Windwitch (The Witchlands #2)v(67)

“You know him, then,” Aeduan said.

“How,” she clearly had to concentrate to get that word out, “do you know him?”

Aeduan hesitated. For several moments, there was no sound beyond the distant waterfall. No movement beyond the breeze towing at the branches overhead.

Aeduan hovered under Lady Fate’s knife. The question was, which side of the blade would hurt less? To tell Iseult the truth about Corlant and the arrowhead would mean that any betrayal Aeduan might have had planned would be impossible.

Yet to keep the arrowhead a secret would guarantee that more men like the Red Sails would follow. Aeduan couldn’t spend every moment by Iseult’s side, and if one of Corlant’s other dogs caught up again—if he lost her to the Red Sails … to that Firewitch—then he would lose his silver too.

He pulled the arrowhead from his pocket. “Corlant hired me,” he explained brusquely, “before I encountered you. He wanted me to find you and bring you to him. Alive.” Cautiously, Aeduan inched toward the Threadwitch, expecting her to cower.

She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. She merely rubbed her biceps, and once Aeduan was close enough, she plucked the arrowhead from his waiting hand.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“Because my silver talers are worth more to me than what the priest is offering. And because I am not the only person Corlant has hired to find you. Those men work for him, and I assume there will be more.”

Iseult stared at Aeduan, posture swaying. Face crumpling. Then she began to laugh.

It was unlike any sound Aeduan had ever heard. Not a pretty twinkle like the wealthy wives in Ve?aza City, who kept amusement contained and wielded it like a weapon. Nor a raucous guffaw from someone who laughed freely, openly, often.

This was a shrill, breathy sound, part warbling trill and part frantic gasp. It was not a pleasant sound; it did not invite others to join.

“Dumb luck,” she choked out. “That’s what keeps saving me, Bloodwitch. Pure. Dumb. Luck.” For the first time since partnering with her, the Threadwitch slipped into Dalmotti. “Goddess above, it’s right there in the phrase, isn’t it? ‘Dumb luck.’ Choose the stupidest option, and Lady Fate will reward you.

“I should be dead, Bloodwitch. I should be shredded upon the stones or pummeled beneath the waterfall. But I’m not. And Corlant? H-he tried to kill me before. With this arrow.” She held it up, eyes fixed on it. “And he cursed it too. So if the wound didn’t kill me, the c-c-curse would. Yet somehow, I survived.”

Iseult’s laughter weakened. Then rattled off completely. “You’ve been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe—which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?”

Aeduan’s eyes thinned—not because of what she said but rather how she chose to say it. She was blaming him for the Purist priest Corlant. Blaming him for everything, yet it wasn’t as if he had asked for this either.

“If I had never met you,” he countered coolly, “then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died, and I would not be forced to work for—”

“Monk Evrane lives?” The Threadwitch pushed to her feet, a new expression washing away her hysteria: eyes huge, lips parted. Hope. “I thought the Cleaved had claimed her in Lejna. But … she lives?”

At Aeduan’s nod, Iseult’s head tipped back. Her eyes closed. When she spoke again, it was in Nomatsi, once more and with no stutter to trip her words. “Whatever has happened between us,” she said evenly, “whatever events have passed to lead us here, they cannot be undone. And now I owe you my life. Twice.”

Aeduan stiffened at the mention of a life-debt. She wasn’t finished, though.

“In Lejna, you promised to kill me if we ever met again. You said your life-debt had been repaid. By your own accounting, I owe you once for not killing me last night. Twice, for saving me from the Amonra. Maybe even three times, for warning me against Corlant.” She laughed, that same hysterical sound—but gone in an instant, her face cold and somber as she said, “I don’t know how to repay you, Monk Aeduan, but I know the Moon Mother would want me to try.”

Aeduan’s jaw muscles twitched at that. He spun away from her with too much force. “I’m not a monk anymore,” was all he said before striding out of the ruins.

Someone had to salvage their forgotten supplies.

His careful walk soon became a jog. A gallop, with ferns to snap against his calves. Branches to scrape his skin.

Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was …

A first.

A first that he didn’t know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river’s water because he had saved her life.

Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls.

But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, only that he absolutely would.