Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(59)

A mistake. The men were closer than she’d realized. Close enough for her to see pockmarks and scars and toothless smiles. To see binding Threads oozing between them—a sign they all followed the same command. A sign they were comrades working as one.

Iseult pushed herself harder, her breath coming in short fog-choked gasps. The Amonra Falls hummed ahead. First, a mere tickle at the base of Iseult’s spine. A mist to linger on the horizon. It grew louder with each step, expanding into a heavy rumble in Iseult’s gut, a rain that coated everything in fat droplets.

Stasis, Iseult! Stasis in your fingers and in your toes! But she couldn’t reclaim it. She couldn’t slow, she couldn’t plan. She was against a wall, and it was made of violent men and violent rapids.

This was a wall that Safi would hurdle in a heartbeat, though. No preparing. No worrying. Just action. If Safi were here, she wouldn’t wait. She’d see opportunity and she’d take it.

Stupid as it might seem, Safi had once told Iseult, stupid is also something they never see coming.

Yes, Iseult had answered at the time, and it’s also why I always end up saving your skin.

But hey! A sharp Safi grin. At least there’s a skin to save, Iz. Am I right?

She was right. Moon Mother save her, but Safi was right. Stupid was sometimes the best.

And sometimes, stupid was all that remained.

Iseult tipped her head left as she ran, letting her gaze shoot ahead to where river pounded against the shore. No debris rushed on that choppy surface, for the power of these rapids was too much. The Amonra yanked sticks, leaves, and life down; it did not spit them back up.

Goddess, it would be stupid to go in that river. So stupid.

Act now. Consequences later. Initiate, complete.

It was time. The hunters were lurching out of the trees.

Iseult initiated. Iseult jumped. As the muddy bank fell away and damp air kissed her cheeks, shouts clamored from the forest. Threads collectively brightened with turquoise surprise, crimson rage. Then Iseult reached the peak of her arc and began to fall.

A single sharp thought hit her in that moment. It wasn’t a tangible thought, it wasn’t carved in words to score across her mind, but rather it was a feeling that brightened every piece of her as the black river closed in.

You’ve been here before, the feeling said. And you know what to do.

Her hands moved instinctively to her wool coat. A tug of stiff fingers against the collar, then Iseult’s feet hit the waves. Cold, cold, cold, cold—and ripping her under. Punching all breath from her chest. Tearing all sight and sound and senses.

The Amonra dragged Iseult down.

As she sank below, she wrestled free from the coat. It unfurled above, a distraction as well as a shield to hide Iseult while she flew downstream in a world without breath. A world without control.





TWENTY

After bathing under Lev’s watchful eye, Vaness and Safi were forced to don their filthy, torn clothes.

Lev shot them each an apologetic look at the bathhouse exit. “Zander went to find clothes for you,” she said, then she took up position behind the women and sent them marching back to their fourth-floor room.

They found Zander waiting inside, his face turned down to his toes. “I got several gowns. I wasn’t sure what ladies like you might want to wear.”

Safi didn’t need her magic to feel the honesty shivering off Zander’s proclamation. Against her better judgment, she caught herself smiling. “Thank you, Hell-Bard.”

Then she and Vaness were left alone, while Lev and Zander began a hushed conversation in the hall. Caden was nowhere to be seen.

“Two against two,” Vaness murmured in Marstoki as she glided for the bed. “Had I not this collar on”—she jiggled it, the wood darkened with water—“then there would be no contest.”

Safi, meanwhile, shot for the window. The shutters were open, and while four stories was undoubtedly a long drop, hell-flaming goat tits, she was willing to try.

She reached the window. The Pirate Republic spanned before her, the arena thrusting up in the distance. She tried to dip her head through …

A burst of warmth and light lashed out. Safi’s forehead hit solid air—and her heart surged into her throat. Magic. Wards, Safi realized, although what they protected against or how Hell-Bards could even do magic, Safi had no idea.

She tried again, and again, but her skull simply smacked an invisible wall each time. Light flashed, shimmering along the edges with golden dust.

“So that is what the wards do,” Vaness said from her spot at the bed. “It is good to know.”

Safi grunted, scowling, and finally turned away from the sunny seascape outside. At the bed, she made quick work of her ruined gown, stripping it off in one move. Vaness, of course, was undressing more patiently, carefully removing her dirty gown and folding it neatly on the bed.

Safi’s heart panged. It was such an Iseult-like thing to do. Such a familiar balance of Safi charging ahead, heedless and hurried, while her companion lingered, contemplated, gathered her thoughts.

Safi wavered, fingers gripped tight around a hunter green gown while her free hand moved to the Threadstone. The leather thong it was looped on now rested damp against her collarbone. She pulled it out.

And horror shoveled through her. The stone was blinking. Iseult.

“What does it mean?” Vaness asked quietly.