Page 131 of Bloodwitch

No, no, no.

She freed his sword from its scabbard and staggered several paces away. She would have to carve open this ice. Somehow, she would have to reach the waters below before the battle reached them.

Surely if Iseult could walk through fire, then she could tear through ice.

She gripped the pommel with two hands and lifted both arms high. Then she slammed the blade into the ice.Crack.

Again.Crack, crack, crack.Over and over, she pushed all her strength into the sword, into the ice. And over and over, she failed. The Well would not break. The healing waters would not come to her.

While behind her, Aeduan’s body cooled, his soul drained. And behind them both, smoke clotted. Explosions boomed.

Iseult was out of time; she was out of patience. The tears still trailed down her cheeks. Where they came from, why they flowed, she did not know. Nineteen years of holding them in, she supposed, and they had finally flooded over.

And in that instant, it hit her:Threadwitches might not cry, but perhaps Weaverwitches do. She was going about this all wrong. This ice was frozen by the Well’s magic. It was bound to the Aether and unbreakable by mere sword and strength.

She flung her blade aside. It clattered to the ice. She wiped the tears from her eyes and dropped to her knees. When Esme had first shown Iseult how to cleave, the snapping of Threads had felt like a misstep on a frozen lake. Well, here was her lake. Here was power she wanted to command.

She punched the ice. Her knuckles shrieked. Her wrist screamed.

She punched again, again, ignoring the blood on her knuckles, the shockwaves in her wrist. She switched hands, switched arms. Again, again, again.

Black lines spiderwebbed out.

So Iseult punched faster, harder, and the lines cut wider, fatter.Sever, sever, twist and sever.She alternated hands.Threads that break, Threads that die.

The ice bowed beneath her. A fracture ripped out. It split the air. It split her heart.

The ice tore open.

Iseult and Aeduan fell.

The water shocked the breath from Iseult’s lungs, shocked the thoughts from her brain. For several eternal seconds, she sank. Lost in the warm, churning waters of the Origin Well. Then blood wisped across her vision, and she remembered where she was and why.

Aeduan.

Iseult turned, pulling herself through the waters, vibrant and alive.Aeduan, Aeduan.It was the blood that guided her. A trail that wound to him like a Heart-Thread.

He was sinking, eyes closed. Blood streaming upward, a hundred strands to unravel toward the surface.

Iseult reached him. She slid her arms around his waist. Heburned. Hot as the fires she had carried him through, except these flames felt like they roared within.

Iseult swam, pulling Aeduan with her. When Evrane had healed Iseult in Nubrevna, she had sent Iseult to the heart of the Well—so to the heart Iseult now kicked her legs and swept her arms. Darkness ruled the deeper she moved. Darkness and pressure and the heat of Aeduan’s touch.

Iseult’s lungs shrieked. She wanted air. She wanted light. She wanted life. But here, in the shadows of the Well, she wanted Aeduan more.

Two more kicks, and her fingers sensed bubbling water. Then her fingers touched rock. The source of water, the source of magic.

Power washed over her. A light flared. Blinding in its brightness, and the waters surged against her. Deafening in their strength, they thrust Iseult back toward the night.

Yet in that moment, as Iseult held fast to Aeduan, as she squinted against the brightness andwilledhis eyes to open, she saw red. Scarlet and true and spooling around them.

Red that was not blood. Red Threads that led from her heart and ended inside of his.

Impossible,she thought.

Then Iseult’s air ended. The world went dark.

FIFTY-ONE