade still razored out from above. A hole opened inside her belly at the sight of it.

  Death, death, the final end.

  Beside the hilt rested a square frame with a handle for grasping. It reminded her of a small mirror her older sister had loved, yet where that glass had been reflective, this glass was clear—and it was shattered, too. Only a few shards still clung to the frame.

  Stix reached for the handle. Like the blade, this device sang to her. Though it hummed not with death, but with answers. This plain, broken glass was a way for her to see. The way, if she was willing to peer inside.

  Carefully, she glanced back to see if Ryber watched. To see if Ryber would, once more, warn her to step away.

  But the Sightwitch Sister was too absorbed by recording in her diary what they had just done to the stones, had just done to the mountain. She didn’t notice Stix creeping away.

  Carefully, Stix picked up the broken glass. Carefully, she looked through.

  The world fell away.

  Stix was no longer beside the standing stones. She was now surrounded on all sides by thick forest and white-capped peaks. Snow fell, and nearby, a river churned. On a stone bridge spanning its dark waters, a man in black furs strode her way.

  On his head shone a silver crown. In his hand gleamed a silver sword.

  Then the Rook King fixed his gaze on Stix. “It will all be over soon,” he said before his blade arced out and crashed against her neck.

  Only as the sword cracked against stone did she realize she was locked in place. Only when it cut through the rock—three swings it took him—did she realize she was encased in granite.

  Then blade bit into flesh.

  She died.

  SIXTY-TWO

  The blood looked fresh in the snow. It had wept, it had oozed, and now it was trapped in time by ice and cold. The frozen river would accept no offering of corpses; these dead would stay here for months, until next year’s summer thaw.

  So many blood-scents to mingle against Aeduan’s magic, so many dead for his gaze to drag across. Aeduan had not killed these monks and raiders, though. While he had fought to protect the Cahr Awen, to give Iseult time to flee, he had taken no lives.

  Death did not have to follow wherever he went. Not anymore.

  He turned away from the battle. Some people still fought, far across the valley, while others simply moved through the corpses and gathered their dead. And in some spots, seafire still licked and reached for the sky.

  Aeduan left it all behind. There was one blood-scent he had to follow, one promise he had to keep.

  He tracked the scent through a tunnel in the mountain, where stone men waited. Grotesque creations Aeduan didn’t look at too closely or consider too deeply. At a fork in the path, the scent veered right—so to the right he veered as well. Up, up, until at last he reached a forest above the Monastery.

  The full moon streamed down, a shimmery glare upon the snow. Footprints traced forward, the right size to have been hers.

  Strong, the scent here was strong: Aeduan’s own blood, bright and fresh and laced with fireflies. She must be near, the one who wore his coin. The one who’d carried him, when no one else could. The one who’d shown him that only he could save himself.

  The conifers parted. Here, more footprints stamped and splayed—and more blood-scents too, from two people Aeduan knew.

  He rushed forward. The tracks and the bloods moved into a small ditch just ahead. He reached the edge and strode in.

  And then he stopped. For the path went nowhere. Before him was nothing but a stone wall, and resting atop the snow was a gleaming silver coin.

  Aeduan had not known he held his breath until it slithered out. He had not known his heart pounded so hard until it skipped a beat—and the world skipped a beat with it.

  For Iseult had lost her silver taler. She had lost the only means Aeduan had of finding her. He had lost the only means he had of finding her.

  With a stiff bend, he scooped the coin off the snow. Cold and wet, the double-headed eagle stained in blood grinned up at him. Laughing, he thought; and for half a stuttering breath, he wanted to fling it back to the ground.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he furled his fingers inward and turned away from the strange, blank stone. Then he climbed back into the clearing, back into the moonlight.

  For the first time in his life, Aeduan was free to move of his own accord. No cloak bound him, no contracts held him, and no leash locked him in place. Even vows he’d meant to keep were now lost to a wall of stone and snow.

  He was a tool no longer. He was a blade no longer, to be wielded by others or brandished by Lady Fate. He was Aeduan. Just Aeduan, and he could choose whatever life he wanted. He could go wherever his will might lead.

