Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

by Susan Dennard

Worse than the tears, though, worse than the thorns’ vicious bite and worse than the welts from the children’s rocks, are the sore muscles in the boy’s cheeks. A reminder of what he almost had. Of what he had had for a few perfect hours. He was born a monster, he will die a monster, and monsters do not get to have friends.

And when noblemen eyed her up and down as openly as Bayrum of the Shards was doing, then she offered a polite curtsy in return—even though she wanted to break their arms.

Like weeds, though, lies were not a symptom of corruption in the soul, and truth was not a symptom of its purity. Nations could not run without blackmail or false promises or money exchanging hands, especially not nations as vast as the Marstoki Empire.

Safi had no choice but to skid to a halt and double over in the hall. Acid and bile spewed out, chunky where the chancellor’s blood had been liquid. Erratic where the blood had slithered so smooth. More mess for the servants.

“How is it,” Stix asked, “that men always seem to claim victory over the triumphs earned by women?”

He was caught, like the man from the tale who wanted to feed his family during a blizzard, but could not bear to kill the lamb. In the end, everyone died of starvation, including the lamb. For Lady Fate makes all men choose eventually.

Owl, we need to get into Tirla to help Aeduan. Don’t you care about Aeduan?” As if on cue, the Bloodwitch started coughing once more. Actually, it was on cue, for when she glanced his way, she found the faintest smile brushing his tired lips.

Goddess, she wished Safi were here, though. “Think like Iseult,” Safi whispered.

The water cared only for this moment and this place. It flowed where the land allowed it. It changed as the seasons demanded. And it never fretted if it couldn’t be what others wanted.

A man is not his mind, he tried to tell himself. The first lesson every monk learned. A man is not his body. They are merely tools so that a man may fight onward.

But the monster and the honey … It was a tale his father had woven a hundred times when Aeduan was a child—and it was a tale Aeduan refused to ever tell. After all, stories like it were dangerous. They made the hopeless hope and the forgotten dream of being remembered. But the truth was that monsters could never be changed into men, no matter how much honey they might gather.

Ah, Merik thought as cozy sleep charged in, pulling him to the ground in a clank of wood and chains. She drugged me. How nice.

The truth was that acting like two bitches sniffing bottoms in an alley was much easier than the polite diplomatic nothings Vivia’s mother had taught her.

She had already taken twelve books from the Empress’s personal library, and she had even taken notes on one of them. Iseult would have been wildly impressed.

Now she realized her heart had never stopped, her lungs had never paused. It was just that they’d been hidden behind the expanse of him. Of his eyes, of his fingers, of his touch.

Iseult supposed it was as simple as rejecting that which might reject us. It hurt less when you were the one to act first.

How strange. He never thought he would be lumped with normal people. When he was young, it had been all he’d wanted. Now, he hated it.

It wasn’t her fault, though. It was the fault of a shoddy scheme with too many moving parts, as well as the fact that no one ever told her what in damnation was going on.

She bared her toothiest grin. “I think your strategy is a sound one, General.” He visibly bristled, weight shifting, lips puckering. And relief chuckled through Safi that even as Firewitch general and court Truthwitch, Habim still found her insufferable.

Vaness offered a sideways sigh—a sure sign she was un-empressed.

So many people here to see her, Safi thought, yet none who truly know her. It must be very lonely indeed to be loved and hated, yet never seen.

Iseult did not have a better plan. In fact, she had no plan at all. She always relied on Safi in these situations. While Safi could think with the soles of her feet and sense with the palms of her hands, Iseult only ever managed to shut down. No stasis, no use to anyone.

And above all, Safi hated that Iseult was so very far away. With Iseult, Safi was brave. With Iseult, Safi was strong. And with Iseult, Safi was fearless. On her own, though, she was just a girl trapped in another country while unknown enemies tried to kill her.

All she wanted was to be reunited with Safi. More than anything in all the Witchlands, she wanted her Threadsister at her side. For the world to feel right side up again. Safi, who was made of sunshine and laughter. Safi, who initiated so Iseult could complete. Who never abandoned her. Who was always we and us and never saw Iseult as the means, but only as the end.

“We will have to find a way to coax back the horses without getting rid of Blueberry.” “Coja’kess?” he repeated. Ah, Iseult supposed they had named the bat in Nomatsi. “It means ‘blueberry’ in Nomatsi.” “The bat’s name is Blueberry?” “They are his favorite food.” Another lovely laugh split the prince’s lips, turning his Threads to a perfect shade of sunrise. “Did you hear that, Rolf?” He patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s a fruit bat. I told you there was nothing to be afraid of, old man. Nothing to be afraid of at all.”

They had trekked above the tree line, where only rock and snow held court. Iseult had never seen so much snow, and she decided she didn’t much like it. It was cold, it was wet, and there never seemed to be an end to it.

