Truthwitch (The Witchlands 1)

Mathew held Safi’s gaze for several long breaths, for once seeming as unyielding as his Heart-Thread. Then his posture loosened—and an apology slid into the line of his shoulders. He dropped the gown in a heap. “There are big wheels in motion, Safi. Wheels your uncle and many others have spent twenty years rolling into position. The Truce ends in eight months, and the Great War will resume. We … cannot let that happen.”

Safi’s head coiled back—this was not what she’d expected. “How could you or my uncle possibly affect the Great War?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” Mathew replied. “Now get cleaned up, and wear this gown tonight.” The faintest dusting of power coated Mathew’s words, and as he held out a silvery white dress, the Witchmark on the back of his hand—a hollow circle for Aether and a scripted W for Wordwitchery—almost seemed to glow.

Safi’s nostrils flared. She snatched away the filmy gown, the fabric slipping through her fingers like sea foam. “Don’t waste your magic on me.” Something about her Truthwitchery cancelled out Mathew’s persuasiveness.

But all Mathew said in return was “Hmmm,” as if he knew more than she could ever imagine. Then he twirled elegantly toward the door. “A maid will arrive shortly to help you with your bath. Don’t forget behind the ears and under the fingernails.”

Safi bit her thumb at Mathew’s back … but the act of defiance felt empty. Ashy. Her wrath from the carriage was already seeping out and oozing into the floorboards like the blackened oil of the cleaved man’s blood.

Safi tossed the gown on the bed, and her eyes settled on the corner of the Carawen book. She would fix this mess she’d made. Once she understood Iseult’s message, Safi would pick through her opponents—her uncle, the Bloodwitch, the city guards—and she would estimate her terrain—Veñaza City, the Truce Summit ball.

Then Safi would fix this.

SEVEN

Iseult ducked in to the street behind the wharf as ordered by Habim. Hunching deep beneath the scratchy hood, she wefted her way through horses and carts, merchants and Guild lackeys, and Threads of every imaginable shade and strength. At last, she caught sight of a stamped wooden sign that declared The Hawthorn Canal.

Iseult recognized it now—Safi had played taro here a few months before. Yet unlike last night, she’d actually won.

A splash of white beneath the sign caught Iseult’s eyes, glaring and conspicuous against the smear of colors that was a Veñaza City thoroughfare.

It was a Carawen monk with no Threads. None.

Iseult’s insides iced over. She froze midstep, watching the monk stride down the street—away from her. He was clearly on the hunt. Every few steps, he would pause and the back of his hood would tilt as if he sniffed the air.

It was his lack of Threads, though, that kept Iseult immobile. She’d thought she’d simply missed the Bloodwitch’s Threads in the wildness of the fight yesterday, but no—he still bore no Threads.

Which was impossible.

Everyone had Threads. End of story.

“You want a rug?” asked a carpet salesman, pushing in close to Iseult, all sweat-stained robes and heavy breathing. “Mine are straight from Azmir, but I’ll give you a good deal.”

Iseult flicked up a flat palm. “Back away or I will cut off your ears and feed them to the rats.”

Normally, this threat served Iseult well. Normally, though, she was in the Northern Wharf District, where her Nomatsi skin went mostly ignored. And normally, she had Safi at her side to show teeth and look suitably terrifying.

Today, Iseult had none of those things, and unlike Safi—who would have reacted instantly, who would have run at the first sight of the monk—Iseult only wasted more time evaluating her terrain.

It was in that two-breath pause that the carpet vendor shoved in closer and squinted beneath her hood.

His Threads blazed into gray fear, black hate. “’Matsi shit,” he hissed, swiping fingers across his eyes. Then he lunged, voice lifting as he tore back Iseult’s hood. “Get away, ’Matsi shit! Get away!”

Iseult hardly needed that second command—she was finally doing what Safi would’ve done from the start: she got away.

Or she tried to, but traffic was stopping to ogle her. To close in. Everywhere she turned or jerked, she met eyes locked on her face, her skin, her hair. She jolted back from Threads of gray fear and steely violence.

The commotion attracted the Carawen’s attention. He stopped his forward trek. Swiveled toward the rising shouts of the crowd …

And looked directly at Iseult.

Time stretched out and the crowd shrank back, blurring into a quilt of Threads and sound. For a fraction of a heartbeat that felt like eternity, all Iseult saw were the young monk’s eyes. Red eddied across the palest blue she’d ever seen. Like blood melting through ice. Like a Heart-Thread twining through blue Threads of understanding. Vaguely, Iseult wondered how she’d missed that flawless blue color at the holdup.

As all of these thoughts careened through her brain at a thousand leagues a second, she wondered if this monk would really hurt her like everyone feared …

Then the monk’s lips rippled back. He bared his teeth, and the pause in the world fractured. Time flooded forward, resumed its normal speed.

And Iseult finally ran, bolting behind a gray horse. She chucked her elbow—hard—into its lower rump. It reared. The young woman on its back screamed, and with that burst of high-pitched vocals and the sudden violent, whinnying from the horse, the entire street surged out of the way.