Truthwitch

  Without thought, Merik threw himself forward in a painful thrust of his own wind. Then he released his hold on the magic, and he fell. Faster than he had risen through this storm, he now plummeted back to the street. As he flew through a world of hell and witch-storm, he never let his streaming eyes lose sight of his Threadbrother.

  Kullen saw him. Crouched on the cobblestones beside a torn-apart … no, a still tearing-apart building. Kullen clutched his chest with his head tipped back, and Merik knew that Kullen saw him.

  Kullen’s hands thrust up. A blast of wind knocked into Merik, catching him as he fell. Easing him onto the street. Into the eye of Kullen’s storm.

  As soon as Merik’s boots were on the ground, he lurched for his Threadbrother. Kullen was kneeling, facedown now.

  “Kullen!” Merik yelled, his throat ripping to produce any sounds over the storm’s endless thunder, the crack of building frames, and the shattering of windows. He dropped to the street. Glass shards bit into his knees. “Kullen! Stop the storm! You have to relax and stop this storm!”

  Kullen’s only response was a shuddering in his back—a shudder Merik knew too well. Had seen too many times in his life.

  Merik yanked his Threadbrother upright. “Breathe!” he roared. “Breathe!”

  Kullen angled his face toward Merik, his lips moving ineffectually, his face gray and bubbling …

  And his eyes as black as Noden’s watery Hell.

  Breathing could not save Kullen—not from this sort of attack. Merik’s Threadbrother was cleaving.

  For a single, aching moment, Merik stared at his best friend. He searched Kullen’s face for some sign of the man he knew.

  Kullen’s mouth opened wide, the cyclone screaming with his fury, and the corrupt magic charged through Merik, threatening to cleave him too.

  But Merik didn’t cower back or push Kullen away. The storm outside was nothing compared to what raged within.

  Kullen’s fingers, black blood oozing from burst pustules, latched on to Merik’s shirt. “Kill … me,” he croaked.

  “No.” It was the only thing Merik could say. The only word that could possibly contain everything he felt.

  Kullen released him and, for the briefest flicker of a heartbeat, the black in Kullen’s eyes shrank inward. He gave Merik a sad, broken smile. “Good-bye, my King. Good-bye, my friend.”

  Then, in a blur of speed and power, Kullen sprang upward and rocketed off the pier. Wind and wreckage crashed down on Merik, slammed him against the street and blanketed all his senses. For an eternity, all that Merik felt and all that Merik was was Kullen’s cyclone.

  Until a great crack! split the chaos, and wood and pain thundered down.

  Merik’s world went black.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Iseult sat in the cupboard, her eyes squeezed shut and her senses extending outward, her witchery reaching for some sign of life. Of the Cleaved.

  As for the Bloodwitch named Aeduan, she was as blind to his Threads as she had been. Only by looking at his face had she had any idea of what he’d felt—which was nothing at all as far as she could tell. And though Iseult had trusted Aeduan not to kill her—and to probably not feed her to the Cleaved—there had been no verujta there.

  Mhe verujta. It was the most sacred of Nomatsi phrases—a phrase that meant trust me as if my soul were yours.

  It was what the Moon Mother had told the Nomatsi people when she guided them out of the war-filled far east. It was what parents said to their children when they kissed them good night. It was what Heart-Threads said in their marriage vows.

  For Aeduan to know such a phrase could only mean he’d lived with a Nomatsi tribe … Or that he was Nomatsi.

  Whatever the source of his knowledge, though, it didn’t matter. He had helped Iseult; now he was gone.

  Iseult’s magic pricked up—she sensed a cleaved Marstok stalking by the broken window. Three wriggling strands of death moved with it, just like the ones she’d seen over the corpse in Veñaza City. Just like the ones she’d seen through the Puppeteer’s eyes.

  These Threads were bigger, though. Fatter and strangely long. Stretching into wispy tendrils that vanished into the sky, like a marionette on a stage …

  Iseult’s breath punched out. Puppeteer. She was looking at the Puppeteer’s work right now. These Severed Threads stretched all the way to Poznin—Iseult was sure of it—which meant the Puppeteer had somehow cleaved all these men from afar.