  He already knew exactly where that was. Not a place, but a person. Not a job, but a promise. And not an obligation, but a desire. He might not be able to follow her, but there were other ways than blood to find people in the Witchlands.

  With that thought to guide him, he eased the coin into his pocket. Two rolls of his wrists, a crack of his neck, and the Bloodwitch named Aeduan set off into the night.

  FIREFLIES

  He does not hear her coming; he does not s
mell her. It is not until she is upon him, while he washes at the spring, that he realizes she is near.

  He left her at the campsite with the child and the mountain bat. She stood watch while he scouted ahead, exactly as they have done each night for the past week while traveling together.

  “You’re hurt,” she says, and he spins around to face her. Were he not injured, he would have attacked her—startled into action. But he is injured, and he is slow.

  “Let me help,” she offers, striding toward him. The moon, a growing crescent, beams down from a sky dappled with stars. It turns the blood on his chest to black.

  He does not know why she helps. He also does not pull away.

  She reaches him, and though he wants to recoil, though his fingers tap against his thighs, he holds his ground. He lets her lean in. He lets her brace a hand on his shoulder and grip the first of six arrows poking from his belly.

  A parting gift from a Nomatsi road just north of here.

  “Why is it,” she asks softly, long fingers furling around the first shaft, “that I always seem to be pulling arrows from you?”

  She yanks. He coughs. Blood pours.

  Five more times, she repeats this, and he can practically see her calculating the life-debts between them. He would have healed from these wounds on his own, though, so as far as he is concerned, this counts for nothing.

  “At least this time,” she says when she is done, a pile of red fletching at her feet, “you waited until you were here before removing them. The cuts will heal cleaner because you let me do it.”

  This is not how his magic works. Not at all, but he also does not contradict her. Instead, he says, “You are an expert in Bloodwitches now?”

  “No.” Her lips sketch a smile. “Just in stubbornness.”

  “It takes it to know it.”

  Now her smile widens, and for some reason, his heart hitches at the sight of that. And for some reason, he likes that he can see the tips of her white canines. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen them before.

  “I could not sense you coming,” he tells her, gaze flicking away from her mouth. Back to her yellow eyes. “Did you remove the coin?”

  “No.” She pulls back her collar to prove this, but he finds he is not watching the silver taler or the leather strap it is bound to. Instead, he finds he is staring at her collarbone. At the small hollow along the base of it.

  Her pulse flutters.

  “It must need more blood,” she says eventually, startling him back into the moonlight.

  Their eyes meet. Hers seem closer now. The air seems smaller. He does not breathe. She does not breathe.

  Until, suddenly, it is too much. He backs away two steps and blurts, “I am leaving soon. So you need not worry that I will hurt you.”

  He does not know why he tells her this. He had not planned on letting her know. Then again, he had also intended to leave last night. And the night before. And every night since they had found that child in the Contested Lands.

  He had yet to actually follow through, though.

  “You would have left without saying good-bye?” she asks.

  And he counters, “You would have cared?”

  She does not respond to this. She simply stares in that inscrutable way of hers while heat gathers in his shoulders. On his cheeks, too. This is not the response he had hoped for from her; he does not know what is.

  Without warning, she swoops down and reclaims an arrow from the spring’s rocky shore. Then she takes a single step toward him, and though he wants to back away, he resists. Even as she closes the space between them. Even as she reaches for his arm.

  With a touch light as snowfall, she laces her fingers around his wrist. Then she lifts his hand.

  At first he thinks she is trying to read his palm like some Sightwitch from centuries past—just as his mother used to do. But then she lifts the arrow, and before he can stop her, she rakes it across his skin.

  A soft pain lances through him. He hisses, and blood pools.

  Then her free hand moves to the silver taler at her neck. A yank, a snap. She places the coin atop his palm.

  Already, the cut is healing. Already the blood clots and the rough skin knits itself back together—but not before a smear of blood can mark the coin’s surface. A fresh spray of red to sink into the grooves of the silver eagle.

  “You want me to be able to find you?” He can scarcely hear his own voice. It is caught somewhere inside his chest.

  But she hears him. “I don’t want you to kill me. Assuming we ever meet again.”

  “Ah,” he murmurs, although “ah” is not the word he truly wants to say.

