Page 129 of Witchlight
“That means n-nothing to me.”
“It is the Lament, Iseult, and it cannot be ignored.”
“It can be. I told you already, I’m done with thatgoat shit.” Winds brushed against Iseult now. Charged and smelling of rain, but not a storm yet. Not deadly. Just hot and burgeoning.
Leopold’s Threads were hot too. They rolled against Iseult, through her, gradually claiming mastery over her primary senses. As if by stopping, her body now had no choice but to focus on the pain scorching into her through this god right here.
Her hands were ruined. She couldn’t see them through the Threads, but she didn’t need to. If Corlant’s Threads had left scars…
I don’t care.
“Three of the Twelve are here,” Leopold continued. “I lured them here, by bringing the rulers they are bound to. That is what all those Threads in the distance mean. Rakel and Itosha have followed the king and queen they were created to protect. Ferisien will follow soon, and Lovats too.
“The final battle will begin, but onlyyoucan finish what Lisbet saw a thousand years ago. It is what your Moon Mother wants you to do.The sleeper falls into the sky, awakening, so spring can finally weave. It’s all written, Iseult.”
“Listen to yourself.” Iseult could do nothing but laugh, a barbed, high-pitched sound. The pain was thickening within her body. “You lured the Exalted Ones here, using people as bait. All because you were too cowardly to ask directly.”
“I am asking directly now.” His cheeks twitched. “I am askingyouto finish what must be finished.”
“And I am responding,” Iseult said, “with the answerno.Because that is my right, just as it’s the right of everyone youluredinto this disaster.” Herlungs were struggling to cooperate. There was so much green here, thick and humid. And so much sunlight too. A vibrancy of life that didn’t belong in a place where the world would soon be ending.
And the Threads, of course. Always the Threads. Except, as Iseult watched them, they changed. No longer squirming with the same intensity. No longer racing with the same speed—because they didn’t need to. Their new homes were here; they’d reached their new masters.
In light, twelve will meet on lands long contested.
Iseult had been here before, in the Contested Lands. With Aeduan. She’d saved him by cleaving a Firewitch, repaying one life-debt of many—and forging the first strand of Heart-Threads that she would wear for the rest of her life. A short life, perhaps, but a life she wouldn’t let end without some meaning behind it.
After all, she might not be chosen, but that didn’t make her powerless.
Mhe varujta,she thought, and she finally let go of the Rook King. Leopold’s Threads reeled away from her. Vibrant blue relief erupted across them… before turquoise alarm took hold. Iseult glanced down. Her hands were, indeed, smoking and raw. But good. Perhaps it would make what she was planning to do hurt less.
She turned away from Leopold fon Cartorra. “No,” he called at her back. “No, Iseult, you are no match for those Exalted Ones, nor for the ones who still have not arrived. You cannot stop them.”
She ignored him, and Iseult det Midenzi—who was nobody special at all—walked into the light of the Contested Lands.
For days, Caden and Alma had traveled alone on a road ever westward, and an hour ago, before this quaking and collapse had begun, Caden would have said he felt no closer to the Threadwitch than he had when they’d first met in the Nomatsi tribe. She was inscrutable, and conversation had always been perfunctory.Where do the Threadstones lead? West. We must keep going west.
But now, in this moment, Caden knew all he needed to know about her—and he’d never felt more certain that she was as loyal, as brave as any Hell-Bard he’d ever served with. The steely determination that had settled into her muscles was the only thing that kept Caden going.
Good enough,he thought, and although he still could hardly breathe through the magic that wanted to leave him, he shoved whatever remained of his strength into letting Alma tow him along.
The ringing in his ears magnified with each step. The wind that beatagainst them both blew harder—dry and thick with dust. This way was danger—thisway was where the chaos of the moment aimed.
It was where they’d aimed ever since they’d left the tribe and the Solfatarra. A doorway he’d traveled through before, andthedoorway where the Bloodwitch had found Lev’s and Zander’s nooses.
Then there it was, glowing through the trees: a magic access into the cursed mountain. Blue light seared outward, and although Caden’s whole body felt aflame, he also felt the scratch of powerful, uncanny magic against him.
Alma slowed to a stop. Her panting breaths were lost to the forest still thrashing around them. “They’re through here.”
Caden heaved a nod and dragged himself around to face her. To grip her biceps and make her look at him with her silvery eyes. “You don’t need to go in with me. It will likely be worse in there than out here—”
“No.” Alma clutched Caden’s arms. “You promised to get me to Saldonica, Hell-Bard. If I leave you now you cannot do that.” Then she smiled at him, and it was like the first sunrise Caden had seen after he’d been set free from the noose. Color, life, dimension—they all washed over him in a way he had forgotten was possible.
“I will do all I can to protect you,” he told her.
“I know,” she replied, still smiling. “And remember that Moon Mother lights our path, so Trickster cannot find us.” She tore away from him now, although her hand held fast to him, and she guided him to the doorway, pulsing and brilliant.
Magic scraped against them, and for half a moment, Caden no longer felt as if he were dying. As if the fire of his witchery were being sucked away.
