Safi hooked left, into a clump of men bowed low beneath creaking laundry baskets. As they angled onto another road, Safi angled too. She shoved at the nearest man. He tripped, his basket fell, laundry bursting forth to trip the men behind him. Traffic halted, but Safi was already through.
At the next intersection, Safi ran smack-dab into Caden and Vaness. Oh, and there was Zander and Lev too, hurtling ahead and clearing a way through traffic.
She amended her estimation of muck-eating bastards. Though only slightly.
The road ran downhill now, offering a view of the open market, with its seascape of tents rippling on the breeze. Alarm bells rang—when had that begun?—and it meant either more Baedyeds waited ahead or the fire at the inn had spread.
Probably both. Yet no one slowed. Not even Vaness, whom Caden practically carried now. Down they sped, Hell-Bard and heretic and empress alike. Intersections and people streamed past.
Until sure enough, precisely as Safi had feared, they all sprinted into the market and were swarmed by flashes of green and gold. It swam in from all angles. Baedyeds. Angry Baedyeds.
They skirted behind a series of tents, Zander in the lead, Safi at the rear. For the moment, no one followed. This little alley—if it could even be called that—was empty.
What would Iseult do? What would Iseult do?
Then Safi saw, and Safi knew. She couldn’t help it—a smile tore over her face. “Ahead!” she bellowed. “That carriage at the end of the tents!”
Zander needed no more guidance. A carriage was stuck in the crowds, its shadow sweeping into the alley.
And its door quite unlocked, as Safi saw when Zander yanked it wide. The woman inside opened her mouth to scream, but Lev had a knife against her throat before the slightest peep could squeak out.
Then Caden, Vaness, and Safi were crawling inside behind the other two Hell-Bards. They toppled onto the benches, as Safi slammed the door shut.
One ragged breath passed. Two. Three. But if the carriage driver noticed new arrivals in all the chaos outside, he gave no indication.
What followed, Safi would remember for the rest of her life as one of the most peculiar half hours she ever spent. The elegant silence within the rocking carriage clashed with the traffic and alarms outside, while the tasteful blue-felted walls and crimson-curtained windows felt completely incongruous against the five unwelcome visitors, all panting and reeking of smoke.
Not to mention their unwilling hostess, a grandma with eyes of Fareastern descent, who seemed thoroughly unperturbed by the blade Lev held to her neck.
The only thing missing from this absurd tableau, Safi thought, is a waltz humming in the background. Then it could have been a scene right out of the stage comedies Mathew loved most.
“I’m … sorry,” Caden offered to the woman eventually, still trying to catch his breath. “We need … a place to hide.”
“We also need help for Vaness.” Safi twisted to the empress beside her, who seemed barely able to cling to consciousness.
The Fareaster noticed the same, and without moving her arms, she pointed a single finger to a trunk beneath Safi’s bench.
“A healer kit,” Zander said, and the giant—already stooped to fit inside—stooped even more to tug it out from between Safi’s legs.
“Careful,” Caden warned, though his attention was on the empress. On keeping the cloth pressed to her gushing nose. “This woman is a slaver. She can’t be trusted.”
“A slaver?” Safi scoffed. “I don’t think so. Look at her.”
The woman’s eyes shot side to side. Confused by the Cartorran language, perhaps, but not afraid.
“I am looking,” Caden shot back. “At that healer kit. It’s what slavers bring to the arena, since so many of their contestants come out of the fights half dead.”
“He’s … right,” Vaness croaked—and Safi’s magic hummed, True. Yet even as she held the old woman’s dark gaze, she didn’t see how it was possible. This slight grandma looked so kind and compassionate.
There are degrees of everything, Caden had said the day before, which doesn’t fit well into your true-or-false view of the world.
Carefully, and with his enormous muscles bracing for a trap, Zander opened the trunk. No fires erupted; no poisons sprayed. Instead, they found exactly what was promised: a healer kit.
“May I?” Zander asked the woman with painstaking politeness—one more absurdity to add to the scene. But the woman was already twirling her hands toward Vaness as if to say, Hurry, hurry!
