Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

Aeduan stiffened at the mention of a life-debt. She wasn’t finished, though.

“In Lejna, you promised to kill me if we ever met again. You said your life-debt had been repaid. By your own accounting, I owe you once for not killing me last night. Twice, for saving me from the Amonra. Maybe even three times, for warning me against Corlant.” She laughed, that same hysterical sound—but gone in an instant, her face cold and somber as she said, “I don’t know how to repay you, Monk Aeduan, but I know the Moon Mother would want me to try.”

Aeduan’s jaw muscles twitched at that. He spun away from her with too much force. “I’m not a monk anymore,” was all he said before striding out of the ruins.

Someone had to salvage their forgotten supplies.

His careful walk soon became a jog. A gallop, with ferns to snap against his calves. Branches to scrape his skin.

Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was …

A first.

A first that he didn’t know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river’s water because he had saved her life.

Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls.

But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, only that he absolutely would.

TWENTY-THREE

Despite its dubious exterior, the Gilded Rose catered to the richest of Red Sails. It was the slaves that proved it—their clean faces, their tailored clothes.

The air seemed to tighten as Caden and Safi entered, and Safi’s magic instantly stirred against the back of her neck. There was some sort of glamour at work here. A spell to smooth away flaws, soften the truth, and leave everyone awash in an unnatural but flattering glow.

False, false, false.

The couples on the low sofa and the people dining at the tables all looked as if they’d stepped from a painting.

Beauty, Safi realized as she followed Caden toward a curtain-covered doorway in the back. Whatever spell was at work here, it gave everyone beauty.

Though not Caden. The glamour of the room didn’t sparkle over him, and whatever beauty he possessed—Safi couldn’t deny it was there—was all nature’s doing. Then they were through the curtain, where knee-high tables were spread evenly over the elaborate rugs and floor pillows. Every table was crowded with cards and coins, while thick smoke from pipes curled over the bare flesh of Gilded Rose slaves.

Safi’s magic grated and scratched as they crossed the room. Wrong didn’t even begin to describe what this place was. What the Red Sails were.

Caden motioned to a table in the farthest corner, where a woman sat alone. Her gray hair was piled atop her head, and like everyone else in the establishment, her black skin glowed with perfection. Winnings and cards lay scattered before her, and a self-satisfied grin implied she’d just sent some taro losers running.

So absorbed was the woman in counting her coins that she didn’t notice Caden or Safi’s approach until Caden was dropping onto the bench beside her.

A frown. “Who are you—” She cut off, the frown deepening. “Is that a knife you have poking into my kidney?”

“It is,” Caden replied, speaking in Dalmotti as the woman had. “I have only a few questions to ask, Admiral Kahina, and then my companion and I will leave you to your card game.”

“And if I don’t answer … then what? You’ll gut me?” With an indifferent flip of her wrists, she drawled, “Oh, no. Someone protect me from the bad man with a knife.”

Instantly, Safi liked the woman.

“You do realize,” Kahina went on, “that I run the largest fleet of Red Sails in the Jadansi? If you were actually stupid enough to put that knife in my back, you’d be dead before you could even reach the door.”

“Then if you prefer,” Caden offered, his expression unchanged, “the two of us can continue this conversation at the bottom of the hell-gates. I’ve heard kidney wounds bleed fast. We could meet there before the next chimes even toll.”

Kahina eyed Caden for several long breaths, her fingers tapping against the table. On her right thumb was a fat jade ring that clacked and clacked against the wood. Then a smile curled over her face. “Who are you? I’m not used to men who have tongues as sharp as their looks. And you”—her gaze swung to Safi—“sit down, girl. On my honor, I won’t bite.”

There was no missing the truth in that assertion, so Safi did as she’d been ordered, claiming the seat on Kahina’s other side. Up close, the taro deck was on full display across the table. Teal backs, worn edges.

Safi’s hands started drumming against her knees, itching to shuffle. To play. But she forced herself to look away and examine Admiral Kahina instead—whom Safi could now see through the glamour’s magic. The Admiral, though naturally dazzling, was no youth, and her teeth had stained to muddy brown.

Safi realized why when Kahina said, “Hand me that pipe, girl.”

Safi handed her the pipe; Caden glared. “We aren’t here for pleasure, Admiral. We’re here for a ship that you took hold of three days ago.”

“Ignite,” Kahina murmured to the pipe before sucking in a long inhale. Pale smoke slithered out between her teeth as she purred, “You’ll have to elaborate. I do take so many ships. Did I mention I have the largest fleet in the Red Sails?” Kahina leaned seductively toward Caden.