Truthwitch

by Susan Dennard

  It was not the scent of the girl named Safiya. This was someone else entirely. Someone with an older blood—much older, in fact.

  Aetherwitch, he thought. Then he specified it to Glamourwitch.

  Aeduan scanned the limited field of people he could see, could smell. But there was no sign of someone working powerful magic. Yet Aeduan had no doubt a Glamourwitch was in that room, manipulating what people saw.

  Aeduan also had no doubt he was the only person anywhere in this building—possibly the entire Witchlands—who could wade through what was going on. It was not arrogance that made him think so but simple truth.

  A truth that kept him well paid, and that might, after this evening, lead to employers of greater wealth than Guildmaster Yotiluzzi. This girl was a Truthwitch and the future bride of the Cartorran emperor. Someone would want to know who had taken her—and that someone would no doubt pay very well.

  Aeduan launched into a quick, light-footed stride once more. The girl was reaching the edge of his range. Though he could track her over long distances, it was easier work if he kept her within a hundred paces.

  Yet as he ran, the person with acrid battlefield blood stepped into his path, and with the man came the smoking stench of actual flames.

  The Firewitch was burning the entrance to the walls.

  Aeduan allowed just the slightest fear to spike through him. Flames … bothered him.

  But then he pushed aside the instinct to stop, to descend into that place, and with a great mental wrench, he brought his mind back to the forefront and shoved more power into his lungs.

  He also made sure to snap his cloak’s fire-flap across his nose. The saying that a Carawen monk was prepared for everything was not an understatement—and Aeduan took that phrase to a completely different level. His white Carawen cloak was made of salamander fibers, so no fire could burn it. Though the flap would block his ability to track blood-scents, he only needed to wear it long enough to get through these flames.

  Aeduan reached the exit, dropped directly into the fire, and dispatched his first knife. Then, as he rolled through the flames and flipped back to his feet, he dispatched a second.

  The Firewitch dove aside, ducking behind a potted plant in the long entrance hall of the palace. The second knife cracked into the clay, shook the azalea bush within.

  Aeduan yanked down his fire-flap, and the smell of blood rushed over him. His first knife must have hit the Firewitch. Good. Aeduan threw his gaze down the hall. He saw nothing, yet he sensed the girl was almost to the large doors at the end.

  The Firewitch spun around the other side of the pot. Flames roared from his mouth, his eyes—even as blood gushed from a knife in his knee.

  Aeduan had never seen anything like it—never known a Firewitch could possess such power.

  Yet he could ponder that later. Leaping aside, he propelled himself into a sprint that was impossible to follow. Aeduan could control his own blood, which meant that for spurts of exhausting intensity, he could push his body to an extreme level of speed, of power.

  Yet as he raced over the marble floor, more figures materialized before him—from around pots and even dropped on ropes from the ceiling.

  Aeduan jolted; his footsteps faltered as he instinctively grabbed for more throwing knives.

  But no. As these shadowy shapes ran toward Aeduan, he realized he smelled nothing. No scent, no blood.

  The Glamourwitch was still at work here, so Aeduan thrust himself back into his blood-fueled sprint. His toes barely skimmed the marble; the shadows approached; flames thundered—hot and desperate—behind him.

  Then Aeduan was close enough to the entrance doors to slow his speed. Gulping in air and throwing all of his Bloodwitchery back into tracking the Truthwitch, he almost forgot to keep an eye out for real people.

  A fatal mistake for anyone but a Bloodwitch, and as a gold-hilted knife thunked into Aeduan’s shoulder, a temper he rarely released rumbled to life—then erupted.

  With a battle cry, Aeduan ripped his sword from its scabbard and attacked the person ahead—the person’s whose knife was now scraping against his shoulder bone. A man with fair hair.

  The Silk Guildmaster, Alix. The tiny, effeminate man was unarmed. He was waiting to die. Willing to die.

  But Aeduan never fought the undefended. He barely had time to redirect his aim; his sword whisked past the man’s shoulder, skimmed over his silk robe.

  The Guildmaster only spread his arms as if to say, Take me, and his eyes never opened—which meant that the concentrated crease on the man’s brow was one of attention. Of a witchery focused elsewhere.

