After the prince had directed Safi to a servant with sparkling wines, he’d pushed a flute into her hand, and then snagged one for himself before guiding her to the food.
The food!
Table after table was set up beside the window and laden with a thousand delicacies from across the three empires. Safi was determined to try every single item before the ball ended.
“A chocolate volcano,” Leopold said, pointing to a silver basin in which there appeared to be chocolate bubbles. “The one disadvantage of forbidding Firewitches in Cartorra is that”—pause—“we miss out on tricks like this.” He motioned to a servant in beige satin. The man quickly ladled out the chocolate and poured it over a bowl filled with fresh strawberries.
Safi’s eyes bugged, yet as she grabbed for the bowl, Leopold deftly snatched it away, smiling. “Allow me to serve you, Safiya. We have spent too many years apart.”
“And I have spent too many hours between meals.” A glare. “Give it to me now, Polly, or I shall castrate you with a fork.”
Now his eyes bugged. “By the Twelve, have you heard the things you say?” But he did relinquish the bowl of strawberries, and after biting into the first, Safi moaned her delight.
“These are divine,” she gushed from beneath a mouthful of chocolate. “They remind me of the ones from—” She broke off, her chest suddenly too large.
She had been about to say the strawberries reminded her of the ones from home. Home! As if the mountains and valleys around the Hasstrel estate had ever been home—or the strawberries ever this divine.
Leopold did not seem to notice Safi’s sudden silence, though. His eyes ran over the colorful diplomats. The domnas in their fitted black skirts and frilly, high-necked bodices of a thousand rich, earthy tones. The doms in their black waistcoats and velvet puffy shorts that only served to make their legs look knobby and ridiculous.
In fact, Leopold seemed to be the only male capable of making the shorts and tights look appealing—and didn’t he know it, judging by the way he strutted about. The tights revealed strong legs—surprisingly well-muscled—and the blue velvet brought out flecks of the same shade in his eyes.
Safi was pleased to note that her own gown was garnering envious looks, and the only gown Safi thought better than her own was that of Vaness, the Marstoki Empress. White strips of cloth draped a thousand ways over the woman’s bronze skin, and her dark hair tumbled over the bold exposure of her right shoulder. Gold studs were pasted over her Witchmark—a square for Earth and a single, vertical line for Iron—while two shackle-like bracelets adorned her wrists (said to represent her servitude to her people). She wore no crown, and was—in Safi’s opinion—utter simplicity and elegance.
Though Safi had only seen Vaness from a distance, she had immediately appreciated the bored dip in the young woman’s shoulder. The flat expression of a person who had better places to be and more meaningful things to do.
Safi had promptly tried to copy that pose—though she’d also promptly forgotten after spotting the first cream-filled pastry.
As if reading her mind, Leopold asked, “Have you seen the Empress’s daring gown? Every man has his jaw on the floor.”
“But not you?” Safi asked, eyes narrowing.
“No. Not me.”
The lie of the statement crawled over her skin, but she didn’t care enough to press. If Leopold wished to hide his interest in the Empress’s perfect shoulders, why should Safi care?
“Do you wish to meet the Empress?” he asked abruptly.
Safi gasped. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“Then yes, please.” She thrust her unfinished strawberries at a waiting attendant while Leopold stepped lightly into the throngs of people. She followed him toward a low stage at the back corner where a small orchestra tuned their instruments.
But it was strange, for as Safi and Leopold moved amongst the curious nobility of all ages and nationalities, there was a single bright question on everyone’s lips. Safi could no more hear what they murmured than she could read their thoughts, but whatever it was they considered, their question burned with the sharp light of truth. It flickered down the back of Safi’s neck and in her throat—and it made her enormously curious to know of what they spoke.
Leopold reached a swarm of colorfully clad women—their gowns also made from the same striped, draping cloth as the Empress’s—and a clump of men. Nubrevnan men, Safi thought when her eyes settled on their loose black hair and salt-roughened skin. Their coats fell to their knees, most of them the color of stormy blue, though one man wore silver gray and cut into her path.