  Two breaths later, she plucks the coin from his palm, careful not to get blood on her own skin. Then she offers him one of her sly, subtle smiles—only visible if you know what you are looking for.

  He knows what he is looking for.

  “Also,” she adds softly, “I want you to be able to find me.”

  Without another word, she turns and walks away. His heart thumps unevenly inside his chest. His lungs swell against his breastbone, as if there is something he ought to say. Something he wants to say before she is gone.

  In her odd, perplexing way, he thinks she might be asking him to stay. No one has ever asked him that before.

  No one. Ever.

  But he does not speak, and he does not follow. In seconds, the forest welcomes her. The night turns colder. Yet all the while, he stands there, as rigid as the earth beneath his feet.

  And all the while, he watches, moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, as the cut on his palm closes until nothing is left but dried blood with a circle missing at its heart.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Whitney (Ross) le Riche, this series would never have reached readers if not for you. Thank you for taking a chance on my complicated fantasy. Thank you for being my champion in-house and on the page. Thank you for being a friend through some tough years. I miss you.

  To Rachel: Tu me manques. I said that for the last book, and I mean it still. You have been a brainstorm buddy, a critique reader, and such a true, true friend. When next we meet IRL, the Thai dinner is on me.

  Diana, thank you for pulling all-nighters alongside me. Thank you for taking the helm and steering this new ship into the surprise deadline storm. It has been a real pleasure to work with you, and boy, am I proud of how much we accomplished in such a short time. Go team!

  For Joanna Volpe, Suzie Townsend, Hilary Pecheone, Pouya Shahbazian, Devin Ross, Mia Roman, and Abbie Donoghue: I don’t know what I would do without you all. I think I say some iteration of that with every book … because it’s true. Thank you! For reading, supporting, and providing. Love you all.

  Alex, I owe you so many thank-yous for tirelessly enduring my long, convoluted explanations of the Witchlands. Thank you for brainstorming, thank you for listening, and thank you for always being there.

  Sam(antha) Smith: thank you for all your endless support and patience. You’re awesome, and I’m so grateful to work with you.

  Cait Listro and Melissa Lee, I love you ladies. You cheerlead when I need cheerleading and critique when I need criticism. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

  To Holly Black, thank you for helping me find the theme in my series that I couldn’t see. You literally saved this book with a single afternoon of chatting.

  And I owe so, so many thanks to all my other friends who helped me survive this book’s creation: Erin Bowman, Leigh Bardugo, Victoria Aveyard, Amie Kaufman, Courtney Moulton, Elise Kova, Robin LaFevers, Jenn Kelly, Rae Chang, Kristen Simmons, Shanna Hughes, Karen Bultiauw, Kelly Peterson, and oh dear, I’m sure I’m forgetting someone.…

  To Alexis Saarela, Kristin Temple, Lili Feinberg, Zohra Ashpari, Lucille Rettino, Eileen Lawrence, and Kathleen Doherty, and all the incredible faces behind the scenes at Tor and Macmillan: thank you for putting up with me for all these years. I could not be more grateful to be part of your family, and I hope you all know how much I appreciate and
rely on you.

  To my family, Mom, Dad, David, and Jennifer—thank you for being there during a rough time. Thank you for always being there, actually, and always being my number-one fans.

  And to Seb … Well, what can I possibly say to convey my gratitude? Most people would have lost patience with a spouse like me, but you are a truly wonderful, giving, eternally patient soul. Thank you and je t’aime.

  ALSO BY SUSAN DENNARD

  Sightwitch

  Truthwitch

  Windwitch

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SUSAN DENNARD is the author of the New York Times bestselling Witchlands series as well as the Something Strange and Deadly series. Working in marine biology, she got to travel the world—six out of seven continents (she’ll get to Asia one of these days!)—before she settled down as a full-time novelist and writing instructor. When not writing, she can be found hiking with her dogs, slaying darkspawn on her Xbox, or earning bruises at the dojo.

  Visit her on the Web at susandennard.com, or sign up for email updates here.

  Twitter and Instagram at @stdennard

  Facebook at facebook.com/SusanDennardAuthor

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Thirteen Years Ago

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four