Page 181 of Brimstone
Iseabail bridled at Lorreth’s comment but didn’t say anything to him directly. Wouldn’t even look at the warrior. To me, she said, “Fine. I’ll try again for you, but you shouldn’t expect a different result. I’ve been staring at this map for so long that my eyes feel like they’re about to shrivel up and fall out of my head. If this was going to work, it would have done so five hours ago.”
What did she think I was going to do? Just say,Okay, then, I guess that’s it. We won’t look for him anymore, then?I gave her a reproving look. “Just . . . try again, Iseabail.”
I’d noted when she’d returned from Nevercross that she had been promoted to prioress. Only the ascended elders of the Balquhidder clan were permitted to wear their hair braided and pinned up the way Iseabail did now. Normally, a witch was hundreds of years old before she was even considered for the priory. Iseabail hadn’t even seen the end of her first century yet. The leaders of her clan had rewarded her prematurely for the spellwork she’d wrought at Ammontraíeth. It made perfect sense that they had. Iseabail had single-handedly eradicated thousands of high bloods in one night—something the Balquhidder clan hadn’t been able to achieve in all the years that had passed since they’d discovered the cure to the blood curse that was placed on the Fae.
But the witches were sticklers for honor and tradition. They were rulemakers, not rule breakers. And they didnothold with dark magic. “I’m sending you back to Nevercross once you’re done here,” I told her, leaning back against the wall. Iseabail’s head snapped up. Lorreth’s shoulders tensed at the same time, utter disbelief in his dark eyes. “I’ll come and pay the high priestess a visit, too. I’m thinking about bringing Tal with me,” I continued.
The scrying pendulum Iseabail held swung wildly—not because she had located Ren at last, but because her hands were shaking. She straightened slowly, looking up from the detailed map of the courts she had been poring over.
“Why would you do that?” she asked stiffly. “I’d have thought you had far too much going on, what with your sister, and Ren, and the evacuation.”
I considered her for a while. Let her stew a moment before I decided she had sweat enough. “Well, the witches have done us all a great service, cleansing the Blood Court. I need tothankthem. It’d be remiss of me to let their sacrifice go unacknowledged.”
“That’s really unnecessary. We didn’t act on behalf of the Fae, Kingfisher. This was done for the betterment of our clan. No sacrifice was made.”
“Of course there was,” I said airily. “The High Council outlawed dark magic millennia ago. That’s how Algat found herself cast out of the Kinross clan, wasn’t it? If they authorized forceful cleansing and the use of blackhell gatespellwork to rid Sanasroth of the vampire nobles, then they made a grave sacrifice indeed. They sacrificed their ethics. Their morals. Their—”
“Stop.” The word echoed around the drawing room.
I had her.
It had only been a suspicion, but now I knew it to be fact: The matriarchs of Iseabail’s house had no idea what she had done. A lethal smile began to spread across my face, slow as honey. “What did you tell them?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. “Did you say you’dconvincethe high bloods that it was in their best interests to return to their natural-born states?”
Iseabail locked eyes with me, defiance radiating from every pore of her as her face went carefully blank. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I told them.”
Lorreth made a scathing sound at the back of his throat, his leathers creaking as he looked away, out of the window, shaking his head, as if such a thing could ever have been done. More than once, the witches had tried to convince the high bloods who had rejected the cure to reconsider their decisions. The Fae kings had tried, too. Rurik Daianthus from Yvelia. Royan from Gilaria. Shara from Lissia. No one had succeeded in persuading the high bloods that they would be better off as members of the Fae courts again. How they’d believed Iseabail would persuade them now was a mystery.
I tutted, shaking my head from side to side in faux disapproval. “Oh dear. They’re going to be very disappointedwhen they find out about the fuckingbloodbathyou orchestrated then, aren’t they?”
“You can’t tell them.” Iseabail skirted around my father’s old desk, raising her hands. My shadows were at the ready, but Lorreth got there first. He rarely used his own innate magic. Once, he had told me that his people swore an oath not to use the magic they were born with. From the North, his people lived in the wilds and carved a pitiful life for themselves out of the tundra. They were strange folk, with even stranger beliefs. They considered their magic sacred, accidentally stolen from nature during the process of being born. To use their gifts was to flout that theft in front of the gods. For Lorreth’s family, it was a sin worse than murder to use magic—inherited, small, or otherwise.
Though he was nothing like his family and didn’t share their beliefs, he had still been raised under their roof, and some things stuck with you, whether you believed in them or not. I’d seen my friend wield his power only twice before, and both times had been to save someone else. Later, if I asked him why he did it, he’d probably say he unleashed his power because he had thought Iseabail was going to attack me, and he’d be able to say it because hebelievedit. But I saw the look on his face as he threw out his hands; he also did it because he was angry.
Iseabail was lifted from her feet. In a flash, she flew backward, slamming into the dusty old bookcase behind the desk. Books toppled to the floor. A vase full of dried flowers fell and shattered on the ground. White light snapped around Iseabail’s wrists and ankles, lashing her to the bookcase. The band of energy that whipped around the witch’s throat dug into her skin and cinched tight.
“I . . . was . . .” Iseabail gasped. “Wasn’t . . .”
“Shutyour mouth,” Lorreth snapped.
Iseabail’s eyes found mine, beseeching. “You’re . . . just going to . . . stand there? You’re not the . . . ethical, high and . . . mighty hero you pr . . . pretend to be around . . . yourmate.”
Hero? I wanted to laugh. Gods, how I wanted to. I’d never heard anything more ridiculous in all my life. “Idon’t pretend to be anything,” I told her. “Saeris makes me kinder than I should be. Do not misjudge me. I would do all manner of unconscionable things in the pursuit of her safety. I’d take my friends and my mate to another realm and let this one burn if I thought for one second that it was what she wanted. I’ve given everything I have to protect the people of Yvelia, and they spit on me and bay for my head because of it. I’m about to lose my home to this godscursed rot. I have no love left for this place, and I have very little good left inme. I’m afraid if you’re hoping for a hero, you’ll have to look somewhere else.”
Iseabail blinked at that, the accusation in her watering eyes cutting into me. “You don’t . . . mean that. I see you . . .” She rasped. “Yoursoul. You’d fight and bleed . . . for this . . . realm—”
“Lorreth!” The door to the drawing room was open. There Saeris stood, hair and clothes dripping wet, her mouth hanging open in dismay. “What are youdoing?”
Lorreth reacted as though he’d been scalded. His power crackled out of existence, leaving the reek of ozone in its wake. Iseabail slid down the bookcase, coughing as she crumpled into a heap amid the fallen books. The warrior’s cheeks and ears burned bright red as he turned away from the witch and set his gaze on the casement above the window, unable to meet Saeris’s eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” Saeris brought the scent of rain with her as she entered the room. She looked from Iseabail to Lorreth and then to me. “Are we torturing people now?” she asked quietly.
“It’s all right,” Iseabail croaked. “Lorreth wasn’t going to hurt me.”
“I fuckingwas,” the warrior argued.
There were witches among the clans whocouldlook into a person’s soul. It was said that they could get the measure of a male just by taking one look at him. Good. Bad. Kind. Cold. It was all there, apparently: the blueprints to our souls, laid bare for certain witches to read as easily as the lines of a book. Iseabail had never mentioned that she was such a witch, but the certainty she spoke with gave the impression that she might have been.
Regardless of her abilities, she was right about Lorreth. He wouldn’t have hurt her. The damned witch had him acting the fool—to say his people had history with the Balquhidder clan would have been an understatement—but he wouldn’t have caused her any harm, even ifhedidn’t believe that right now.