“Excuse you,” she muttered, trying to sidestep him.
But the man stopped, blocking Safi entirely, before glancing back.
Safi choked. It was the Nubrevnan from the pier, cleaned up and practically glowing beneath the candlelight.
“Why it’s you,” she said in Nubrevnan, her voice overly dulcet. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same.” He didn’t look impressed as he shifted his body toward her.
“I am a Domna of Cartorra.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“I see,” she drawled, “that you have learned how to work a button. Congratulations on this no doubt life-altering feat.”
He laughed—a surprised sound—and bowed his head. “And I see you have cleaned the bird crap off your shoulder.”
Her nostrils flared. “Excuse me, but Prince Leopold fon Cartorra is expecting me—and surely your prince needs you as well.” She spoke flippantly, barely aware of what she said.
Yet the result was extreme, for the young man smiled. A true, beautiful smile that made everything in the room fall away. All Safi saw for a single, stuttering heartbeat was how his dark eyes almost crinkled shut and his forehead smoothed out. How his chin tipped up slightly to reveal the muscles in his neck.
“I have absolutely nowhere to be,” he said softly. “Nowhere but here.” Then, as if she was not stunned enough, the man swooped her a half-bow and said, “Would you honor me with a dance?”
And just like that, all of Safi’s shields crumbled. She forgot how to be a domna. She lost control of her cavalier cool. Even the Nubrevnan language seemed impossible to wield.
For this man seemed to be mocking her—just like the doms and domnas from her childhood, just like Uncle Eron. He intended to embarrass her. “There is no music,” she rushed to say, launching past the man.
But he caught her arm with the ease of a fighter. “There will be music,” he promised before calling, “Kullen?”
The enormous man from the pier materialized beside them.
“Will you tell the orchestra to play a four-step?” The Nubrevnan’s gaze never left Safi’s face, but his smile eased into mischief. “If you don’t know the Nubrevnan four-step, Domna, then I can choose something else, of course.”
Safi held a strategic silence. She did know the four-step, and if this man thought to embarrass her on the dance floor, then he was about to be very surprised.
“I know the dance,” she murmured. “Lead the way.”
“Actually,” he answered, voice rippling with satisfaction, “I don’t move, Domna. People move for me.” He flourished a single hand, and suddenly all the Nubrevnans cleared away.
Then Safi caught the words of nearby viewers: “Do you see with whom Prince Merik dances?”
“Prince Merik Nihar is dancing with that fon Hasstrel girl.”
“Is that Prince Merik?”
Prince Merik. The name swirled and licked across the floor and into Safi’s ears, glowing with the pureness that only a true statement could.
Well, hell-gates, no wonder the man looked so smug. He was the rutting prince of Nubrevna.
* * *
The dance began, and it did not take long before Merik realized he’d made a mistake.
Where he’d hoped to teach the girl some manners—she was supposed to be a domna, after all, not s
ome street urchin—and perhaps to relieve some of the ever-present rage in his chest, Merik was only serving to humiliate himself.
Because this foul-mouthed domna was a far better dancer than he could have ever anticipated. Not only did she know the four-step—a Nubrevnan dance popular between lovers or performed as a feat of athletic prowess—but she was good at it.
Each triple stamp of Merik’s heel and toe, she repeated right on beat. Each double twirl and flip of his wrist, she managed to throw back as well.
And this was only the first quarter of the Nubrevnan four-step. Once they actually moved body-to-body, he had no doubt he’d be sweating and gasping for air.
Of course, if Merik had paused to consider this offer of a dance before making it, he would have seen the humiliation coming. He’d watched the girl fight, after all, and he’d been impressed by her use of speed and wiles to best a man bigger and stronger than she.
The music stopped its simple four-beat plucking and shifted into the full sliding sound of bows on violins. With a silent prayer to Noden upon His coral throne, Merik strode forward. The March of the Dominant Sea, it was called. Then he paused with one hand up, palm out.
