Page 44 of Witchlight
“I have already chosen.”
“Yes, but…” Iseult gritted her molars. “No one should have to kill their parent. And wh-whatif it comes to that in Poznin?”
Aeduan’s jaw clenched. His eyes glinted red. “Then I will choose exactly what I chose before.”
Yes, and that is the problem.For Iseult could not deny one powerful thing: she was glad she had not killed Corlant. She wasgladLeopold had shoved that blade through her father’s spine so that she wouldn’t have to. Wretched as it was, it had been a gift.
And Iseult wanted to give the same to Aeduan.
“I will stay here,” he said flatly, “if that is what you want from me.”
Iseult’s eyes screwed shut. She could feel Aeduan retreating into himself. Closing off emotion as adeptly as a Threadwitch. She understood that instinct because it was a match for her own: reject that which might reject you, for it hurt less if you were the one to act.
You can lie to yourself,she’d told him in Tirla.But you cannot lie to me.
She opened her eyes. “I don’t w-wantthis. Of course I don’t want this, Aeduan.”
A pause. A gnarl of fogged breath. Then: “So do not do it.” Fabric rustled, snow crunched, and in a sweep of speed, Aeduan closed the space between them. He knelt before her on the snow. “Please, Dark-Giver. Please… Iseult. My blood I offer freely.”
Iseult reached for his face.
“My Threads I offer wholly.”
Yes,she wanted to say.
“Claim my Aether.”
Yes.She ran a knuckle down his jaw.
“Guide my blade.”
Yes.She gripped Aeduan’s chin and forced his head to rise. Forced his icy gaze to meet hers as he uttered the final words: “From now until the end.”
Yes.Iseult sighed.Blood. Witch. Blood. Witch.The words pulsed through her in time to her heart. In time to her blood. How had she ever thought she could leave him behind?
“Come with me,” she finally offered in Nomatsi. Quiet as the fireflies that had once floated with them beside a different stream in a different forest far away. “Come with me, Monk Aeduan, to Poznin.”
Now his eyes were the ones to shutter, and he was the one to sigh. He sank into her hand. “Yes. I will come.” He slid his fingers around Iseult’s wrist, and pressed his thumb into the place where her pulse did not flutter so much as boom.Blood. Witch. Blood. Witch.
She softened her grip on his chin. His breath was warm against her fingertips, so at odds with the winter night around them. Iseult’s muscles moved without conscious thought. Her thumb stretched long. She touched Aeduan’s bottom lip. Stroked down.
His eyes snapped wide. His breathing ceased, as did hers.
Then he tugged at her wrist. More request than command, but it made Iseult’s legs collapse all the same.
Her knees hit the snow. Her eyes came almost level to his, and therewas a look on his face she’d never seen before. As if he were afraid to hurt her. As if he feared he might break her if he made any further move.
But didn’t he know Iseult better than that? Didn’t heknowshe had gone through seafire to save him and broken a Well to heal him? This frozen moment could do her no harm.
Then it struck her: Aeduan didn’t fearshewould break at his touch. He feared that he would. So she leaned in. An inch. Then two. Closer, closer, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to, needed to.
He didn’t pull away. Their lips grazed. Their breaths mingled. And at last, the Threads of the moment gave way. The red strands that bound them snapped taut.
At the touch of Iseult’s lips, Aeduan broke in two. A stiletto in his heart. A breaking of his spine beside a lighthouse. He felt his magic surge. Inexplicably, because he’d never been able to sense Iseult. Never felt his witchery respond to her nearness. Yet it swelled and burned all the same. No pain in his old wounds, nor even an awareness of the wounds in the first place.
There was only Iseult, pulsing and here.
A moan unraveled from her. The vibration of it curled into Aeduan’s mouth, into his chest. His fingers dug into her wrist; her fingers turned to claws against his chin.