“It means that I forget how easy it is to kill people,” he said gruffly, “so I must always be on my guard. It means I do not know what fear is, so I can never be brave. It means that I live when everyone else around me dies. And it means,” he finally wedged the salve’s cork back in, “I am not like you. Or anyone else.”

Withholding, withholding, withholding. That was her father’s favorite means of punishment, be it information he knew she wanted or his own presence when it was required. He knew exactly what Vivia needed most, and then he refused to let her have it.

A good fighter—Aeduan remembered that from Veñaza City. But good fighters did not always make good men.

But he did not know her city. He did not know the people crowded into the streets. He had never walked the Skulks or served the hungry at Pin’s Keep. He had never ridden the waves of the Cisterns, or explored the under-city. He was a transplant from Nihar who had married into power. Who stole speeches and titles and glory that were not his, and the right to rule did not live inside his veins.

All these years, Vivia had thought that she needed to be stronger than her mother, that she needed to fight the darkness to wear the crown. But that was wrong; that was her father speaking. Jana had been strong—stronger than Serafin. Stronger than anyone realized, for she had lived with shadows every day and still ruled, still guided, still loved. Rather than nurture that strength, though, Serafin had nurtured the shadows.

No more backstabbing and mind games, no more seeking approval from people who thought her unqualified or unhinged. No more tiptoeing around a room because women oughtn’t to run, to shout, to rule. And above all: no more regrets. Vivia was ready to be Queen.

The moments slid past, both breathing. Both processing what had happened. They had fought their own people, they had killed their own people, and it had been the right thing to do.

All her life, these men had been there. To scold and to teach and to tend her wounds from another sword lesson gone wrong. They were not evil; Safi knew that as surely as she knew that Vaness was not evil. They were merely wolves in a world of rabbits, who had forgotten that rabbits were important too.

He had known this moment would come, and caring now seemed impossible. If he had truly wanted to stop the curse, then he should have made different choices, should have followed different paths. He was a Bloodwitch no longer. He was a monk no longer. He was man, just a man. It would have to be enough.

Only when his temper flared did he ever seem to have any power. The Nihar rage, his family called it. But in anger there could be no listening. In rage, there could be no sight. And in fury, there could be no understanding.

All Aeduan felt was a faint constriction in his lungs. Regret, he supposed, that it had come to this. After all, his father was not a bad man; his father’s cause might even be just. But one need not be evil to become it.

From the day she had stabbed Aeduan in the heart, that heart had become hers—and she would not let this be his end.

Iseult’s lungs shrieked. She wanted air. She wanted light. She wanted life. But here, in the shadows of the Well, she wanted Aeduan more.

Yet in that moment, as Iseult held fast to Aeduan, as she squinted against the brightness and willed his eyes to open, she saw red. Scarlet and true and spooling around them. Red that was not blood. Red Threads that led from her heart and ended inside of his. Impossible, she thought.

“Where?” the Northman coughed. “I do not know,” Merik replied, and it was mostly true. Hye, he knew he was inside of a mountain with magic doorways that somehow connected to the mythological Sightwitch Sister Convent. But this explanation was far beyond his ability to articulate in Svodish. Hell-waters, it was beyond his ability to articulate in Nubrevnan.

Habim had always said war was senseless, yet he had caused so, so much senseless horror here. This was what Uncle Eron’s scheme had done, and it was not peace in the Witchlands.

He turned back to the child. He turned back to the boy he had once been. He did not see a demon. He did not see a monster.

But there was no reason. There never had been. He was just a child, trapped in the wreckage of war. He had not done this, he had not caused this. Yet he had lost his life to it all the same. Now no one could save him but himself.

The Well had healed the curse, just as Iseult had promised. Then it had brought Aeduan back from death and returned to him the one thing he had spent his whole life hating. He’d had it all wrong, though. He saw that now. Being a Bloodwitch did not mean he could not also be a man.

She opened her eyes. Golden eyes streaked with green. The only eyes that had ever met Aeduan’s without looking away.

He turned to Iseult. “Take my hand,” he said, and without hesitation, she twined her fingers into his. Her golden eyes held Aeduan’s and did not look away. She trusted him. She had claimed his Aether, and she would guide his blade. She was the dark-giver, the shadow-ender, and he would not betray her. Not again.

But Aeduan already had enough blood on his hands, and as far as he was concerned, death did not have to follow wherever he went. Not anymore.

Iseult had once thought Aeduan carried himself as if he came from another time. As if he had walked a thousand years and planned to walk a thousand more. Now, though, there was a new stillness about him—and suddenly a thousand years seemed a very short time indeed for a man with strength such as his.

So she nodded and patted the bloodied coin beneath her shirt. “Find me.” “Always,” he promised, and for a brief pause in the chaos, he looked into her eyes. So pale, so blue. When she had seen those eyes in Veñaza City, she had thought they were the color of understanding. She had been right.