Windwitch

by Susan Dennard

  She knows me. It was the worst possible outcome save for death. Being recognized would end everything Merik had planned.

  Except that what left Stix’s throat was not Merik or Prince or Admiral.

  “The Fury,” she breathed, and instantly the fog froze to snow. A flurry to drift harmlessly down around them. “You’re … real.”

  A new cold—one from within—struck Merik in the chest. He was that broken. That unrecognizable. And though he tried to tell himself she was nearsighted, she couldn’t possibly recognize his face unless he was inches from her … He knew the truth. He was a horror to behold. He was the Fury.

  But this pause was a gift. A moment he could use.

  “I am the Fury.” At those words, at that acknowledgment, heat frizzed down Merik’s back. He tapped into the rage.

  Power, power, power.

  “Release me,” he commanded.

  Stix obeyed. Her hand snapped back; the ice retreated—though not before tearing open his sleeve. His skin too.

  Merik lunged for the window. Headfirst, past shutters and lemongrass. Past shingles and guttering. Headfirst toward the ancient, narrow alley below.

  His winds caught him. Cradled him so he could spin upright before hitting the jagged cobbles.

  As soon as his boots touched down, he ran. Twice he looked back, though. First, to see if Cam was anywhere near, but the girl wasn’t—and Merik couldn’t exactly go back to search for her.

  Second, he looked back to see if Stix pursued.

  But she didn’t. She simply watched him from the open window, haloed by candlelight and falling snow.

  THIRTEEN

  Iseult and Aeduan ate in silence. His jaw worked methodically. He hadn’t spoken a word since leaving the bear trap.

  Iseult hadn’t expected him to. Never had she longed for Threads more, though. The world was so empty, so colorless without humans nearby, and weeks had passed with only distant plaits to brush against her. Now, when she was finally faced with a human again, he was colorless. Threadless. Blank.

  Body language, expressions—these were puzzles Iseult had never had to decipher. Yet without Threads hovering over the Bloodwitch, she had to scrutinize every movement of his face. Every ripple of his muscles.

  Not that he made many. Cool as a Threadwitch, her mother would say. Gretchya would mean it as a compliment, for of course Threadwitches were not meant to show emotion. It would sting like an insult for Iseult, though, since the phrase was never directed at her. Gretchya only ever used it for other people—the ones who were better at stasis, better at calm than Iseult could ever be.

  The longer Iseult observed Aeduan, the more she sensed an emotion emanating off him. Distrust.

  It was in the way he sat stiff and at the ready while he ate. In the way his eyes never left Iseult, tracking her as she moved about the small campsite. He saved my life, Iseult thought as he ate, and he hates me for it.

  Iseult was accustomed to distrust, though, and to hate. And if those feelings could kill, then they would have slain her a long time ago.

  “More?” She motioned to the campfire, to the final grayling staked to her spit.

  The Bloodwitch cleared his throat. “Where are my blades, Threadwitch?” He stubbornly still spoke in Dalmotti.

  So Iseult stubbornly answered in Nomatsi: “Hidden.”

  “And the rest of my talers?”

  “Far away.”

  The Bloodwitch’s fingers curled. He pushed to his feet. “I can force the answer from your throat if I wish.”

  He couldn’t, and they both knew it. He’d lost all power over her by admitting in Veñaza City that he couldn’t smell or control her blood.

  Yet as Iseult matched his pose with her own chin high and her own shoulders back, she still found her heart running too fast. Thus far everything in her plan had gone as she’d estimated—as she’d hoped. But now … Now was the final knot in her snare.

  “I will return your coins to you,” she declared, grateful her stammer felt leagues away, “only if you will hunt someone for me.”

  His entire body tightened like a snake’s. For several breaths, nothing happened. Distant thunder rolled. Wind gusted into the overhang, spraying them. Yet Aeduan moved not a muscle.

  Until at last, he murmured, “So you … need me.”

  “Yes. To track Safiya fon Hasstrel.”

  “The Truthwitch.”

  Iseult winced at that word. The barest of flinches, yet she knew Aeduan saw. She knew he noted.

