A single punch, and the ice cracked. Then Iseult swept it away, savoring the cold and the black waters now peering up at her. They did not burn her skin, nor stink of sulfur. Snow fell, vanishing on the water’s gentle roll. Iseult’s reflection was twisted, a shivering shadow that carved the world in two. She looked as she had two weeks ago in Praga … yet somehow completely different.
I look like Esme. Not in features—Esme had been one of the most beautiful young women Iseult had ever seen—but in energy. The softness of Esme’s face and body had been hardened by a frantic edge.
Iseult had that edge. Maybe because, like Esme, she had been run out of her tribe. Or maybe because, like Esme, her magic was an abomination of gray, gray, gray.
We are just alike, she used to tell Iseult. We must weave Threads when we can—and break them when we have to. Iseult had always shied away from those words. She had denied them and fought them and pretended they were not true. She was not like Esme; she was not a Puppeteer.
Until the day when there had been no more running. Esme had been right all along: Iseult did have the need to change things, and she did have the hate to do it.
She also had the tools.
She pulled away from her reflection and eased Eridysi’s diary into the afternoon’s light. The entire tome, hers for the reading. Hers for the learning. After a glance in Owl’s direction and finding the child safe and calm, she peeled back the diary’s cover. New leather creaked. Snow landed on the first page.
And Iseult began to read. It was like being handed a key to the universe—except better. This was a key to her own magic. A key to what she could become.
She began where the ripped-out pages ended: raising the dead. It was not true life such magic could create. Void magic had its limits; Portia had only created a semblance of returned life. A reanimation with Threads that could not last.
But Eridysi had scribbled notes about what might be done if an Aetherwitch attempted the same spell. Her theories and speculations, her diagrams and details filled page after page. Not just on reanimation either, but on cleaving and death. On ghosts and the afterlife, and even on a young shadow wyrm Portia had found a way to kill.
She also had an entire eight pages dedicated to Threadstones. She had apparently worked directly with one of the most famous Threadwitches who’d ever lived, named Vergedi. And where Vergedi had made stones, Portia had cleaved them for power.
Iseult hadn’t known you could sever a stone’s Threads.
The diary went beyond mere spells too—beyond manipulating Threads and recording Portia’s experiments. Eridysi wrote of her life in the Sightwitch Sister Convent. Of the days when she was dragged, all the way across the Witchlands, to live in Portia’s decadent court and watch the world descend into chaos.
For that was what had happened in those days. The Paladins had been the only witches in the land, and that power had corrupted them. Instead of supporting rulers chosen by the people, they had become the rulers themselves. Tyrannical. All powerful. Unstoppable.
And Eridysi had watched it, helpless to intervene—and helpless to stop her own fascination with the power Portia had wielded. With the power they all had wielded.
Theirs is so different from the raw magic inside the mountain, and yet the source is the same: Sirmaya. Midne tells me, in her soft tones, that when she and the other Six enter the mountain, she feels as if she is coming home.
That was the name Corlant had used. Midne. Lev had used it too, all those days ago, claiming Midne had been the first Hell-Bard, the first to have her magic expunged … And it was true. Iseult found that page within the diary too: the creation of the first Loom. Eridysi had recorded every step with scientific detachment. A stasis Iseult recognized; a stasis she appreciated. Horrible things had happened. All Eridysi had been able to do was bear witness.
And when Portia had cleaved her fellow Paladin, Midne, to build the first Loom, Eridysi had borne meticulous, detailed witness. Here was how she’d cleaved the other Voidwitch. Here was how she’d kept Midne alive—stopping the cleaving before it could fully consume—and here was how she’d used that raw power to build her Loom, binding it to a basin beneath the earth, where Sirmaya’s Threads were closest to the surface.
The first Hell-Bard. The first Loom, and all of it laid out step by step upon the page. If Iseult wanted to, she could make one too.
Her mind teemed. Her thoughts skipped from one to the next, unable to settle. Unable to slow. Building a Loom. Reanimation. The Dreaming. So much to absorb. Too much for a few minutes of reading. Midne. Portia. The Sightwitch Sisters. What could Iseult do with this knowledge? What could she become? Threads beneath a mountain. Aetherwitches. Sirmaya.
Other thoughts slipped into her skull too. The words Owl had just sung. Save the bones, save the bones, lost without them, have no home. And all the stories she’d told in the past two weeks. Long ago, when the gods walked among us.
Iseult’s breath slid out, and she ran her thumbs along the diary’s cover. Somehow, this book had lasted a thousand years. And somehow, simple paper held more power, more potential than she’d ever known possible.
This diary was her destiny. This diary was her path. All she lacked were two things. Then she and Owl could brave the Solfatarra once more.
“Esme?” she whispered to the forest.
It took a moment for a response to come. But when it did, it was strong—overwhelming in its power. A warm sunset inside Iseult’s mind. If Esme had still been herself, she would have been smiling, one dimple carving in deep.
There was something else there, though. Something deep and anxious.
Where are you? Iseult thought. We won’t leave without you.
Another quaver of sunset warmth, and then branches rustled on the other side of the stream. Moments later, a streak of white slithered from the shadows.
Iseult shot to her feet, delight sparking in her muscles. The weasel reached her and scuttled up her leg with a familiar scratch of claws. “Where have you been?” she asked as Esme wound around her neck.
Hiding, the weasel replied, sharing an image of forest, forest, and more forest steeped in white.
Then came the image of Aeduan, his eyes ablaze and nose sniffing. Snow gathered on his shoulders and hair. Near, Esme said. He is coming.
THIRTY-FOUR
The shadow birds reached Iseult and Owl first, carried on Threads of green determination. What Iseult didn’t know was what Aeduan might be determined to do. His face offered no hint as he pushed beneath the spruce branches, carrying snow and winter air with him. He moved as he always did, feral and caged. Not so different from the true Aeduan, yet marked by just enough discomfort that Iseult would never mistake them.
Iseult sat beside Owl, and to her relief, the Painstone’s power thrummed on. Owl was neither surprised nor scared nor even particularly interested that Aeduan had arrived. The weasel was tucked out of sight on a branch.
A single step and he reached them. Red whorled over his eyes and his nostrils widened, a sign he used his magic.
“You figured it out.” Iseult patted at the taler once more twined around her neck. Her breath puffed.
He did not answer. Instead he drew a small Nomatsi hunting knife and aimed it toward Iseult. Owl’s Threads flickered with gray fear, but only momentarily before the Painstone’s power cleaned them away. “You wanted me free. Why?”