The young domna swept forward. She winked at Merik two steps in and added an almost effortless twirl before meeting him with an upright palm of her own. The Waltz of the Fickle River, indeed.
Their other hands flipped up, palm to palm, and Merik’s only consolation as he and the domna slid into the next movement of the dance was that her chest heaved as much as his did.
Merik’s right hand gripped the girl’s, and with no small amount of ferocity, he twisted her around to face the same direction as he before wrenching her to his chest. His hand slipped over her stomach, fingers splayed. Her left hand snapped up—and he caught it.
Then the real difficulty of the dance began. The skipping of feet in a tide of alternating hops and directions.
The writhing of hips countered the movement of their feet like a ship upon stormy seas.
The trickling tap of Merik’s fingers down the girl’s arms, her ribs, her waist—like the rain against a ship’s sail.
On and on, they moved to the music until they were both sweating. Until they hit the third movement.
Merik flipped the girl around to face him once more. Her chest slammed against his—and by the Wells, she was tall. He hadn’t realized just how tall until this precise moment when her eyes stared evenly into his and her panting breaths fought against his own.
Then the music swelled once more, her legs twined into his, and he forgot all about who she was or what she was or why he had begun the dance in the first place.
Because those eyes of hers were the color of the sky after a storm.
Without realizing what he did, his Windwitchery flickered to life. Something in this moment awoke the wilder parts of his power. Each heave of his lungs sent a breeze swirling in. It lifted the girl’s hair. Kicked at her wild skirts.
She showed no reaction at all. In fact, she didn’t break her gaze from Merik, and there was a fierceness there—a challenge that sent Merik further beneath the waves of the dance. Of the music. Of those eyes.
Each leap backward of her body—a movement like the tidal tug of the sea against the river—led to a violent slam as Merik snatched her back against him. For each leap and slam, the girl added in an extra flourishing beat with her heels. Another challenge that Merik had never seen, yet rose to, rose above. Wind crashed around them like a growing hurricane, and he and this girl were at its eye.
And the girl never looked away. Never backed down.
Not even when the final measures of the song began—that abrupt shift from the sliding cyclone of strings to the simple plucking bass that follows every storm—did Merik soften how hard he pushed himself against this girl. Figuratively. Literally.
Their bodies were flush, their hearts hammering against each other’s rib cages. He walked his fingers down her back, over her shoulders, and out to her hands. The last drops of a harsh rain.
The music slowed. She pulled away first, slinking back the required four steps. Merik didn’t look away from her face, and he only distantly noticed that, as she pulled away, his Windwitchery seemed to settle. Her skirts stopped swishing, her hair fluttered back to her shoulders.
Then he slid backward four steps and folded his arms over his chest. The music came to a close.
And Merik returned to his brain with a sickening certainty that Noden and His Hagfishes laughed at him from the bottom of the sea.
TEN
One by one, the settlers of the Midenzi tribe came to welcome Iseult. To scrutinize the one girl who’d left the commune and now wanted to return.
Iseult’s head felt too light, and snipped hairs scratched at the back of her neck, but like the good Threadwitch she was meant to be, she did not scratch. Nor did she fidget on her stool by the hearth or show any expression beyond the required smile.
The Threads of the Nomatsi were frighteningly pale. Only Corlant’s Threads, pulsing behind Iseult as he stood beside the stove and watched the Greeting, burned at full brightness. Perhaps too bright, even.
By the thirtieth visitor, Iseult was exhausted from pretending that Corlant wasn’t right there, observing like a raptor. Alma’s face remained serene throughout—of course—and the smile she offered visitors seemed genuine. Not to mention tireless.
By the sixtieth visitor, Iseult had petted Scruffs so thoroughly, he actually looked uncomfortable. By the eightieth visitor, he got up and moved.
Stasis. Stasis in your fingertips and in your toes.
