Truthwitch

by Susan Dennard

  Safi sputtered a laugh. “That’s it? That’s all you want from me? All you’ve ever wanted from me? Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged dismissively. “You don’t have to believe me, but what does your magic say?”

  Safi’s witchery hummed with truth, warm behind her ribs. Yet still she found it impossible to swallow this story. Everything she’d ever wanted was suddenly being handed to her. It seemed far, far too good to be true.

  Eron arched a pale eyebrow, clearly amused by Safi’s bewilderment. “When the chimes toll midnight, Safiya, the Bloodwitch will no longer be a problem. Then you can do whatever you please and live out the same unambitious existence you’ve always enjoyed. Although…” He paused, gaze sharpening. There was no sign of drunkenness now. “If you wanted to, Safiya, you could bend and shape the world. You have the training for it—I’ve seen to that. Unfortunately,” he spread his scarred hands, stretching the chain taut, “you seem to lack the initiative.”

  “If I lack the initiative,” Safi whispered, the words tumbling out before she could stop them, “then it’s because you made me this way.”

  “Too true.” Eron smiled down at her, a rueful thing that frizzed with honesty. “But don’t hate me for that, Safiya. Love me…” His arms opened idly. “And dread me. It’s the Hasstrel way, after all. Now finish getting dressed. We leave at the next chime.”

  Without another word, Eron stalked past Safi and left the room. Safi watched him go. She made herself watch his brisk gait and broad back.

  Safi sank into the injustice for several blistering seconds. Unambitious? Lacking initiative? Perhaps that was true when it came to living in a frozen castle amidst a world of power-hungry nobility and ever-watchful Hell-Bards, but not when it came to a life with Iseult.

  Safi pulled out the Carawen book once more and flipped it open. The piestra shone up at her, blooming like a rose at sunset. This page in particular was important, and Safi simply had to sort out why …

  She dragged her finger down the ranks and divisions of monks. Mercenary Monk, Teacher Monk, Guardian Monk, Artisanal Monk … Her fingers paused on Healer Monk. It was one such monk who’d found Iseult when she’d fled her tribe. Iseult had gotten lost at a crossroads north of Veñaza City, and a kind Healer Monk had helped her find her way.

  And that old crossroads was beside the lighthouse that the girls now used. Iseult must be planning to leave Veñaza City altogether and return to the usual hideout.

  Safi dropped the book. Her head lolled back. She couldn’t go there yet—she had to get through tonight first. She had to get this Bloodwitch off her trail and her uncle firmly taken care of. Then, with no worry of pursuit ever again, she could head north of the city and find her Threadsister.

  Safi exhaled sharply, head lowering and body shifting toward the mirror. Eron wanted a dutiful domna, did he? Well, Safi could give him that. Throughout her childhood, the Cartorran nobility had seen her as a quiet, embarrassed thing, cowering behind her uncle while her toes tapped and her legs bounced.

  But Safi wasn’t that girl anymore, and the Hell-Bards had no power in this empire. So Safi puffed out her chest, pleased at how the gown emphasized her shoulders. How the sleeves stopped high enough to reveal her palms, striped with as many calluses as any soldier.

  Safi was proud of her hands, and she couldn’t wait for the doms and domnas to stare at them with revulsion. For the nobility to feel her fingers, rough as sandstone, when she danced with them.

  For one night, Safi could be Domna of Cartorra. Hell, she would be a rutting empress if it got her back to Iseult, and away from the Bloodwitch.

  After tonight, Safiya fon Hasstrel would be free.

  EIGHT

  Iseult stared at the dark mane of her brindle mare, one hand on the reins and the other held high in a poor attempt to stem her wound’s bleeding.

  The canal beside her glowed orange with the setting sun, and the stench of Veñaza City was finally starting to fade from her nostrils—as was the day’s heat. Soon, Iseult would leave this damp marshland entirely and enter the wild meadows that surrounded her Nomatsi home. Mosquitoes would swarm her, and the horseflies would feast.

  The traffic flooding from the guard’s eastern checkpoint had been thick enough for Iseult to slink out of the capital unseen. Then, once the roads had emptied of people, she’d hopped onto her new steed and urged the mare into a full gallop.

