Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(40)

Aeduan eased off his baldric, then his shirt. He hadn’t had a moment since leaving the bear trap to check the old wounds. They had, no surprise, reopened. But a cautious dab revealed only dried blood.

Aeduan sighed, annoyed. His shirt and breeches were ruined. While the forest wouldn’t care, humans would. The Threadwitch would.

Doesn’t matter. Blood was a part of Aeduan, and bloodstains had never slowed him before. He had come this far. He would keep going.

For some reason, though, he found himself bringing the shirt into the frozen stream. He found himself rubbing it, trying to get it clean. But the blood had set and could not be lifted.

Just as his wounds had set all those years ago. Run, my child, run.

It was, as Aeduan began to scrape at his chest, shuddering from the cold, that he saw something move along the opposite shore. At first, he thought it a trick of his eyes, a trick of the darkness, and an old song came to mind. One his father had sung back before … everything.

Never trust what you see in the shadows,

for Trickster, he hides in darkness and dapples.

High in a tree or deep underground,

never trust if Trickster’s around.

Aeduan shook his head. Water sprayed. He hadn’t thought of that tune in so long. Another shake of his head, this time to clear the tricks from his eyes.

Yet the movement was still there. A subtle glow that seemed to pulse in clusters through the forest. The longer Aeduan observed, the brighter the clusters grew. The more solid and distinctly defined, as if clouds dispersed to reveal a starry sky.

“Fireflies,” said a voice behind him. In a moment, Aeduan had her pinned against an oak by the shore.

They both stood there. Staring. The Threadwitch with her back to the trunk and hands at Aeduan’s chest. He with his forearm to her throat, dripping water.

Two heaving breaths, and he released her. “Be more careful,” he snapped, stalking away. Though if he spoke to her or to himself, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that his heart juddered in his chest. His blood and his magic roared in his ears.

He hadn’t smelled her coming. He couldn’t smell her coming, so his body had reacted to a threat.

He’d have to get better at that. At least as long as she remained near him.

“I almost killed you,” he said.

“Nomatsi,” was her reply—which sent him glaring backward. Made him growl, “What?”

She stepped away from the tree, into the starlight, and like the fireflies in the forest, her face ignited. Ghostly white. Beautiful and burning from within.

Half a breath. That was all it lasted. Then the illusion passed. She was a plain-faced girl once more. Never trust what you see in the shadows.

“You’re speaking to me in Nomatsi,” she explained, brushing water off her chest, her arms. “And those glowing lights are fireflies. They’re good luck in Marstok, you know. Children make wishes on them.”

Aeduan exhaled. A long, hissing sound. She behaved as if he had not almost eviscerated her. As if discussing wishes or what language he spoke actually mattered.

“I will kill you,” he warned, in Dalmotti once more, “if you aren’t more careful. Do you understand, Threadwitch?”

“Give me one of your coins, then.” She tipped back her head, emphasizing the way her jaw sloped to her collarbone.

And for the first time since she’d appeared, Aeduan realized his chest was bare. His scars were visible, and his skin rippled with chill bumps. His shirt, though, was nowhere to be seen—and he refused to turn away from the Threadwitch.

“The coins have blood on them, right?” she continued. “That’s how you found me. So give me a coin, and then you’ll always sense me coming.”

It was smart. A tidy, simple solution to a problem Aeduan wished she didn’t know about. Yet she did know he couldn’t smell her, and there was no changing it now.

Aeduan nodded. “In the morning,” he said, fighting the urge to jerk away and dive into the stream after his shirt. “I’ll give you a coin in the morning.”

With a nod of her own, Iseult finally left the stream. The forest folded her in, fireflies lighting her way.

And Aeduan was instantly in the water, paddling fast and praying that the one shirt he owned wasn’t too far downstream to find again.





FOURTEEN

A fog encased the night-darkened streets of Lovats while Merik watched the Linday family mansion. Like all vizerial city abodes, the house stood solemly on the oak-lined road called White Street that traced up Queen’s Hill.

No lanterns lit within the mansion, no shadows moved. Which left only one place a Plantwitch might logically go at night: his gardens.

It took Merik mere minutes to reach the Linday greenhouse. Vapor drifted into the gardens around it, veiling the structure of glass and iron that Merik knew waited within.

Thirteen years had passed since Merik had roamed the jungles of this greenhouse. He’d been a boy then, just seven years old.

It had also been daylight, and more important, he’d been invited.

Yet none of the clumsy guards noticed Merik stalking from one shadow to the next. Twice, Merik almost stumbled upon them, but twice, Merik gusted up a wall of mist to cloak him.

He spun around a bellflower hedge, its violet blossoms in full bloom, and ducked beneath a cherry tree. Such a despicable waste of space, this greenhouse. This garden. And an even more despicable waste of magic. The Linday family could use their resources to feed the starving who crushed against their gates, yet instead they grew ornamental flowers of no use to anyone.