Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(58)

By the time Vivia dragged herself from the lake, she was frozen to the bone. Her breaths were harsh as she shivered back into her clothes. Yet as she turned to snatch up her dark lantern, a quivering glow caught her eyes.

Like a cloud rolling across the moon, the nearest stretch of foxfire blinked out.

Three of the six glimmering spokes were now dead.

Whatever happens over, happens under too. Fast on that thought’s tail came another: The Fury said I must find the missing Origin Well.

Vivia swayed. No, no—Linday couldn’t be right. Except … each Well had six trees around it, and here instead were six stretches of burning foxfire. Each Well was also a source of magic, and Vivia couldn’t deny the immense power thrumming through these waters.

Long ago, Vivia’s tutors had taught her that the five Origin Wells chose the rulers of the Witchlands. It was somehow connected to the Twelve Paladins, and though she couldn’t remember precisely how, she did recall that the Water Well in southern Nubrevna was what had kept her nation autonomous for so long, even in the face of three growing empires.

Perhaps, though, the history books had missed something. There was, after all, one Well not accounted for. One well for an element no one believed existed.

The Void Well.

Vivia wasn’t a Voidwitch, though—nor had her mother been, nor her grandmother before that—so how could their family’s power stem from here? It couldn’t be an Origin Well.

It couldn’t.

But if it was … Then she could heal her father. That was the ultimate power of the Origin Well. The power to cure any ailment. Why, she could bring him down here to test it. If he healed, then she’d know.

At that thought, the empty space behind Vivia’s breastbone filled. Clogged. Almost as if she didn’t want to bring her father down here.

No regrets. Keep moving.

Vivia grabbed the lantern, snapping, “Ignite,” and squinting into the sudden light. There were too many questions, not enough time. She would have to mull all these ideas, all these possibilities while she searched—for the undercity wouldn’t find itself.

Nor would the over-city save itself.

*

Alone.

Iseult was alone again and wondering what could possibly be worse than Bloodwitches in the Contested Lands. Aeduan had left her beside an overgrown gully. It was decent terrain, in case anything unexpected arose. The sight lines were good; the cover was better, with fat mossy trunks and thick upthrusting slabs of dark granite.

After finding a flat crag to stretch out upon, Iseult dropped her gear and finally turned her attention to the rabbit she’d caught that morning. All day, it had flopped limply from the satchel on Aeduan’s back, and each time Iseult had glanced at it, its dead eyes had stared right back.

She stretched the rabbit across the stone. Its body was stiff and cold, exactly as she’d told Aeduan it would be. She just hoped the meat hadn’t spoiled.

Only one way to learn.

She rolled up her sleeves. Aeduan’s coat was far too big, and the wool itched. But she felt safer with it on. It smelled like smoke and old sweat. Not a bad smell, just … there.

After she’d rinsed her hands from water in the canteen, she freed her cutlass. While the blade was excellent for cutting off the rabbit’s feet at each joint, it was not good for the second step: a tiny incision across the rabbit’s back.

So absorbed was Iseult in not cutting too deeply and puncturing an organ (thereby guaranteeing that the meat would spoil) that she didn’t feel the Threads approaching until they were almost upon her.

In fact, if she’d waited two breaths longer before reaching out to sense the world’s weave, she would not have noticed the men until it was too late. But thank the Moon Mother, her habit was stronger than her attention on the rabbit.

Six sets of Threads crept toward her, purple tinged with steel gray. A hunger for violence, a desire for pain—and close. Mere seconds away.

Iseult’s mind blanked out. No time to react, no time to plan. The only option before her was flight, so Iseult gripped her cutlass and leaped into the gully, where the substrate was flat and the undergrowth sparse.

The Threads flared with pink excitement and green determination. They moved faster too, launching into sprints behind her. But why, why, why? Who were they and why were they hunting her? Unlike the men Esme had sent, these hunters were definitely not Cleaved. Their Threads were whole and thoroughly focused on hurting Iseult if they caught her.

She kicked her knees higher. Time blurred, the forest streaked. All Iseult saw and all Iseult was, was the gully’s mud floor and the placement of ferns. Of stones. Of anything at all that might slow her.

A man behind her roared something in a language she didn’t know. The Threads flared hotter. Hungrier. A battle cry to cow enemies.

It certainly cowed Iseult. She almost tripped, but somehow her balance prevailed. She punched her heels faster and gripped her cutlass tighter.

Ahead. Trees ending. Sky opening up. The thoughts slashed through her brain, one after another. Unbidden and with no time to examine. No time to plan.

She reached the end of the forest. Her feet pounded onto exposed stone, where water sprayed up. It was the Amonra River, foamy with speed, black with cold. The sort of rapids that even a Waterwitch would avoid—and there was no crossing it.

Iseult veered right. The shore was brutal, rocks and logs and undercut riverbank. She looked back.