Page 132 of Witchshadow

Iseult didn’t follow. Not right away. First, she gathered the noose with a bandaged hand and dropped it into a pocket on her new gown. Then she searched for her mother’s eyes across the tent. But Gretchya wouldn’t lift her head. Wouldn’t move at all. She was stone, stone, always made of stone.

Well, Iseult was made of stone now too.

She joined Corlant outside the tent, where the edge of night awaited. Fourth chimes, she guessed, though clouds blocked the sinking moon as Corlant led the way through slouching square tents.

Never in her life had she willingly followed Corlant anywhere. Now here she was, trailing behind him through this new Purist encampment.Daughter, my daughter.

Iseult saw no sign of the shadow wyrm’s silver Threads. Purists, however, were everywhere. Like flies to a corpse, they’d gathered in vast numbers.Dressed in brown and gray, their Threads muted and muffled by Cursewitchery, they all wore identical focus. Identical fervor. They followed orders from Corlant willingly, desperately, and at the sight of him, they dropped low, a bowing of bodies and chorus of “Blessed are the pure, blessed are the pure.”

They also recognized Iseult. Many smiled at her, a few bowed, and one elderly woman even grabbed her bandaged hands and kissed them.

It hurt.

“Bless you, daughter of Midne,” the woman said. “We have waited so long.”

Iseult observed her and everyone else without emotion, without interest. These people didn’t see Corlant for what he truly was, but their blindness was a willing one. Corlant had made no effort to hide his power. Anyone who’d seen him face off against Iseult must’ve realized what he could do.

“Why don’t these people care about your magic?” she asked. No inflection. No stammer. Stasis lived inside her, and if Corlant wouldn’t answer her questions about Threadstones, then she would attempt to leach out other information instead.

“What magic?” he countered, the lines on his forehead sinking inward with mock innocence. Then he laughed, a rose-tinted chuckle edged with gray pain. “Oh, naive child. People don’twantfacts. They want feelings. And they don’t want truth. They want faith that someone is fighting for them. I”—he splayed his hand on his chest, the fingers chapped with cold—“am fighting for them.”

Iseult’s breath hiccuped ever so slightly. His words sounded like what Leopold had said only two weeks ago:How often do people make choices based on truth? Based on facts or what their logic tells them?Leopold had been right—the Purists alone were proof of that. But Iseult had no feeling; logic and facts had always been her guide.

Which was why she had to keep pressing him for information. “Tell me about Midne. How can you be a woman who lived a thousand years ago?”

“You already know the answer to that.” Corlant slowed his steps as they turned down a new stretch of tents. “You have seen parts of the diary. You know that I and the other Twelve are born and reborn for all of time. Well, only six of us now.” He smiled. A stretched, unnatural thing.

Yes, Iseult thought.I do have his nose. And she had that smile too.

“But I was blessed.” He patted the gold draped around his neck, longer than what the Hell-Bards wore but otherwise identical. “One of my fellow Paladins purged me of the unclean power of Sirmaya.”

Sirmaya.That name had been in the diary. A goddess whom Eridysi had worshipped.

Ahead, a long tent leaned against a half-fallen wall. “The prisoners’ tent,” Corlant explained, and sure enough, subdued, grief-swallowed Threads shivered into Iseult’s senses.

Purist guards nodded reverently at Corlant’s approach, their Threads grassy with curiosity and peach with respect. “Blessed are the pure,” they mumbled in unison, while one swept open the tent’s flap.

Corlant’s spine crooked. He slithered inside.

Iseult slithered in too.

“You will begin training today.” Corlant paused just beyond the entrance, and Iseult paused beside him while heartbeat by heartbeat, her eyes adjusted and the prisoners came into view, enclosed in crude cages too low for standing. Their bodies and faces were as subdued as their Threads.

“Your reward.” Corlant opened his arms and moved to the nearest cage, where he rapped a knobby knuckle against the wood. The Threads within shook with fear. Against her will, Iseult’s stasis faltered. Gooseflesh raked down her arms.

“I will take her now,” he ordered a Purist guard. “The Threadwitch.”

The Threadwitch.There was only one person it could be, and sure enough, Alma moved to the front of the cage. Her arms were bound, but her chin was high. Her eyes drilled into Iseult’s.Do something,she seemed to say.Do it now.

Iseult turned away.

“Bring her into the moonlight,” Corlant commanded, and before Iseult could scuttle away from his touch, he had his fingers on her shoulder. Five icicles digging deep. He pushed her toward the exit and back into the cold.

Alma and the Purist shambled just behind, joining Iseult and Corlant fifteen paces from the tent, beside a pile of old stones. Snow began to fall.

“Place her on the rocks.”

The Purist obeyed, shoving Alma chest-first onto the remnants of a wall. Her back and neck were exposed as if execution loomed, and Purists gathered to watch. Some were soldiers, some were guards; most were simply fanatics who smelled blood in the water.