Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(33)

Then the music swelled once more, her legs twined into his, and he forgot all about who she was or what she was or why he had begun the dance in the first place.

Because those eyes of hers were the color of the sky after a storm.

Without realizing what he did, his Windwitchery flickered to life. Something in this moment awoke the wilder parts of his power. Each heave of his lungs sent a breeze swirling in. It lifted the girl’s hair. Kicked at her wild skirts.

She showed no reaction at all. In fact, she didn’t break her gaze from Merik, and there was a fierceness there—a challenge that sent Merik further beneath the waves of the dance. Of the music. Of those eyes.

Each leap backward of her body—a movement like the tidal tug of the sea against the river—led to a violent slam as Merik snatched her back against him. For each leap and slam, the girl added in an extra flourishing beat with her heels. Another challenge that Merik had never seen, yet rose to, rose above. Wind crashed around them like a growing hurricane, and he and this girl were at its eye.

And the girl never looked away. Never backed down.

Not even when the final measures of the song began—that abrupt shift from the sliding cyclone of strings to the simple plucking bass that follows every storm—did Merik soften how hard he pushed himself against this girl. Figuratively. Literally.

Their bodies were flush, their hearts hammering against each other’s rib cages. He walked his fingers down her back, over her shoulders, and out to her hands. The last drops of a harsh rain.

The music slowed. She pulled away first, slinking back the required four steps. Merik didn’t look away from her face, and he only distantly noticed that, as she pulled away, his Windwitchery seemed to settle. Her skirts stopped swishing, her hair fluttered back to her shoulders.

Then he slid backward four steps and folded his arms over his chest. The music came to a close.

And Merik returned to his brain with a sickening certainty that Noden and His Hagfishes laughed at him from the bottom of the sea.





TEN

One by one, the settlers of the Midenzi tribe came to welcome Iseult. To scrutinize the one girl who’d left the commune and now wanted to return.

Iseult’s head felt too light, and snipped hairs scratched at the back of her neck, but like the good Threadwitch she was meant to be, she did not scratch. Nor did she fidget on her stool by the hearth or show any expression beyond the required smile.

The Threads of the Nomatsi were frighteningly pale. Only Corlant’s Threads, pulsing behind Iseult as he stood beside the stove and watched the Greeting, burned at full brightness. Perhaps too bright, even.

By the thirtieth visitor, Iseult was exhausted from pretending that Corlant wasn’t right there, observing like a raptor. Alma’s face remained serene throughout—of course—and the smile she offered visitors seemed genuine. Not to mention tireless.

By the sixtieth visitor, Iseult had petted Scruffs so thoroughly, he actually looked uncomfortable. By the eightieth visitor, he got up and moved.

Stasis. Stasis in your fingertips and in your toes.

“That was only one hundred and ninety-one,” Corlant declared once the final visitor was gone. “Where is the rest of the tribe, I wonder?” Nothing about Corlant’s tone was wondering, and as he coasted toward the door, his Threads were pink with excitement. “I will make sure the whole tribe knows about the Greeting.” He latched a penetrating stare on Gretchya, and in a voice made of mudslides, added, “Do. Not. Leave.”

“Of course not,” Gretchya said, lowering to a stool beside Iseult …

Then Corlant left, and Gretchya was instantly back on her feet. She towed up Iseult while Alma darted for the basement hatch.

“We must hurry,” Gretchya whispered. “Corlant clearly knows what Alma and I have planned. He will try to stop us.”

“Planned?” Iseult asked, but at that moment, there was a sudden slash like the shears through Iseult’s hair. In an explosive spiral, everything that bound the three witches to the village slammed into their chests.

The Threads that bound had broken.

Iseult could not see it, but she felt it. A sudden lurch in her heart that almost knocked her off her feet.

Alma shoved Iseult toward the door. “Run,” she hissed. “To the gate—run!”

Something about Alma’s panicked, green eyes pierced Iseult’s brain. She bolted through the door … only to stumble, arms windmilling to keep her upright.

For a mob waited outside. With lanterns and torches and crossbows. The four hundred Nomatsis who had missed the Greeting had gathered on silent feet, their Threads hidden by Corlant’s magic.

And there was Corlant himself, slithering through the crowd, a head taller than everyone else and Threads writhing with purple hunger.

People scattered from his path. Faces leered in the shadows—faces Iseult recognized, hateful faces from her childhood that made her knees buckle and chest hollow out.

She flung a glance behind her—but the house was empty. Only Scruffs remained, growling with raised hackles.

Iseult waited, breath held, as Corlant raked her with a ravenous gaze that sent purple across his Threads. Then, with deliberate slowness, he crossed his thumbs at Iseult. It was the sign to ward off evil.

“Other,” he said softly, almost inaudible over the evening crickets and the breaths of the crowd. “Hang the other.” Then again, louder. “Other, other. Hang the other.”