Zander hurried, rummaging through to find a blood-thickening tonic. Safi hurried, grabbing the bottle from the giant. Then Caden hurried too, ditching the soaked cotton and tilting up Vaness’s chin. A thick, syrupy tincture the color of old blood slid into her mouth.
Then everyone in the listing carriage stared—hard and relentless—at the Empress of Marstok.
She sucked in a breath, coughed once, and lowered her head. No blood poured from her nose. Her eyes, though red-rimmed, were open and alert.
As one, Safi’s and the Hell-Bards’ postures deflated. Their breaths collectively whooshed out.
Vaness, meanwhile, dragged her gaze over each Hell-Bard in turn. Zander, Lev, then Caden. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us yet.” Caden inched aside the curtain, squinting into a sliver of sunlight. “The alarms are still clanging, and we’re surrounded on all sides. It’s only a matter of time before they start searching carriages.”
“What about the Red Sails’ territory?” Safi asked. “Couldn’t we go there? Hide until this passes?”
Though Safi directed her question at Caden, it was the Fareaster woman who spoke. “They are united now.” Her voice was a husky, rounded thing. “The Baedyeds and the Red Sails have allied under the Raider King’s banner. He has promised them all of Nubrevna and Marstok in return.”
Caden glanced at Safi, but there was nothing she could do beyond nod—for the grandma’s words shivered with truth.
“Hell pits,” Lev muttered at the same time that Caden groaned.
Vaness scooted forward, steel in her posture. “Why do you tell us this?”
“It is bad for business.” The old woman’s nose wrinkled and her tone turned frosty with condescension. “If the two sides become one, then trade is no longer controlled by supply and demand.”
“You mean the arena is no longer controlled by it,” Caden countered, and the woman simply bounced a single, unimpressed shoulder. As if to say, Same idea.
All the while, the carriage trundled on.
“Do you go there now?” Lev asked. “To the arena?”
The woman’s nod sent Caden slouching back. “Good enough.” He flashed a Chiseled Cheater grin at Safi and Vaness. “Our men are at the arena. Once we free them, we’ll leave this festering swampland far behind. Together. Just as promised.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
It took several hours to descend the cliffs beside the Amonra Falls. The humidity and heat were suffocating, rising up from the gorge below.
Iseult never uttered a word about it, and of course, Aeduan didn’t either.
He walked in front now, as if Iseult had passed whatever test he’d issued the day before. Or perhaps he’d just forgotten not to trust her. She suspected both. He’d also given her the salamander cloak and reclaimed the bland coat she’d first found him in.
It meant something—giving her that cloak for a second time. And though Iseult didn’t know what precisely, she did know it felt good to be back beneath its thick fibers.
Especially since something fundamental had snapped inside her.
Hours after the fact and miles away, she finally understood it must have been her heart. That when Aeduan had told her she was not the Cahr Awen, she had felt a grief so rough, it had bowled her over and dragged her down. But at the time, all she had known was that this was her confirmation. This was her proof.
She was broken. She was useless. She was the pointless half of a friendship. The one who wo
uld live forever in shadows, no matter what she did. No matter whom she fought. Never had Iseult asked for anything. Not since learning as a little girl that rusted locks on a door were the best she could ever hope for.
Then she’d met Safi, and secretly, silently, so deep no one would ever find it, Iseult had started to hope that her life might turn into something. Little dreams weren’t so bad. Iseult could brush against them from time to time, and no one would ever be the wiser.
Only now, now that she couldn’t have this one huge dream that she’d been whispering to herself couldn’t possibly be true … That she was part of the Cahr Awen. Only now did she realize how hungry she’d actually been for it.
All along, since she was a little girl.
Fanciful fool.
Attacking Aeduan had felt good. Too good. Iseult had lost herself in the sparring. In the grappling. In the bright bursts of pain each time Aeduan landed a blow.
She’d been soaked in sweat by the end, her chest heaving long before her body had given up; Aeduan had been too. Though Iseult’s form had grown ragged, erratic as the sparring went on, and though he’d thrown her, strangled her, blocked her every punch, the Bloodwitch had never eased up or backed down.
