Page 102 of Witchlight
Aeduan didn’t want to, but he would. He would claimherAether. He would guideherblade.
Iseult had once described to him how it felt when she controlled Threads. It had been a confession, and he’d seen in her a need for absolution.You have controlled people against their will. Please tell me it is all right.But it was not all right; it had never been all right. Aeduan had told himself he needed to control others because he placed the cause—his father’s cause—above all else.
It had been easier that way than to reckon with what he was. With the demon and the monster inside him. With the dog named Boots whom he’d killed all those years ago.
This was the first time, though, that someone had actually told Aeduan,Yes, it is all right if you control me,and there was power in that. A trust he’d never deserved.
Bloodwitches cannot do this,the fon Grieg son had said.They cannot control people like this, freezing them.Killingthem.
I assure you,Aeduan had replied.I am a Bloodwitch.And he was—one with a cause that he’d chosen and that he embraced fully in this moment wrapped in death.
Aeduan latched on to each layer of Safi’s blood. On to the dandelions and the meadows and truth hidden beneath snow. “Move,” he commanded in a voice too low to cut through the battle. “Rise.”
Safi’s eyes opened. She was confused, but she obeyed. Her muscles switched on. Her heart pumped stronger. And with Aeduan’s hands behind her, gripping her at the armpits, she stood. One endless second stretched past. Two more. Then Aeduan was able to release her. To step back, snatch her clean, true blade off the ground.
“Yes,” she rasped as Aeduan offered it to her. And as more Bloodwitchery coursed into her so she could grip it. So she could sheathe it in leather blackened by heat. “Yes.”
It was all the acknowledgment Aeduan needed to continue on, toward Iseult. Toward the Air Well.
I guard the light-bringer,the monks bellowed over the hammering clash of metal and flesh,and protect the dark-giver. I live for the world-starter and die for the shadow-ender.
Lightning singed. Aeduan ignored it. He was two bodies now, his own blood so closely bound to Safi’s that he could feel all the Cahr Awen souls inside her. They had no blood, so his magic could not control them—but they were fireflies in the forest. The ones he’d wished upon months ago, hoping that someone might one day want him to stay.
Now it wasn’t only Iseult who’d answered his wish, it was her Threadsistertoo. She needed Aeduan; sheneededthe magic that had cursed him his entire life.
My blood, I offer freely. My Threads, I offer wholly.
My eternal soul belongs to no one else.
Safi grew stronger as Aeduan’s magic wove deeper into her blood. Her heart pumped with the same rhythm as his—a rhythm to match the booming vow of the Carawens.
Claim my Aether. Guide my blade. From now until the end.
In a tucked-away corner of his mind, Aeduan knew this could not last forever. He felt his old wounds throbbing. He felt them bleeding inside his clothes. But for now, he was standing. He and the light-bringer were walking, thenrunning,and whatever flames decided to erupt again…
They would be a problem for later.
“She… is… not dead,” Safi wheezed. Aeduan had one hand clasped tight over her right forearm, and she in turn clutched his left. Their hearts still beat as one. “Iseult… can still be saved.”
Aeduan did not respond to this. Raiders had seen they were escaping—aiming uphill toward the Well—and their blades flashed as they redirected their attacks. Aeduan drew his own sword. Safi drew hers, and by the time the raiders reached them, it was not merely their hearts that moved as one, but their entire bodies.
They parried, they blocked, they spun. They carved and cut in unison.
Aeduan’s opal warmed in his ear, and vaguely, he realized that he and the Truthwitch were not the only ones moving in synchrony. All the monks—allof them—were swinging and dipping, kicking, pummeling, and thrusting with exactly the same rhythm as Aeduan.
Which was exactly the same rhythm as Safi.
She is controlling us all,he thought, and he recalled what Leopold had said about making these stones centuries ago. Clearly they were more than simple opals meant to summon aid; Aeduan was no longer the puppet master, but rather the puppet controlled by the Cahr Awen.
I guard the light-bringer.Safi stabbed. The Carawens stabbed.
And protect the dark-giver.Safi deflected. The Carawens deflected.
I live for the world-starter.They all slashed.
And die for the shadow-ender.They all swept.
My blood, I offer freely. My Threads, I offer wholly.They all scooped low and drove blades into abdomens and elbows.
