Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(27)
Iseult gave a curt nod, skimming a quick eye over the other Threadwitch. Alma was a woman now too. A beautiful one—no surprise. Her chin-length coal-black hair was thick, glossy … perfect. Her waist was small, her hips curved, and her shape all that was feminine and … perfect.
Alma was, as she’d always been, the perfect Threadwitch. The perfect Nomatsi woman. Except when Iseult’s gaze settled on Alma’s hands, she saw thick calluses.
Iseult flipped up Alma’s palm. “You’ve trained with a sword.”
Alma flung a furtive glance at Gretchya, who nodded slowly. “A cutlass,” Alma admitted. “I’ve been practicing with one for the past few years.”
Iseult dropped Alma’s wrist. Of course Alma had learned to fight. Of course she would be perfect at that too. There could never be anything that Iseult performed better—it was as if the Moon Mother made sure that any skill Iseult tried to hone, Alma acquired it too … and perfected it.
When it had become clear that Iseult would never be able to make Threadstones or keep her emotions distant enough, Alma had moved from being an extra Threadwitch in a passing Nomatsi tribe to being the Threadwitch apprentice of the Midenzi settlement. When Gretchya became too old to guide the tribe, Alma would take over.
In Nomatsi caravans, it was the job of the Threadwitch to unite Thread-families, to arrange marriages and friendships, and to unsnarl the looms of people’s lives. One day, just as Gretchya did now, Alma would use her magic to lead the Midenzis.
“Your hand,” Alma said. “You’re hurt!”
“It’s fine,” Iseult lied, hiding her palm in her skirt. “It stopped bleeding.”
“Clean it anyway,” Gretchya said, tone unreadable.
Iseult’s nose twitched. Here were two women whose Threads she couldn’t see. Yet before Iseult could request a moment alone to sort through everything—coming home, the Bloodwitch hunting her, Alma’s perfection—a man poked his black-haired head through the door. “Welcome home, Iseult.”
Spiders walked down Iseult’s spine. Alma’s fingers squeezed on Scruffs’s neck—and Gretchya blanched.
“Corlant,” she began, but the man cut her off, sliding the rest of his long body inside.
Corlant det Midenzi had changed almost none since Iseult had last seen him. His hair was perhaps thinner, and gray swept the sides, but the creases above his eyebrows were as deep as Iseult remembered—parallel trenches from a tendency to always look mildly shocked.
He looked mildly shocked now, brows high and eyes glittering as they scrutinized Iseult’s face. He approached her, and Gretchya made no move to stop him. Instead, Alma shot to her feet and hissed at Iseult, “Stand.”
Iseult stood—though she didn’t see why she had to. Gretchya was the leader of the tribe, not this syrup-tongued Purist who had sowed discord throughout Iseult’s childhood. Corlant ought to be the one sitting.
He stopped before her, his Threads shimmering with a green curiosity and tan suspicion. “Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” Iseult said, folding her hands in her skirts and tipping her head back to meet his gaze. Unlike the rest of the tribe, he was just as tall as she remembered, and he even wore the same murky brown robe and the same smudged gold chain around his neck.
It was a bad attempt to look like a Purist priest. By now Iseult had seen enough real priests trained in real Purist compounds to know how badly Corlant missed his mark.
Yet it didn’t seem to change the fact that Alma and Gretchya were showing Corlant deference. Were sharing panicked glances behind his back while he examined Iseult.
He strutted around her, gaze roving. It sent the hairs on her arms spiking upward. “You have the taint of the outside on you, Iseult. Why are you back?”
“She plans to stay this time,” Gretchya inserted. “She will resume her position as my apprentice.”
“So you have been expecting her?” Corlant’s Threads turned darkly hostile. “You made no mention of this to me, Gretchya.”
“It wasn’t certain,” Alma piped up, beaming gloriously. “You know how Gretchya hates to snag the settlement’s weave if she doesn’t have to.”
Corlant offered a grunt, his attention settling on Alma. His Threads twisting with more tan suspicion, and deep beneath that, a lusty lilac. Then his gaze speared Gretchya, and the lust flared outward.
Iseult’s stomach curdled. This was not the dynamic she’d left behind. Corlant had been a nuisance when she was a child—always spouting the dangers and the sins of witcheries. Always claiming that true devotion to the Moon Mother was in the denial of one’s magic. The eradication of it.
But Iseult had ignored him along with the rest of the tribe. Yes, Corlant had hung around her home and begged Gretchya for attention. He had even asked her to become his wife—not that Gretchya could marry. Only Heart-Threads could marry in a Nomatsi tribe, and Threadwitches didn’t have Heart-Threads.
At first, Gretchya had ignored Corlant’s advances. Then she’d used reason, pointing to the Nomatsi tribal laws and the Moon Mother’s rules as well. By the time Iseult had fled the tribe, though, Gretchya had resorted to latching the doors at night with iron padlocks and paying two local men in silver to keep the serpentine Corlant away.
When Iseult had visited last, though, Corlant had been gone—and Iseult had assumed the man had left for good. Clearly, though, that wasn’t the case—and clearly things had changed. Somehow Corlant had gotten the upper hand here.