Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(121)

She hefted up the mallet—there was only one, and she prayed it was a bewitched one, able to blast wind far and true. Then Iseult pounded the drum. Over and over and over again.

As she hammered—as she slammed her soul and her mistakes into the hide drumhead—she strategized. Because she still had that. She still had the skills to analyze her terrain and her opponents. She still had the instincts to pick the best battlegrounds.

Safi had initiated something a bit larger this time—getting kidnapped by Marstoks was definitely a new high—but no matter what it took, Iseult would figure it out.

She would get Merik to a healer.

She would find a way to stop the Puppeteer—to keep that shadow girl from ever cleaving anyone again.

She would get answers about Corlant’s curse—and perhaps find Gretchya and Alma again too.

And, above all, Iseult would go after Safi. Just as she beat this wind-drum, just as she ignored the screaming in her arms and the exhaustion in her legs, she would follow Safi and she would get her back.

Threadsisters to the end.

Mhe verujta.

*

Merik was unconscious when the Jana arrived. By the time he reached Noden’s Gift and the Origin Well, he was almost dead. There was saltwater in his wounds, his witchery had been pushed too far, and his three broken ribs didn’t want to heal.

When he finally awoke on a low bed in an upside-down cabin in Noden’s Gift, he found his aunt beside him, her silver hair as radiant as always. Her tender smile shaking with relief.

“I have good news,” she told him, her grin quickly shifting to a concentrated frown as she dabbed salve onto Merik’s arms, his face, his hands. “The Voicewitches in Lovats have been calling Hermin nonstop all day. It would seem that, despite their attack on Lejna, the Marstoks want to open trade. Yet they will only negotiate with you, Merik—and I imagine that has Vivia frothing at the mouth.”

“Ah.” Merik sighed, knowing he should be happy. Trade was all he’d ever wanted, and now he had proven that he could bring it back to Nubrevna.

Yet the triumph tasted like ash, and he couldn’t convince himself it had been worth the cost.

“Where is … Iseult?” he asked, voice reedy and weak.

Evrane’s expression soured. “Your crew left her in Lejna. Apparently, she convinced Hermin that she was fine by herself—that she had someone coming to meet her at a coffee shop.”

As Merik tried to puzzle through whom Iseult could possibly meet, Evrane went on to describe how Prince Leopold had vanished from Noden’s Gift. “One moment, he was in the brig, under heavy guard, and the next, his cell was completely empty. All I can guess is that a Glamourwitch somehow helped him escape.”

It was too much for Merik’s grief-addled, pain-stricken brain. He shook his head, mumbled something about dealing with it all later, and then settled into a magically induced, healing sleep.

Two days later—and three days after losing Kullen—Merik finally trekked from Noden’s Gift to the Nihar cove. Evrane parted ways with him, claiming she had to go to the Carawen Monastery immediately, and Merik couldn’t push past his pride long enough to ask her to stay.

She had been coming and going since he was boy, and why should that change now?

So, with Hermin limping at his side, Merik hiked past trunks and branches—all of them spindly with new bursts of life. Lichen, insects, green, green, green—Merik couldn’t explain it … and he couldn’t help wishing that Kullen were here to see it.

In fact, Merik couldn’t seem to move past Kullen. Memories burned behind his eyeballs, and loss throbbed at the base of his skull. Even as he watched living birds swoop over the cove, even as Hermin rowed him to the warship and fish inexplicably splashed in the waves—all of it tasted of ash.

Merik’s crew was lined up on the main deck when he finally dragged himself onto the Jana. Each man wore strips of iris-blue linen around his biceps to mourn their fallen comrade, and they all gave a crisp salute as Merik walked past.

He barely noticed, though. There was only one person he wanted to see—the one person who would understand how Merik felt.

He glanced at Hermin. “Bring Ryber to me, please.”

Hermin cringed. “She’s … gone, sir.”

“Gone?” Merik frowned, that word incomprehensible. “Gone where?”

“We don’t know, sir. She was on the ship when we came to you in Lejna, and we thought she was on it when we reached the Nihar cove again. But … we aren’t sure. All we know is she ain’t on the ship now.”

Still, Merik frowned—for where would Ryber go? Why would Ryber go?

“She did leave a note, although it doesn’t say a thing about where she went. It’s on your bed, sir.”

So Merik heaved into his captain’s cabin, ribs shrieking their protest at that burst of movement. He took long, almost jogging steps to cross the room, where he found his wrinkled coat draped across the mattress. Resting atop it was a slip of paper.

Merik snatched it up, eyes flying over Ryber’s almost illegible scrawl.

My Admiral, my Prince,

I’m sorry to go, but I’ll find you again one day. While I’m gone, you have to become the king that Kullen always believed you to be.

Please. Nubrevna needs you.

Ryber

(Also, check your jacket pocket.)