Page 27 of Witchlight
“Oh, shove it.” Safi stomped to the box. “It’s all going to get mixed up on pack horses anyway—”
“It absolutely will not.”
“—so who cares where I put this dried meat and wheel of cheese? Maybe it’ll taste better if it’s with the firepots.”
“We’ve come here at least eight times in the last week, Saf.” Iseult shuffled to the first crate Safi had kicked. “How do youstillnot know where things go?”
“I’m a doer. Not a planner.”
“Painfully accurate.” Iseult wedged off the lid and dropped her own supplies inside: a Firewitched candle that could burn even in high winds, a blanket of salamander fibers, and finally, the newly acquired lanolin jars.
Once it was all inside, she returned the lid, then joined Safi several paces away. It was clear from the way Safi eyed the crates that she still didn’t know what was inside them. “What else are we missing?”
“Not much,” Iseult said. “Just the Aetherwitched troop map, whichyouneed to get. And then a tent… wh-whichI’llget tonight when I go to the tribe.” She now leveled her whole attention onto Safi—who pointedly avoided that gaze. “In other words, Safi: you n-need to talk to Caden. Now.”
A fresh flare of annoyance on Safi’s Threads, but this time it was tinged with mustard shame and a rusted gray dread. Because Safi knew what she had to do, and understandably, she didn’t want to do it.
Iseult could hardly blame her for that. If she had to do to Aeduan what Safi was about to do to Caden…
Well, there was a reason Iseult had timed their departure for when Aeduan was away.
Safi swiped a hand across her hair, brushing snowflakes off the row of short braids she’d made along the top. “Yeah, yeah. Talk to Caden. I’ll do it, Iz.”
“Now.”
“Eventually.”
“Now.”
“I’ll start with the map first.”
“Safi, if you k-keep putting this off—”
“Yeah, yeah, Iz. Iknow. But I promise I’ll get it done before you go to the tribe tonight. Does that satisfy you?”
Iseult grunted. It didn’t satisfy her at all, but she knew when she’d nagged enough.
Safi heaved a sigh. It was a sound so weary, it briefly veiled all her Threads in bruise-like despair. Her spine slumped. “Why does it have to be us, Iz?”
“What do you mean?” Iseult bounced on her feet; her toes were getting numb standing here.
“Why dowehave to be the Cahr Awen? Isn’t it bad enough that I’ve got to be an empress? Now I also have to heal a thrice-damned Well surrounded by raiders?” Safi opened her arms to the crates. “I mean, surely the goddess could have found better candidates than us.”
Iseult snorted, but it was a humorless sound. She didn’t like the worry twining through Safi’s Threads—and she liked even less the way the Cahr Awen souls swelled those Threads to twice their usual size.
“If you’re getting cold feet, Safi, it’s kind of l-late for that.”
“I don’t have cold feet. Well, I doliterally.” Safi lifted a booted toe. “But not about our plans. We’ll leave tonight. I promise. I’m merely wondering philosophically why it has to be us? You know, it’s like asking why the sky is blue. I realize there are no easy answers.”
“The sky is blue because sunlight gets scattered by things in the atmosphere. Goddess, Safi, didn’t you listen to any of our lessons from Mathew?”
A pause. Then a huff. “OfcourseI listened. I meant blue as insad. Why is the sky so sad?”
“Because you keep disappointing it w-with your lies.”
Safi laughed, her Threads brightening with pink, warm in a way the tower around them never could be. “Gods below, Iseult det Midenzi, it’ll be nice when it’s just the two of us again.”
“And by the Moon Mother, Safiya fon Hasstrel.” Iseult smiled back. “I agree.”
