Page 135 of Witchlight
The Bloodwitch named Aeduan stood up, and he ran.
SIXTY-NINE
“No!”Iseult tried to scream.“No, Blueberry, no!”He was flying her away from the Exalted One Itosha.
Maybe Blueberry’s hurt? Maybe he’s dying?Iseult couldn’t easily see. Her vision was devoured by these Threads that wouldn’t break, wouldn’t die. The only way she knew they plummeted down was because of the occasional spurts of awareness: sunrise in the east. Clouds, black and boiling. Forest filled with chopping waves. Sandy, striated megaliths surrounded by fog.
“No!”she tried again, letting her throat rip and the last of her air burst forth.“No, don’t go this way!”
Blueberry kept going that way. Straight down as more boulders launched, propelled by Threads that warned of their approach. Treetops zoomed in, smears of green that split into Iseult’s consciousness.
She thought hail might be hitting them.
Behind Iseult, the Exalted One Itosha howled. She was still leashed to Iseult, but Threads wouldn’t stretch forever. Eventually Iseult’s grip would give out or Itosha would yank Iseult off this bat and kill her.
One final scream for Blueberry.“No, please!”But he still didn’t listen. Instead, he whipped them into a canyon filled with rocks that Iseult knew well. There was the Amonra. There were the red and yellow striations that had eroded into a column-filled canyon.
And there was theexactstone where Iseult had cleaved the Firewitch to save Aeduan.
Beside the stone was Safi. It made no sense, how she could be there, but then, hadn’t Iseult learned at least one truth by now?Threads make decisions the mind cannot.Safi and Iseult didn’t keep finding each other—again and again across the Witchlands—because they were some chosen Cahr Awen pair; they always found each other because they were Threadsisters. That bond, that love, thatchoicewould always bring them together.
Blueberry skidded to a rough landing. Earth and ferns and flowers ripped up, moved by his magic and his enormity. Iseult felt the shacklesconnecting her to him give out. But she couldn’t move even if she’d wanted to. Everything she had was being funneled into her fingers, her knuckles, her palms.
Do not let go. Do not let go.
“Please, let me go.”These were the words of the Exalted One.“Please, let me go. Do not bind me again. Do not leave me to drown for all eternity.”
Hands came to Iseult. Urgent and rough. They dragged her, by wind and by foot, to the pillar where Iseult had given in to the severing, severing, twisting, and severing.
There was no Aeduan here now.Blood. Witch. Blood. Witch.There was only the stone soaking up a hot rain.
“All right, Iz,” she thought she heard Safi say. “I’m taking the first of these Threads. You’ve got to trust me—do you trust me?”
Always.
“Then let go.”
Iseult loosened her fingers. Her knuckles, which were past broken and fully shattered, shook like the world around her. It was a wonder she could move the muscles and bones at all. A wonder there was any agency left inside her. But her grip did loosen. Her fingers did splay.
Safi grabbed hold. One by one, her inexperience evident, but not stopping her, until the last of Itosha’s Threads wove out of Iseult’s fingers into Safi’s.
The Exalted One screamed.
The ease with which Safi had made her Truth-sword wasnothinglike what she did now. She’d made that tool in the stutter between heartbeats, looping and knotting exactly as she’d practiced with her Truth-lens. Intuition had been all she’d needed because it washermagic on a single blade of steel.
Now… it was like the worst test from Habim. Words likeKorelli Double-FasteningorVergedi Inverted Knotkept emitting from her brain.And Safi wanted to shout,I am not a Threadwitch! I don’t remember what any of those words mean!She’d read exactlyonebook on Threadstones, and all of those names were useless if she couldn’t recall how to apply them.
She wanted to ask Iseult for help. Her Threadsister must remember all her lessons from childhood, even if she’d never been able to do what her mother wanted so desperately—and whatshe,Iseult, had wanted so desperately too.
But Iseult had curled too deeply into herself. She was nothing more than a black-clad mound on the muddied earth by Safi’s feet. Which meant that if this task needed completing, it would have to be Safi and Safi alone.
If you wanted to, Safiya, you could bend and shape the world.Her uncle had been right about that, and here she was, literally holding on to the weave of the world. To the Threads that defined air.
Andoh, here was the Arlenni Loop. Here was the Vergedi knot—which yes she could see how to invert if she flipped her left wrist sideways. And all right, sure, Safi would braid these Threads over there together, anchoring them deep into this rock before her. One rock was not enough to hold all of this, so when it could contain no more power, Safi shuffled sideways to another one.
Rains still sliced down, although gentler now. No more hail. No more scalding winds. Instead, there were simply more Threads. More power. More spirals and twists and knots…
And pain. It scored through Safi’s fingertips and up her arms. It flamed into her skull like a lantern. But Safi had felt pain—she hadbecomepain beside the Well when Kahina had tried to keep her out of the waters. This was no different, except now Safi had a purpose: she was undoing the mistakes of the Well.
