Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

“I will return your coins to you,” she declared, grateful her stammer felt leagues away, “only if you will hunt someone for me.”

His entire body tightened like a snake’s. For several breaths, nothing happened. Distant thunder rolled. Wind gusted into the overhang, spraying them. Yet Aeduan moved not a muscle.

Until at last, he murmured, “So you … need me.”

“Yes. To track Safiya fon Hasstrel.”

“The Truthwitch.”

Iseult winced at that word. The barest of flinches, yet she knew Aeduan saw. She knew he noted.

“The Truthwitch,” she agreed eventually, marveling at how strange it was to utter that word aloud. The one word she hadn’t dared say for six and a half years, lest someone overhear. Lest she accidentally curse Safi to imprisonment or death. “The Marstoks took Safi, but I don’t know where. You, Bloodwitch, can track her.”

“Why would I do that for you?”

“Because I will tell you where the rest of your coins are.”

He eased two steps closer, circling around the dead fire. No blinking. No looking away. “You will pay me with my own silver talers?”

So the coins are his. Iseult didn’t know how or why they had ended up in Mathew’s cellar, but she would use that bargaining card all the same.

At her nod, Aeduan laughed. A sound that hummed with shock and disbelief. “What will prevent you from keeping my money? Once I find the Truthwitch for you, how do I know you will fulfill your end of the deal?”

“How do I know,” Iseult countered, “that once you find Safiya fon Hasstrel, you won’t try to keep her? Try to sell her off, like you did before?”

The Bloodwitch hesitated, as if quickly tracing several options of conversation before choosing the one he liked most. Or the one that best served his purpose.

Cool as a Threadwitch.

“So it will come down to timing, then.” He rolled his wrists. “Who betrays whom first.”

“Does that mean you accept?”

He took another step toward her, this one long enough to close the gap between them. Iseult had to lift her chin to keep eye contact.

“You are not my master, Threadwitch. You are not my employer. And above all, you are not my ally. We travel the same route for a time, nothing more. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“In that case,” he continued, still in Dalmotti, always in Dalmotti, “I accept.”

Iseult’s fingers furled, fists to keep herself from reacting. From revealing how much relief ebbed through her.

I’m coming, Safi.

She turned away, waiting until the last moment to break eye contact and pivot entirely. Then she marched to a shadowy corner where fat mushrooms stacked downward on the limestone wall. A crouch, a grab, and her hands touched leather.

She was gentle with the baldric, careful to keep the knife hilts from scraping or the leather from dragging. Even as she crossed the wet earth, she kept the leather stretched long and the buckles quiet.

She offered it to him. “They need to be oiled.”

No reaction. He simply refastened the blades across his chest, methodically and silently, before strolling toward the overhang’s edge. Rain misted over him, and for the first time since Aeduan had awoken in the forest, Iseult’s lungs felt big enough to let in air.

He was going to help her.

He wasn’t going to kill her.

“Are you ready to leave?” she asked, gripping her Threadstone. I’m coming, Safi. “There’s no time to waste.”

“We can make no progress in this weather, and darkness will soon fall.” A yank at the buckle beside his shoulder; blades clinked in warning. “We travel tomorrow, at first light.”

Then the Bloodwitch sank into a cross-legged position on the damp soil, closed his eyes, and did not speak again.

* * *

The Hell-Bard commander returned from the jungle, movements imbalanced as he shuffled to Zander’s pack and rifled through. If he noticed Safi’s gaze boring into him, he gave no indication.

Night was drawning near. Safi had hoped they might make camp, but Lady Fate was not favoring her thus far.

The commander withdrew dried meat, and after easing off his helm, he placed it beside the pack. A sunbeam broke through the forest’s canopy. It flashed on the back of his neck, where blood crusted.

And where a white cloth peeked out.

He had gone into the woods to tend his wound. Safi would stake her life on that. He barely moved his left arm; his left shoulder looked a bit larger, as if bandages filled the space inside his leathers.

It’s a bloody wound, then. Safi’s lips twitched at this tiny stroke of fortune. She must’ve reopened the wound when she had pummeled him, and that meant he’d lost blood. That meant he’d grown weaker.

Her lips curved a bit higher.

The Hell-Bard noticed. “Don’t look so smug, Heretic. You’re the one tied to a tree.”

You’ll be tied up soon, she thought, although she did erase her smile. No sense giving away her tricks. “I was simply admiring the view, Hell-Bard. You look so much better without your helmet on.”

A distrustful line crossed Caden’s brow—and he was Caden now, without his helm. The Chiseled Cheater who had consigned her to life on the run. To a life lived as prey.

Caden sauntered closer. Closer again until he was within reach, if had Safi not been bound.

He extended a strip of dried meat. “Pork belly?”

“Please.” She fluttered her lashes. “And thank you.”