  No, not somehow. She’d done it with Iseult’s help.

  All those plans and places tucked away in your brain, the Puppeteer had said, have made the Raider King very happy. That’s why he gave me this grand mission for tomorrow. So, thank you—you made all of this possible.

  The Puppeteer had realized Iseult and Safi aimed for Lejna, and she had cleaved whomever she could grab hold of.

  Iseult was suddenly boiling beneath her cloak. Suffocating inside this cupboard. Burning inside her own head. She should have fought the Puppeteer harder. She should have avoided sleep and stayed away from that woman’s shadowy grasp.

  Iseult was going to retch …

  No, she was retching. Dry heaving and hacking because these Cleaved were on her soul now. She had killed them by being weak.

  A new set of Threads flickered into Iseult’s awareness. A bright, living set that shoveled through Iseult’s sickness. She knew these Threads—that particular shade of determined green and worried beige.

  Evrane. The monk was right outside the window.

  In a heartbeat, Iseult was out of the cupboard. She couldn’t let Evrane die too. She leapt through the shattered window. Glass grabbed at her cloak, but its buckle held fast. Then she was pounding down the narrow street—aiming right, in the direction she sensed Evrane’s Threads.

  Rain cut her, burning the wound on her face. The storm was getting worse—the sky had come alive. It all roiled and tossed in a single direction: toward the wharf.

  Through the rain, Iseult glimpsed white. She pushed her legs faster, screaming, “Evrane!”

  The white paused. Materialized into Evrane’s shape and silver head. She glanced back, her face a mask of surprise but her Threads blue with relief.

  Black moved along a rooftop. Streaked from a shadowy storefront.

  The Cleaved.

  “Behind you!” Iseult shrieked, heaving out her cutlass.

  She was too late. The Cleaved converged on Evrane, and the monk vanished beneath a horde of death.

  Iseult burned up the road as fast as she could, screaming and slashing the entire way. Her blades severed necks, sliced through legs. Pustules burst and acid hissed on the walls. On Iseult’s cloak.

  Yet she swung and heaved and chopped, screaming Evrane’s name all the while.

  Soon enough, there was no one left to kill. The Cleaved were running … and where Evrane had fallen, there was nothing but a wide stain of red.

  Iseult spun, frantically searching doorways and shadows.

  But the monk was as gone as the Cleaved.

  So Iseult squeezed her eyes against the storm and reached for Threads. There. On the other side of the nearest alley was a set of frightened white Threads, swirling with gray pain. A lot of gray pain.

  Iseult pushed into the wind and hugged Aeduan’s cloak tight. He had told her the truth: the Cleaved didn’t seem to smell her.

  She reached an intersection of narrow row houses. Blood dragged along the ground, already splashing away with the rain.

  Iseult picked up her pace and followed Evrane’s trail as long as she could, but the downpour quickly washed away the blood. Even straining to sense the monk’s Threads, she soon lost sight of them too. They moved so fast. Much faster than Iseult could travel in this storm.

  When Iseult shoved onto a familiar narrow street, she caught sight of the wave-beaten harbor several blocks ahead. She was on the western edge of town where she’d first come in. Sand and sea-spray bore down on her, and the storm surged out. Wood cracked; buildings crumbled.

>   With an arm thrust up to protect her face, Iseult frantically searched for signs of Evrane. A flash of white in the storm or a flicker of the monk’s Threads. But Iseult saw nothing. The storm devoured everything. Iseult could barely sense the Cleaved anymore—in fact, they seemed to be fleeing the city and racing north.

  Lightning exploded. Iseult’s eyes shuttered against the light, the heat. Magic crashed over her, shivered on her skin and in her lungs. She tumbled against the nearest wall and shrank within the cloak.

  For half of a seemingly endless breath, Iseult was crippled by her guilt. By how much she hated herself and her magic and the Puppeteer.

  But then the storm withdrew. The noise and the pressure and the mauling rain pulled back …

  And Threads scissored into Iseult’s awareness. Living Threads nearby. She lurched upright, tossing back the cloak to find the cyclone leaving. It spiraled over the sea like a writhing black snake.

  Iseult limped into a demolished alley, searching for the living Threads. Her feet crunched through glass until at last she found the Prince of Nubrevna, bruised, bleeding, and trapped beneath a fallen building.