  And Aeduan smelled a blood-scent of tornadoes and silk, of glamours and woven illusions.

  This man was the Glamourwitch. A man Aeduan’s own master, Yotiluzzi, had dined with on a thousand occasions. The man who led the Silk Guild wasn’t magically tied to silk at all.

  As this realization washed over Aeduan, he also realized he’d lost Safiya’s scent. She had left his hundred-pace range, and he would have to track her like a dog on the hunt. Aeduan launched into a sprint—a natural one—out the door … where twenty city guards waited beneath a glaring white moon.

  It was nothing Aeduan couldn’t handle. In fact, it was almost laughable. Twenty men couldn’t stop him. All they could do was slow him, at best. Yet as Aeduan’s sword arced up and his magic reached for the nearest soldier, and as four crossbow bolts chunked into Aeduan’s chest, he realized these men moved with the concerted effort of an army. By the time Aeduan waded through all of these swords and arrows and knives, he might actually be too drained to keep following the girl Safiya.

  So he did something he rarely ever did—if only because he hated acquiring life-debts. He pinched the blue opal pierced in his left ear and whispered, “Come.”

  Blue light flashed in the corner of his eye; magic shivered down the side of his body. The Threadstone was now active.

  Which meant every Carawen monk in the area would come to Aeduan’s aid.

  TWELVE

  As Safi hurtled through the Doge’s marble entrance hall, Uncle Eron towing her along at a speed she had never seen him run, she had absolutely no idea what was happening.

  The lights had blacked out, and then Habim’s hand had slid around Safi’s. She hadn’t known how she’d recognized him—years of grasping those same hilt-roughened palms was all she could figure—but she had known and she’d followed without question.

  But the lights had flared into being before she or Habim or Uncle Eron were out of the ballroom. Most gazes were locked on where Safi had just stood, and the few gazes that scanned toward her simply skimmed over.

  She risked a peek back—and saw herself. Standing exactly as she had stood. False! her magic frizzed against her spine.

  Then Habim towed Safi into the dark hall, and all she could do was try to keep her silver skirts out of the way as she and Eron hurtled through the hall. Habim hung back.

  “Faster,” Eron hissed, never looking at his niece. Never offering an explanation for what in the rutting hell was going on. Uncle Eron had hidden things and bent the truth, but he hadn’t outright lied. It was midnight; Safi was leaving.

  Safi’s and Eron’s heels echoed through the hall like the city guards’ snare drums—until a boom ripped out. Flames.

  But Safi kept her gaze locked on Eron’s graying head and her mind focused on pumping every ounce of speed into her legs. She wouldn’t look back. She would trip if she did.

  They were almost to the doors outside when Safi caught sight of Guildmaster Alix, sweating and concentrated. Yet what he was doing or why, Safi had no time to ponder. She simply leaped over the threshold—and into an army.

  A cry writhed up her throat, but Eron cut directly through the men—who one by one saluted him.

  Safi had never—never—seen people give her uncle respect. She almost lost control of her feet, of her lungs. But then Eron glanced back, and the sharpness in his gaze—the precursor to a temper she recogn
ized and understood—sent her into a frenzied race once more.

  Over the stone paths, beneath the hanging jasmine, Safi’s feet didn’t slow. She had finally reached that strange aloofness Iseult latched on to so easily—the place Habim had tried to teach Safi for years.

  Just as he had taught her to defend herself.

  Just as he had taught her to fight and to maim.

  And to sprint like the Void was at her heels.

  As Eron guided her down a narrow gardener’s path and toward a nondescript workers’ gate in the iron fence around the palace, Safi realized that Uncle Eron had never intended for her to be a domna. Every piece of her training—every lesson Mathew and Habim had ever hammered into her brain, had been leading up to this moment.

  The moment when she would be declared the future Empress of Cartorra and would run away from it at breakneck speed.

  Eron reached the gate; it swung wide and Mathew appeared. But Eron did not slow—in fact, now in the open street, he picked up his pace. So did Safi and Mathew.

  Three sets of rasping breaths soon filled every space in Safi’s ears. Louder than the night wind or the rising clash of steel on steel—a battle that now raged within the palace walls.

