Then abruptly he and his magic were free. One moment, the ice still imprisoned Merik. The next, he was erupting forth on a thousand vicious winds. Each of the winds was so small it was insignificant, but when corralled together, they had become a cyclone.
He toppled forward, his winds razing outward to crush any ice that chained the puppy down. Yet as he collapsed to the frozen floor, he saw it was no puppy at all—at least not in the traditional sense.
It was a storm hound.
And now, free of the ice, she stumbled toward him on long, loping legs. Floppy and golden-furred, her wings dragging and her tail wagging hesitantly. Then she was to Merik and nuzzling against him, bleating like a babe who’d lost her mom.
She needs a master, the strange girl had said. And then the second girl had added, And Sirmaya says that for now, it will have to be you.
“All right,” Merik rasped, his first words in what might have been only hours or might have been centuries. “Let’s leave this tomb and return to life.” As he clambered to unsteady feet, the storm hound helped him rise with all the enthusiasm of a puppy excited to play. And as he shuffled toward the tomb’s narrow exit, she galloped ahead, all memories of her near death forgotten. All fear of the ice erased.
Merik glanced back only once before trudging after her. Three empty holes now rested, gouged into the ice. One had been Merik’s. The other two, he presumed, had belonged to the strange little girls. The fourth and final hole remained filled with shadow.
“I’ll be back for you, Kull,” Merik said. “Come floods or hell-waters, I’ll be back for you.” Then he turned away, tugged at his ice-shredded cuffs, and followed the storm hound into a nautilus-shaped hallway beyond.
Aurora, he decided. He would call her Aurora.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Aeduan found her at the Purist camp. It belonged to the Nomatsis again, and to his initial shock and wariness, Cartorran soldiers were there too. But no one paid him or Evrane any mind. There was too much carnage to clean up, too many wounds to heal for anyone to notice two monks wandering through. So Aeduan and Evrane ignored the Nomatsis and Cartorrans in kind.
After leaving Evrane with a Nomatsi healer to ensure she had no permanent wounds, Aeduan traced through the encampment. Each step made his fingers flex, and for some reason, he couldn’t seem to draw full breaths. It felt as if a fist was closing around his lungs the deeper he entered the camp—and the nearer he came to the silver taler.
Its scent was muddied by other bloods that oozed from wounds or coagulated on corpses. Laced faintly beneath it all was a sky that sang with snow and meadows drenched in moonlight. He knew what that scent was now.
The Sleeping Giant. The goddess at the heart of everything. Iseult called her Moon Mother; Evrane called her Noden; but she was both of them—and more—in the end.
When at last Aeduan found the silver taler, its owner was tucked behind a ruin wall. Alone with her palms outstretched into a sunbeam. Even from here, he could see the skin was puckered and raw. These were the sort of scars that even salves would never erase.
Her fingers were stretched long, making branch-like shadows dance across the snow. She didn’t notice him, and he hovered ten paces away, trapped in indecision. Should he speak, should he approach, should he walk away?
He settled on clearing his throat.
She startled, whipping toward him with wide, golden eyes. They were bloodshot from exhaustion, but when they found his face, they didn’t waver.
They never did.
Her nose twitched. She lowered her hands. “It … is you.”
He nodded. Words suddenly seemed impossible. Both because his throat had stopped working and because he couldn’t think of anything to say. He wished he had his Carawen cloak still. He wished he had armor.
She moved first, taking a cautious step. Then two. Her gaze, unabashed, scanned over him, and he found himself doing the same. She was not the girl he had met two months ago on a dusty road beside Veñaza City. Nor was she the Threadwitch who had broken his spine and stabbed him in the heart. She was not even the Weaverwitch who had dragged him into an Origin Well because her resolve was stronger than death’s.
He didn’t know who she was now, and he could see from the faint pinching on her brow that she felt the same. It took her four steps to reach him. “You found me,” she said.
“Always,” he replied, his voice strained. Having her so near was … not painful, but something close to it, and he had no idea how to proceed. For a month, all he’d wanted was to be with her again. Now that he had found her, he found himself lost.
He had forgotten how big she was. Not physically, but the general essence of her. She filled the entirety of this snowy space, somehow sharpening the edges of it like a lens clears sight. The sun shone brighter. The air bit colder. The scar beside her eye flickered like a real tear.
He could not stop staring at it—that scar. Or her eyes. Or her lips. They were pinker than he remembered, as were her cheeks, flushed with winter cold. And maybe with something more, although he could not find a word for it.
Her hand lifted. She reached for his face, but he caught her wrist before she could touch him, break him, shatter him like ice atop a stream. His eyes moved to the damage on her palms. Frostbite. Or burns. Or both. “You’re hurt.”
“It will heal,” she replied, but now it was her voice that was strained. Her cheeks flushed brighter. Her nose wiggled.
Then she leaned in, a quick, almost frightened movement, and pressed her lips to his jaw.
No, she almost pressed her lips to his jaw. Instead, she paused just below the ear, where her breath could whisper against his skin. Where he could pull back in case he did not want her there. But he didn’t pull back, and so her lips grazed over his skin. So lightly, he feared he might be imagining it.
Too much! his instincts screamed at him. Too much! Retreat! But Aeduan didn’t retreat because inexplicably, the too much was also not enough.
She kissed him a second time, her lips more firm, more sure, and he definitely was not imagining it. His body told him that—the way his lungs constricted and his stomach dropped low. The way his magic charged to life and his fingers, still clasped around her wrist, tightened until he could feel her pulse thrumming against them.
He wanted to turn into it. He wanted to find the same spot on her jaw and try to kiss her too, but he found he could not move.
It was too much, too much. The feel of her lips, both hesitant and sure. The feel of her breath, warm in this wintry world of stone and forgotten time. He had faced armies and monsters. He had died and been brought back to life. Yet somehow, Iseult was more daunting than all of them.
Eventually, she pulled away and she smiled at him—a sly, subtle movement only visible if you knew what you were looking for.
He always knew what he was looking for.
“I am glad you’re back,” she said, and he nodded faintly, letting his fingers release so she could withdraw her pattering pulse.
He had no words to offer as she turned away, nor even breath to sustain them. Not that he needed to speak. The words that mattered most had already raveled between them on a Thread he could not see.
Mhe varujta. Te varuje.
* * *
Iseult didn’t know if her plan would work. After all, it was just a story. But all stories had roots in truth, and the specifics had been so similar to what Eridysi had written that she had to at least try.