Page 45 of Witchlight
She swiveled her hand in Aeduan’s grasp—a move he had taught her months ago, in one of their many sparring sessions across the Sirmayans. It broke his grip and forced his entire arm to follow wherever she led it.
Which was above him. Then behind him, so that he abruptly toppled backward onto the snow. Iseult toppled with him, bracing her legs on either side of his body with such ease Aeduan would have been vexed by her win—if he weren’t so transfixed by her above him. Had she always looked so powerful? Had she always felt so strong, with her face of shadows and moonlight? Her lips shuddered with each breath. Her hair flew on the breeze, and her thighs trembled against his waist.
“I will stop,” she murmured, “if you want me to.”
“Te varuje,”he replied.
And there was that smile of hers. Subtle and disarming. It sent a thrill into Aeduan’s gut. Made his witchery and his desire respond in turn. He flipped her.
She saw it coming, of course, but he was much too fast for her to stop. His hips bucked; his right leg swung out; she fell. Yet before her back couldhit the snow, Aeduan caught her and eased her down. She grabbed his baldric in two white-knuckled fists. Then he settled her onto the cleared patch of snow his body had left behind.
“You shouldn’t waste energy,” she told him, “on showing off.”
“And you should not challenge someone more skilled than you.”
“Then teach me,” she replied, and she yanked Aeduan to her. Their lips touched a second time. Their teeth and tongues too, while Aeduan’s mind, Aeduan’s body, and Aeduan’s magic shattered all over again.
TWENTY-ONE
Caden fitz Grieg knew his own weaknesses. Intimately. And one in particular had always bothered him: he was not well educated. Wasn’t it bad enough to be a nobleman’s bastard? Why did he have to be an ignorant one too? He’d found ways to compensate, of course. He couldn’t recite every emperor that had come before Henrick III or what the architectural style around the palace courtyard was (he thought those curvy things might be called buttresses?), but he could read people. He knew what their emotions were as plainly as if they’d been written on their faces.
He’d asked Iseult det Midenzi—half in jest, half in seriousness—if this was what Thread magic was like. She’d said no, but then, in that thoughtful way of hers, she’d added:Though I suppose that makes you even more dangerous than we are.He hadn’t been sure what she meant by this, and now weeks later, he still didn’t know.
What hedidknow was that the Nomatsis didn’t like having him in their tribe.
And honestly, he couldn’t blame them.
Caden stood in the empty clearing where the tribe had disassembled their camp. Tents had been folded down to their component parts, then rolled tightly into packs for all the mules and horses. The cooking fires were long gone, no smoke to linger in the frostbitten air, and if the Nomatsis bustling about felt any disdain for the brown-haired, freckled Cartorran in their midst, they weren’t showing it. At least not in obvious ways.
Caden felt their secret glares. Hefelttheir nervous confusion, and although he’d tried to ease it with a few smiles, he only ever got hostile stares in return.
Thank the hell-gates I’m not traveling with them anymore.
He’d been grateful for the idea, and hewouldhave followed through. But then the Bloodwitch had shown up at midnight with Lev’s and Zander’s nooses. Monk Aeduan had found them right beside the Earth Well,so that was where Caden now planned to travel. And honestly, Iseult’s mother had seemed as relieved as Caden that he wouldn’t be staying with the tribe.
Gretchya had, however, insisted she at least give him the promised Threadstones before he go.
So here he stood, awkward, stiff, and cold while he waited for the apprentice to walk his way. She was beautiful. Unnaturally so. Like a sculpture carved from ice: he could look and appreciate the attention to detail, but ice didn’t make good company. “Come,” she said in accented Dalmotti. “We are ready.”
Caden nodded, and feeling the stares of literallyeveryonein the tribe on his back, he traced after Alma through the camp’s remains to the only two things still intact in these old ruins: a Threadwitching desk and low stool. Light and color flashed from tens of gemstones that lay before Iseult’s mother. She sat with her eyes closed until Caden was near. Then her hazel eyes snapped wide and fixed onto the space above his head.
One breath. Two. Her gaze lowered to meet his.
And Caden forced himself to stare.I know you see what I’m feeling, but I’m not afraid of you.
“We see what you feel,” Gretchya said as he came to a stop at the table, “but we do not see what you are thinking. Your mind, Hell-Bard, remains your own.”
These words didn’t comfort Caden much, but rather than say,I’d prefer if my feelings were my own too,he simply bowed his head. “Tell me what I must do.”
It was Alma, again, who spoke: “In order to find your Thread-family, we will need to craft three Threadstones. One will be for you, then two will be for your friends.”
“Choose,” Gretchya commanded, “three stones. Let your hands guide your arm.”
Don’t hands always guide arms?Caden frowned at the jewels. The attention of the tribe watching him was like a frozen wind he couldn’t wriggle out of. If he thought he’d felt tall and discordant in the middle of the camp, now he felt like the gap in a coat of armor.
He knew of Threadstones, of course. His fellow soldiers had loved to acquire them—sneakily, since Nomatsis weren’t welcome in Cartorra. For safety, for love, for beauty. But Caden had never had one for himself. And he’d never wanted one.
“May I touch the stones?”