  The bleeding from the cut on her palm hadn’t staunched, so she’d torn off the olive trim of her skirt and wrapped her hand. Each time the blood soaked through, she’d ripped off more cloth. Bandaged the wound more tightly—and then held her hand even higher.

  Only one night, she told herself over and over, a refrain thundering in time to the horse’s four-beat gallop, then the three-beat canter. Finally, two leagues from the city limits, when the mare was dark with sweat, Iseult had dropped to a two-beat trot. One night, one night.

  Beneath that percussive reminder pulsed a desperate hope that Iseult hadn’t somehow endangered Safi by pointing her to the old lighthouse. Split-second plans weren’t her strong point—and that’s what the message to Habim had been. Haphazard. Rushed.

  Eventually, Iseult reached a telltale copse of alders and slowed the mare to a walk before sliding off the saddle. Her upper thighs seared, her lower back groaned. She hadn’t ridden in weeks—and not at such a speed in months. She could still feel her teeth rattling from the gallop. Or maybe that was the buzz of the cicadas in the whitethorns.

  Though it looked like Iseult followed nothing more than a game trail winding through the grass, she knew it for what it was: a Nomatsi road.

  She moved more slowly now, careful to read the Nomatsi markers as they came. A stick hammered into the dirt that looked almost accidental—it meant a claw-toothed bear trap at the next bend in the path. A cluster of “wild” morning glories on the left side of the path meant a fork in the road ahead—east would lead to a Poisonwitch mist, west to the settlement.

  Following this path would get the Bloodwitch off of Iseult’s tail for good. Then, after a few hours within the settlement’s thick walls, Iseult could set out once more to meet Safi.

  Although the Dalmotti Empire technically allowed Nomatsis to live as they pleased—so long as their caravans stayed at least twenty miles outside of any city—they were also declared “animals.” They had no legal protection yet plenty of Dalmotti hatred to contend with. So to say the Midenzis did not take kindly to outsiders was a vast understatement. As one of the only Nomatsi tribes to have settled down and stopped nomadic traveling, the Midenzis had found a safe niche here and clung to it.

  The walls were thick, the archers keen, and if the Bloodwitch could somehow navigate this far, he would find a chest full of barbed arrows awaited him.

  Yet, just as the Midenzis fought to keep outsiders away, they also fought to keep their own people in. If you left the settlement, you were deemed other, and other was the one thing a Nomatsi never wanted to be—not even Iseult.

  When the telltale oaks masking the edge of the settlement’s walls finally appeared, black and menacing in the night’s darkness, Iseult stopped. This was her last chance to run. She could turn around and spend the rest of her life without ever seeing the tribe again—though a short life that might be with the Bloodwitch hunting her.

  The moon was rising east of Iseult, illuminating her for all to see. She’d wound up her braid and tied it beneath her headscarf. Nomatsi women kept their hair chin length; Iseult’s fell halfway down her back. She needed to keep that hidden.

  “Name,” a voice called out in the guttural Nomatsi tongue. A hostile steel Thread flickered at Iseult’s left along with the faint shape of archers in the trees.

  She lifted her hands submissively, hoping the bindings on her palm weren’t too obvious. “Iseult,” she shouted. “Iseult det Midenzi.”

  Oak leaves rustled; branches creaked. More Threads shimmered and moved as guards scooted over their trees to confer, t
o decide. The moments slid past with aching slowness. Iseult’s heart beat against her lungs and echoed in her ears while the mare tossed her head. Then stamped. She needed to be rubbed down.

  A shout split the night sky.

  Two sparrows took flight.

  Then came another shout from a throat Iseult knew—and she felt like she was falling. Plummeting off some mountain peak, losing her stomach as the earth closed in fast.

  Stasis, she screamed inwardly. Stasis in your fingertips and in your toes!

  She didn’t find stasis, though. Not before the scrape of the huge gate hit her ears. Then footsteps hammered on the ground and a figure in Threadwitch black came sprinting toward her.

  “Iseult!” her mother shouted with tears streaking down a face almost identical to Iseult’s. False tears, of course, since true Threadwitches didn’t cry—and Gretchya was nothing if not a true Threadwitch.

  Iseult had just enough time to consider how small her mother seemed—only up to Iseult’s nose—before her mother yanked her into a rib-snapping embrace and Iseult’s mind filled with only one thought. A prayer, really, that the Bloodwitch stayed far, far away.

