Page 39 of Witchlight
“Was not, but now is.” He smiled, and although he didn’t add it, Iseult could practically hear him saying:Because I slayed her. She was in Corlant’s body, and I killed Corlant so you would not have to.
“Why are you here, Leopold?” Iseult spoke more forcefully now. “Why are you in this tower, lurking so I’ll find you? I w-want an honest answer. None of your charm or lies.”
“Ah, but charm is a prince’s only weapon, remember?”
“And you are not a prince anymore.”
He laughed. A twinkling sound that clashed with the brutal frustration in his Threads. “I am here because it would seem that you and Safiya are leaving. Abandoning all the forces Dom fon Hasstrel and Monk Evrane have assembled for you.”
Iseult wanted to recoil. Wanted to gasp.How does he know? Who has he told?But she clung to her Threadwitch training. She was stasis through and through.
“It will be a march to your death,” Leopold continued. “If you travel east, just the two of you, you will not survive long enough to heal the Well. You will not even reach Poznin, for that matter. The Raider King is not a man to be trifled with. He is the greatest strategic mind of the last millennia.”
Iseult presented a thoughtful silence. One breath. Two. Then she said coolly: “I’m surprised you would say that about someone who isn’t you.”
A snort and a flash of Threads that, for once, actually matched the amusement on his face. “Why do you think I made him my general? I know what my strengths are, and they are not battlefield tactics. Meanwhile, Ragnor has both knowledge and experience that span generations.”
“So why not kill him?” Iseult flipped a dismissive hand. “Why not use a-all your sneaking and shadowy tricks to eliminate him, Leopold?”
Another snorting laugh, this time with Threads of violet disappointment. As if Iseult was a particularly slow pupil. Against her will, heat burned in her chest.
“Trust me, Dark-Giver: I have tried to kill him, but he has accounted for every strategic possibility—including assassination. So only brute force will get you through his armies.”
“Brute force,” Iseult repeated. “Meaning people will die. Countless people—on his side and ours. Don’t you care about that at all?”
“Not particularly.” Leopold opened his arms. The black of his clothes smeared like wings. “Either we lose thousands of lives now or we lose the entirety of the Witchlands when Sirmaya dies. Tell me which sounds preferable to you.”
“Funny how you never putyourlife at risk, though.”
A sneer carved down Leopold’s handsome face. His Threads, however,remained placid and unperturbed. “You have no idea what risks I’ve taken. I have donenothingbut help you and Safiya. Please recall who found you in Tirla, all alone. Who reunited you with your Threadsister in Cartorra. Whogaveyou an army, that you foolishly set free—”
“Because Hell-Bards are people, not tools.”
“—and who killed your father so that you would not have to.” Leopold strode toward Iseult, closing the distance between them until all she could see was his face. All she could feel was the icy core of his Threads, crackling with static and cold. He had a Paladin’s Threads. Overwhelming in power and violent in their intensity.
“Everything that has gotten you and Safiya this far—it has beenmydoing.”
“No.” Iseult cocked up her chin. “It has been your manipulation. Because you work forever behind the scenes, never willing to take direct action. Why is that, I wonder?” She canted toward him. Closer, closer, until only inches separated them in this cold, hazy place of nothing. “I think you avoid direct action, Leopold, b-because then, if you fail, you can absolve yourself of any blame.”
The silvery core of his Threads dilated. The sneer carved deeper. But Iseult wasn’t finished yet.
“Tell me, Leopold, how many Cahr Awens have you nudged along and given armies to over the last thousand years? How many of them failed and died because you refused to ever work with them directly?”
“I will not let you and Safiya go alone to Poznin. I will not let you leave this lodge without an army.”
“And what will you do to stop us?” Iseult motioned to her body, still seated in the real world with the diary upon her lap. “Stopping us would require you to act, and I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
“Do not underestimate me, Dark-Giver.”
“Do not underestimateme,Trickster.”
The sneer fell away. In its place, a smile spread over Leopold’s lips, like an asp coiling to strike. His Threads folded outward in a meteor shower. “Trickster,” he purred. “Yes, that is what you so love to call me. But what is it the Nomatsis say?May the Moon Mother light your path, and may Trickster never find you.
“Well, I have found you. And I have acted in a manner that is quite direct and not at all conducted behind the scenes.” Now Leopold was the one to motion, although not toward Iseult but rather to the dark corner where her supplies awaited.
They were not so dark now.
“Enjoy the flames, Iseult. They burn so brightly in this ancient place of memories.” Leopold backed away. The charge of him receded, his body fading like smoke into the sky.