Then racing him through the forest—that had felt even better. More fun than Iseult had had in a long time. A long, long time, and she was grateful for it. Even now, with welts and bruises and aching calves. Perhaps, once the sore muscles fully took hold and she was too stiff to walk, Iseult would change her mind. But she suspected not.
After all, pain was her lesson for dreaming too big.
The valley beyond the Falls was blessedly cool. Ferns shivered on the breeze here, along with white- and yellow-petaled asphodels. Trees were rare, replaced by massive stone pillars that grew up from the earth, chiseled and striated by a river’s changing course. The columns were all widths, all heights, all colors.
And always silent. No men traveled here.
Eventually, Aeduan led Iseult outside the narrow gorge, where the land opened into flat floodplains. Oaks reappeared, as did full shade against the sun.
Signs of humanity reappeared as well, but not of the living men who waited ahead. These were battlefields from a time long past, long forgotten.
Rusted helms and chest plates. Swords, spears, arrowheads. Signs of death were everywhere Iseult’s gaze landed, some pieces so ancient, the earth and ferns had laid claim. Iseult would discover them only when they crumbled beneath her feet. Other remnants were new enough to shine, untouched where they’d fallen, left to cook beneath a boiling sun.
There were skeletons too, most shrouded in moss. Though not always.
“Why is this here?” Iseult asked eventually. “Why did no one bury or burn their dead?”
“Because there weren’t enough survivors left to do so.” Aeduan dipped right, drawing Iseult south. Closer to the Amonra. Huge, smooth river boulders disrupted the soft soil here and saplings groped for the sky at odd angles.
The forest was eerily quiet, as if even the animals knew this place was damned. As if they knew pirates approached by boat.
So Iseult kept her voice low. “Why so much fighting? Is the land valuable?”
“There is nothing of value here.” Aeduan also spoke softly. “Yet men have always believed that they know better than those who came before. That they will be the ones to claim the Contested Lands.”
He hopped a stony rise and reached back, offering Iseult his hand. She took it, glad for the help even if her sore knuckles protested. His fingers were warm against hers.
“At the Monastery,” he went on, releasing her, “they taught us that when the Paladins betrayed each other, they fought their final battle here. Their deaths cursed the soil, so no man can ever claim the Contested Lands. I think it all a lie, though.”
“Why?”
He took a moment to answer, his hand flexing, as if she’d squeezed too tight.
“Because,” he said eventually, the slightest frown marring his brow, “it is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes. This land is no more cursed than any other. It is simply steeped in too much blood.”
With that statement, Aeduan resumed his forward hike, and Iseult followed. For another mile, they encountered no signs of human life. Only ancient, forgotten blood. Until Aeduan abruptly froze midstride.
“Red Sails,” he murmured, crouching. Sniffing. “The ones who hunted you. We must circle north.” He made it only three steps, though, before he paused a second time. Now his eyes shone crimson from rim to rim.
He abruptly turned to Iseult, his coat flicking like a cat’s tail. “Wait here,” he commanded. “I need to check something.”
Iseult had no chance to speak before he had disappeared back into the forest. Her nose wiggled, but she made no attempt to follow. The Bloodwitch had guided her true so far, and only stasis would serve her well.
Or so she told herself as the heartbeats shivered past—and as the earth began to shake. Just a soft jolt. Almost imperceptible, save for how it sent Iseult’s ankles rolling. Sent moths zipping up around her.
Then the earth trembled again, and this time, more than mere moths spun free. A giant swarm of starlings abandoned their branches and swooped above the trees.
A third quake shivered through the land. A great kick of the earth that sent Iseult tumbling to the ground. She immediately shoved back upright, pulse beating faster, but the ground still moved. Branches shook; leaves fell; squirrels and martins and thrushes now raced past.
A shadow swooped over the forest. Massive. Winged. And throbbing with bright silver Threads. Only once had Iseult seen Threads like those.
On sea foxes.
There are worse things in the Contested Lands than Bloodwitches.
