Truthwitch (The Witchlands 1)

And Iseult gave up. She stopped her chase at the companionway and twisted around to meet Safi’s eyes, looking even more helpless than she had when she’d been dying.

Rain started to fall. A gentle whisper on Safi’s skin that should have soothed, but felt like acid instead. Safi was falling into herself. The world was pulsing at her. She couldn’t move her legs. She was trapped here, inside herself. Forever, she would be this person. Stuck within this body and this mind. Tied down by her own mistakes and broken promises.

This is why they all leave you. Your parents. Your uncle. Habim and Mathew. Merik.

The prince’s name pounded in Safi’s ears. Roared with her blood in time to the rain. In time to the drum.

He only wanted to save his homeland, yet Safi hadn’t cared—not about Merik, not about all the lives depending on him.

Iseult stumbled over the deck toward Safi, her face pinched and pale. She was the only person Safi had left, the only piece from her old life. But how long before Iseult gave up too?

Iseult reached Safi and dropped to her knees. “He won’t listen to me.”

“You need rest,” Evrane said. “Go to the cabin.”

Safi flinched; her chains rattled. She’d forgotten the monk was fettered beside her. She’d been so caged in her own skin, she’d forgotten everyone else.

Like she always did.

It was Safi’s selfish greed that had put a price on Iseult’s head. That had forced Iseult to leave Veñaza City—and somehow earned a cursed arrow in the arm too. Then, when Safi had fought for Iseult—had done everything she could to compensate and to save her other half from the damage she’d wrought—Safi had ended up hurting someone else. Lots of someones. Her tunnel vision had led her down a broken path. Now Merik, Kullen, and his entire crew were paying for it.

With that thought, Uncle Eron’s words from Veñaza City settled over Safi’s heart.

When the chimes toll midnight, you can do whatever you please and live out the same unambitious existence you’ve always enjoyed.

She had done just that, hadn’t she? At midnight, she had dropped the act of domna. She’d resumed her old impulsive, oblivious existence.

But … Safi refused to accept that. She refused to be what Eron—or anyone else—expected her to be. She was stuck in this body, with this mind, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t reach outside. It didn’t mean she couldn’t change.

She met Iseult’s eyes, sagging and overbright in the twilight. “Go to the cabin,” she ordered. “You need to get out of the rain.”

“But you…” Iseult scooted closer, gooseflesh on her rain-slick arms. “I can’t leave you like this.”

“Please, Iz. If you don’t heal, then all of this will have been for nothing.” Safi forced a laugh. “I’ll be fine. This is nothing compared to Habim’s jab drills.”

Iseult didn’t offer the smile Safi had hoped for, but she did nod and unsteadily push to her feet. “I’ll check on you at the next chime.” She looked at Evrane and lifted her wrist. “Do you want the Painstone back?”

Evrane gave a tiny shake of her head. “You’ll need it to fall asleep.

“Thank you.” Iseult looked once more at Safi—stared hard into Safi’s eyes. “It’ll be all right,” she said simply. “We’ll make it all right again. I promise.” Then she hugged her arms to her chest and walked away, leaving Safi with the rising tide of her Truthwitchery.

Because somehow they would make it all right again.

TWENTY-SEVEN

In the seven hours since the Cartorran cutter had set sail from Veñaza City, the sun had set, the moon had risen, and Aeduan had not stopped puking. His only consolation was that this misery had sparked a story among the Void-fearing sailors on board: Bloodwitches can’t cross water.

Yes, let them spread that rumor at every port they visited.

It was just as Aeduan had transitioned into welcome dry heaves that the cutter came upon four destroyed naval vessels—three of them Marstoki and one Nubrevnan. Despite Aeduan’s most snarling protests that Safiya fon Hasstrel was not upon these ships, Prince Leopold insisted on stopping anyway.

For it would seem that the Empress of Marstok was onboard—and Leopold wanted Aeduan to join him on that ship. When none of the Hell-Bards opposed this madness—not even the Commander, a lazy, irreverent young man named Fitz Grieg—Aeduan soon found himself flying to the Empress’s galleon via Windwitch. There, ten Adders gave him and Leopold a casual once-over. They Adders made no move to claim any weapons, though, before leading their visitors to the Empress’s cabin. Clearly they were confident that neither Leopold nor Aeduan stood any chance against their Poisonwitch darts.

Aeduan recognized some of the Adders—by blood-smell alone, though, since he could see no faces behind their headscarves. Their zigzagged swords, like flames of steel, flickered in the Firewitch lamps across the deck.

Stupid weapons. They were unwieldy and unnecessary—especially when an Adder’s best advantage was his or her Poisonwitchery.

Their power over poison was such a dark subset of Waterwitchery—a corruption of Waterwitch healers, Aeduan had once heard—yet it was Aeduan’s power that was considered Void magic. Aeduan was the one called demon.

It had always struck him as … unfair.

Then again, it also worked in his favor.

Once inside the Empress’s cabin, the Adders settled evenly around the room and against the walls. A low, unadorned table and two benches were at the room’s center, and beside one stood the Empress of Marstok.