She jerked. Her hand fell, and Corlant laughed. He was right beside her, face creased with pleasure and Threads skittering with want. “You are a natural, it would seem.”
Iseult stepped in front of Safi’s Threads. Futile but instinctive. “I found Safi, not the Threadstones.” Her voice slithered out, strong. Plumed by fog. She no longer drowned in the Dreaming, she controlled it.
At least so long as her Threadsister was beside her.
“Oh, but the light-bringer has the Threadstones, Iseult. She stole them, you see.” He flicked a hand toward Safi, and her Threads briefly parted like tassels on a gown, revealing two bright pinpricks of red. They glimmered and flared, embers of power Iseult instantly recognized.
But how had Corlant known they would be there? How could he have possibly known Safi had stolen them? Before Iseult could ask, Corlant’s hand dropped. The Threadstones disappeared, and the false priest fastened his attention on Iseult once more.
“We must figure out where she is, Iseult. You must learn by connecting with her. By seeing through her eyes.”
Iseult swallowed, dream-lips so cold, so dry. Part of her desperately wanted to connect to Safi, to see where she was to promise that everything would be better because she, Iseult, was going to fix it. But another part of her—the smarter, logical part of her—prickled with warning. Corlant did not want to know Safi’s whereabouts to help her, and Iseult was in no position to fight him again.
She was also in no position to resist him. He manipulated this space, he manipulated the ghosts and the Dreaming that contained them. If he wanted Iseult to see through Safi’s eyes, then he would make it happen.
She might as well do it on her own terms.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “I will try to see through her eyes.” Without another word or even a glance for Corlant, Iseult grabbed Safi’s Threads again. She had no idea what she was doing, but she’d found her Threadsister without assistance. Surely she could figure this out too.
Cold speared up Iseult’s dream-hands. She flinched, squeezing instinctively.
And Safi screamed. A real scream from a real throat in the real world. And just like that, Iseult became one with Safi’s mind.
It was wrong, so wrong. A violation she’d never imagined herself committing. A step too far as the Puppeteer, and no matter how much she told herself it was to protect Safi, she couldn’t stop the guilt from sludging through her.
“I’m sorry,” Iseult whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.” She tugged at the Threads and moved Safi’s head. A swivel left, a swivel right. Wind and clouds, cold and creaking wood. Hell-Bards made of shadow. A man with wild violent Threads. Spinning cloth, glowing Airwitch power, and mountains slipping by.
“I’m sorry,” Iseult said again, and this time, she released Safi. Heat stifled through her, despite the eternal cold of the Loom. Wrong, wrong—she had done something irredeemably wrong. Because you are a monster and it is all you can do.
“What did you see?” Corlant asked, his head crooking down to Iseult’s like a vulture sizing up its prey. “What did you find, Iseult?”
“A flying machine.” Her voice scraped out, raw with inner heat and inner hate. “Safi is with three Hell-Bards, and they are coming this way.” Iseult did not mention the fifth person, angry and brooding and powerful in his own way. She didn’t know why, but the words stayed stuffed in her throat. The Fool card still to be played.
“Excellent,” Corlant said. His long fingers laced into a triumphant fist. “You truly were born to do this. Now let us leave the Loom and find a way to bring them to us, shall we?” His fingers unwound. He offered her a hand.
And she swallowed. The last thing she wanted was to touch him, in the Loom or in real life. But she also needed him to believe her a willing student and willing daughter.
She took his hand, corpse-like and foul.
It was only as the world of the Dreaming melted away and warmth—real, living warmth—caressed in that Iseult wondered if perhaps Corlant had already known about Leopold on the machine. If perhaps Leopold was the one who’d told Corlant about the stolen Threadstones.
Wicked Cousin and Trickster. Old Ones forgotten, Paladins returned.
FORTY-TWO
Kahina possessed the blade and glass. Exactly what Ryber had feared would happen, exactly what Stix had believed, in all her overconfidence, would not.
The Hammer handed Kahina the broken blade, and she held it toward the light that roiled off Ryber’s cage of flames. Orange and white glittered on the steel. Kahina smiled. It was not a gloating smile, nor even a delighted one, but rather a smile of relief.
“Death, death, the final end,” she said, finding Stix’s eyes over the fast-drying mud. “It sings to you too, does it not?” She thrust out the blade as if preparing to attack. “I could kill you permanently with it. No more Paladin souls. No more Water Brawlers. But I will spare you, Stacia Sotar, because even Exalted Ones can still be saved.” She snapped down the blade and handed it to the Hammer, who quickly wrapped it in cloth. The same cloth Ryber had hidden it within for so many days.
Then, with nothing more than an over-the-shoulder wave—as if she were departing from a casual meeting between friends—Kahina strode into the wooden stall. The fire parted to allow the Hammer to follow and for Ryber to come crawling out.
As soon as Stix rushed to Ryber’s side, the entirety of the Ring ignited.
It was like a thousand firepots going off at once. One moment, there were flames on the stall; the next moment, everything burned. Blue heat rumbled over Stix. No time to think, no time to assess or do anything but haul Ryber close and run. Freeze, she commanded. Freeze, douse, freeze. What little water still survived here fought to obey, elated to be useful, and in two fire-choked breaths, the flames nearest to Stix and Ryber snuffed out.
“I’m sorry,” Ryber said from smoke-rasped lungs. Over and over again. “I’m sorry, he … the Hammer … he surprised me. I’m sorry, Stix.”
But it wasn’t Ryber’s fault that this had happened. Stix couldn’t even blame the Hammer. He’d had a bargain with Kahina—Stix knew what that meant now.
No, all of this chaos, every flame now streaming toward the sky, was Stix’s fault and her fault alone. Noden save her, if she ever saw her father again, she’d tell him he was right. That her natural power had made her overconfident, that one day she had met someone she couldn’t match. And that hye, a magic as strong as hers did need honing, and she should never have taken it for granted.
Even the voices had abandoned her to her mistakes. No more satisfied quiet. Only cold, resentful silence.
Stix floundered for any water in the air or in the soil, but there was too much heat for her to fight against. Worse—because of course it could somehow get worse—a new roar was filling the Ring. A rattling, shuddering sound that shook the water and shook Stix’s bones with a thousand tiny feet.
She turned right as the first of the rats entered the ruined arena, streaming from the burning, collapsing scaffolding. They aimed for the only place absent of flames. They aimed for Stix and Ryber.
* * *
The captain’s room on the Blessing was almost identical to Vivia’s on the Iris. A slight rearrangement of furniture, slightly rougher floors, and slightly brighter lighting. Otherwise, all was the same—for which Vivia was grateful. She had been asleep in the captain’s bed for several hours, and there was a comfort in waking to familiarity.