  * * *

  Iseult found that walking through the moonlit Midenzi settlement was both easier and harder than she’d expected.

  It was easier because although little had changed in the three years since her last visit to the tribe, it all seemed smaller than she recalled. The timber walls surrounding the village were as weathered to gray as she remembered, but now they didn’t seem so insurmountable. Just … tall. If not for the Nomatsi trail and the archers in the trees, the wall would be a mere inconvenience for that Bloodwitch.

  The round homes built from stones as brown as the mud on which they stood looked like miniatures. Toy homes with narrow, low doors and shuttered windows.

  Even the oaks that grew halfheartedly throughout the fifteen-acre settlement seemed scrawnier than Iseult remembered. Not large or strong enough for her to scale into the branches like she’d once done.

  What made trekking through the tribe harder than Iseult expected was the people—or rather their Threads. As she followed her mother to her home at the center of the tribe, shutters popped wide, revealing curious faces. Their Threads were strangely dampened, wrung out like old towels.

  Iseult flinched every time a figure rounded a corner or a door banged wide. Yet, every time, Iseult would also find she didn’t recognize the moonlit face scrutinizing her.

  It made no sense. New people in the tribe? Threads that were faded to near invisibility?

  When Iseult finally reached her mother’s round home, she found it as strangely tiny as everywhere else. Though Gretchya’s hut wore the same orange rugs over the same wide plank floors from Iseult’s childhood, it was all so small.

  The worktable that had once come up to Iseult’s waist, now only reached her mid-thigh—as did the dining table beneath the window on the eastern side. Behind the stove was a hatch that led to a dug-out basement. It looked so compact that Iseult wasn’t sure she could even brave it down there.

  The two times she’d come back—for only one night each visit—the cellar had felt terrifying and enclosed compared to Mathew’s open-aired attic. And, after having had a bed of her own, the single pallet Iseult had always shared with her mother had seemed cramped. Inescapable.

  “Come.” Gretchya gripped Iseult’s wrist and towed her to the four low stools around the stove that were customary in a Threadwitch’s home. Iseult had to quash the need to wrench free of her mother’s fingers. Gretchya’s touch was even colder than she remembered.

  And of course, her mother didn’t notice the bloodied wrapping on her daughter’s palm—or maybe she noticed but didn’t care. Iseult couldn’t gauge her mother’s emotions because Threadwitches could neither see their own Threads nor those of other Threadwitches. And Gretchya was far more skilled at masking her feelings than Iseult had ever been.

  In the guttering lantern light, though, Iseult could at least see that her mother’s face had changed very little in three years. Perhaps a bit thinner and perhaps a few more lines around her frequently frowning mouth, but that was all that was different.

  Gretchya finally released Iseult’s wrist, snatched up a nearby stool, and set it before the hearth. “Sit while I’ll spoon out borgsha. The meat is goat today—I hope that is still to your taste. Scruffs! Come! Scruffs!”

  Iseult’s breath hitched. Scruffs. Her old dog.

  A thump-thump-thump sounded on the stairs into the house, and then there he was—old and saggy and with a listing canter.

  Iseult slid off the stool. Her knees hit the rug, happy heat chuckling through her. She opened her arms, and the ancient red hound galloped toward her … until he was there, wagging his tail and nosing his grayed muzzle into Iseult’s hair.

  Scruffs, Iseult thought, afraid to speak his name. Afraid the stammer would be there from this unexpected surge of emotions. Contradictory emotions that she didn’t want to wade through or interpret. If Safi were here, she’d know what it was that Iseult felt.

  Iseult scratched at Scruffs’s long ears. The tips were crusted with flecks of what looked like parsley. “Have you b-been eating borgsha?” Iseult backed onto the stool, still rubbing Scruff’s face and trying to ignore how foggy his eyes were. How much gray had taken over his snout.

  A melodic voice broke out. “Oh. You are home!”

  Iseult’s fingers froze on Scruffs’s neck. Her vision throbbed inward, smearing the room and the dog’s face. Perhaps if she pretended not to notice Alma, the other girl would simply fade into the Void.

