Page 153 of Witchshadow

The hairs on Iseult’s skin pricked high. Her spine tingled and crawled, but she took her time prying Esme off her neck and easing her to the snow. She took her time removing her cloak and draping it over Caden’s body. Little protection against the cold, but better than nothing.

And she no longer needed it. Not with freed souls to keep her warm. And not when she wore Threadwitch black that she wanted Corlant to see.

He landed in the tower, a soft brush of winds to flip at her hair. His storm pummeled and spun outside, but not here. Not inside these ancient walls.

Iseult turned to face him.Father, my father.

He had pulled the knife from his eye, leaving a bloodied abyss still leaking, the hole from his first eye was no longer bandaged, but exposed and crusted yellow with pus. Shadows twisted off him and frost hissed.

Iseult lifted her new sword at him. “I have a weapon. Come no closer.”

“Oh, I can see that.” He smiled. “Though not in this world. I see you in the Dreaming with perfect clarity.” He opened his arms. “A clever spot you chose, my daughter. It used to be mine, you know. So very,verylong ago.”

He advanced a step, smooth as a snake over water or a wyrm over snow. “I see your sword, and your Hell-Bards too. And all the little souls you sapped from the Threadstone.”

Iseult held her stance. “Iwillkill you.”

His hurricane of Threads gleamed with delight. “Your own father?”

“I am the only one who can.”

The amusement creaked brighter. His eyebrows leaped, squeezing fresh blood from his eye. “So you figured that out, did you? Clever, though ultimately useless in the end.” He flipped up his arms, robe falling back to reveal skeletal limbs oozing shadows.

Ice lanced out from his feet, hardening the snow and shooting toward Iseult. She dove sideways, where a stone crunched up to block her way. Another dive and she was at the exit. She didn’t flee, though. Not this time.

She rounded back and launched full speed at Corlant. He flung more ice at her, then flames, but she could see each attack coming. His Threads—his stolen, engorged Threads—gave him away. A flare of green meant stones barraging. A burst of yellow meant winds to slay. Red pulses meant flames, and the sudden shadows meant he grappled to claim her Threads.

He wanted to drain her as he’d drained so many others and as he’d tried to do to Alma, though she’d been too strong to relent and too good. Not an enemy for Iseult to envy, but a goal to aspire toward.

And a girl she still had to save.

Iseult reached Corlant, her blade stretched and ready. She would end him quickly. Finish the nightmare that had entrapped her mother for so long. Except that when she reached Corlant, when her sword hit the place where his skin should have been…

It pierced right through.

Magic hissed over her, and with yawning horror, she realized she’d fought a glamour. He’d taken that power too, off a Nomatsi from the camp. Corlant’s laughter slid into her ear. Cold as he always was. “Find me, Iseult. If you want to kill me, you have to find me.”

She spun about, but there was no one in the tower. No Corlant—and no Caden either. Shit, shit,shit.

In moments, she was outside. Snow blasted, and storm winds hurled, but Iseult was ready. Six Hell-Bards immediately fell into position aroundher, exactly like her guards had at the Pragan palace. Their faces were veiled in snow, their Threads unfeeling thanks to Iseult’s control.

And as she’d hoped, the storm silenced as soon as the Hell-Bards moved around her. No winds, no snow, no threat—for Corlant’s storm was magical, and the Hell-Bards were immune.

It wasn’t a permanent solution against Corlant, but all she needed was time to find him.

She sent out her senses, reaching with the power and connection of a hundred Hell-Bards. Of fifty dark-givers finally freed from stone. But Corlants’s Threads swelled so far now; there was no telling where he ended and the rest of the world began. It was as if he’d sprouted roots, the Threads shooting out and down, digging into the soil.

Or as if the soil feeds him.When she’d seen his storm forming, she’d thought he had claimed his power from the very earth itself. Just as Portia had once done to build her Loom, where the Threads of Sirmaya were closest to the surface.

“Aren’t you coming?” Corlant whispered. “Or is your Hell-Bard friend not enough to entice? I can take the light-bringer too. She is so near—”

“Don’t touch her,” Iseult snarled, and immediately she sent out a new command:Protect Safi.Six Hell-Bards shot off toward the forest. Toward the brilliant colors of her Threadsister—now beside a fallen emperor. And as the Hell-Bards ran, Iseult ran too.

“Closer,” Corlant purred. “Closer, closer.”

She hopped roots and ducked under branches, her Hell-Bard guardians moving in perfect synchrony around her—and the rest of her army moving too. Corlant would not touch Safi. She would crush him with Hell-Bard bodies he could not maim. She would break and bend him as he had tried to do to her. And as he had succeeded with so many others.

Safi canted against the storm, crossing a small clearing where fallen trees had opened up the sky.