Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(101)

Another shiver of agreement ran through their Threads. Yet although the men spoke on, Iseult stopped hearing. She couldn’t listen, for the Firewitch was now stepping toward her.

The whole world shriveled down to his boots closing in on her left. One pace, two.

Then he was there. He stepped on her arm, and her mind erupted with white. Her lungs strained. She couldn’t inhale, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The urge to open her eyes scored through her muscles.

The Firewitch knelt—more a sense than anything else, for Iseult couldn’t see him. Couldn’t watch as his knee dug into her elbow, shoving the joint in a way it was never meant to be shoved.

She heard each of his breaths. Harsh exhales that smelled like smoke and dead things. Closer. He was leaning in closer, his fingers grabbing onto her salamander cloak—

A horn ripped through the air. Deep, rumbling, and shimmering with blood lust.

As one, the Threads around Iseult flashed with turquoise surprise. Then came tan confusion. So quick, it was almost lost before crimson fury took hold.

Then a cannon sounded—once. Twice.

The Firewitch released Iseult’s cloak, pushing to his feet. Snarling and with flames licking out to gust over Iseult. Still she moved not a muscle.

Not until he’d stepped away, not until he’d joined with the others and they had roared their rage to the sky.

The instant the men were gone—the instant Iseult knew their Threads were far enough away not to see her—she clawed herself upright.

The salamander cloak was untouched, but her breeches were scorched below the knee. A bright, shrieking patch of blister already peeked through. But she was alive.

Moon Mother bless her, she was alive.

For several guttering breaths, Iseult hesitated. Half standing, half crouched, and with a blackened corpse still smoking nearby.

She had to run. Now. Before a full battle erupted. Which way, though—that was the question, and though Iseult knew what she wanted to choose, what she needed to choose, her wants and her needs no longer aligned.

Iseult fumbled for her Threadstone. It had left a mark below her collarbone, as had the silver taler strung beside it. Iseult squeezed them both, fingers white knuckled. Her Threadwitch logic told her to travel one way. To speed, to race, to outrun what was coming. Her heart begged to go that way too—the Threads that bind tugged her south.

It was only half her heart, though. The other half … it longed to go north. The foolish way. The one where survival seemed impossible.

More cannons thundered in the distance. Smoke plumed across the sky. The battle had begun, and it would soon reach where Aeduan and Owl ought to be. If Iseult would just turn south, she could leave it all behind.

It was then, as she stood there in agonized indecision, that magic roared over her. A hurricane of power and fiery Threads. It laced over the sky, heat to set the forest aflame.

In that moment, Iseult knew what she had to do. Logic didn’t matter, nor Threadwitch practicality, nor even the opposing halves of her heart.

What mattered was doing the right thing.

So Iseult made her choice, and she ran.

*

Aeduan carried Owl on his back. She bounced and jostled, her fear a palpable thing.

But like her namesake, Owl was a fighter. She held tight and didn’t once resist the onward sprint. Aeduan’s blood, alive with magic, drove him to speeds no man could match. No man could stop.

Or so he hoped. Aeduan had never had to dash like this while protecting another person.

A horn split the air with a single, long bellow. A-ooooo!

Then fire erupted in the distance, an inferno ignited by magic.

Firewitch. Aeduan didn’t know if it was the one from yesterday—and it didn’t matter. A vast conflagration of heat and flame rolled this way. He had to outrun it.

Then the horses were there, breaking through the forest with Baedyeds on their backs. Color flashed on their saddles—streaming and bright against the gray haze that now drifted between the trees.

Aeduan swung Owl around and yanked her to the ground. An arrow punched into his back, he stumbled forward, crouching over Owl.

No arrows hit her, though, and that, Aeduan thought, was at least one good thing.

He pulled Owl closer to him, protecting her while he cataloged pain and damage. Broken rib. Pierced left lung. Pierced heart.

The impaled heart would be a problem—that would slow him. For without blood to pump easily through his veins, Aeduan couldn’t tap into his full power. He would be slow, he would be weak.

And now a second arrow hit. Directly into his neck. Blood spurted.

Always. There was always blood where Aeduan went.

The fire was closing in now. Smoke sawed into his throat, into his tear ducts. His eyes streamed, and the oaks, the riders, the soldiers now charging from beyond—they all seemed to snake and blur.

Run, my child, run.

The river. If Aeduan could just get Owl to the Amonra, then they might escape this growing firestorm.

He rose, snapping the arrow’s shaft from his neck as he did so. Voices and blood-scents crashed around him. Deer and squirrels and moles fled.

Without a word, Aeduan hefted Owl onto his shoulder and resumed his run. A stag ran too, and Aeduan forced himself to keep pace with it. To follow its route through the trees.

Not once did Aeduan check on Owl. He’d have to crane his neck to look at her, and there simply was no time. Not when every step had to be perfectly placed to keep them out of the fire. Not when every inch of his attention had to be given to holding her tight.