  “The Truthwitch,” she agreed eventually, marveling at how strange it was to utter that word aloud. The one word she hadn’t dared say for six and a half years, lest someone overhear. Lest she accidentally curse Safi to imprisonment or death. “The Marstoks took Safi, but I don’t know where. You, Bloodwitch, can track her.”

  “Why would I do that for you?”

  “Because I will tell you where the rest of your coins are.”

  He eased two steps closer, circling around the dead fire. No blinking. No looking away. “You will pay me with my own silver talers?”

  So the coins are his. Iseult didn’t know how or why they had ended up in Mathew’s cellar, but she would use that bargaining card all the same.

  At her nod, Aeduan laughed. A sound that hummed with shock and disbelief. “What will prevent you from keeping my money? Once I find the Truthwitch for you, how do I know you will fulfill your end of the deal?”

  “How do I know,” Iseult countered, “that once you find Safiya fon Hasstrel, you won’t try to keep her? Try to sell her off, like you did before?”

  The Bloodwitch hesitated, as if quickly tracing several options of conversation before choosing the one he liked most. Or the one that best served his purpose.

  Cool as a Threadwitch.

  “So it will come down to timing, then.” He rolled his wrists. “Who betrays whom first.”

  “Does that mean you accept?”

  He took another step toward her, this one long enough to close the gap between them. Iseult had to lift her chin to keep eye contact.

  “You are not my master, Threadwitch. You are not my employer. And above all, you are not my ally. We travel the same route for a time, nothing more. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “In that case,” he continued, still in Dalmotti, always in Dalmotti, “I accept.”

  Iseult’s fingers furled, fists to keep herself from reacting. From revealing how much relief ebbed through her.

  I’m coming, Safi.

  She turned away, waiting until the last moment to break eye contact and pivot entirely. Then she marched to a shadowy corner where fat mushrooms stacked downward on the limestone wall. A crouch, a grab, and her hands touched leather.

  She was gentle with the baldric, careful to keep the knife hilts from scraping or the leather from dragging. Even as she crossed the wet earth, she kept the leather stretched long and the buckles quiet.

  She offered it to him. “They need to be oiled.”

  No reaction. He simply refastened the blades across his chest, methodically and silently, before strolling toward the overhang’s edge. Rain misted over him, and for the first time since Aeduan had awoken in the forest, Iseult’s lungs felt big enough to let in air.

  He was going to help her.

  He wasn’t going to kill her.

  “Are you ready to leave?” she asked, gripping her Threadstone. I’m coming, Safi. “There’s no time to waste.”

  “We can make no progress in this weather, and darkness will soon fall.” A yank at the buckle beside his shoulder; blades clinked in warning. “We travel tomorrow, at first light.”

  Then the Bloodwitch sank into a cross-legged position on the damp soil, closed his eyes, and did not speak again.

  * * *

  The Hell-Bard commander returned from the jungle, movements imbalanced as he shuffled to Zander’s pack and rifled through. If he noticed Safi’s gaze boring into him, he gave no indication.

  Night
was drawning near. Safi had hoped they might make camp, but Lady Fate was not favoring her thus far.

  The commander withdrew dried meat, and after easing off his helm, he placed it beside the pack. A sunbeam broke through the forest’s canopy. It flashed on the back of his neck, where blood crusted.

  And where a white cloth peeked out.

  He had gone into the woods to tend his wound. Safi would stake her life on that. He barely moved his left arm; his left shoulder looked a bit larger, as if bandages filled the space inside his leathers.

  It’s a bloody wound, then. Safi’s lips twitched at this tiny stroke of fortune. She must’ve reopened the wound when she had pummeled him, and that meant he’d lost blood. That meant he’d grown weaker.

  Her lips curved a bit higher.

  The Hell-Bard noticed. “Don’t look so smug, Heretic. You’re the one tied to a tree.”

  You’ll be tied up soon, she thought, although she did erase her smile. No sense giving away her tricks. “I was simply admiring the view, Hell-Bard. You look so much better without your helmet on.”

  A distrustful line crossed Caden’s brow—and he was Caden now, without his helm. The Chiseled Cheater who had consigned her to life on the run. To a life lived as prey.

