Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(79)

But … Safi refused to accept that. She refused to be what Eron—or anyone else—expected her to be. She was stuck in this body, with this mind, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t reach outside. It didn’t mean she couldn’t change.

She met Iseult’s eyes, sagging and overbright in the twilight. “Go to the cabin,” she ordered. “You need to get out of the rain.”

“But you…” Iseult scooted closer, gooseflesh on her rain-slick arms. “I can’t leave you like this.”

“Please, Iz. If you don’t heal, then all of this will have been for nothing.” Safi forced a laugh. “I’ll be fine. This is nothing compared to Habim’s jab drills.”

Iseult didn’t offer the smile Safi had hoped for, but she did nod and unsteadily push to her feet. “I’ll check on you at the next chime.” She looked at Evrane and lifted her wrist. “Do you want the Painstone back?”

Evrane gave a tiny shake of her head. “You’ll need it to fall asleep.

“Thank you.” Iseult looked once more at Safi—stared hard into Safi’s eyes. “It’ll be all right,” she said simply. “We’ll make it all right again. I promise.” Then she hugged her arms to her chest and walked away, leaving Safi with the rising tide of her Truthwitchery.

Because somehow they would make it all right again.





TWENTY-SEVEN

In the seven hours since the Cartorran cutter had set sail from Ve?aza City, the sun had set, the moon had risen, and Aeduan had not stopped puking. His only consolation was that this misery had sparked a story among the Void-fearing sailors on board: Bloodwitches can’t cross water.

Yes, let them spread that rumor at every port they visited.

It was just as Aeduan had transitioned into welcome dry heaves that the cutter came upon four destroyed naval vessels—three of them Marstoki and one Nubrevnan. Despite Aeduan’s most snarling protests that Safiya fon Hasstrel was not upon these ships, Prince Leopold insisted on stopping anyway.

For it would seem that the Empress of Marstok was onboard—and Leopold wanted Aeduan to join him on that ship. When none of the Hell-Bards opposed this madness—not even the Commander, a lazy, irreverent young man named Fitz Grieg—Aeduan soon found himself flying to the Empress’s galleon via Windwitch. There, ten Adders gave him and Leopold a casual once-over. They Adders made no move to claim any weapons, though, before leading their visitors to the Empress’s cabin. Clearly they were confident that neither Leopold nor Aeduan stood any chance against their Poisonwitch darts.

Aeduan recognized some of the Adders—by blood-smell alone, though, since he could see no faces behind their headscarves. Their zigzagged swords, like flames of steel, flickered in the Firewitch lamps across the deck.

Stupid weapons. They were unwieldy and unnecessary—especially when an Adder’s best advantage was his or her Poisonwitchery.

Their power over poison was such a dark subset of Waterwitchery—a corruption of Waterwitch healers, Aeduan had once heard—yet it was Aeduan’s power that was considered Void magic. Aeduan was the one called demon.

It had always struck him as … unfair.

Then again, it also worked in his favor.

Once inside the Empress’s cabin, the Adders settled evenly around the room and against the walls. A low, unadorned table and two benches were at the room’s center, and beside one stood the Empress of Marstok.

She was smaller than Aeduan had realized, having only seen her from afar, yet despite her delicate bones, her blood-scent was unyielding. Desert sage and sandstone walls. The blacksmith’s anvil and gall ink. It was the scent of an Ironwitch—a powerful one—as well as a woman of education. And despite the fact that Vaness’s fleet was in shambles, she wore a fresh white gown, and her expression was coolly civil.

Aeduan settled into a wide-legged stance behind the second bench, calculating the best exits from the cabin as he did so—and the Empress smiled. It breezed over her lips—as if she and Leopold were merely meeting on the dance floor.

The Empress must have known who—and what—Aeduan was, yet she made no comment on his presence. Gave no indication that she found it odd Leopold lacked any sort of Hell-Bard escort.

Clearly, she was an expert at appearances, each expression a careful mask designed to keep the power of the room in her slender hands.

But why bother? Aeduan wondered. If she was as powerful an Ironwitch as the stories claimed, then she didn’t need tricks to get her way. The older Carawen monks still spoke of the day she destroyed Kendura Pass—the day she tapped into a magic so vast and so fearless, that she toppled an entire mountain.

And she’d only been seven years old.

Aeduan took that as a sign this meeting was peacefully intended.

“I will take some Marstoki dates, if I may,” said Prince Leopold. He hovered beside the table, seemingly more interested in examining his jacket cuffs than in speaking with Vaness.

Yet the mask Leopold wore was clumsy and overdone. It was like the prince played at being royalty while the Empress simply was.

Vaness motioned to the bench, the iron of her bracelets rattling. “Have a seat, Prince Leopold. I will have candies brought in.”

“Thank you, Your Holiest of Holies.” Leopold flashed her a bright grin, and with the sigh of someone who has worked a long, hard day, he sank onto the bench. Its black wood creaked.