She lifted her arms toward the sky, and in perfect sync, Vaness lifted hers.
Arrows loosed, though not toward Vivia or Vaness. They sprang wildly from their bows, melting as they moved while cutlasses flattened and flung. The hunters yelped. Some tried to run, some tried to charge. But it was no use. A fully healed Vaness was unstoppable—and a fully healed Vivia was too.
In seconds, the hunters were pinned to trees, to the earth, to each other while water gushed in, a spout of power that cocooned Vivia and Vaness in an impenetrable curtain. No one could see them nor stop them.
And this time, as they spun to flee, they grabbed each other’s hands and threw themselves into the first glimpse of sunrise.
THIRTY-ONE
Iseult would not be dismissed so easily. After ensuring Owl was willing to follow Alma to the healer, she shot off after Gretchya—already fifty paces away. The two hunters who flanked Gretchya allowed Iseult to get near, and when Iseult barked, “Give us space,” they actually obeyed.
Gretchya of course did not slow her loping pace across the tribe. Already, people collapsed tents, their Threads taut, bright with anxiety.
Your fault, Iseult’s brain declared. They have to run because of you.
“Why are you here, Mother?” She hurried into step beside Gretchya. It was easier to fling out accusations than face the ones flinging in. “What happened to going to Saldonica?”
“Corlant happened.” Gretchya did not slow, did not even look Iseult’s way. “He caught us before we could leave Dalmotti.”
“Oh.” It was an easy answer. One Iseult had not considered. “But then why are you here? In the Solfatarra?”
“For the same reason you are. To escape Corlant. To escape his magic.”
“Oh,” Iseult repeated, and this time, everything settled into place like an anchor on the seafloor. Firewitched lanterns in the tents. Alarm-spells on the trail. Glamours over the camp.
“Everyone here is a witch. This isn’t a true tribe at all, is it? You fled Corlant and have been hiding here.”
“Yes.” Gretchya gestured curtly to a group of Nomatsis collapsing a tent beside the ancient remains of a wall. They moved methodically, disassembling a skeletal wood interior with the silent rhythm of experience. Not only were their Threads briefly bound by the united focus of their task, but now that Iseult was looking—truly looking—she couldn’t miss the hints of power. Faint yellow Threads for a Windwitch, orange Threads for Fire, and even the verdant green of a Plantwitch.
“It is not merely the Purists who have come to hate witches, Iseult. Corlant has drawn many Nomatsis to his cause, and they willingly hand over their family, their friends so that Corlant may, as he calls it, free them.
“A month ago, he began erasing Nomatsi magic. One by one, he took witches into his tent. And one by one, they came out, no longer bound to the elements that they had lived their whole lives by. Then, almost two weeks ago, he went away—and I was ready. I gathered as many Nomatsi witches and their families as I could, and I led them here.”
Ah. Iseult’s breath whispered out. So her mother was a champion of the people. Iseult should be impressed, she supposed. Perhaps even proud. Instead, all she felt was the festering in her chest.
“Where were you before? How did you know this place was here?”
“We were in the Windswept Plains. Corlant works with the Raider King, and the King sent Corlant west. When Alma and I and all the other witches escaped, we found this place by accident. It was safe and contained, so we remained.”
Ah, Iseult thought again, and the festering expanded. It bubbled up her throat. All this time she’d thought her mother and Alma were in Saldonica; all this time, they’d been resisting Corlant in secret.
“So you are a hero then, Mother?” Iseult hated how petulant she sounded. How … how jealous. She was the Cahr Awen, yet here she was whining that Gretchya had become a hero. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she simply wished she’d been a part of it. That it had been her at Gretchya’s side instead of Alma.
How foolish. Iseult really should be used to that old ache by now.
Gretchya halted so abruptly that Iseult stalked two steps onward before noticing. She rounded back. “I am not a hero, Iseult. I did what had to be done.”
“As did I by coming here.”
“I saved these people. You condemned them.” Gretchya’s gaze skated past Iseult, soaking up the camp around them. The hurrying people, the soft voices, the Threads shot with fear but bound by a single purpose: escape.
Nearby, the false Aeduan’s Threads flared. Wings hurtled skyward.
Gretchya’s attention refastened on Iseult, green, sharp, and so familiar. “Did Corlant hurt you?”
Iseult reared back. This was not a question she’d expected, nor the faint flicker behind Gretchya’s eyes. “No,” she replied. “Though he tried.”
A nod. Then Gretchya stared pointedly at Iseult’s right hand. “And that?”
“Th-they … marked me in Cartorra.” No, no—not the stammer. Not right now.
“Why Void instead of Aether?” Gretchya asked, even though Iseult could see in her eyes that she already knew.
The lie fell off her tongue anyway: “They mark all Nomatsis this way.”
Something new flickered in Gretchya’s eyes. A tightening along the lids, a pinching in the brow. Almost sadness, almost disappointment, except gone so fast, Iseult couldn’t be sure.
Her mother didn’t contradict her, but her next words made it clear she believed nothing Iseult said. “So it is true, then. The rumors of a new Puppeteer.”
Iseult swallowed. Heat swept up her chest and face, and the urge to deny—to drop out more lies as easily as Safi or Mathew—expanded in her lungs. It had been so long since she’d felt this small or unwanted.
Iseult had done everything she could to mold herself into what her mother had expected her to be. But Gretchya had given up on her then, and she was giving up on her now. To her, Iseult would only ever be the daughter who had failed. The Threadwitch who could not make Threadstones, who could not weave herself into the tribe and one day take over as leader. She was an embarrassment to be hidden, a mistake to be forgotten.
A cold wind pulled at Gretchya’s hair. “How many people have you killed, Iseult?”
A heartbeat pause. A heartbeat more of that instinct to deny. Then it was gone, and Iseult answered truthfully, “Many.” Though she couldn’t help but add: “They w-were going to kill me.”
“And now you have led such people here.”
“Not on purpose.”
“But the damage is done all the same.”
And just like that, Iseult was boiling in gray heat again. Her chest felt crushed, her tongue rolled flat.
Stasis, Iseult. A true Threadwitch shows nothing, feels nothing.
Her breath wavered.
Stasis, Iseult. In your fingers and in your toes.
Her eyes shuttered.
Stasis, Iseult. Do not shame me. Do not shame Moon Mother.
Iseult had never wanted to shame Moon Mother, she had never wanted to shame Gretchya. Not then, not now, not ever. It was inescapable, though, for she couldn’t be the block of stone her mother wanted.
Yet she also couldn’t be the effusive, expressive human everyone else expected. Only Safi had ever understood that, only Safi had ever really cared.