Page 55 of Witchlight
Aeduan did not answer. He took in the sweat on Safi’s forehead, the faint scar above her brow. He took in the intensity of her eyes and the strength of her grip upon his cloak.
He didn’t like this Truthwitch. Perhaps he never would. She was rash and loud, spoiled and obscene. But there was a steel in her he recognized, a determination to do what had to be done no matter the cost to herself.
And, at the end of the day—at the end of everything that was careening nearer and nearer—Aeduan had sworn his vow to the dark-giverandthe light-bringer. “Yes,” he said at last. “I will take control if I have to.”
Demon. Monster.
Safi nodded. Her shoulders relaxed and her grip on him too. As she drew away, her muscles shook. But Aeduan didn’t let her get far before asking: “What did you mean by consequences?” It was a flat question, almost bored.
“Since we left the lodge, there is something off inside you.” She wiped sticky hair off her brow. “My magic senses it.”
“Like … cleaving?”
“No.” Her breaths sawed in. Out. “Something different. Something else… wrong.”
I can smell it on you: you’re bound to the Void, a cursed beast with ’Matsi poison running in your veins.
“Clearly you don’t want Iseult to know about it. And I don’t want her to know about me. So.” She gestured at her hurt arm. It made her whole body sway. “You will tell her I am healing quickly. Do you understand?”
It was a threat, and against his will, Aeduan found his estimation of the Truthwitch rising. Iseult was their Sleeping Giant, forever pointing north, and if they lost her, then both Aeduan and Safi would have nothing left to follow. No reason to keep traveling to Poznin. When Iseult had called herself a “master,” she hadn’t been far wrong. But it wasn’t because sheforcedpeople to follow. It was because everyone who met her felt compelled to.
So Iseult had to keep going because it was the only way Aeduan and Safi could keep going too. Yet Iseult would stop immediately if she thought either Aeduan or Safi were hurting.
Aeduan bowed his head at the Truthwitch. It was the closest to an agreement he would offer Safi, and she seemed to realize this, since she finally released him. But rather than hobble back to her bedroll, she reached to her neck and withdrew a length of silver chain from beneath her many layers. Bits of quartz and brass dangled off it.
Aeduan’s fingers flexed. “The Truth-lens.”
“Yes, Knifey. Good job at stating the obvious. I… want you to take it. The person I made it for is in Nubrevna, according to Uncle’s spies, and in case I don’t survive this… Well, it’s your job to deliver it to her.”
When Aeduan didn’t claim it from her, Safi sighed. Impatience set her muscles into motion. She shoved it against the skin of his neck and wrapped it around like a scarf. Against his will, he staggered back. “That is… overwhelming.”
True,sang the crystals and glass.True, so very true.It was a heady feeling that buzzed like a hundred Painstones in Aeduan’s skull. He ripped the necklace back off again and thrust it at Safi.
But she flipped out a weak hand of refusal. “You don’t have to wear it, Knifey. You just…”Pant, pant.“Have to deliver it if I can’t. I’d give it to Iseult, but then she’d know what’s wrong with me. So just… shove it in your pocket and deliver it to Vaness if I don’t make it out of the Well.”
“You will make it out of the Well. I already said I would control your blood.”
“To get metothe Well, yes.” Her eyes scrunched. She wiped clumsily at her brow. “But neither of us knows what will come after that.”
There is something off inside you.
Demon. Monster.
The necklace glinted and swung in Aeduan’s grasp. The wounds on hischest throbbed. He didn’t nod or agree, but he did slide the lens into his pocket where it couldn’t affect him.
“Good,” Safi said, though nothing in her voice sounded triumphant. “Now, I can sleep.” She slogged back to her bedroll—and snorted loudly when she got there. “I agree,” she declared as she folded herself back into the covers. “This tent is way too small for this many bodies. But I promise it’s not me that’s stinking up the place.”
Aeduan had nightmares after speaking to Safi. He saw the Cahr Awen ghosts inside her skull, pushing at her like too many crabs inside a basket. He saw Iseult with her abdomen carved out and Threads crawling from it like worms. He saw the Truth-lens, but on each bit of quartz or glass was a shadowy face he couldn’t recognize.
He saw a mountain filled with stars where shadowy ice clawed for anything it could grab on to—except for him. It never dug into him.
He saw four Exalted Ones in quick succession. Ferisien on a mountainside. Itosha on the plains. Rakel beside the sea. And, most violent of them all, Lovats spreading flames. That Exalted One was the one they’d all feared, even Portia with her power over Void. And certainly Nadje, who had never quite known which side he ought to choose.
Then Aeduan smelled it, poignant and inexorable:A sky singing with snow.Meadows drenched in moonlight. Sun and sand and auburn leaves falling.
“Run, my child, run,” said the voice like his mother’s while heat roared, wood cracked, and embers flew. Blood dripped from her mouth. “Run.”
Aeduan did not run. He did not move. He waited, exactly as he had as a child, for the flames to overtake him and the world to burn alive.
