Page 138 of Bloodwitch

Then he is up. His mother falls stiffly to one side, leaving his legs free. His path is free too, a clear gap in the flames, and winding through that trail is a single red line. Feathery and fine, it reaches into the boy’s chest.

It is shrinking fast, though. With each heartbeat that passes, with each flame that claws at him from all sides, the line shrivels inward like a string that has caught fire. Or like a thread burning to dust.

The flames cannot have this thread, though, for though blood might burn, the boy’s soul will not.

The Bloodwitch named Aeduan runs.

FIFTY-FIVE

When Aeduan’s eyes opened again, light flared around him, as if the night had turned to day. As if he had somehow fallen into the heart of the sun.

Waters streamed, obscure and blinding… and then morphing into a face.

Iseult.

She hung suspended in the water, eyes closed. Hair floating around her face, a halo of night to encircle the moon. The white Carawen cloak undulated behind her, heavy and wild. No bubbles left her nose or mouth.

Instantly, panic laid claim to Aeduan’s muscles. He grabbed her, one arm looping around her waist. Then he released the clasp at her neck.

The cloak fell beneath them.

He kicked for the surface, strong and fast and desperate—and it was as if his blood had waited for this precise moment. As if this was all it had ever wanted to do. His magic ignited within him. It spurred his muscles to a speed and power no man could ever match, and he flew toward the surface with Iseult at his side.

The Well had healed the curse, just as Iseult had promised. Then it had brought Aeduan back from death and returned to him the onething he had spent his whole life hating. He’d had it all wrong, though. He saw that now.

Being a Bloodwitch did not mean he could not also be a man.

He towed Iseult toward the night, and a moment later, they crashed above the surface, cold and jarring. Aeduan grabbed for the nearest expanse of ice and held on, tugging Iseult tightly to him so she would not drift away.

Light and steam rolled around them, erasing the world. Blending it into a featureless expanse. He saw no one else. He heard no one else. For all he knew, they were the only people left alive in this battle.

In the entire world.

“Iseult,” he tried, willing her to wake up. “Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.” He could not stop saying her name, even as it came out in short, shallow bursts. Even as he searched for a way out of the water, a spot to gain purchase on the ice. Her name simmered from his chest and would not stop.

“Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.”

She had saved him. One more life-debt he owed her, except now he saw it did not matter. It had never mattered. Not since she had stabbed him in the heart beside a lighthouse. Not since he had given her his salamander cloak and told herMhe varujta.

“Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.”

He could scarcely see her face through all the light and steam. He needed to get them out of this Well. With one arm, he pulled himself—and Iseult too—along the jagged ice.

He knew this went beyond life-debts, and that this fear anchored in his chest went against everything Aeduan had ever wanted to be—against everything he’d ever believed himself to be.

There.His fingers hit a ridge he could hang on to.

“Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.”

He grabbed hold. He pulled. His fingernails carved into ice. His forearm strained. A cry broke from his chest, and he could no longer say her name. So he thought it instead.Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.

He kicked his legs. The water pushed and his magic sang. Soon, his biceps cleared the ice. Then his head. Then her head too.

Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.

Now his chest was out of the water, and with one final kick, he wrenched his whole torso free. It was not graceful, nor gentle. Iseult’s body scraped against the ice, but she was high enough that he could release her for half a heartbeat.

Aeduan pulled himself the rest of the way onto the ice, then he scrabbled around to haul her out beside him. Steam coiled off her body. Off his too, and the cold of the valley gnawed deep into his bones.