Iseult had assumed Aeduan meant worse humans than Bloodwitches—men like the Red Sails. Yet as the shadow streaked closer, silver Threads sparkling along its heart, she realized Aeduan hadn’t meant humans at all.
He’d meant mountain bats, those massive serpentine creatures of myth. Those ancient scavengers of the battlefield.
Iseult scrabbled to her feet and ran.
* * *
There was only one reason Aeduan stalked toward the armies ahead—and he was certain there were armies.
He had smelled broken knuckles and torn-off fingernails, a stink that stood out against all the others. A sign the leader of the Red Sails lurked somewhere nearby. Yet it was the scent lingering beneath that wretchedness that hounded Aeduan. That propelled him ahead, the Threadwitch completely forgotten.
Rosewater and wool-wrapped lullabies. A child.
Cold spread through Aeduan’s gut. Into his lungs, into his fists, it boomed in his eardrums. Only twice in the past decade had this feeling—this memory—been summoned fully to the surface. Twice, Aeduan had looked it directly in the eye and said, “Yes. Today, you can come out.”
Both times, people had died at Aeduan’s hands. Both times, he’d felt an inescapable need to even a life-debt for somebody else.
Today would mark number three.
Run, my child, run.
He moved with extreme care through the terrain, sandy and soft with the river so close. His muscles—his witchery—screamed to ignite. With speed. With power. But blood lived in the air here, saturating the floodplain like the stink on a mosquito-infested pond. Aeduan forced his feet to creep onward with agonizing slowness.
He reached the river and stopped beside a peeling silver birch. The scents Aeduan followed—the child and the Red Sails leader—trailed off to the north, away from the river. Aeduan followed, his witchery coursing through his muscles. Creatures cleared from his path. The earth shook, a distant distraction.
All Aeduan felt was the cold in his fists, the murder in his veins.
Then he was there, at a campsite beside a trickling creek. It was so familiar. So similar to that day fourteen years ago.
Seven men lingered here, most waiting within a well-made tent wi
th golden stripes circling the edges. The sort of tent Aeduan had seen wealthy families take on picnics.
These were the men Aeduan had encountered the day before. The men who had hunted the Threadwitch.
Aeduan stepped into the clearing, distantly pleased when the earth chose to tremble not two breaths later. The lone guard outside spotted Aeduan. His beard was greasy, while his fine, oiled cloak had clearly been claimed off the back of a traveler. He threw anxious glances at the sky before advancing on Aeduan.
But the idiot didn’t draw his weapon. Then again, neither did Aeduan.
The man stomped forward, silicate gravel crunching underfoot as his gaze swept over Aeduan. Whatever he saw, it didn’t impress him.
Which was good. The closer he came to Aeduan, and the farther he stepped from that tent, the easier this fight would be.
“You should not be here.” The guard was close enough now to be heard over the earth’s quaking, the forest’s creaking. His beard was trimmed to a long point like men in the northlands favored. “Turn around and leave.”
Again, a sharp look at the sky. Then a shadow hurtled over, swooping up winds and drawing Aeduan’s gaze too.
A mountain bat soared overhead. Distantly, it occurred to Aeduan that he’d never seen such a creature before. It was both larger and leaner than he’d expected, and with a long tail whipping behind. Otherwise, though, the monstrous bat looked exactly like the smaller fruit bats in the jungles to the south.
Aeduan supposed he ought to be afraid.
He wasn’t. The cold in his blood needed release, and the child trapped inside that tent needed help. That was all that mattered now.
He twisted back to the slaver, who was clearly at a loss for who posed more of a threat: Aeduan or the mountain bat. To Aeduan, the answer was obvious. “You should run now,” he warned the man. “Or I will kill you.”
The man’s lips curled back. “Seven of us and only one of you.” He grabbed Aeduan’s shirt.
“Exactly,” Aeduan said. “Which is why you should be running.” Then, with a speed that no man could match, he clutched the man’s hand to his chest, and punched up. His fist connected just above the elbow, breaking the joint and snapping the humerus in two.