Page 87 of Witchlight
And for the first time since Esme had arrived as a weasel in Cartorra two months ago, carrying pages of Eridysi’s diary in her sharp predatory teeth, it hit Iseult with full, step-stumbling force that the Puppeteer had been punished too lightly. That by saving her life, bybindingher soul to an animal, Leopold had given Esme a second chance she did not deserve.
All of these children and aunts and partners, all these soldiers and traders and beggars and students—they were simply in the wrong place when Esme had learned to use her magic.
And when the Raider King urged her to do so.
All of these lost souls, their Threads severed from warmth, movement, love—that was Esme’s doing. And the Raider King’s too.
As he led Iseult past them, his own Threads focused inward and his eyes unseeing of all these people he’d consigned to this fate, Iseult forced herself to stare at him. To nurse a growing fury, a hardening resolve. He might now be armored, but there were gaps at his joints. Her knife could slip in, sever a key tendon while her other hand claimed his sword.
She’d need that blade at his hip if she wanted to fully end him.
They were almost to Esme’s tower now. Iseult recognized it against the sky, even if she’d never actually been inside. There was a resonance to it. Another old place, where the walls between this world and the Old Ones’ were thinner.
Now, it was crowded with Threads. Determined, orderly Threads bound together in a common task Iseult couldn’t discern from this distance. And Ragnor pointedly did not take Iseult nearer, even though she knew it was the most direct route to the Well. Instead, he steered her downa smaller alley, then across an overgrown courtyard, where vines had crept over the Cleaved and snow had gathered on their feet.
Iseult made herself look at each face in the dawn shadows.I will fix this. I will heal the Well and free you.Then she made herself look again at Ragnor. His left armpit had the largest gap when he moved.
“Are you well rested?” Ragnor asked in a voice that was too kind. It hinted at the father he might have been to Aeduan… had raiders not attacked his family and set him down this path.
“Yes,” Iseult told him. Then, as he led her onto another small back street, she added: “Why are you taking me this way? What are all your raiders doing?” She pointed toward the Threads east of them.
“You mean why did I not include these plans on my desk for you to read?”
Iseult’s nose wiggled. “Yes.”
“Because as much as I want to trust you, I cannot.”
“Trustme?” Iseult half sniffed, a sound that was pure Safi.
“Indeed.” Ragnor’s Threads brightened with earnest intensity. He opened his hands, gloved in thick leather. “For I have something I am hoping you will do.”
Ah, so this must be what Kahina had referenced accidentally. “What?” Iseult asked.
Ragnor didn’t answer. They were on a street crowded with so many Cleaved, it was like saplings reaching for sunlight.
This was where Esme had died, her Threads snipped away. Her army suddenly left with no one to animate them. Iseult had seen Esme’s final moments, directly through Esme’s eyes. She recognized these particular Cleaved huddled right here at the foot of the hill where the Air Well lived.
As Ragnor moved easily, comfortably,horriblyaround the abandoned Cleaved, Iseult found each step harder to claim. There was a vibration in the air. It made the snow look sloppy and loose, made Iseult’s skin chafe beneath her many layers.
It’s the Well,she thought. Although whether she could sense that because of her magic’s connection to Threads… or because she was the dark-giver, andthiswas where Lady Fate had been leading her all her life, Iseult couldn’t say. All she knew was that Ragnor seemed not to sense it.
She also knew that this Origin Well would not heal as easily as the others before it had. Iseult and Safi would need every droplet of magic they had to bring this magical spring back into life. To finally heal Sirmaya and all of the Witchlands.
The weight of that task made Iseult’s feet drag through snowbanks.Stasis,she thought.Separate yourself from the Threads of the world. You know what you have to do.
The hill seemed interminable. More Cleaved. More death that wasn’t death. Until at last, Ragnor crested the hill with Iseult just behind. Six oak trees, branches barren and trunks pocked, circled the Well, which had frozen over save for a central gap where water blinked up at the dawn.
Such dark water. Like a pool of Severed Threads. It even wriggled like the Threads of the Cleaved as snow fell onto it. Although the sun might climb higher east of Poznin, it didn’t reach here. This place was a timeless gray.
“The Wells,” Ragnor said, stopping at a crooked edge where snow gave way to ice, “were never meant to be ours, Iseult. Magic was never meant to belong to the people.” His voice took on a coarse quality, as if the gray that lurked around them was changing the very nature of his throat.Or as if we are stepping back in time. “Sirmaya created the Paladins as conduits of her power. Then six of the Twelve died and their power bled into the land.
“For one thousand years, we have been stealing Sirmaya’s magic. Draining it away. You know this is true. She has no strength left.”
Iseult did know that, but when she spoke, her voice was weaker than she wanted it to be. “But how does cleaving the W-Wells help Sirmaya? How will that restore Her strength?”
“Consider it with your logical Threadwitch mind, Dark-Giver. If you and the light-bringer heal this Well, the magic might briefly heal across the Witchlands. But Sirmaya will be drained again after that. Again and again for all eternity.”
“But that is why the Cahr Awen exist: t-to heal again and again.”
