Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(35)

So Iseult turned away and held on as they galloped into the moonlit meadow—the cries of the villagers briefly blocked out by the gate. Iseult’s legs squeezed tight and her toes pointed up like her mother had taught her.

Mother.

Iseult squinted, and she thought she saw a figure on horseback bouncing over the grass with a smaller figure right behind. Scruffs. Gretchya must have opened the gate and made a run for it, trusting Alma to get Iseult out.

Corlant clearly knows what Alma and I have planned. That was what Gretchya had said … A plan. A plan against Corlant, who clearly wanted Iseult dead—even if Iseult couldn’t possibly fathom why.

For half a breath, Iseult wished she’d faced the Bloodwitch instead of Corlant. Instead of the tribe. Yet that idea vanished almost instantly, for at least now she lived. Had the Bloodwitch tried to shoot her, she didn’t think he would’ve missed.

Corlant had almost succeeded, though. If his arrow had gone three inches to the left, Iseult’s chest would have been pierced. A single inch to the right would have ruptured a vital artery.

So Iseult sent a silent thanks to the moon they now galloped beneath—along with a prayer that Safi was still out there waiting for her …

And that the Bloodwitch was not.





ELEVEN

The Bloodwitch named Aeduan was bored. There was only so much wrist-rolling, finger-flexing, and ankle-wiggling he could do to keep his muscles primed for fighting—or keep his temper at bay.

Four chimes had passed since he’d first stretched out on this rafter in the Doge’s palace ceiling, and he had long ago pulled back his hood, and even undone the buckles along the top of his cloak. Since the only people to see him were the sixteen other hired guards in the rafters—and a family of pigeons who hadn’t stopped cooing since Aeduan had sprawled out beside their nest—he wasn’t particularly worried about this breach in Carawen protocol reaching the Monastery.

Even if it did, the old monks cared more about mercenary missions than they did about respecting the Cahr Awen. After all, the Cahr Awen was just a myth, but bronze piestras were quite real.

Yet always just out of Aeduan’s reach. Yotiluzzi had declared a bounty on the two girls who’d held up his carriage, and Aeduan wanted that bounty. Badly. So he’d tracked the Truthwitch to the Southern Wharf District … only to lose her scent.

Shortly after, by sheer luck, he’d run into that Nomatsi girl along the canals—except that she’d eluded him too. Worse, Aeduan hadn’t been able to follow her, for she’d possessed no blood-scent.

Never in Aeduan’s twenty years of living had he encountered someone whose blood he could not smell.

Never.

This surprise had … unsettled him. Had made his molars grind even more than losing the valuable Truthwitch had. Now here Aeduan was, trapped in a ceiling instead of hunting those two girls.

Aeduan pressed his thin, bronze spyglass to his eye and peered through a spy hole carved into the ceiling. People streamed over marble floors. Vibrant shades of orange, green, and blue velvet sprinkled with pastel silks. It was such a waste of time. Nothing was going to happen at the diplomatic ball, for as Aeduan’s father always said: the Twenty Year Truce made people lazy and unambitious.

When the first throbbing strands of a Nubrevnan four-step hit Aeduan’s ears and heels began to stamp, he opted for a change of scenery. After a crocodilian scrabble through the tiny space, Aeduan reached a ladder. He passed two other mercenaries, who eyed him nervously.

“A demon from the Void,” they whispered, and Aeduan pretended not to hear. He liked those rumors. After all, there were perks to having people fear him, such as the best choice of stakeout spots. Even the Cartorran Hell-Bards and the Marstoki Adders, Empress Vaness’s personal bodyguards, had let Aeduan enter the palace walls first.

When Aeduan hit the edge of the ceiling, a hole opened up—more spying space behind the ballroom wall. A rope ladder of absolutely no quality or defensive use spanned the fifty feet to the floor. It was just another example of how lax the Dalmottis (and everyone else) had become. Should there be any actual need for the guards in the ceiling, it would take them much too long to descend.

Just as the four-step shifted into its second movement, Aeduan’s boots hit the floor. The violins sang into the shadowy wall space, shaking the dust and the wood with their vibrato. Over them was the light tapping of heels that Aeduan recognized as a vine-like dance.

Aeduan actually knew the Nubrevnan four-step. Not well, and he would rather gut himself on a roasting spit than ever engage in it. But he did know the moves. His mentor had forced him to learn it during those first few years at the Monastery.

Aeduan was just aiming left when a familiar blood-scent hit his nose. Venom-laced secrets and endless lies. Aeduan didn’t know if the rumors were true—if a Marstoki Adder’s blood was truly made of acid—but he did know that the Poisonwitch bodyguards were best avoided, if for no other reason than how their scents hurt his nose.

So Aeduan abandoned his leftward trek and moved right instead. When at last he found a spy hole, even smaller than those in the ceiling, and pressed his eye to it, the third movement of the four-step had begun.

And Aeduan’s eyebrows shot high.

It was only two dancers, their heels and toes clattering against the marble at a speed Aeduan had never seen—and, even more impressive, a wind had begun to swirl around them. One of the dancers clearly had some form of air magic.