Evrane had been possessed in ways Iseult still did not understand, and now Aeduan was corrupted too.
“No,” she said once more as a slow smile spread over his lips. A full, hungry thing that stretched his face. Foreign, wrong. The Aeduan she knew did not smile. He did not leer.
Later, Iseult would curse her instincts. Later, she would wish—not for the first time—that she had Safi’s gut to guide her instead of her own slow logic. For logic was the last thing she needed here. There could be no arranging the puzzle pieces before her; there could be no coherent shape found. And because of that, this Aeduan-who-was-not-Aeduan had the advantage. The extra burst of two seconds that would ultimately decide whether Iseult escaped the fate the Bloodwitch had planned for her …
Or became his prey.
He charged into the waters, straight for her. No concern for depth or cold or difficulty. His Threads radiated purple hunger and green focus. He hunted her and nothing would stand in his way.
Those Threads finally forced Iseult to move. Aeduan-who-was-not-Aeduan wanted her, violently, just as Evrane-who-was-not-Evrane had wanted her at the Monastery.
Iseult spun to flee. Her heel slipped on the wet shore. She fell to one knee, but the subsequent pain was distant. Swallowed by a determined, rhythmic splashing from behind.
She used her staff to scrabble upright, and ran for the trees. But what had been an easy race down to the water now seemed viciously steep, viciously long. Her feet wouldn’t land properly. Her staff kept getting in the way.
And the splashing, the splashing. No normal human could move so fast.
Iseult reached the first snags of barren underbrush and pine-needle earth. There was the trail she’d taken before, obvious from her footprints still fresh in the cold soil. She had no time to try to hide them, no time to find another way.
But as she skidded around a pine trunk, she realized she could no longer hear splashing. Maybe that meant he had stopped. Please, please, please.
He had not stopped.
When she risked a glance back, she found he was out of the water and sprinting up the shore. Too fast, too fast. Even though he was not Aeduan, whoever … whatever possessed his body was using his Bloodwitchery. He would reach her soon.
Which meant she would have to think her way out of this. That was all there was to it. Somehow, as she pumped her arms and tried to move faster, as pine needles sliced her cheeks and roots threatened to steal her legs, Iseult needed a plan.
Think, Iseult, think. Beyond this forest were the crystal pools, and beyond that, the river with rocks for crossing. If she could just get to those stepping-stones, then she could get to Owl and the horses. Surely not even Aeduan-who-was-not-Aeduan could outrun horses.
She reached a bend in the path, and flung a backward look. He was so close, his cloak bright and unmissable through the trees. She would not reach the pools before he caught her.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to end this chase now, call it quits like she used to as a child playing fox and hen. Running without pause always ended in tragedy for her.
So don’t run, her brain provided, right as she approached an immense pine, its lowest branches above her and its trunk three times as wide as she. Beyond it, the crystal waters shimmered in cold mountain air.
She knew her opponent and she knew this terrain. Not well, since she’d only just passed through, but she still had an advantage. Which meant it was time to pick her battlefield.
Another backward look. He was still there, though all she could see was his white cloak. She wore brown; she would not be so visible. And her footprints—they mixed with her others from before. It would be impossible to tell if she had stopped or continued on.
Iseult reached the pine, and with a bounding leap to avoid leaving fresh prints, she shot behind its wide trunk. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and waited. For what seemed an eternity, she heard only her heartbeat galloping through her very skull.
Soon she heard footsteps. He was not as graceful as the real Aeduan, yet like the real Aeduan, he also couldn’t seem to smell her blood. One small boon, at least.
He did not slow at the pine, and as he passed it, Iseult circled around. Away from him. All the way behind him …
And something about that, about briefly gaining the upper hand—an Empress card against the Emperor, as Safi would say—gave Iseult the respite she needed. She could see her next actions, she could imagine the fight about to unfold. She abandoned her staff on the forest floor, unsheathed her new sword, and charged.
Aeduan had paused at the pools, and his back was within easy reach. Iseult arced out her blade. He looked back. His ice-blue eyes met hers, so familiar, so foreign. Then her sword hit his arm. It dug deep. It sliced, but did not sever.
And later, when Iseult cursed her instincts, she would also find herself grateful for this. He was Aeduan, somewhere in there. Possessed, usurped, and controlled, but Aeduan all the same—and she wouldn’t have wanted to maim him.
Not entirely.
Aeduan attacked with Bloodwitch speed, yet when he grabbed for Iseult, she ducked and moved outside him. When he lifted a knee, she dropped her elbow into his thigh. And when he tried to shift to a hook kick, she caught the leg and yanked it skyward. She knew his body better than whatever controlled him did.
He grappled for her as he toppled back, but it was wild. Useless. He hit the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Iseult told the Aeduan she hoped was still in there. Then she raised her sword and stabbed him. Through flesh, through organs, and out the other side, she shoved her sword as deeply as it would go.
And once again, just as it had done to the Hell-Bard from whom she’d claimed it, the sword pinned him to the soft earth below.
Iseult released the hilt. Aeduan gasped and snarled at her. He was stuck—though not forever. Already, she could see the wound trying to heal, instantaneous and unpreventable.
She resumed her sprint. Nothing looked familiar from this angle, and the sun blinded her, shooting into her eyes and glaring on wind-dappled waters. But she couldn’t slow. Better to go in the wrong direction and gain distance than lose time searching for the right way.
There. That little sapling. Beyond must be the largest pool, which meant cutting right would bring her to the stepping-stones and camp.
She looked backward. Already, Aeduan was rising—too fast, too fast. She reached the edge of the largest pool and there was the stretch of soggy land that would lead to the river. She could hear its moving waters, and the sun’s sharp rays would soon be shaded by mountain. She would reach the river in seconds …
But so would not-Aeduan. How had he moved so fast? How had he already circled most of the largest pool?
Iseult launched herself off the shore and onto the first stepping-stone. Then another. Another. The splash of the river and her booming heartbeats could not block Aeduan’s approach. He was to the river’s shore before she was even halfway across the water.
She readied her legs for the next leap. She sprang up and out—
And jerked straight backward.
A scream split her lips. Her neck yanked, her balance collapsed, and cold crashed over her. Water shoved up her nose.
She paddled and flailed and fought to escape the water, but it was not the water she needed to fight. It was Aeduan. He was dragging her upward, scraping her back on rock, and soon he had her stretched across the stone. She sputtered, sucked in air, and tried to rise.