Page 131 of Witchshadow

Her whole body shook. Her teeth rattled in her ears. And someone was grabbing her, holding her, and shouting her name over and over again.Caden.She twisted her stiff neck toward him, but her muscles were not her own. Left, right, she looked where Iseult wanted her to look.

No, not Iseult. This could not be Iseult’s doing. It would never be Iseult’s doing.

“Safi.” Caden gripped her biceps tightly. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded dimly. Still, no words would form; no breath would gather.She was going to suffocate, and this was going to be the end.Let go,she tried to tell Iseult.Please, please let go.

“Shit,” Caden hissed, and suddenly Safi was being hauled into an upright position. Then dragged over wood and leaned against the railing.

He ripped open her shirt, no ceremony, no gentleness, and exposed her chest to cold and starlight. “The Hell-Bard’s doom,” he said. “You should havesaidsomething.”

Safi could only shake her head. What was there to say? It wasn’t just the doom. It was Iseult, now gone, and the shadow man with gold upon his neck.

The longer she sat there with Caden’s fingers upon her chest, the more air seeped into her lungs, blessed and true. “I feel… fine,” she rasped.

“Liar,” he replied.

She shook her head. “Truly.”

A frown pinched his brow. His gaze lingered on her bare skin, yet when Safi towed her gaze downward, only the faintest of black lines radiated across her chest. Fewer with each heartbeat. Then after several ragged breaths, no lines wriggled at all.

Caden exhaled roughly and closed her shirt. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor I,” Safi admitted, and for the first time, she looked past him and realized everyone watched with wide eyes. Everyone except Leopold; he watched with bored calculation, like a crow watches carrion. He had done nothing to help her, and he did nothing now.

“We should turn back,” Caden said, rising as if to stand.

Safi grabbed his collar and yanked him back down. “No.That is exactly what Henrick wants us to do. And it wasn’t the doom that hit me. It was…” She couldn’t say Iseult. They wouldn’t understand.Shedidn’t understand.

Before she could find a solid argument, Leopold’s voice pitched out, “We are almost there anyway.”

He spoke so quietly Safi thought she’d imagined it. Except Caden stiffened too. And when she angled toward Leopold, she found him staring calmly their way.

“We are almost there,” he repeated. Then he waved to the horizon. “Welcome to the Solfatarra.”

Safi dragged herself around to peer through the railing. Night faded in the west, blanketing the world in soft blue light, though it could not hide the stretch of white fog. As if all the clouds in the sky had fallen to the earth and gathered close. For miles and miles, the earth was nothing but white.

“Where will we land? Where is Iseult?”

Leopold didn’t answer. He remained bored and statuesque beside the tiller.

“Polly,” she barked at him. “Now is not the time for games. Where is Iseult?”

“Near,” he replied. “Very near.”

She curled back her lips, and with a glare made of glass shards, she drew in her feet and stood. The world bled. Her head spun.

Frozen air gusted against her. Slithered into the cracks of her still unbuttoned blouse. “You will tell me, Polly, or I swear I will—” She made it only two steps toward him before theEridysilurched. A vicious sideways snap that flung Safi backward against the railing.

“The hells?” Lev barked, as all attention shot to Leopold. But he wasn’t looking at Safi or the Hell-Bards. His face had gone white as the sail; his knuckles too against the tiller.

“Windwitches,” he said. “In Cartorran colors.”

Then the world turned upside down, and theEridysifell.

“I found them for you,” Iseult said once she was back in the real world. Back upon her cot. Corlant stood before her, neck cracking side to side while Gretchya and Evrane watched silently. He had dropped the noose to the floor.

“You did indeed.” Corlant’s Threads thrummed with pleasure. “And now I shall reward you. Follow.” He spun about, his movements pointed and long. Eager as a child going to claim dessert.