Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(14)

Safi had only two thoughts: Who the rut is that Nubrevnan Windwitch? And: He should really learn how to button a shirt.

Then the shirtless man touched down directly in her path.

She shrieked as loud as she could, but all she got was an alarmed glance before she flung her knife aside and slammed into his body. They crashed to the ground—and the young man shoved her off, shouting, “Stay back! I’ll handle this!”

Safi ignored him—he was clearly an idiot—and in more time than it ought to take, she disentangled herself from the Nubrevnan and snatched up her dagger.

She spun toward the cleaving Tidewitch—just as Iseult closed in, a swirl of steel meant to attract the eye. But it was having no effect. The Tidewitch didn’t lurch out of the way. Iseult’s scythes beat into his stomach, and more black blood sprayed.

Blackened organs toppled out too.

Then water erupted onto the street. Ships rammed against the stones in a deafening crunch of wood. A second wave charged in, and right behind it, a third.

“Kullen!” the Nubrevnan bellowed from behind Safi. “Hold back the water!”

In an explosion of magic that rushed across Safi’s body, air funneled toward the encroaching waves.

The magicked wind hit the water; waves toppled and foamed backward.

But the cleaving Tidewitch didn’t care. His blackened eyes had latched on to Safi now. His bloodstained hands clawed up and he barreled toward her like a squall.

Safi sprang into a flying kick. Her heel crashed into his ribs; he toppled forward right as Iseult spun into a hook-kick. Her boot pummeled the man’s chin, shifted the angle of his fall.

He hit the cobblestones. Black pustules burst all over his skin, splattering the street with his blood.

But he was still alive—still conscious. With a roar like a hurricane, he struggled to get upright.

That was when the Nubrevnan man decided to reappear. He sidled close to the Cleaved—and Safi’s panic burned up her throat. “What are you doing?”

“I told you I’d handle this!” he bellowed. Then his arms flung back, and in a surge of power that sparked through Safi’s lungs, his cupped hands hit the cleaved sailor’s ears. Air exploded through the man’s brain. His blackened eyes rolled backward.

The Tidewitch crumpled to the street. Dead.

*

Iseult swept aside her skirts and shoved her moon scythes back into their concealed calf-scabbards. Nearby, Dalmottis made frantic two-fingered swipes across their eyes. It was a sign to ward off evil—to ask their gods to protect their souls. Some aimed their movements at the dead Cleaved, but more than a few aimed the swipe at Iseult.

As if she had any interest in claiming their souls.

She did, however, have an interest in not being mobbed and beaten today, so, twisting toward the dead Tidewitch, she readjusted her headscarf—and thanked the Moon Mother it hadn’t been removed in the fight.

She also thanked the goddess that no one else had cleaved. Such a powerful burst in magic could easily send other witches over the brink—a brink from which there was no return.

Though no one knew what made a person cleave, Iseult had read theories that linked the corruption to the five Origin Wells spread across the Witchlands. Each Well was linked to one of the five elements: Aether, Earth, Water, Wind, or Fire. Though people spoke of a Void element—and of Voidwitches like that Bloodwitch—there was no record of an actual Void Well.

Perhaps a Void Well was out there, but it had been long forgotten. The springs that had fed it were dried up. The trees that had blossomed year-round were shriveled to desiccated husks. Such stagnation had certainly happened with the Earth, Wind, and Water Wells, and perhaps they too would one day be lost to history.

No matter the Wells’ fates, though, scholars didn’t think it mere coincidence that the only witcheries to cleave were those linked to Earth, Wind, or Water. And if the Carawen monks were to be believed, then only the return of the Cahr Awen could ever heal the dead Wells or the Cleaved.

Well, Iseult didn’t think that would be happening anytime soon. No return of the Cahr Awen—and no escaping all these hateful stares, either.

Once Iseult felt certain that her hair was sufficiently covered, her face sufficiently shaded, and her sleeves sufficiently low enough to hide her pale skin, she reached for Safi’s Threads so she could find her Threadsister among the crowds.

But her eyes and her magic caught something off. Threads like she’d never seen before. Directly beside her … on the corpse.

Her gaze slid to the cleaved man’s body. Blackened blood … and perhaps something else oozed from his ears, between the cobblestones. The pustules on his body had erupted—some of that oily spray was on Iseult’s slashed skirts and sweaty bodice.

And yet, though the man was undoubtedly dead, there were still three Threads wriggling over his chest. Like maggots, they shimmied and coiled inward. Short Threads. The Threads that break.

It shouldn’t have been possible—Iseult’s mother had always told her that the dead have no Threads, and in all the Nomatsi burning ceremonies Iseult had attended as a child, she had never seen Threads on a corpse.

The longer Iseult gaped, the more the crowds closed in. Spectators curious over the body were everywhere, and Iseult had to squint to see through their Threads. To tamp down on all the emotions around her.

Then one crimson, raging Thread flashed nearby—and with it came a waspish snarl. “Who the hell-flames do you think you are? We had that under control.”