  They reached an intersection, and Eron darted into the shadow of an overhang. Safi followed, blinking at the sudden loss of moonlight. Then, as her eyes adjusted, a cart and donkey coalesced before her. A wiry peasant sat disinterestedly at the cart’s front, sunflower stalks as his cargo.

  Eron snatched a clump of sunflowers and flipped them back. They were attached to a blanket of salamander fibers.

  “Get under,” Eron ordered, his voice raw with exertion. “We’ll deal with the Bloodwitch, but until then, you need to hide.”

  Safi didn’t get under. Instead she grabbed her uncle’s arm. “What’s going on?” Her words were split by gasps. “Where am I going?”

  “You have to escape,” he said. “Not just the city, but all of Dalmotti. If we’re caught, we’ll be hung as traitors.” Eron dropped the edge of the blanket and yanked a flask from his waistcoat. A swig, a swish, and he spat it to the cobblestones. Three more times he did this while Safi gaped on.

  Then Eron mussed his hair and shot Safi a rigid stare. “Do not fail us,” he said quietly before staggering around and shuffling off.

  It was like watching summer turn to winter. Eron fon Hasstrel transformed before Safi’s eyes. The cold, soldier-like uncle she’d seen seconds before became a grinning, sloppy-faced drunk—and nothing in Safi’s magic reacted. It was as if both versions of her uncle were true.

  Or false, for she could sense nothing at all.

  In that moment, a sickening horror scalded through her. Her uncle had never been a drunk. As inconceivable as it was—as unwieldy and too oddly shaped for her mind to grab on to—there was no denying what Safi could plainly see. Uncle Eron had convinced Safi, Safi’s magic, and all of Cartorra that he was nothing more than a wasted old fool.

  And then he’d used that lie to help her escape tonight.

  Before Safi could call out to him and beg for answers, his figure shimmered once—and then vanished. Where he’d walked, Safi saw only cobblestones and moonbeams.

  She jerked toward Mathew. “Where did he go? Did the Glamourwitch do that?”

  Mathew nodded. “I told you your uncle’s plan was big. We fear … no, we know that the Truce will dissolve any day now and with no hope for a continuation.”

  At Safi’s confused headshake, Mathew sighed. “I know it’s impossible for you to understand right now, but trust me: we’re working for peace, Safi. Yet a union to Emperor Henrick would have ruined everything.”

  “But why,” Safi stammered, “does Henrick want to marry me in the first place? The Hasstrel lands are worthless. I’m worthless!”

  Mathew hesitated, eyes flicking away before he finally said, “We think the Emperor might have learned about your witchery.”

  Safi’s throat squeezed shut. How? she wanted to croak. She’d hidden it for eighteen years and no Hell-Bard had caught her yet.

  “A marriage to Henrick,” Mathew went on, “would have been the same thing as enslavement for you, Safi. There would have been no escape. Yet since neither Eron nor you can openly oppose such a union, we’re faking this kidnapping. That was why Eron gave you no warning. If you had known what was to come, then you wouldn’t have shown nearly enough surprise. Henrick and his Hell-Bards would have suspected immediately.”

  Safi swallowed—or tried to. Her throat was too clogged. Not only did that Bloodwitch know what she was, but the Emperor of Cartorra did too. Who else had found out? Who else would come hunting for her?

  “Don’t worry,” Mathew said, clearly sensing her panic. “Everything is prepared, Safi, and we’ll get you to safety.” He pushed her toward the black blanket, but she dug in her heels.

  “What about Iseult? I’m not leaving her.”

  “Habim and I will find her—”

  “No.” Safi ripped from his grasp, not caring that smoke plumed over rooftops now. That the roar of a nearby battle grew louder each second she stood her ground. “I’m not leaving without Iseult. Tell me where I’m supposed to go, and I’ll get there on my own.”

  “Even after all of this, you still don’t trust us?” In the darkness, Mathew’s face was hidden, yet there was no missing the hurt in his voice. “We risked everything to get you from that party.”

  “I don’t trust Uncle Eron,” Safi said. “Not after what I’ve seen tonight.”

  “You should trust him. He built a life of shadows and lies, yet he never dragged you into it. Do you know how much that cost him? Cost all of us?” Mathew motioned vaguely toward the cart. “Believe me when I say that Dom Eron wants nothing more than to keep you safe. That’s what we all want. Now come. We’re out of time.”