  No such luck. Alma skipped from the door to Iseult. Like Gretchya, she wore the traditional Threadwitch black dress that fit tightly through the chest but was loose over the arms, waist, and legs. “Moon Mother save me, Iseult!” Alma gaped down, her long-lashed green eyes shuttering with surprise. “You look just like Gretchya now!”

  Iseult didn’t answer. Her throat was hard with … with something. Anger, she supposed. She didn’t want to look like Gretchya—a true Threadwitch like Iseult could never be. Plus, Iseult hated that Scruffs wagged his tail. Butted his head on Alma’s knee. Turned to Alma and away from Iseult.

  “You are a woman now,” Alma added, plopping onto a stool.

  Iseult gave a curt nod, skimming a quick eye over the other Threadwitch. Alma was a woman now too. A beautiful one—no surprise. Her chin-length coal-black hair was thick, glossy … perfect. Her waist was small, her hips curved, and her shape all that was feminine and … perfect.

  Alma was, as she’d always been, the perfect Threadwitch. The perfect Nomatsi woman. Except when Iseult’s gaze settled on Alma’s hands, she saw thick calluses.

  Iseult flipped up Alma’s palm. “You’ve trained with a sword.”

  Alma flung a furtive glance at Gretchya, who nodded slowly. “A cutlass,” Alma admitted. “I’ve been practicing with one for the past few years.”

  Iseult dropped Alma’s wrist. Of course Alma had learned to fight. Of course she would be perfect at that too. There could never be anything that Iseult performed better—it was as if the Moon Mother made sure that any skill Iseult tried to hone, Alma acquired it too … and perfected it.

  When it had become clear that Iseult would never be able to make Threadstones or keep her emotions distant enough, Alma had moved from being an extra Threadwitch in a passing Nomatsi tribe to being the Threadwitch apprentice of the Midenzi settlement. When Gretchya became too old to guide the tribe, Alma would take over.

  In Nomatsi caravans, it was the job of the Threadwitch to unite Thread-families, to arrange marriages and friendships, and to unsnarl the looms of people’s lives. One day, just as Gretchya did now, Alma would use her magic to lead the Midenzis.

  “Your hand,” Alma said. “You’re hurt!”

  “It’s fine,” Iseult lied, hiding her palm in her skirt. “It stopped bleeding.”

  “Clean it anyway,” Gretchya said, tone unreadable.

&n
bsp; Iseult’s nose twitched. Here were two women whose Threads she couldn’t see. Yet before Iseult could request a moment alone to sort through everything—coming home, the Bloodwitch hunting her, Alma’s perfection—a man poked his black-haired head through the door. “Welcome home, Iseult.”

  Spiders walked down Iseult’s spine. Alma’s fingers squeezed on Scruffs’s neck—and Gretchya blanched.

  “Corlant,” she began, but the man cut her off, sliding the rest of his long body inside.

  Corlant det Midenzi had changed almost none since Iseult had last seen him. His hair was perhaps thinner, and gray swept the sides, but the creases above his eyebrows were as deep as Iseult remembered—parallel trenches from a tendency to always look mildly shocked.

  He looked mildly shocked now, brows high and eyes glittering as they scrutinized Iseult’s face. He approached her, and Gretchya made no move to stop him. Instead, Alma shot to her feet and hissed at Iseult, “Stand.”

  Iseult stood—though she didn’t see why she had to. Gretchya was the leader of the tribe, not this syrup-tongued Purist who had sowed discord throughout Iseult’s childhood. Corlant ought to be the one sitting.

  He stopped before her, his Threads shimmering with a green curiosity and tan suspicion. “Do you remember me?”

  “Of course,” Iseult said, folding her hands in her skirts and tipping her head back to meet his gaze. Unlike the rest of the tribe, he was just as tall as she remembered, and he even wore the same murky brown robe and the same smudged gold chain around his neck.

  It was a bad attempt to look like a Purist priest. By now Iseult had seen enough real priests trained in real Purist compounds to know how badly Corlant missed his mark.

  Yet it didn’t seem to change the fact that Alma and Gretchya were showing Corlant deference. Were sharing panicked glances behind his back while he examined Iseult.

  He strutted around her, gaze roving. It sent the hairs on her arms spiking upward. “You have the taint of the outside on you, Iseult. Why are you back?”

  “She plans to stay this time,” Gretchya inserted. “She will resume her position as my apprentice.”