I’m sorry, Iseult thought. To Alma, dying nearby. To Safi, hundreds of miles away. To her mother, shrouded by smoke and snow. Gretchya had lifted her blade, had raised a single leg.
It would seem she was finally taking action. She was finally making a choice and moving in exactly the way Iseult had failed to do.
Which was good, Iseult thought. She would save Alma, the girl who didn’t deserve to die. The girl bound to Aether, who would lead as a Threadwitch ought to lead and whose blood didn’t pump with wickedness and wrong.
Iseult closed her eyes. She didn’t want to watch her mother choose.
Time resumed. Silver Threads beat down. Ice knifed through her, and screams pummeled her bones. Any moment now, the wyrm would reach her. Any moment, any moment.
I’m sorry, Alma. I’m sorry, Safi. I’m sorry, Mother.
Except the teeth never came.
Instead, a body crashed into her. Threadless and strong and attached to a voice screaming, “Stay back!” Then Gretchya roared again, a shriek of indomitable rage. “No one touches my daughter!”
* * *
Aeduan found the child’s collar beneath the spruce. No sign of the strange weasel that had been with her, the one that had smelled of flooded rivers and freedom. The wood had not been sawed or broken. In fact, it lay perfectly intact upon the frozen ground, not even opened. As if she’d slipped it right over her head.
Rosewater and wool-wrapped lullabies. Her scent smelled as it always had, and the first Aeduan responded to it.
With a deep inhale, Aeduan stepped away from the tree and into snowfall lit by the end of night. Magic surged through him. Such power in this body’s blood. It sparkled and warmed and set his muscles to itching.
Another breath, deeper. Longer. Reaching wider for some spark of rosewater or lullabies. There. A flicker to the north. Not far. Fresh enough that it might be the girl herself, instead of mere traces like this collar had left behind.
He set off. The magic consumed him, eliminating thought. Eliminating questions. There was only moving forward, only tracking this smell wherever it might lead. There was no past, no future, no ancient soul trapped for a thousand years or new soul trapped for several weeks.
There was clarity, there was speed, there was the hunt.
He moved faster, his boots falling lightly across the earth. Unimportant, unimpeding. When the Bloodwitchery coursed high, this body could fly.
The scent pulsed closer in Aeduan’s veins. The child waited ahead, beyond a clearing filled with forgotten walls like those in the Nomatsi camp and like his old soul had once seen before. Perhaps he had even been here when this fortress still stood.
Those memories could be untangled later, though. For now, there was only Saria. Near, near, so very near.
Then a second scent hit Aeduan’s awareness: Clear lake water and frozen winters.
He knew that smell. Knew it as well as he knew the child’s, as well as he knew Evrane’s … Except his mind conjured no face, no person, no name. This scent belonged to a specter. This scent belonged to a ghost. It had evaded the first Aeduan for months, leading him across the Witchlands.
And stealing silver coins.
Aeduan drew in steady, heavy breaths. The Bloodwitchery still throbbed inside his veins and muscles. The first Aeduan itched to find this mystery scent, and that first Aeduan was growing stronger and stronger by the hour.
Yes, he told that soul. We will look and then be on our way. He angled toward the clear lake waters. Crept toward the frozen winters. A fallen court waited ahead, four walls mostly still standing.
Aeduan slowed his pace to a predatory stalk and with all the silence that only magic-fueled muscles could achieve, he unsheathed a knife from his chest. The world around him was silent. Few plants had taken root here, as if the ruins frightened them away. Even the forest, which clustered close and stared down, offered no sounds of life. Only gentle snowfall.
And ah, there was Saria’s blood-scent too. The faintest whiff of lullabies and rosewater. She was in this tower.
Aeduan moved more slowly. His toes landed exactly where he wanted; no snow crunched. No leather creaked. After finding a small crack in the rubble that might have once been a door, he peered through. Saria sat upon a pile of broken marble.
No, not a pile—it was a throne. Aeduan remembered it, even if he could not recall where or how. Her feet dangled, and her cold-flushed face had creased into a frown. Her head turned. Her hazel eyes met Aeduan’s.
She grinned.
He tried to drop to his knees, tried to turn away and summon any power he could, but he was too late—just as he had been a thousand years ago.
And just as it had happened a thousand years ago, stone erupted against him. Bricks from the tower, pebbles from the ground, boulders and rubble and soil filled with worms. They crashed around him, hard and unyielding, until he was fully encased. Until his legs, his arms, even his head could not move.
Not again. His lungs collapsed. His vision crossed. Not again, not again. He had been held like this before, and then the blade had pierced through. Not again, not again.
He wriggled and pried, he shoved and hissed. But his Bloodwitchery—even with the first soul’s help—was no match for Saria’s magic. She strode into view, walking like a queen. A familiar black bird stood on her shoulder. Its beak clacked, and no, no, no. Aeduan remembered that sound too.
But this was not that moment, and Saria held no Paladin blade. It was only her and the bird and the silence of a wintry forest. She raked her ancient gaze up Aeduan’s stone-bound form. “You were never the worst of them, but you still chose wrong in the end.”
“Free … me,” Aeduan gritted out. Stone compressed his throat. Each breath tasted of nightmares. Not again, not again.
“I will.” She nodded. “Eventually. When I feel certain you’ve chosen correctly this time. I think you already have, but I prefer to have a guarantee. So consider this a reminder of what I can do to you.”
Before Aeduan could ask what that meant, the Rook leaped off Saria’s shoulder. Two quick flaps, and the bird thunked onto Aeduan’s head. Vaguely, Aeduan’s magic sensed forest fog atop freedom. Then the Rook squawked, a sound to rattle in his eardrums and shake the stones that chained him.
It was the sound he’d heard just before his death. Before pain and shadow overwhelmed him. Before the waters of a thousand years had dragged him down. Except this time, there was no Rook King to say, It was not supposed to be this way. There was only his bird, gloating and gleeful.
And suddenly understanding notched into place. Why the Rook King had been waiting for Evrane when she’d awoken. Why he had said, It is good to have you back.
The power of the Aether. The power to place souls where he willed—that was how Aeduan had come into this world again, into this body. The first Monk Evrane had entered the Water Well to heal, and the Rook King had done his work. Then the first Aeduan had stepped into the Aether Well, and the Rook King had acted again. Old souls placed into new homes.
It was not a permanent solution, though, and as easily as the Rook King had given the old soul a body, he could also take it away.
Which meant Corlant’s promises of new bodies were hollow. He could no more touch the work of the Rook King than the Rook King could touch the wind. But of course Corlant would lie; that had always been Portia’s way.
“So you have figured it out,” Saria said with a sly grin. “I knew you would eventually. Still, one cannot be too careful.” She raised a single hand. Then a second squawk shattered over Aeduan—and with it came the sound of stone against stone. Of gravel rising, ready to choke and claim and crush and end.