  Mathew gripped Safi’s elbow, and his shaded eyes bored into hers. “You will ride this cart north, Safi, to meet a boat. You will not move until you get there. The boat will carry you across the sea to a city called Lejna in the Hundred Isles, where you will wait at a coffee shop—one of my coffee shops. Someone will come for you in four days and take you the rest of the way. To freedom, Safi, so you won’t have to marry Henrick. And I promise—on my life and Habim’s—I promise to bring Iseult with us.”

  The words trilled over Safi. They buzzed through her arm where Mathew’s skin touched her. He was bewitching her. She knew he was doing it—her own Truthwitchery screeched at her that this was deception. Yet Mathew’s magic was stronger than Safi’s. She could no more fight it than the pull of a riptide.

  Her feet carried her to the cart, her body crawled beneath the blanket, and her mouth said, “I will see you across the sea, Mathew.”

  Her tutor’s face tightened—a wince of pain or regret, Safi couldn’t say. She was drowning beneath the power of his witchery.

  But when he leaned in to brush a kiss over her forehead, she had no doubt the emotion was one of love. Of family.

  Then he dropped the blanket over her head, the world turned black, and the cart rattled to a start beneath her.

  * * *

  It felt like years that Safi was beneath the awful salamander blanket with sunflower leaves scratching overhead. She heard little beyond the donkey’s hooves and the creaking wheels; she smelled nothing but her own hot breath; and she saw only black.

  Yet Mathew’s Wordwitchery held its sway, the words so deep in her brain that she had to obey—had to lie there, silent and still, while the cart rolled north.

  Never—never—had Mathew done that to her. Perhaps a coercive phrase or two, but her Truthwitchery had always canceled it out. This was so much power that she was still bound to it a ring of the chimes later.

  A silent cry simmered in Safi’s chest. Eron had used her. He had kept this enormous secret so she would be “genuinely surprised” at the party, and that was goat crap. Safi wasn’t some puppet to be flicked around on a stage or a taro card to be tossed out at her uncle’s whim
.

  And how did Safi even know Uncle Eron was actually shipping her off to freedom? Clearly her witchery failed her when faced with his lies and promises. If Eron had so effortlessly twisted the truth about tonight’s events, then he could do so again.

  Sickened heat rushed into Safi’s mouth. Coated her tongue. Iseult was the only person Safi could trust, and the girls had a life in Veñaza City—a simple life, perhaps, but one that was all their own. Safi couldn’t give up on that.

  Yet for how long would Iseult wait at the lighthouse? For that matter, if Iseult was at the lighthouse now, wouldn’t that mean Mathew and Habim wouldn’t know where to find her? How could they bring Iseult with them if she wasn’t where she was supposed to be?

  They couldn’t, which meant it was time for Safi to take control of her own strings. To play her own cards once more.

  Time passed; Safi’s determination strengthened and at last Mathew’s magic relinquished its hold. In frantic, jerky movements, Safi shimmied to the edge of the cart to lift up the blanket …

  Fresh air washed over her—as did moonlight. She gulped it in, blinking and squinting and so grateful to be moving again. Thatch-roofed inns and taverns bounced by. Stable yards too.

  This was the edge of Veñaza City, where inns clustered and empty roads began. If Safi traveled much farther, she’d have no chance of finding a steed—of bounding farther north to the lighthouse. Plus, Safi needed a weapon. A girl dressed in fine silk and traveling alone was clearly asking for trouble.

  As Safi’s eyes ran over a stable yard, she glimpsed a tired stable boy leading a mottled gray gelding, the horse’s head upright. He was alert and ready to ride.

  Even better, there was a pitchfork beside the entrance to the yard. It wasn’t a sword and it was certainly heavier than Safi usually wielded, but she had no doubt she could use it against anyone who got in her way.

  She peeled back the blanket a few more inches and peeked at the peasant driving the cart. He didn’t look back, so with a swing of her legs and a thrust of her arms, she rolled off the cart. She froze on the dried mud, while her body reoriented. There was no sound of the ocean, though the rhythm in the wind suggested the coast was near—as did the faint stench of fish.