  Caden sauntered closer. Closer again until he was within reach, if had Safi not been bound.

  He extended a strip of dried meat. “Pork belly?”

  “Please.” She fluttered her lashes. “And thank you.”

  The line deepened on his forehead, and he quickly examined Safi’s bound arms and fettered feet. But she was still trussed up tight. “Why the good mood, Heretic? Why the nice manners?”

  “I’m a domna. I can smile at even the ugliest toad and flatter him on his perfectly placed warts.”

  A huff of breath, not quite a laugh. Caden offered the pork; it hovered inches from Safi’s lips, forcing her to extend her neck. To chomp down and tear. Demeaning. Weakening.

  So Safi grinned all the more cheerfully as she chewed and chewed. And chewed some more before the salty toughness would fit down her throat. “It’s … dry,” she squeezed out. “Could I have some water?”

  Caden hesitated, one eye squinting. A look Safi remembered from their night at the taro tables. A look that said, I’m thinking, and I want you to see that I’m thinking.

  Then came a shrug, as if Caden saw no reason to refuse, and he untied a half-drained water bag from his hip. He held it to Safi’s lips, and she gulped it back.

  He let her drain the bag. “Thank you,” she said after licking her lips. She truly meant it too.

  He nodded and replaced the bag on his belt, a movement that his left fingers clearly didn’t like.

  “Hurt?” Safi chimed.

  “Hell-Bards can’t be hurt,” he muttered.

  “Ah,” Safi breathed. “That must make it so much easier when you’re killing innocent witches.”

  “I’ve never killed innocent witches.” His head stayed down, still fumbling to lace up the bag. “But I have killed heretics.”

  “How many?”

  “Four. They wouldn’t yield.”

  Safi blinked. She hadn’t expected him to answer, and though she couldn’t read him with her magic, she suspected he spoke the truth. He had killed four heretics; it had been their lives or his.

  “What about the entire ship of Marstoks you just slaughtered? Do you count them on your list of murders?”

  “What ship?” The line returned between his brows. His gaze finally flicked up.

  “The one you burned to embers. The one the empress and I were on.”

  “Wasn’t us.” He bounced his right shoulder, a vague gesture toward Lev and Zander. “We’ve been tracking you since Lejna.”

  “Lies.”

  Another huff—this one undoubtedly a laugh, for a sly half smile crossed his face. “I’m glad to see your witchery still doesn’t work on me, Heretic.”

  Safi’s own smile faltered. She couldn’t fake her way through this. She truly couldn’t read him. So for once, she chose honesty. She let her grin slip away, and a frown bubbled to the surface. “Why? Why doesn’t my magic work on you?”

  “No magic on Hell-Bards.”

  “I know,” she said simply. “Why is that?”

  He scratched the tip of his chin, where the scar ran down. “I guess your uncle never told you, then.

  He eased backward a single step. “Magic, witcheries, power. Those are for the living, Heretic. But us?” Caden patted his chest, clanking the brigandine’s metal plates. “We Hell-Bards are already damned. We’re already dead.”

  * * *

  The arrowhead in Aeduan’s pocket felt aflame as he scanned the dark pines and oaks around him. Who would betray whom first? An hour had passed since the agreement between him and the Threadwitch, yet Aeduan was still asking himself this question.

  The rain had finally stopped. Not a gradual tapering like the rains at the Monastery but an abrupt end. Storm one moment. No storm the next. Southern weather was like that: all hard lines and nature waiting to pounce upon the off-beats.

  The instant the rain ceased, the insects of the night were out. Cicadas clicked, moths took flight, and the bats that ate them awoke too. They swept and crisscrossed over a dull black sky. Eventually the clouds slipped away to reveal starlight, and Aeduan watched the Sleeping Giant rise—that bright column of stars that always guided north.

  He watched it alone, for the Threadwitch slept. Shortly after their conversation, she’d settled into the driest corner of the overhang. Moments later, she’d been asleep.

  Aeduan couldn’t help but wonder at how quickly she had drifted off. At how miserable that sideways position must be. Or at how fearless she was to drop her guard so completely.

