Page 79 of Witchlight
In less than a second, Iseult had snatched it off the desk. Two seconds after that, she had the book’s pouch unbuckled from her belt and the bookslid safely inside. “Here, take this. Give it to Safi. Tell her to follow all the markings I’ve made on the map in the middle. It’ll take her right to the Well and should keep her out of sight of any raiders.”
“Yeah, but the raiders are on the move now.” Sky’s Threads were a rusted wariness. “They’re all over the city.”
“I know, but trust me: there are paths to get past the troops. And I’ll meet Safi a-at the Air Well.”
“When?” Sky fastened the book to her own belt. “It’ll take me time to reach her, and then more time for her to get there.”
“I know.” Iseult’s hand moved to her neck, to the Threadstone that wasn’t there anymore, and where instead she found only heavy wood and iron. “But I’ll be there,” she said eventually. “If all goes according to plan, then I’ll be there waiting for her when she arrives.”
“I don’t like this. But… if you say so.”
“I do say so. Now quickly. People are c-coming, and I need one more thing from you. Tell me: Do you have any weapons with you?”
Sky’s Threads blinked with surprise. “Just this.” She slipped a small folding knife from her sleeve.
“Can I have it?”
“Won’t do much.”
“No,” Iseult agreed. But itwouldfit in her boot, and that was all she needed. “Thank you,” she murmured as she took it. Then seconds later, the girl was gone. Iseult was alone.
Outside, chaos gathered and brewed.
Aeduan was being moved. Dragged, actually, across a rough surface that indicated in cruel relief where each of his bones had been broken. Where each of his organs had been perforated and each of his vertebrae knocked into a place it shouldn’t be.
“You,” said a voice Aeduan hated, “are heavier than you look, Monk. Which is forcing me to reevaluate my own fitness—something I do not enjoy doing.”
Aeduan tried to respond, but all that came out was a groan. And try as he might, he could only get a single eye open. Which revealed, as he’d expected, Leopold fon Cartorra.
Aeduan couldn’t smell the man; his magic was too focused on healing a hundred injuries from which most people would never recover. But he knew that sharp jaw and mocking smile.
“Ah, you are awake.” Leopold’s smile turned harder. “Good. I did so want to apologize for how much damage I caused you inside the mountain. You were meant to simply follow me. Not wake up all the Sightwitches. Fortunately for us both, however, you are a man for whom such wounds will not kill, but merely slow.”
Aeduan managed to haul open his other eye.
Leopold sharpened into something more human, with flushed cheeks and curls flying on a cold wind—a wind Aeduan recognized. There was a smell here he would never quite scrape off his bones.
In much the same way he would never quite remove the memories of the Exalted One who’d possessed him.
“No,” he tried to say.Do not bind Nadje inside me again.But of course, such words would not come. Aeduan’s left lung was flattened and his jaw was broken.
“Do not worry, Monk. I have no plans to bind an Old One to your body. It was a useful experiment, but it would not be useful a second time. That said,” Leopold continued, still holding Aeduan’s arms—the only part of Aeduan that felt intact, “youarecorrect that I have brought you to the Aether Well.”
Leopold let go. Aeduan’s arms flopped down. Pain crunched through him, and the six old wounds boomed like tectonic plates in an earthquake.
Overhead, the impenetrable gray of winter in the Sirmayans loomed, no sky to break through. Leopold dropped to a crouch beside Aeduan’s head and blocked out even the clouds. He reached for Aeduan’s face—and Aeduan was pleased when he could snap his head sideways. Press it into the snow that surrounded him.
But it wasn’t Aeduan’s face that Leopold wanted. It was his earlobe and the opal pierced within. “Clever me,” Leopold murmured, sliding his thumb across it, “making these little stones all those centuries ago.” He pinched the opal. His lips torqued sideways.
And Aeduan felt as the summoning magic in the stone sparked through him. A jagged sensation like a tapestry being separated into individual strands. The magic jetted outward, to every Carawen monk nearby. They would realize he was hurt. They would come running to his aid.
Since the Monastery was nearby, that would meanmanymonks would soon converge here.
Leopold released the opal. His frown turned stern and, inexplicably, sad too. As if he regretted all that had happened—not just between him and Aeduan, but for all of the world. “One last thing before I go, Monk:whatever you might think of me, I am not your enemy. I swear it. Just like you, I have only ever served the Cahr Awen, and right now is no different.
“The dark-giver and the light-bringer are about to fail. They will not reach the final Well to heal it—not without help. A greatdealof help, in fact. Which is why I… well, I suppose you could say Inudgedyou here in the first place. I need your fellow monks, and I need them quickly.
“So, once you are healed, you must take the new abbot and all her forces through the mountain.” Here Leopold paused long enough to withdraw a scrap of cloth from his cloak. It was blood-soaked and sang of truth hidden beneath snow.
