Truthwitch (The Witchlands 1)

It was a bad attempt to look like a Purist priest. By now Iseult had seen enough real priests trained in real Purist compounds to know how badly Corlant missed his mark.

Yet it didn’t seem to change the fact that Alma and Gretchya were showing Corlant deference. Were sharing panicked glances behind his back while he examined Iseult.

He strutted around her, gaze roving. It sent the hairs on her arms spiking upward. “You have the taint of the outside on you, Iseult. Why are you back?”

“She plans to stay this time,” Gretchya inserted. “She will resume her position as my apprentice.”

“So you have been expecting her?” Corlant’s Threads turned darkly hostile. “You made no mention of this to me, Gretchya.”

“It wasn’t certain,” Alma piped up, beaming gloriously. “You know how Gretchya hates to snag the settlement’s weave if she doesn’t have to.”

Corlant offered a grunt, his attention settling on Alma. His Threads twisting with more tan suspicion, and deep beneath that, a lusty lilac. Then his gaze speared Gretchya, and the lust flared outward.

Iseult’s stomach curdled. This was not the dynamic she’d left behind. Corlant had been a nuisance when she was a child—always spouting the dangers and the sins of witcheries. Always claiming that true devotion to the Moon Mother was in the denial of one’s magic. The eradication of it.

But Iseult had ignored him along with the rest of the tribe. Yes, Corlant had hung around her home and begged Gretchya for attention. He had even asked her to become his wife—not that Gretchya could marry. Only Heart-Threads could marry in a Nomatsi tribe, and Threadwitches didn’t have Heart-Threads.

At first, Gretchya had ignored Corlant’s advances. Then she’d used reason, pointing to the Nomatsi tribal laws and the Moon Mother’s rules as well. By the time Iseult had fled the tribe, though, Gretchya had resorted to latching the doors at night with iron padlocks and paying two local men in silver to keep the serpentine Corlant away.

When Iseult had visited last, though, Corlant had been gone—and Iseult had assumed the man had left for good. Clearly, though, that wasn’t the case—and clearly things had changed. Somehow Corlant had gotten the upper hand here.

“I have alerted the tribe to Iseult’s arrival,” Corlant said, spine unfurling to its fullest length. His head almost reached the ceiling. “The Greeting should begin soon.”

“How smart of you,” Gretchya said—but Iseult didn’t miss the muscle twitch in her mother’s jaw.

Gretchya was scared. Truly scared.

“I was so distracted by Iseult’s return,” Gretchya continued, “that I completely forgot a Greeting. We will have to get her changed—”

“No.” Corlant’s voice slashed out. He spindled back toward Iseult, eyes cruel and Threads hostile once more. “Let the tribe see her exactly as she is, tainted by the outside.” He plucked at Iseult’s apprentice sleeve, and Iseult forced her head to bow.

She might not be able to read her mother or Alma, but she could read Corlant. He wanted control; he wanted Iseult’s submission, so as her knees creaked into an unpracticed curtsy, Iseult rumbled a groan. Pulled it up from her stomach and clutched her hands to her gut.

It sounded horribly overdone, and for a brief flicker of a heartbeat, Iseult desperately wished again that Safi were with her. Safi could brazen through this no problem.

But if Alma heard the falseness in Iseult’s moan, she made no sign of it. She simply lurched toward Iseult. “Are you ill?”

“It’s my moon cycle,” Iseult gritted out. She met Corlant’s eyes, pleased to see his Threads already paling with revulsion. “I need new blood wrappings.”

“Oh you poor thing!” Alma cried. “I have a raspberry leaf tincture for that.”

“We must burn your current wrappings and get you unspoiled clothing,” Gretchya inserted, twisting toward Corlant, who—to Iseult’s surprise and satisfaction—was retreating. “If you could please shut the door on your way out, Priest Corlant, we will begin the Greeting very soon. Thank you again for informing the tribe of Iseult’s return.”

Corlant’s eyebrows bounced high, but he offered no argument—nor spoke another word as he slipped outside and heaved shut the door. A door without padlocks but with faded, chipped wood where the iron had once been.

“Good thinking,” Alma hissed at Iseult, none of her happy glow remaining. “You aren’t really on your cycle are you?”

Iseult shook her head, but then Gretchya grabbed her bicep tight. “We must work quickly,” she whispered. “Alma, get Iseult one of your gowns and find the Earthwitch healer salve for her hand. Iseult, take off your kerchief. We must deal with your hair.”

“What’s going on?” Iseult was careful to keep her voice flat despite the growing thump beneath her ribs. “Why is Corlant in charge? And why did you call him Priest Corlant?”

“Shhh,” Alma said. “You must not let anyone hear.” Then she scampered to the basement hatch and descended below the floorboards.

Gretchya towed Iseult to her worktable. “Everything has changed. Corlant runs this tribe now. He uses his witchery to—”

“Witchery?” Iseult cut in. “He’s a Purist.”

“Not entirely.” Her mother turned to the desk, sweeping stones and spools of multicolored thread aside—looking for only the gods knew what. “The rules have become much stricter since you left,” Gretchya went on. “Ever since the rumors of the Puppeteer began and cleaving became more frequent, Corlant has been able to wedge himself deeper and deeper into the tribe. He feeds off their fear and fans it to flames.”