“Bad,” she repeated. That descriptor could mean so many things.
“If you’re hoping to find a way out of this curse, you won’t find it there, Safi. All of us”—he spun a tired hand—“have hoped for that same thing. And we’ve only ever found disappointment.”
But I’m not like you, she wanted to volley back. You don’t have a Truth-lens, Caden, and you aren’t half the Cahr Awen. Safi wasn’t that person anymore, though—the one who always had to retort. Who always needed the last, fiery word. These Hell-Bards had tried and failed to earn freedom; she would not disrespect their trials by claiming her own chances were any better.
Instead, she said: “I have to try, Caden. I have to see the heart of it all with my own eyes. And perhaps … perhaps there will be some clue there about my uncle.”
Caden’s expression softened at those words. “I see.” With a grunt, he pushed to his feet and offered Safi a hand.
She took it. But once he had her upright, he didn’t release her. Instead he tugged her close. “There is a way to get you there, Safi. A quick way that even Henrick cannot deny. But you aren’t going to like it.” His face was mere inches from hers, their fingers still intertwined.
“Anything,” she breathed, leaning in more closely. “Caden, I’ll do anything.”
His eyes held hers for two heartbeats before he nodded. “Good enough. Just remember you said that when you’re cursing my name in two seconds.
“What do you mean?” she began, but Caden was already pulling back, already drawing a knife from his belt.
He stabbed her in the thigh.
NINETEEN
This was what Iseult knew about her terrain: she was in the Ohrins in a shepherding complex with countless miles of forest surrounding her. And this was what Iseult knew about her opponent: Corlant could enter the Hell-Bard Loom. He could take magic from others and use it. And for some reason, he had hunted Iseult across the entire continent.
He stared at her now, seated at a table not so different from the table Iseult had studied on the night before in a hut not so different from the one the Hell-Bards had commandeered. She wondered if that hut had belonged to these poor shepherds too. She wondered if, now that Corlant had taken the Herdwitch’s magic, he would let the family go free.
Currently, they were shut in a cellar below the largest building. Their sheep had gone silent.
Behind Iseult, Owl lay curled on her side atop a bunked sleeping cot. Every few seconds, blue grief waterfalled over her Threads. The only color, the only sign she had not fallen into herself forever. Otherwise, all was white, all was numb.
Aeduan and Evrane stood guard outside the hut.
“What do you want from me?” Iseult asked in Arithuanian. The first words uttered since Aeduan had dragged her in here and removed her gag. And released her fangs. Not that she dared use them with so many enemies about and hostages all too easily killed.
Corlant steepled his fingers. The grooves on his forehead trenched inward as his Threads flickered with surprise. “I would have expected your mother to explain when she hid you away. But perhaps not.” He lowered his hands to the wood. The fingers spread wide, knobby-knuckled and long. “I am not your enemy, Iseult. We are in fact on the same side.”
“I don’t steal people’s magic.”
“Oh, but you do. And you have done it before. A Firewitch, if I recall correctly.”
Iseult’s breath slashed in. How had he known? She had taken that raider’s power. Not on purpose, but when she’d cleaved him, the ghost of his soul had stayed trapped against her own. But how could Corlant know?
Stasis, stasis. Corlant would not see her feel.
“I’m not like you.” She pointed to Owl. “I don’t kidnap children. I don’t kill dogs or terrorize families. I don’t turn tribes against someone or shoot them with cursed arrows.”
“The arrow was an accident,” he said, and to Iseult’s surprise, regret swaddled his Threads. “I didn’t know what you were then. What you are.”
“And what am I?”
“Powerful.” His hand slipped into a pocket of his robe, and after fidgeting out a worn tome, he slid it onto the table.
Iseult’s pulse quickened. Her mouth watered.
“I see you recognize the diary.” He smiled. “And I see you want it. Oh, I do not see Threads—not in the way you do, with emotions to shade and define—but hunger … It is a feeling I know well.” He nudged the diary closer to Iseult, so she could clearly read Eridysi’s handwriting scribbled on the spine. The front cover did not match the rest. It was newer, stiffer leather.
“I will give this to you, Iseult.” Corlant’s Threads morphed with sly pink. “If you give me the two rubies your mother stole from me.”
The Threadstones again. Iseult’s hand moved to her collarbone, to the empty expanse there. “I don’t have them.”
“Yes, yes.” Corlant’s fingers tapped across the table. “The one called Aeduan told me you left them in Praga. Unlike him, though, I am not so foolish as to believe you.”
Iseult snorted. “Then I wish you luck finding them.” She patted her collarbone again, this time emphatically. “The Emperor of Cartorra took them off Safi and me, so if you want them, you’ll have to go all the way to Praga to get them.”
“Hmmm.” Corlant eyed Iseult, gaze resting first on her collar. Then on her face. “You must not know what they are, or you would never have left them behind.”
Iseult lowered her hand. “And what are they?”
“Valuable.” He pushed to his feet, table and chair creaking. “And if we must go to Praga to get them, then that is what we will do.”
He turned as if to leave; lilac hope trickled over Owl’s Threads. But Iseult couldn’t let him walk away. “Wait.” She shot up. Corlant paused. “The Loom. I saw you in the Hell-Bard Loom. How?”
There it was again: the smile. The delight to suffuse his Threads. He lifted his chain—the chain he’d worn as long as she’d known him, golden and plain. It glinted in the fragile light. “I was the first she ever claimed, Iseult. And this chain was the first she ever made. But you can learn all about that in here.” He scooped up the diary.
“Not if you don’t let me have it.” She watched him stuff it back into his pocket.
“Oh, but we have a deal. When the Threadstones are in my possession again, then this”—he patted his pocket—“will be yours.” He left the cabin, his Threads grassy green with contemplation.
And a darker, pine green too: the lingering magic claimed from a Herdwitch.
“Gag them,” he ordered once he was outside. “Gag them, tie them to the bed, and let no one in without my approval.”
* * *
Safi was in agony. She’d had injuries before—a shattered ankle, a broken nose, burns and scrapes and stitches aplenty. A knife stab in the thigh was a new one.
And not being able to use magical healing was also new and also rutting horrible.
After the initial shock of a hole in her leg gushing blood, fire had set in. She’d been unable to walk, even with the bindings Caden had quickly and efficiently wrapped around her.