Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(68)
Safi threw a cautious glance at the door before lowering her voice. “It all started in Ve?aza City, right after Habim sent you away.”
As Safi described what had passed, Iseult found it harder and harder to stay tethered to the real world—to pick out the details that mattered.
Chocolate strawberries … Not important, she decided hazily. But dancing with Prince Merik of Nubrevna? Important. And being named the betrothed of Henrick fon Cartorra—all because the Emperor might know about Safi’s magic …
“Wait,” Iseult cut in, blinking against the pain in her arm. “You’re the Emperor’s betrothed? Does that make you the Empress of Cartorra—”
“No!” Safi blurted. Then more calmly, “Uncle Eron said I wouldn’t have to marry Henrick.”
“But if Henrick knows about your magic, then what does that mean? Who else knows?”
“I don’t know.” Safi’s forehead pinched up. Then, in an even faster rush of words, she finished her tale.
But the second half of the story was more confusing than the first, and Iseult couldn’t seem to move past the betrothal. If Safi became Empress, then Iseult would have nowhere to go.
The door clicked open. Evrane slipped in with a bowl.
“Why,” Evrane hissed at Safi, “does my patient look twice as pale as when I left? You have exhausted her, Domna!”
“I’m always pale as death,” Iseult said, winning a taut smile from Safi.
When at last Evrane had deemed Iseult sufficiently fed, she eased Iseult onto her back. Then Safi lifted her voice, chains rattling. “I’ll find a Firewitch healer, Iz, all right? I swear to you I will, and I swear that you will get better.”
“Oath accepted,” Iseult breathed. Her eyes were too heavy to keep open, so she let them flutter shut. “If you don’t find a healer, Saf, and I die, I promise to haunt you for the rest … of your miserable … life.”
Safi’s laugh burst out, overloud, and Iseult’s eyelids briefly popped wide. Safi’s Threads were hysterically white.
But, ah, Evrane was smiling. That was nice. It warmed Iseult’s heart ever so slightly.
Iseult felt the woman’s hand rest upon her brow. A heartbeat passed, and despite the squeaking of the ship’s wood, Evrane’s magic quickly towed Iseult beneath sleeping waves.
TWENTY-FOUR
When Merik stepped onto the main deck to send Kullen after Vivia—and to send the Jana surging behind—he found a haze of purple clouds bruising the evening sky.
Rain would come eventually, but for now, the air was thick and still. The sort of breezeless calm that left witch-less ships stranded.
As Merik’s crew had done the night before, the sailors of the Jana were organized in rows across the deck—all except Ryber, who stood beside the wind-drum, her gaze anchored on Kullen at the ship’s bow.
Merik stifled a sigh at seeing Ryber like that. He’d have to remind her to keep such open regard masked. He knew what she and Kullen shared, but the rest of the men didn’t—and couldn’t. Not if Ryber wanted to stay stationed on this ship and in Merik’s crew.
Merik marched to the quarterdeck to gaze over his men. Unlike the night before, there was no need for silence. So Merik forced a grin—one like he used to flash when it was just he and his tiny crew sailing the soil-bound waters of Nubrevna. “Give us a song to sail by,” he roared. “How about the ‘Ol’ Ailen’ to start?”
The ‘Ol’ Ailen’ was a favorite, and several of the sailors matched Merik’s smile as he strode to the wind-drum and accepted the unmagicked mallet from Ryber. Neither she nor any of the crew knew what they sailed toward, and as much as Merik would like to think they would oppose Vivia’s piracy, he wasn’t entirely sure.
Merik hammered the drum four times and, on the fifth beat, the men of the Jana began to sing.
“Fourteen days did they fight the sto-orm,
Fourteen days did they brave the wind!
Fourteen days without oceans calm,
Saw the men of the ol’ Ailen.
Hey!
Thirteen days did they pitch and ya-aw,
Thirteen days did they pray for end!
Thirteen days of sailing on,
Saw the men of the ol’ Ailen.”
As the crew’s salt-rusted voices blended into the third verse, Merik handed the mallet to Ryber and moved into position beside the three Tidewitches. Kullen chose that moment to launch himself off the deck, wind roaring in his wake. He was soon nothing but a speck on the horizon.
The youngest of the Tidewitches offered Merik wind-spectacles, and once Merik had them strapped on—and once the world had become a bubbled, warped place—he barked, “Gather your waters, men!”
As one, the Tidewitches’ chests expanded. Merik’s too, and with his inhale came the familiar power. No rage sparked beneath it. Merik felt as calm as a tidepool. Then Merik and the Tidewitches exhaled. Wind swirled around Merik’s legs. Waves rippled inward toward the ship.
“Prepare Tides!” Merik bellowed, and the elemental charge inside him eased out, ignited the air around him.
“Make way!”
In a great suction of power, the magic left Merik’s body. A boiling, dry wind gusted over the ship. Snapped into the sails.
At the same moment, the Tidewitches’ waters thrust against the Jana’s waterline and the ship lurched forward. Merik’s knees wobbled, and he was struck by how much more smoothly these launches went with Kullen in control.