Yet mingling within that scent was a second smell—a new smell that plowed into him so forcefully he slammed to a stop as if it were physical. Hail beat against him; snow blustered and flew. Yet all of his being, all of the Bloodwitch’s magic had shrunk down to that smell.
A sky singing with snow. Meadows drenched in moonlight. Sun and sand and auburn leaves falling.
It was Her scent. Corlant was draining Her—again—because that had always been Portia’s aim. The General and the true Six wanted to restore the goddess; Portia wanted to end her. No more Paladins, no more Sirmaya. Only Portia’s soul for all eternity.
How had he ever mistaken Corlant for Midne?
Aeduan ran faster, tapping into the deepest parts of his Bloodwitchery. Letting the first soul surge upward and claim control. There was no reason to fight now that they wanted the same thing.
The nearer he came to camp, the more scents crashed against him: fresh blood thick on the air, hundreds of scents to mash and mix. Sounds came too, carried on winds that flayed. Weapons and breaking stone, screams upon screams upon screams.
He smelled the shadow wyrm. Dark crevices and glowing ice. A lost child, forever pain. And above it all, brighter than any other blood, was Corlant. The hunger was larger than before. A scent to dominate, a need so powerful it had taken almost complete control. And already, the scent of Sirmaya was fading beneath it.
Aeduan reached the camp and took in the chaos. Purist, Nomatsi—some locked in combat. Most convulsing upon the snow as Corlant gorged on their magics and drained their souls. Snow still sliced down, hail still fell, and through the wild winds, Aeduan glimpsed no sign of the dark-giver.
He cursed that he couldn’t smell her blood. The mother, first Aeduan nudged. Find the mother. So the Old One did, seeking out the lavender and lullabies, the cold earth and colder gemstones. He found her at the center of the fray, and he set off across the madness of a battle dominated by one.
He had to lean against storm winds, he had to squint and strain against ice and snow. The closer he came to Corlant, the wilder the blizzard. The more lightning cracked and sizzled. He did not stop, though, for each step brought Gretchya’s scent closer.
And it also brought glimmers of Sirmaya again. A warmth to fight toward. A calm he missed more with every tilted step he claimed.
Until at last, he’d reached the eye of Corlant’s storm, and there was the man himself. The Paladin, the Exalted One he had feared so deeply a thousand years ago—and still feared. He could not help it. Sirmaya’s smile might live forever in his heart, but Portia’s laugh lived forever in his skull.
Corlant made that laugh now as Aeduan finally mangled free from the storm. A hurricane of white raged around them—and around Gretchya too, who knelt beside a fresh corpse that smelled of missed smiles and aching regret, of humid swamps and a child’s laugh.
For some reason, the first Aeduan mourned that blood-scent and the life that had been attached.
“You are just in time,” Corlant called, and with another laugh, he lifted from the ground. Snow gusted away from his feet. His robe billowed, and his bandage slid downward, revealing an empty socket. A fresh wound, savage and deep, had claimed the other eye. Yet somehow, Corlant could see. Somehow, he only looked more powerful, more dangerous.
“Keep my Heart-Thread safe,” Corlant ordered, flying higher. High enough that Aeduan should not have been able to hear him. “And if she tries to leave, maim her.”
Then, with the power of stolen magic, he launched away—and where he flew, his storm flew too. Suddenly winds and snow blasted into Aeduan again. He dove for the Threadwitch, who hunched over her dead apprentice.
Even in the whiteout, he could not miss the streaks of blood or the scent of a girl dead too soon. Gone was Sirmaya, though. The autumn leaves and moonlit meadows had trickled away with Corlant’s storm.
“Stay back,” Gretchya shrieked at Aeduan. She thrust up a blade. “I will kill myself if you come near, and I can promise you, Corlant would not like that.”
Aeduan lifted his hands. He could not possibly convince her that he was on her side. She had no reason to believe him, and he had no way to prove. All he could do was nod at her and remain staked in place. “Where is Iseult?” he shouted.
She bared a grin as terrifying as the dark-giver’s had been. “Far away where you will never find her.” She sheathed her knife and with a grunt that quickly became a moan, she ducked beneath the dead girl and hauled her stiffening body onto her back.
“Do … not … follow!” she ground out, and Aeduan nodded again, his empty hands still high. Yet as Gretchya set off through the storm, he sensed smells closing in. Purists that would intersect with her at any moment. That would, he had to assume, try to stop her as their master desired.
So Aeduan knew what he had to do: he might not be able to find the dark-giver, but he would keep her mother safe. And he would not fail her as he had failed his own.
FORTY-EIGHT
Safi had never seen Iseult cleave before. She knew her Threadsister could do it, just as she knew what witchery lived inside her and how much Iseult grappled with it. It was bad enough being Nomatsi on a continent that feared them, but her magic linked to the Void had only made people treat her like a demon wherever she went.
She wasn’t a demon, though. When Safi had possessed her full magic, she’d seen the truth inside Iseult’s heart: a wicked power, but not a wicked girl.
And she’d never been more certain of that than now, with snow falling around her and her ears still ringing from the crash. She saw it in the way Iseult landed in the clearing, imbued with Windwitchery and graceful as a moonrise. And she felt it in the way Iseult looked at the newly cleaved witches beside her, relief mingling with something frantic.
Their skin boiled with tar. Their eyes had gone black, though they didn’t attack, they didn’t move. Iseult controlled their minds, their magics, and their bodies. Two pistols lay useless on the snow before them.
Safi wasn’t sure when she’d started crying. Nor when she started running. All she knew was that she was suddenly stumbling over the ground toward her Threadsister. “You’re here, you’re here. I don’t know how, but you’re here.”
“Stop.” Iseult rocked back a step. The Windwitches rocked back too. Her golden eyes latched on to Safi, panic spinning brighter. “If I release them, they’ll die. I-I … don’t want to kill.” A pause. “Them or you.”
“So don’t release them.” Safi slowed, feet unwilling but brain understanding. “Why must you?”
Behind her, Caden rasped, “I’ve seen you control Cleaved before.” He attempted to rise. Then toppled back to the snow, his injured leg crumpling beneath him. Yet when Safi tried to help him, he waved her off. “Can you do what you did in the palace?”
“I don’t … w-want to. Besides.” She gave a dry, familiar Iseult laugh. “I-it hurts.” She lifted her hands, wrapped in bloodied bandages.
Safi gasped. “You’re wounded.”
“It’s not my blood.”
“Thank the gods for that. Whose is it though?”
Iseult never answered. Not before the white collar at her neck burst into movement. It raced down her body and hit the snow.