“That was only one hundred and ninety-one,” Corlant declared once the final visitor was gone. “Where is the rest of the tribe, I wonder?” Nothing about Corlant’s tone was wondering, and as he coasted toward the door, his Threads were pink with excitement. “I will make sure the whole tribe knows about the Greeting.” He latched a penetrating stare on Gretchya, and in a voice made of mudslides, added, “Do. Not. Leave.”
“Of course not,” Gretchya said, lowering to a stool beside Iseult …
Then Corlant left, and Gretchya was instantly back on her feet. She towed up Iseult while Alma darted for the basement hatch.
“We must hurry,” Gretchya whispered. “Corlant clearly knows what Alma and I have planned. He will try to stop us.”
“Planned?” Iseult asked, but at that moment, there was a sudden slash like the shears through Iseult’s hair. In an explosive spiral, everything that bound the three witches to the village slammed into their chests.
The Threads that bound had broken.
Iseult could not see it, but she felt it. A sudden lurch in her heart that almost knocked her off her feet.
Alma shoved Iseult toward the door. “Run,” she hissed. “To the gate—run!”
Something about Alma’s panicked, green eyes pierced Iseult’s brain. She bolted through the door … only to stumble, arms windmilling to keep her upright.
For a mob waited outside. With lanterns and torches and crossbows. The four hundred Nomatsis who had missed the Greeting had gathered on silent feet, their Threads hidden by Corlant’s magic.
And there was Corlant himself, slithering through the crowd, a head taller than everyone else and Threads writhing with purple hunger.
People scattered from his path. Faces leered in the shadows—faces Iseult recognized, hateful faces from her childhood that made her knees buckle and chest hollow out.
She flung a glance behind her—but the house was empty. Only Scruffs remained, growling with raised hackles.
Iseult waited, breath held, as Corlant raked her with a ravenous gaze that sent purple across his Threads. Then, with deliberate slowness, he crossed his thumbs at Iseult. It was the sign to ward off evil.
“Other,” he said softly, almost inaudible over the evening crickets and the breaths of the crowd. “Hang the other.” Then again, louder. “Other, other. Hang the other.”
The tribe took up the chant. Other. Other. Hang t
he other. The words slid off tongues, venomous and building. The people packed in. Iseult didn’t move. She tried to thrust herself deep into the logic of a Threadwitch. There was a solution out of this—there had to be. But she couldn’t see it. Not without Safi beside her. Not without time to pause and plan.
The people swarmed her. Their Threads erupted with life, as if suddenly set free—a thousand shades of terror-stricken white, and bloodthirsty purple bore down on Iseult. Then hands crushed against her. Fingers grabbed and poked. Her head snapped as her hair was yanked. Tears sprang from her eyes.
Other, other, hang the other.
No one even spoke the words anymore—they were too busy whooping their war cries to the night and screeching for Iseult to die. But their Threads hummed with that same rhythm as they shoved and kicked and groped. As they forced her to shamble one agonizing step after another toward the largest oak in the settlement.
And beneath that four-beat rhythm—Other, other, hang the other—was a rapid three-beat vibration. Puppeteer. Puppeteer. A frightened bass beneath an already violent descant.
Corlant had truly convinced the tribe that Iseult was the Puppeteer, and now she would die for it.
Then the oak loomed before Iseult, a mass of jagged lines against a bright moonlit sky. A man grabbed at Iseult’s breast, his Threads erratically shaking. A woman raked her nails down Iseult’s cheek, her Threads starved for violence.
As spots of pain flecked Iseult’s vision, her heart finally hardened into the stone it was meant to be. Her pulse slowed; her body temperature plummeted; and all the sights, sounds, and pain of the moment vanished behind a wall of objective thought.
This attack was fueled by Corlant. By fear. The people were afraid of the Cleaved and the unknown Puppeteer … and therefore afraid of Iseult.
With your right hand, give a person what he expects—and with your left hand, cut his purse.
“Sever.” The word boiled up in Iseult’s throat, hissed out with spittle. “Sever,” she repeated again, the same hiss. The same thoroughly blank expression on her face. “Twist and sever.”