  Yet he was still alive, and Iseult was still alive to save him.

  * * *

  A laugh writhed in Safi’s throat as she stared blearily at Vaness. Of course, it would be the Empress of Marstok. Who else would have the balls to fight with a flail? Or be insane enough to come after Safi herself?

  Rain fell. Wind charged—strong as an ox and growing stronger—and waves threatened to cover the entire street. A hurricane roared at the other end of the city, but Safi never looked away from Empress Vaness. If the woman cleaved …

  But gods below, could she kill an Empress?

  Safi’s eyes flicked to the flail, an arm’s length from Vaness and all but forgotten. If the Empress was cleaving, that weapon was Safi’s only option …

  Vaness stilled. She stopped scratching her arms, stopped moving at all. Her gaze was pinned behind Safi.

  “Twelve protect me,” she said.

  If she’s speaking, then she isn’t cleaving, Safi thought. Whatever corrupt magic had surged through Vaness, the Empress hadn’t succumbed.

  But then Safi made the mistake of following Vaness’s gaze. The storm was leaving, a single figure at its center. Lightning sizzled down its black form as it curved and twisted and charged out to sea.

  Kullen.

  Oh gods. Safi swayed, but forced her head to stay up so she could search the street. She saw no sign of Merik. Surely he had not been killed. Yet before Safi could propel herself that way, Vaness shouted, “Give up, Truthwitch.”

  Shit. Ever so slowly, Safi turned back to Vaness, who stood with her flail ready.

  Safi wet her lips. They tasted like blood and salt. Maybe if she could distract Vaness, she could bolt away. “Why you?” she asked. “Why not send your soldiers to kill me? Why risk yourself?”

  “Because, I am a servant to my people. If I must dirty someone’s hands, then I will always dirty my own.”

  Safi blinked. Then she laughed—a broken, shocked sound. It would seem Vaness was just like Merik in that regard. Still … “This is much more than just … dirtying your hands, Empress. You were almost killed by a hurricane—and you almost cleaved too.”

  “If my enemies had claimed you first, then you could topple me. Yet in my hands, you will save a kingdom. My kingdom. To me, that is worth dying for.”

  Ah. Safi sighed at those words, and something deep and ancient flickered awake at the base of her spine. One for the sake of many. She understood that now.

  “Surrender.” Vaness flicked her hand, and the spiked flail pendulumed. “There is nothing you can do.”

  False, Safi’s magic breathed, and with that prickle of power, everything from the past few days washed over her. A deluge of words and lies that people believed about her.

  … live out the same unambitious existence you’ve always enjoyed … This isn’t about you anymore … Only you would be so reckless … There is nothing you can do …

  Then a single bright thought rose to the surface: If you wanted to, Safiya, you could bend and shape the world.

  Uncle Eron had said that, and Safi realized—almost laughing as she did—that he was right. She wasn’t trapped inside her skin or her mistakes, and she didn’t need to change who she was. Everything she needed was inside of her: the tools from Mathew and Habim—even Uncle Eron—and the solid, unwavering love of her Threadsister.

  Safi could bend and shape the world.

  And it was time to do so.

  In a single, fluid burst, Safi hooked a heel behind Vaness’s ankle and punched the Empress in the nose. Vaness fell backward to the street.

  And Safi ran—flat out for the third pier. No looking back, no thinking. This was who Safi was and who she wanted to be. She thought with the soles of her feet, sensed with the palms of her hands. A bundle of muscles and power honed to fight for the people she loved and the causes she believed in. Her life hadn’t been leading up to Veñaza City or the flight from the ball. It had been leading up to this race to the final pier.

  It wasn’t freedom she wanted. It was belief in something—a prize big enough to run for and to fight for and to keep on reaching toward no matter what.

  She had a prize now. She ran for Nubrevna. She ran for Merik. She ran for Iseult. She ran for Kullen and Ryber and Mathew and Habim, and above all, she ran for herself.

  Soldiers bloomed in the corners of her vision. A blur of green uniforms pouring from Lejna’s side streets. But they were too slow to catch up—at least not before Safi got to where she needed to be.

