Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(39)

Safi’s and Eron’s heels echoed through the hall like the city guards’ snare drums—until a boom ripped out. Flames.

But Safi kept her gaze locked on Eron’s graying head and her mind focused on pumping every ounce of speed into her legs. She wouldn’t look back. She would trip if she did.

They were almost to the doors outside when Safi caught sight of Guildmaster Alix, sweating and concentrated. Yet what he was doing or why, Safi had no time to ponder. She simply leaped over the threshold—and into an army.

A cry writhed up her throat, but Eron cut directly through the men—who one by one saluted him.

Safi had never—never—seen people give her uncle respect. She almost lost control of her feet, of her lungs. But then Eron glanced back, and the sharpness in his gaze—the precursor to a temper she recognized and understood—sent her into a frenzied race once more.

Over the stone paths, beneath the hanging jasmine, Safi’s feet didn’t slow. She had finally reached that strange aloofness Iseult latched on to so easily—the place Habim had tried to teach Safi for years.

Just as he had taught her to defend herself.

Just as he had taught her to fight and to maim.

And to sprint like the Void was at her heels.

As Eron guided her down a narrow gardener’s path and toward a nondescript workers’ gate in the iron fence around the palace, Safi realized that Uncle Eron had never intended for her to be a domna. Every piece of her training—every lesson Mathew and Habim had ever hammered into her brain, had been leading up to this moment.

The moment when she would be declared the future Empress of Cartorra and would run away from it at breakneck speed.

Eron reached the gate; it swung wide and Mathew appeared. But Eron did not slow—in fact, now in the open street, he picked up his pace. So did Safi and Mathew.

Three sets of rasping breaths soon filled every space in Safi’s ears. Louder than the night wind or the rising clash of steel on steel—a battle that now raged within the palace walls.

They reached an intersection, and Eron darted into the shadow of an overhang. Safi followed, blinking at the sudden loss of moonlight. Then, as her eyes adjusted, a cart and donkey coalesced before her. A wiry peasant sat disinterestedly at the cart’s front, sunflower stalks as his cargo.

Eron snatched a clump of sunflowers and flipped them back. They were attached to a blanket of salamander fibers.

“Get under,” Eron ordered, his voice raw with exertion. “We’ll deal with the Bloodwitch, but until then, you need to hide.”

Safi didn’t get under. Instead she grabbed her uncle’s arm. “What’s going on?” Her words were split by gasps. “Where am I going?”

“You have to escape,” he said. “Not just the city, but all of Dalmotti. If we’re caught, we’ll be hung as traitors.” Eron dropped the edge of the blanket and yanked a flask from his waistcoat. A swig, a swish, and he spat it to the cobblestones. Three more times he did this while Safi gaped on.

Then Eron mussed his hair and shot Safi a rigid stare. “Do not fail us,” he said quietly before staggering around and shuffling off.

It was like watching summer turn to winter. Eron fon Hasstrel transformed before Safi’s eyes. The cold, soldier-like uncle she’d seen seconds before became a grinning, sloppy-faced drunk—and nothing in Safi’s magic reacted. It was as if both versions of her uncle were true.

Or false, for she could sense nothing at all.

In that moment, a sickening horror scalded through her. Her uncle had never been a drunk. As inconceivable as it was—as unwieldy and too oddly shaped for her mind to grab on to—there was no denying what Safi could plainly see. Uncle Eron had convinced Safi, Safi’s magic, and all of Cartorra that he was nothing more than a wasted old fool.

And then he’d used that lie to help her escape tonight.

Before Safi could call out to him and beg for answers, his figure shimmered once—and then vanished. Where he’d walked, Safi saw only cobblestones and moonbeams.

She jerked toward Mathew. “Where did he go? Did the Glamourwitch do that?”

Mathew nodded. “I told you your uncle’s plan was big. We fear … no, we know that the Truce will dissolve any day now and with no hope for a continuation.”

At Safi’s confused headshake, Mathew sighed. “I know it’s impossible for you to understand right now, but trust me: we’re working for peace, Safi. Yet a union to Emperor Henrick would have ruined everything.”

“But why,” Safi stammered, “does Henrick want to marry me in the first place? The Hasstrel lands are worthless. I’m worthless!”

Mathew hesitated, eyes flicking away before he finally said, “We think the Emperor might have learned about your witchery.”

Safi’s throat squeezed shut. How? she wanted to croak. She’d hidden it for eighteen years and no Hell-Bard had caught her yet.

“A marriage to Henrick,” Mathew went on, “would have been the same thing as enslavement for you, Safi. There would have been no escape. Yet since neither Eron nor you can openly oppose such a union, we’re faking this kidnapping. That was why Eron gave you no warning. If you had known what was to come, then you wouldn’t have shown nearly enough surprise. Henrick and his Hell-Bards would have suspected immediately.”

Safi swallowed—or tried to. Her throat was too clogged. Not only did that Bloodwitch know what she was, but the Emperor of Cartorra did too. Who else had found out? Who else would come hunting for her?