I thought you would be stronger, a voice whispered atop the ice. But there is still time for you to become the dark-giver you were meant to be. The shadow-ender the Witchlands needs. The daughter I thought had been taken from me.
“No,” Iseult tried to say. Or maybe she did say it, though no sound reached her ears. No voice shook in her chest. The crackling core of Corlant’s power still consumed, still froze.
Until at last he released her. Laughter briefly filled her skull, pink Threads briefly claimed her vision. Then darkness—blessed and pure—shoved in to drag her down.
Iseult collapsed.
Fourteen Days After the Earth Well Healed
Later, Iseult will wonder how no one saw her and Leopold. Later, she will have strange memories of gray and snow and walls that open wide. But it will all be so dreamlike that she will not be able to fathom what it means.
And she certainly cannot fathom what it means while it is happening. She loses track of the turns and passages, of the countless people they pass who never seem to see. Every time she says, “Safi,” Leopold ignores her. Or quiets her, a bloodied hand to cover her mouth, as if people might be near to overhear.
She sees no one, though, and Threads are hazy.
Worse, a voice is beginning to speak to her again. Just a tickle at the base of her brain, but Iseult recognizes it. She has been here before. You did this to me. You killed me. I will never let you go. It is the Hell-Bard’s voice. The Stonewitch’s ghost.
But then the voice pulls back. The gray seems to clear, and suddenly Iseult finds herself in a part of the palace she has never seen before, in a round room of dark, ancient stone and blazing hearth.
Owl is here, dressed in a plain traveling cloak and clasped in Zander’s patient arms. She gives a soft cry at the sight of Iseult, and relief swells across her Threads. A cleansing wave against the fear that paled them before. “Bad things are happening,” she says as Zander eases her to the carpet, red as blood and so much thicker. “We were worried.”
“I’m fine,” Iseult says, but it’s a lie. She is anything but fine. Her Threadsister has been broken and carried away, she has killed two people, and now another ghost of the Cleaved is awakening in her mind.
She glances at Zander and in Cartorran adds, “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
“Yes,” Leopold inserts. His Threads blaze with a hunter’s green of focus. “But now you must leave.”
The Hell-Bard bows. “Of course, Your Imperial Highness.” He steps softly to the exit, graceful and silent despite his enormity. Leopold trails after, and once the dark wooden door shuts behind him, he taps several lock-spells into place.
“What if he tells someone we’re here?” Iseult asks.
Leopold shakes his head. “He won’t be able to.” Before Iseult can ask what that means, he rushes past her and scoops up Owl. Exactly as Zander had held her, letting her stretch long and brace on his hips.
“Follow me,” he orders. “We must be quick.” Then he strides right up to the wall and knocks three times.
Iseult briefly sways against the armchair. Because she has been here before, she has seen this glamour magic before. At the Monastery, with Leopold at her side. Except that then, she was the one to solve the mystery of the Rook King’s secret wall—and then she was the one to do the tapping.
Leopold does not wait to see if she follows. He simply strides into the darkness, Owl held tight, and Iseult has no choice but to scurry after. It is a stone stairwell, and she traces quickly down until all light vanishes and she is moving solely by the feel of her hand against the wall.
Cold creeps higher with each step; Iseult still wears her flimsy silk gown, though it is torn at the hem and one sleeve is half ripped away. She has no memory of when that might have happened. One moment she was on the balcony, the next she was swarmed by Hell-Bards and carried across the palace.
Now she is here, reaching the end of a secret stairwell cloaked in the magic of the Rook King—and she has no doubt this was the Rook King’s work. At least partially, for as light filters onto the final steps and a cave opens up before her, Iseult glimpses a worn carving in the stone: two birds, side by side.
But are they owls, Esme had once asked, referring to ancient statues in the Contested Lands, or are they rooks? Iseult hadn’t understood the significance of those animals then, and she doesn’t understand it now.
All she knows is that the Rook King had been a Paladin—a real flesh-and-blood man. And somehow he must be bound to these stones just as he is bound to the Monastery. Except Iseult doesn’t think it is merely a ghost that haunts here.
After a short drop-off, Leopold sets down Owl and takes her hand in his. She is, to Iseult’s surprise, unafraid of this strange place. In fact, her Threads are blue calm tinged with rosy joy, as if the cave is familiar.
But are they owls or are they rooks? Iseult thinks again, and another piece of the puzzle sinks into place.
The cave unfolds ahead, its high ceiling rounded and lit by Firewitched torches. A gentle, sulfur-scented mist hovers, bringing moisture to Iseult’s skin. Warmth increases, welcome at first. Then too hot. And eventually, the winding cave gives way to a carved space, lined with columns.
It is a bath, the waters frothing and steaming. Leopold offers no explanation for the room, but simply strides through. With the steam floating around him, he looks like a ghost from centuries past.
Beyond is more cave, winding and twisting in a complex labyrinth of stalagmites and sulfur. The ground ascends slightly, until at last, they reach a wide set of stairs. No one speaks as they climb. Only when they hit the final landing does Leopold break the silence.
“I have no supplies for you. Only a cloak.” He moves to a wooden trunk hiding between two torches. In quick, practiced movements, he has it open and a thick gray cape in hand. “Beyond this wall”—he motions to the stone before them—“is the River Praga. You can follow it east, until you reach the wharves. I have someone there who will meet you.”
“Who?”
“You will know her,” he says simply, and he offers Iseult the cloak.
She wraps her fingers around the rough wool. It will blend in well with the night. “Thank you,” Iseult says, and she means it. She would be dead by Hell-Bard blade right now, if not for him. “Please look after Safi.”
“You know that I will, Dark-Giver.” He bows his head. There is no mockery in his tone or in his Threads—only the grief. The loss. The tears Iseult saw before, a lifetime ago upon the balcony.
And Iseult grasps for some message she can give Safi. Some final departing words that say, “Everything will be all right because I’ll make them so.” But she can think of nothing, so all she says is “Owl, are you ready?”
She turns away from Leopold and kneels before the child. Owl remains calm, unfazed by the strange night or the strange cave. And as Iseult pulls up her hood and tucks her hair out of sight, she even bares a smile. “Zander says we are to play fox and hen tonight.”
“Yes,” Iseult agrees. “That is exactly what we are doing.”
A musty scent rolls over her, and when Iseult rises, she finds a dark river sloshing against reeds where a wall had just been.
“You will get wet,” Leopold says from behind her. He has moved to the stairs again. “But the time in the water is short.”