  Fearless or stupid, and judging by her trick with the knives, it was the latter. Then again, she had deftly lured Aeduan into this insane partnership. Who will betray whom first?

  All Aeduan knew for certain was that it was connected. The arrowhead. The Purist priest Corlant. And Aeduan’s missing coins. It was all connected, even if Aeduan couldn’t yet see how.

  He released the arrowhead in his pocket and moved quietly, deliberately through the forest. There was a stream near; he needed a bath.

  He found a spot on the shore where the canopy was less overgrown. Starlight poured down. Water burbled past.

  Aeduan eased off his baldric, then his shirt. He hadn’t had a moment since leaving the bear trap to check the old wounds. They had, no surprise, reopened. But a cautious dab revealed only dried blood.

  Aeduan sighed, annoyed. His shirt and breeches were ruined. While the forest wouldn’t care, humans would. The Threadwitch would.

  Doesn’t matter. Blood was a part of Aeduan, and bloodstains had never slowed him before. He had come this far. He would keep going.

  For some reason, though, he found himself bringing the shirt into the frozen stream. He found himself rubbing it, trying to get it clean. But the blood had set and could not be lifted.

  Just as his wounds had set all those years ago. Run, my child, run.

  It was, as Aeduan began to scrape at his chest, shuddering from the cold, that he saw something move along the opposite shore. At first, he thought it a trick of his eyes, a trick of the darkness, and an old song came to mind. One his father had sung back before … everything.

  Never trust what you see in the shadows,

  for Trickster, he hides in darkness and dapples.

  High in a tree or deep underground,

  never trust if Trickster’s around.

  Aeduan shook his head. Water sprayed. He hadn’t thought of that tune in so long. Another shake of his head, this time to clear the tricks from his eyes.

  Yet the movement was still there. A subtle glow that seemed to pulse in clusters through the forest. The longer Aeduan observed, the brighter the clusters grew. The more solid and distinctly defined, as if clouds dispersed to reveal a starry sky.

  “Fireflies,” said a voice
behind him. In a moment, Aeduan had her pinned against an oak by the shore.

  They both stood there. Staring. The Threadwitch with her back to the trunk and hands at Aeduan’s chest. He with his forearm to her throat, dripping water.

  Two heaving breaths, and he released her. “Be more careful,” he snapped, stalking away. Though if he spoke to her or to himself, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that his heart juddered in his chest. His blood and his magic roared in his ears.

  He hadn’t smelled her coming. He couldn’t smell her coming, so his body had reacted to a threat.

  He’d have to get better at that. At least as long as she remained near him.

  “I almost killed you,” he said.

  “Nomatsi,” was her reply—which sent him glaring backward. Made him growl, “What?”

  She stepped away from the tree, into the starlight, and like the fireflies in the forest, her face ignited. Ghostly white. Beautiful and burning from within.

  Half a breath. That was all it lasted. Then the illusion passed. She was a plain-faced girl once more. Never trust what you see in the shadows.

  “You’re speaking to me in Nomatsi,” she explained, brushing water off her chest, her arms. “And those glowing lights are fireflies. They’re good luck in Marstok, you know. Children make wishes on them.”

  Aeduan exhaled. A long, hissing sound. She behaved as if he had not almost eviscerated her. As if discussing wishes or what language he spoke actually mattered.

  “I will kill you,” he warned, in Dalmotti once more, “if you aren’t more careful. Do you understand, Threadwitch?”

  “Give me one of your coins, then.” She tipped back her head, emphasizing the way her jaw sloped to her collarbone.

  And for the first time since she’d appeared, Aeduan realized his chest was bare. His scars were visible, and his skin rippled with chill bumps. His shirt, though, was nowhere to be seen—and he refused to turn away from the Threadwitch.

  “The coins have blood on them, right?” she continued. “That’s how you found me. So give me a coin, and then you’ll always sense me coming.”

  It was smart. A tidy, simple solution to a problem Aeduan wished she didn’t know about. Yet she did know he couldn’t smell her, and there was no changing it now.