Page 135 of Witchshadow

And there was no way to logic herself out of that truth. Her numbness had a price, and now there would be no escape from these frozen jaws made of Void. No escape from the vengeful witches waiting just behind.

Iseult had no one to blame but herself. She’d lived with blood on her hands and she would die that way too. Payment for all her mistakes. Punishment for all she’d done wrong.

I’m sorry,Iseult thought. To Alma, dying nearby. To Safi, hundreds of miles away. To her mother, shrouded by smoke and snow. Gretchya had lifted her blade, had raised a single leg.

It would seem she was finally taking action. She was finally making a choice and moving in exactly the way Iseult had failed to do.

Which was good, Iseult thought. She would save Alma, the girl who didn’t deserve to die. The girl bound to Aether, who would lead as a Threadwitch ought to lead and whose blood didn’t pump with wickedness and wrong.

Iseult closed her eyes. She didn’t want to watch her mother choose.

Time resumed. Silver Threads beat down. Ice knifed through her, and screams pummeled her bones. Any moment now, the wyrm would reach her. Any moment, any moment.

I’m sorry, Alma. I’m sorry, Safi. I’m sorry, Mother.

Except the teeth never came.

Instead, a body crashed into her. Threadless and strong and attached to a voice screaming, “Stay back!” Then Gretchya roared again, a shriek of indomitable rage. “No one touches my daughter!”

Aeduan found the child’s collar beneath the spruce. No sign of the strange weasel that had been with her, the one that had smelled of flooded rivers and freedom. The wood had not been sawed or broken. In fact, it lay perfectly intact upon the frozen ground, not even opened. As if she’d slipped it right over her head.

Rosewater and wool-wrapped lullabies.Her scent smelled as it always had, and the first Aeduan responded to it.

With a deep inhale, Aeduan stepped away from the tree and into snowfall lit by the end of night. Magic surged through him. Such power in this body’s blood. It sparkled and warmed and set his muscles to itching.

Another breath, deeper. Longer. Reaching wider for some spark of rosewater or lullabies.There.A flicker to the north. Not far. Fresh enough that it might be the girl herself, instead of mere traces like this collar had left behind.

He set off. The magic consumed him, eliminating thought. Eliminating questions. There was only moving forward, only tracking this smell wherever it might lead. There was no past, no future, no ancient soul trapped for a thousand years or new soul trapped for several weeks.

There was clarity, there was speed, there was the hunt.

He moved faster, his boots falling lightly across the earth. Unimportant, unimpeding. When the Bloodwitchery coursed high, this body couldfly.

The scent pulsed closer in Aeduan’s veins. The child waited ahead, beyond a clearing filled with forgotten walls like those in the Nomatsi camp and like his old soul had once seen before. Perhaps he had even been here when this fortress still stood.

Those memories could be untangled later, though. For now, there was only Saria. Near, near, so very near.

Then a second scent hit Aeduan’s awareness:Clear lake water and frozen winters.

He knew that smell. Knew it as well as he knew the child’s, as well as he knew Evrane’s… Except his mind conjured no face, no person, no name. This scent belonged to a specter. This scent belonged to a ghost. It had evaded the first Aeduan for months, leading him across the Witchlands.

And stealing silver coins.

Aeduan drew in steady, heavy breaths. The Bloodwitchery still throbbed inside his veins and muscles. The first Aeduan itched to find this mystery scent, and that first Aeduan was growing stronger and stronger by the hour.

Yes,he told that soul.We will look and then be on our way.He angled toward the clear lake waters. Crept toward the frozen winters. A fallen court waited ahead, four walls mostly still standing.

Aeduan slowed his pace to a predatory stalk and with all the silence that only magic-fueled muscles could achieve, he unsheathed a knife from his chest. The world around him was silent. Few plants had taken root here, as if the ruins frightened them away. Even the forest, which clustered close and stared down, offered no sounds of life. Only gentle snowfall.

Andah,there was Saria’s blood-scent too. The faintest whiff of lullabies and rosewater. She was in this tower.

Aeduan moved more slowly. His toes landed exactly where he wanted; no snow crunched. No leather creaked. After finding a small crack inthe rubble that might have once been a door, he peered through. Saria sat upon a pile of broken marble.

No, not a pile—it was a throne. Aeduan remembered it, even if he could not recall where or how. Her feet dangled, and her cold-flushed face had creased into a frown. Her head turned. Her hazel eyes met Aeduan’s.

She grinned.

He tried to drop to his knees, tried to turn away and summon any power he could, but he was too late—just as he had been a thousand years ago.