Page 139 of Bloodwitch

“Iseult.” He uttered her name again, hoarse and low. Again and again and again.

She was warm to the touch, and a pulse fluttered at her neck. She breathed. Shallow movements in her chest that meant she had not drowned.

In a vague corner of Aeduan’s brain, he supposed the Cahr Awen could not drown—not here. When they had been in the water, he had felt sentience. Oneness. Completion. He had no doubt now about what Iseult was.

Aeduan ran his hands down Iseult’s wet arms, down her wet legs, checking for broken bones. For anything that might explain why she would not wake up. But he found nothing. Everything he touched was intact, though growing colder by the second.

“Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.”

She and Aeduan had survived the cleaving Adders in Lejna. They had survived raiders and the Amonra. They had survived a Firewitch and the Contested Lands and weeks of survival in the Sirmayan Mountains.

He could not lose her now.

It was as Aeduan pressed his fingers to the back of Iseult’s neck, searching for some damage to her spine, that her body tensed beneath his.

He stilled, waiting. Staring.

Then her back arched, face tipping up. She gulped in a single, wheezing breath before her body relaxed beneath his. She opened her eyes.

Golden eyes streaked with green. The only eyes that had ever met Aeduan’s without looking away.

His heart fluttered at the sight of them. His whole body did, a strange feeling of relief and confusion. He tried to pull back, to give her space, but in a movement too quick to resist, she gripped his collar. She yanked him down. His elbows gave way. His chest landed atop hers. Their faces were only inches apart.

Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.

The ice was cold against Aeduan’s hands on either side of her. Wind furrowed into his wet clothes. Water dripped off his face. A drop landed on her cheek and slid sideways. He wanted to brush it away, but he was afraid to move. Afraid that if he did, she would remember who he was. She would recoil and retreat.

And she was so close now. He could see every line of her. The way her jaw sloped to a pointed chin. The way her lips parted to reveal the edge of teeth, a flicker of tongue. But it was her eyes that held his attention—that had always held his attention. Her pupils pulsed in time to her breaths. Her ribs did too, battering against his.

He did not know how he had ever thought her plain.

Iseult’s fingers curled more tightly around his collar. She tugged him closer, until their noses almost touched. Already, hers had turned pink with cold. Her cheeks too.

Iseult, Iseult, Iseult.

Her abdomen contracted beneath his. She curled toward him until she was so near, her breath whispered against his lips.

“Aeduan,” she began. “I—”

The light within the Well winked out. No warning, and abruptly, the forest coalesced around them—as did smoke and fires…

And faces. A hundred soldiers stepping from the northern trees.

Aeduan shoved to his feet. The night air froze against him. “Get behind me,” he told Iseult, even though she was already behind him, already on her feet and sinking into her own defensive stance.

How had he missed the raiders approaching? The Well’s power must have interfered with his witchery. Now, though—now there wasno mistaking the onslaught of bloods, as diverse as the faces that matched them. And at the fore was frosted baby’s breath and bone-deep loss.

The Raider King, his father, strode out from the shadows.

“Aeduan,” he called, coming to a stop at the Well’s frozen edge. “Give me the girl.”

No,Aeduan wanted to say, but before he could respond, a new blood-scent whispered against him.Crisp spring water and salt-lined cliffs.He had just enough time to whirl about before Evrane stepped from the trees on the opposite side. Behind her came a hundred monks with blades drawn.

For half a breath, relief rolled through Aeduan’s muscles. Evrane had saved him; she was on his side; she would protect Iseult. Except Iseult was shaking her head. “No,” she murmured. Then louder, “No, Aeduan. She is not who she seems to be.”

Aeduan had no idea what those words meant, but he did not question them. If Iseult did not want to join Evrane, then he would keep Evrane away.

His veins hummed with power. His muscles with strength, and his heart with magic. A coruscation in his blood, bright as the light off the Well had been only moments before.