Page 148 of Witchshadow
“I will fight as best I can, but…” He swallowed. Tried to sit up, face tightening, but he’d lost too much blood and he couldn’t resist when Safi knelt and pushed him back down. His wound spurted. “Please find Zander and Lev. If you can. Even if it’s just bodies, I’ll die easier knowing—”
“No oneis dying.” Safi shot back to her feet, head wagging. “That’s not an option. It’sneveran option. Plus, Iseult will be done in the Dreaming soon, and she’ll be able to track their Threads—”
A squeak broke through the tower. Safi’s gaze lurched toward the weasel, racing toward her. It clawed up her body with ease, and just like with the old crow, a sensation of words, of meaning cut through Safi’s mind.
Person. Here.
Then the weasel shared an image of Henrick fon Cartorra. He wore simple hunting clothes, forest green draped in snow, and were it not for the crown still clutching his brow, he might have been no more than a weary soldier. He moved with a comfortable stealth Safi had suspected, but never seen.
And he was right outside the tower.
“Is he alone?” Safi asked the weasel, but she knew the answer well before the creature shoved her frozen nose into Safi’s cheek.
More soldiers,she showed.Dressed like Henrick, circling through the trees. Approaching without noise and with swords clasped tightly.
“Cow piss and goat shit,” she snarled. “Henrick is here.”
“I am,” said a voice behind her, and when she spun about, hands rising, she found him stepping lightly through the tower’s ancient door.
There was a logic to Iseult’s plan—haphazard though its assembly had been. And as wrong, wrong,wrongas the final impetus was. But it was as if the last two days had slowly contributed a scaffolding of ideas and knowledge.
First, she knew that Corlant wanted the Threadstones more than anything. So badly, in fact, he’d been willing to trek all the way across Cartorra to claim them from a capital filled with soldiers.
Second, she knew that Threadstones possessed power, and as a Weaverwitch, Iseult could take that power. She could cleave the Threads bound to stones and absorb them as her own.
Third, she knew that Corlant was not what he pretended to be. He was not a Purist, he was not a priest, and he was not even truly human. He was a Paladin reborn with the raw power of the Void coursing through him. Iseult could never defeat him on her own.
Nor could she fix what she had done by unraveling her mistakes and weaving anew. Not without power. Not without whatever rested inside the Threadstones she and Safi shared.
They rested now on the ruins, exactly as they were in life, except that here they glowed with such brilliance, Iseult had to shield her eyes. In fact, they shone brighter than Corlant’s Threads, thickening behind her.
And it was like stepping into daylight. The longer Iseult stared at the stones, the more she saw within and around. Hundreds of Threads—thousands even—climbing and flying, coiling and connecting toward the cloudy sky. Unlike Corlant’s storm these Threads wore only a single shade: the sunset of friendship. The sunset of family.
And the last nail in her scaffolding hammered down. No wonder Corlant wanted these stones. The bonds of love were powerful. It was why Esme had always cleaved the Threads that bind. And now such power was contained in two uncut rubies wrapped in string.
This was more magic than Corlant could gather in a morning. More magic than he could gather in a lifetime, and now all Iseult had to do was take it.
Her nose wiggled, skin stretching with cold. All she had wanted these past weeks was more power. All she neededright nowwas more power, and it rested before her. Yet something pricked at the back of her mind. Not her conscience, but her logic. As if there might still be one nail missing.
Thunder rolled from Corlant’s storm, audible even in the Dreaming. So without another thought, Iseult grabbed the first stone’s Threads and chomped down. Hard. And as her teeth cut in, she felt no resistance. No fiery pain like cleaving a person, no frozen ice like hurting a Hell-Bard.
These were ocean shallows on a hot day, tender and soothing. Welcoming and warm. Sheer pleasure to touch. Then the power washed over Iseult, a wave of strength to buoy her toward some nearby shore she hadn’t known she’d been swimming toward. Her chest swelled with a feeling she didn’t recognize. Her muscles and blood relaxed.
She had never felt so good in her entire life. It was as if there was nowhere else to be. As if past, present, and future all rested inside this moment and these Threads.
So content was she, she almost missed the chanting, cascading upward, carried on currents of power directly from the stones.Finally,they seemed to say, swelling in Iseult’s veins and in her eardrums.Finally, finally we are saved.
“What are you?” Iseult tried to ask, but the Threads had no answer. The stones had no real voice. All they could say wasFinally, finally we are saved.Then they rushed against the Windwitch souls, not simply swallowing them but rubbing them away. Smoothing them down like waves to a stone.
And for a fraction of a moment, the clouds parted—in the Dreamingand in life. Both sun and moon beamed down, sharpening the endless gray and revealing faces within the Threads. They smiled at Iseult, as familiar as her own pulse even though they were unknown.
Use us well,they seemed to sing. Then the last of the Threads, the last of these lost and forgotten dark-givers, fused into Iseult’s being. A vast piece of her soul she’d never known she was missing.
Ah.So that was the nail she’d lacked. That was why Corlant wanted these stones and why he’d kept Iseult so near. That was why no Cahr Awen had been seen in so many years and why Aeduan had declared the Water Well only half healed. Corlant had killed and bound their souls—many of them only children—leaving each reincarnation weaker. Smaller.
Until now.
Iseult smiled at the altar. At Safi’s stone still shining. She would release those Threads too, let them flow into the light-bringer. Then she would leave the Dreaming and use her new power, ancient as the ruins around her, keen as a blade honed by moonlight.
