Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(109)

Good question. Safi had no rutting idea which dock was Pier Seven. There were too many empty posts to sort it out. “I’ll have to try all three.” She patted the mare, who was still dark with sweat but seemed better for the walking. Then she led the horse into the dead pines. “Got any ideas for a plan?”

“Actually,” Iseult answered slowly, “I might. Do you remember that time outside of Ve?aza City? When we wore each other’s clothes?”

“You mean when we almost got killed by those Nommie-hating bastards at the tavern?”

“That’s the time!” Iseult veered her roan closer to Safi, clearly hoping not to have to shout her way through this plan. Her hair flipped and flayed across her face. “We gave those men what they wanted to see, remember? But then the Nomatsi girl they thought they’d cornered turned out to be you.”

“One of our finer tricks.” Safi smiled tightly, swatting her own wayward hair from her eyes.

“Why wouldn’t that same plan work now?” Iseult asked. “We can still try to reach Lejna before that ship, but if that doesn’t work out—”

“Doesn’t look like it will.”

“—then we can ditch the horses, hide the alert-stone, and split up. I’ll be the decoy and draw them into the city. You can go to the piers. Once you’ve reached all three, go back to the alert-stone. Light it up, and I’ll find you.”

“Absolutely rutting not.” Safi glowered at Iseult. “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had. Why would you put yourself in danger—”

“That’s just it,” Iseult interrupted. “The Truce says they can’t kill anyone on foreign soil, right?”

“It also says they can’t land here, but they clearly don’t care about that.”

“Actually, the Truce says no foreign vessels can land here,” Iseult countered. “Their vessel isn’t foreign.”

“And that’s exactly my point, Iz! They’re tricking that clause, so why couldn’t they trick other clauses too? For all we know, they don’t even care if they break the Truce.”

That gave Iseult pause—thank the gods—but when Safi lifted her reins to set off once more, Iseult’s hand shot up.

“Threadstones,” she said flatly. “You’ll know if I’m in danger from your Threadstone. If it lights up, then you can come to my rescue.”

“No—”

“Yes.” A smile lifted the corner of Iseult’s lips as she towed out her Threadstone and gripped it tight. “You know this plan could work and it’s the only worthwhile strategy I can think of. Let’s just be glad that Lejna is a ghost town. There’s no one around to get hurt.”

“Except for us, you mean.”

“Stop arguing and start undressing.” Iseult slid from the saddle and looped her reins over a low branch. Then she began unbuttoning her blouse. “A storm’s coming, Saf, and you’re at its eye. I can be the right hand and you can be the left.”

The left hand trusts the right, Mathew always said. The left hand never looks back until after the purse is grabbed.

Iseult had always been the left hand—she’d always trusted Safi to distract until the end. Which meant it was Safi’s turn to do the same.

Charged air burst through the forest. It lashed into Safi, around her … and then gathered itself behind her. She flung a glance back, eyes watering. Storm clouds, dark as pitch, swirled above the treetops.

“I don’t like this,” Safi said, really having to yell now. “In fact, I hate this—the storm and the plan. Why does it have to be ‘we’? Why not just me?”

“Because ‘just me’ isn’t who we are,” Iseult hollered back. “I’ll always follow you, Safi, and you’ll always follow me. Threadsisters to the end.”

A fierce, burning need rose in Safi’s lungs at those words. She wanted to tell Iseult everything she felt—her gratitude, her love, her terror, her faith, but she didn’t. Instead, she smiled grimly. “Threadsisters to the end.”

Then she did as Iseult had ordered: she clambered from her mare and began peeling off her clothes.

*

Aeduan smelled his old mentor a mile away. Her scent—crisp spring water and salt-lined cliffs—was unmistakable. As familiar to Aeduan as his pulse.

And as unavoidable as death unless Aeduan was willing to leave the path—which he wasn’t—or slay her where she stood.

Which he also wasn’t.

The mile leading to her passed in a smear of green forest and yellow stone, predawn light and a rumbling sea storm. When he reached the narrowest point in the path—a place bordered by overhanging rocks to one side and wave-pounded cliffs on the other—Aeduan relinquished control of his blood. He gave the power of pulse and muscle back to his body and slowed to a stop.

Monk Evrane stood still as a statue before him. The only movement was the hot wind in her hair, through her Carawen cloak. Her baldric lacked all of her blades save two. Her sword was nowhere to be seen.

The older monk had not changed in the two years since Aeduan had left the Monastery. A bit browner in the face, perhaps. And tired—she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Weeks even. Yet her hair was as silver as it had always been.