  She felt it to the very core of her witchery, and with each explosive cry of true-true-true in her chest, Safi drove her legs faster.

  She was ten paces from the pier now.

  Five.

  Something small and strong—like the handle of a flail—punched into Safi’s knee. She fell, but instinct took over. She swiveled into a graceless roll … and unfurled back into her sprint.

  Then she hit the first plank of the pier, and pain shattered through her.

  So furious, it masked all sight.

  So explosive, it swallowed all sound.

  Safi screamed. She crashed forward. Her arms crumpled beneath her.

  Her left foot. She’d been hit by the flail’s spiky head. Her bones were smashed. Blood gushed.

  But she was on the pier, and spilled blood or not, that contract had to be fulfilled. It had to be.

  Black boots swarmed into Safi’s vision from all directions. In seconds, two Adders had hauled Safi upright and locked her in manacles.

  As the Empress approached, shouting orders in Marstok that Safi found far too difficult to understand, she was pleased to spot a black eye blossoming on the Empress’s face. And ah, that was a lot of blood coming from her nose.

  The two Adders clamped their hands on Safi’s shoulders despite the fact that she couldn’t have run—or even have walked—no matter how hard she tried. In fact, were it not for those hands on her shoulders, she wasn’t sure she could keep standing as Vaness leaned in close.

  And though Safi wanted nothing more than to blink, to cry, to beg for someone to heal her foot, she met Vaness’s gaze and did not look away.

  At last, Vaness smiled. It was a terrifying smile with all the blood dripping between her teeth. “You cannot escape me now.”

  “I … wasn’t trying to,” Safi croaked—even though she really just wanted to scream. She forced herself to raggedly laugh. “If it’s my magic you want, Empress … if you think I’m so powerful … then you’re mistaken. I know truth from lie, but that’s it. And even when I know the truth … that doesn’t mean I always tell it.”

  Vaness’s jaw tightened. She leaned in close, as if trying to read the secrets in Safi’s eyes. “What would it take to earn your loyalty, then? To ensure you tell me the truths that I need and help me save my kingdom? Name your price.”

  Safi stared at the Empress’s swe
lling, purple face, and she nudged at her Truthwitchery for some sign of the woman’s sincerity. It seemed impossible that Vaness would offer something so vast … Yet beneath all of Safi’s blazing pain, her witchery shimmered its confirmation.

  A triumphant smile curled on the edge of her lips—although that might’ve been a pained grimace. It was hard to tell at this point.

  “I want trade with Nubrevna,” she said. “I want you to send an envoy to Lovats, and I want you to negotiate the export of food in exchange for … for whatever it is Nubrevnans have to offer.”

  Vaness arched a bloodied eyebrow, and a breeze sent her wet hair flying across her face. “Why would you want that?”

  “Same as you.” Safi tipped her head back toward the city—then wished she hadn’t. She was losing too much blood for quick movements. Or for any movements, really. “I’ll dirty my hands for the people that matter to me. I’ll run as far as I have to and fight as hard as I can. If that’s what it takes to help them, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  To Safi’s surprise, Vaness offered a small—genuine—grin in return. “You have a deal then, Truthwitch.”

  “And you have the use of my magic.”Relief shuddered through Safi—or maybe that was a warning jolt from blood loss.

  Safi swung her fuzzy gaze toward the street she thought Merik had vanished down—it was near where she’d last seen Iseult. For a long moment, all Safi heard was the slosh of water against the dock. All she felt was the soft, cleansing rain on her cheeks. All she thought of was her family.

  She nodded in her friend’s direction, wishing them a silent good-bye. Praying they were all right … and knowing they’d come for her.

  Then the hollow thwack of more feet cut through Safi’s thoughts and brought on excruciating pain.

  “We will fly now,” Vaness said, beckoning to the shortest sailor in the crowd. He bore the tattoo of a Windwitch. “Our fleet is not far. Can you do that, Truthwitch?”

  “Yes,” Safi breathed, swaying into one of the men holding her up. She flashed a grin at him and said, “I’m Safiya fon Hasstrel, and I can do anything.”

  As those words fell from her tongue, her magic perked up … and then purred like a lion in a sunbeam.