Safi glared. “You can tell her yourself.” She swung the branch at his head, not hard enough to kill. Only hard enough to neutralize. It cracked against his skull, jolting shock waves up her arms. He slumped, a heap of flesh quickly vanishing beneath the snow. She would come back for him. Eventually.
After claiming his crown and then his newest golden chain to control Hell-Bards, Safi turned away from this powerless man who could do no more harm. And away from the holly berries now hidden beneath a storm’s vengeful snow.
* * *
It had never been so easy. All Iseult had to do was flick her hand toward a soldier, toward a Hell-Bard, and their Threads twined into her body. She didn’t have to hold on; their souls didn’t scorch or scream. She simply gestured and the world obeyed.
And part of her laughed at that. Finally, she and Safi were completing their plan—completing Eron’s plan. Finally, they were eliminating Henrick and taking control of Hell-Bards who didn’t deserve their eternal pain.
More soldiers advanced from the north, but as soon as they hit Iseult’s magical range, she claimed them. Like plucking berries off a tree, she added them one by one. When Iseult said, “Stay,” to the Cartorrans, the Cartorrans stayed. And when she told a nearby woman, “Give me your sword,” the woman did exactly that, unfastening it from her belt and handing it off with blank eyes.
So it was that no one followed Safi or Henrick, and no one advanced on Iseult or Caden. No one but Corlant. His storm still came, building by the second. But Iseult wasn’t afraid of him. He had power vast and stolen, but in the end, he was only a Paladin. She was the Cahr Awen. So many dark-givers now pumped through Iseult. Vibrant, sparkling, elated to be set free. They wouldn’t last forever, but they would take her far.
With the sword fastened at her hip, Iseult returned to the tower, to Caden hunched within the shadows. The wind now reached him, the snow now pelted. He had stopped shivering and lay limp.
He did not have much time left.
Iseult sank to her knees beside the Hell-Bard. Snow soaked her pants, spreading Alma’s blood anew. “I will send a Hell-Bard to find a healer,” Iseult said, hoping she radiated the same calm Gretchya always wore. “Surely, there’s someone to tend your wounds.”
But Caden only shook his head. One eye cracked open. “Only the Hell-Bard Loom can heal me.”
“I can access the Loom if you tell me what to do.”
Again, he wagged his head. “It … doesn’t work that way.” His eyelids fell shut, though he beckoned her near.
So Iseult leaned in, and his breath, weak and frozen, reached her ear. “We … are not your tools.” His chest shuddered; his body slouched; his leg gave an oozing spurt. Unconsciousness claimed his Threads.
And Iseult swallowed, tongue suddenly fat. Hot guilt suddenly rising. “It is … not forever,” she told his limp form. “It is o-only to keep us safe.” Her argument sounded flimsy, though, even to her own ears.
It was as she pushed back to her feet that the storm faded. The snow paused, the thunder silenced, and the winds whimpered into a false calm. The eye of the storm had arrived. Corlant was here.
His Threads descended behind Iseult, twining lazily toward the tower as their owner eased from the sky. Purple hunger, amaranth laughter, and the eternally spinning silver.
The hairs on Iseult’s skin pricked high. Her spine tingled and crawled, but she took her time prying Esme off her neck and easing her to the snow. She took her time removing her cloak and draping it over Caden’s body. Little protection against the cold, but better than nothing.
And she no longer needed it. Not with freed souls to keep her warm. And not when she wore Threadwitch black that she wanted Corlant to see.
He landed in the tower, a soft brush of winds to flip at her hair. His storm pummeled and spun outside, but not here. Not inside these ancient walls.
Iseult turned to face him. Father, my father.
He had pulled the knife from his eye, leaving a bloodied abyss still leaking, the hole from his first eye was no longer bandaged, but exposed and crusted yellow with pus. Shadows twisted off him and frost hissed.
Iseult lifted her new sword at him. “I have a weapon. Come no closer.”
“Oh, I can see that.” He smiled. “Though not in this world. I see you in the Dreaming with perfect clarity.” He opened his arms. “A clever spot you chose, my daughter. It used to be mine, you know. So very, very long ago.”
He advanced a step, smooth as a snake over water or a wyrm over snow. “I see your sword, and your Hell-Bards too. And all the little souls you sapped from the Threadstone.”
Iseult held her stance. “I will kill you.”
His hurricane of Threads gleamed with delight. “Your own father?”
“I am the only one who can.”
The amusement creaked brighter. His eyebrows leaped, squeezing fresh blood from his eye. “So you figured that out, did you? Clever, though ultimately useless in the end.” He flipped up his arms, robe falling back to reveal skeletal limbs oozing shadows.
Ice lanced out from his feet, hardening the snow and shooting toward Iseult. She dove sideways, where a stone crunched up to block her way. Another dive and she was at the exit. She didn’t flee, though. Not this time.
She rounded back and launched full speed at Corlant. He flung more ice at her, then flames, but she could see each attack coming. His Threads—his stolen, engorged Threads—gave him away. A flare of green meant stones barraging. A burst of yellow meant winds to slay. Red pulses meant flames, and the sudden shadows meant he grappled to claim her Threads.
He wanted to drain her as he’d drained so many others and as he’d tried to do to Alma, though she’d been too strong to relent and too good. Not an enemy for Iseult to envy, but a goal to aspire toward.
And a girl she still had to save.
Iseult reached Corlant, her blade stretched and ready. She would end him quickly. Finish the nightmare that had entrapped her mother for so long. Except that when she reached Corlant, when her sword hit the place where his skin should have been …
It pierced right through.
Magic hissed over her, and with yawning horror, she realized she’d fought a glamour. He’d taken that power too, off a Nomatsi from the camp. Corlant’s laughter slid into her ear. Cold as he always was. “Find me, Iseult. If you want to kill me, you have to find me.”
She spun about, but there was no one in the tower. No Corlant—and no Caden either. Shit, shit, shit.
In moments, she was outside. Snow blasted, and storm winds hurled, but Iseult was ready. Six Hell-Bards immediately fell into position around her, exactly like her guards had at the Pragan palace. Their faces were veiled in snow, their Threads unfeeling thanks to Iseult’s control.
And as she’d hoped, the storm silenced as soon as the Hell-Bards moved around her. No winds, no snow, no threat—for Corlant’s storm was magical, and the Hell-Bards were immune.
It wasn’t a permanent solution against Corlant, but all she needed was time to find him.
She sent out her senses, reaching with the power and connection of a hundred Hell-Bards. Of fifty dark-givers finally freed from stone. But Corlants’s Threads swelled so far now; there was no telling where he ended and the rest of the world began. It was as if he’d sprouted roots, the Threads shooting out and down, digging into the soil.