Then she slipped into unconsciousness; her body slumped against his. And with the utmost care for a woman who had raised him, he eased her to the snow.
FIFTY
Safi made her move. She lunged for Henrick right as he lifted his sword. Except he didn’t attack. Instead he gave Iseult a single glance and turned away, bolting into the storm. As soon as his figure faded, Hell-Bards charged in.
“Go after him,” Iseult said. She spread her arms and splayed her fingers. Then she grinned at Safi, a vicious thing that Safi hadn’t seen in so long—hadn’t realized she’d missed so badly until right now. It made her heart rise and her own lips twist upward.
“I will handle the Hell-Bards.”
Safi believed her. She had no idea what Iseult had done in the Dreaming, but it didn’t matter. If her Threadsister said she could manage them, then she could.
She flung a look toward Caden, still veiled in shadow, but his eyes were closed, his breaths ragged. “Stay alive,” she hissed at him. Then she kicked into a run. Out of the tower, into the cloud-filtered dawn.
And though it made no sense with the snow now spraying around her and the Loom still fastened tight against her bones, a warmth was coursing through her. A strength that hadn’t been there moments before, like she could face a thousand Henricks and come out the victor every time.
“Arrest them!” he commanded as he sprinted past Hell-Bards. “Arrest them!”
“Lost control of your soldiers?” Safi called.
Henrick glanced back at the edge of the trees. A single glare to split the snow, then he bolted between a haggard ash and a broken oak. His footfalls were light and fast, and Safi could almost imagine how her magic would respond to this version of him. True, true, true.
She stalked after him. No soldiers advanced on her; none even glanced her way. They were dominated by a Weaverwitch. They were controlled by a Puppeteer.
Henrick left tracks, though snow slashed harder now and wind sheared. Safi pumped her arms and squinted through the storm, through waving, creaking trees. Henrick was healthier than she’d realized and adept at moving over such ground.
But it made no difference. She would catch him, and she would finally end this. This warmth in her gut told her it was true.
In what felt like mere seconds, she caught sight of him dipping between trees. A flash of dark green in a world growing whiter by the heartbeat. Then she was to him. He’d reached a thicket of holly, its berries red as the Cartorran sigil.
“You cannot defeat me.” Henrick had to shout over the storm, but no fatigue strained his voice. No rapid breaths shook his chest.
“Funny.” Safi marched up to him, snow cutting into her cheeks. “I was going to say the same to you.” She ducked as soon as she was near, as soon as the inevitable swing arced in.
Her hands swooped to the snow, her fingers closed around a branch. Sturdy silver fir. Perfect for warding off nightmares. Then she rolled sideways. Her muscles thrummed with energy, her vision sharpened, and her mind was alight. Though she didn’t understand why, the gray misery of the Loom felt almost negated. Almost erased.
Initiate, complete.
Safi swung at Henrick’s knee, but he dodged. His sword hissed down. Steel scraped her shoulder, hot and sudden, yet nothing compared to the pain of the Loom. And nothing compared to the shared agony of a thousand Hell-Bards.
Plus, she was ready for it. As his sword hissed near, Safi looped her branch over his wrist. Exactly as Caden had done to her. She yanked down.
Henrick dropped the sword.
She kicked him in the belly. Once. He flopped backward. Twice, he hit the holly. A third time, and he doubled over. His crown sprang off and landed on the blustering snow.
Safi aimed her branch at his head. Angry red lines circled the skin there, but to her surprise, when she found his brown eyes, there was no fury. Nor cruelty nor pain. There was only resignation.
“Be quick about it.” He didn’t yell over the winds, but Safi was near enough to hear.
She punted his sword out of reach and glared down. “Why me, Henrick? Why did you marry me?”
Again, his face tightened at his name, but for once he didn’t dodge her question. He didn’t look away. “For the same reason I nudged your uncle into the Hell-Bards.” His eyes shuttered. “For the same reason Eron worked in secret for all those years to depose me. The Well, Safiya. It has always been about the Well.”
“The Well?” It was easily the last answer she’d expected. In fact, it was a reply that had never occurred to her. She inched the branch nearer. “Explain.”
“Did you never wonder why your family’s lands were near the Earth Well?” His eyes opened. Though his crown had fallen, the weight of it had not. “It is your bloodline, Safiya. Your family was chosen, and mine…” A tired laugh. A single shrug. “We were not. But my ancestor took your family’s throne a thousand years ago, and ever since I have learned of it, I have tried to restore it.”
“Restore the throne without giving it up.” Safi barked a laugh of her own. It was thick with cold and hate.
Another defeated shrug. “I cannot deny it. My family worked centuries to improve Cartorra. Our borders are safe, our people are fed. Why would I give all of that up? Better to blend our bloodlines into one.”
“So that was why you wanted me to bear Leopold’s child. Our heir would be…” She searched her memory for the title Vaness had always used. A title she’d thought absurd, and yet clearly Henrick took it seriously. “Well Chosen,” she finished.
“Well Chosen,” he repeated.
“But why not betroth me to Leopold from the start?” Safi had to yell now. The wind whistled with speed, bending trees and covering the world in white. “Why did you marry me?”
“Because I … wanted Leopold to marry for love.” He looked strangely pained as he admitted this. Embarrassed even. “I did not know he loved you, or I would have done things differently.”
Snow gathered on Henrick’s shoulders, on the holly, on Safi’s arms still stretched long. And strangely, thunder rolled. A false, unnatural thunder that set her Truth-lens to frizzing. None of this made sense. Well Chosen and forgotten rulers—so many lives had been sacrificed for that?
“Why do you care about the Earth Well?” She waved the branch at him. Snow swept off. “No one remembers whom it chose to rule—if that ever truly happened.”
“So I thought too, until I met your mother. Laia remembered. Laia believed, and she’d spent years gathering proof. Old Sightwitch Sister records, old stories the rest of us had relegated to myth.”
“So you killed her.”
“I am not proud of what I did, but in the end, you are correct: I understand the bonds of family, Safiya, and I I did what I had to do to protect my own.”
Safi’s fingers, numb and stiff upon the branch, squeezed until she felt splinters. Wind battered against her, and the thunder pulsed wrong, wrong, wrong against her chest. There was so much Uncle Eron hadn’t told her, and for what? Secrets hadn’t helped anyone; they’d only cursed himself, his sister, and now her too in the end.
Ever so slowly, Henrick lifted his hands. Not in supplication but in surrender. “Please tell Paskella I love her.”