Page 33 of Witchshadow

“Faster,” she barked at her oarsmen. Then to the witches, “Raise winds.” And then to the water foaming against the planks,Carry us.Timing was key. This was a sharp turn, followed by an even sharper turn after that. Vivia’s strength against the tiller and her magic against the waves would be pushed to their limit.

Do not kill us all,Vaness had said, and Vivia almost laughed at that.

No, shedidlaugh. She couldn’t help it. The water loved this. Wild, stormy, untamed—the water was reckless decisions and impulsive actions. It was the reason Vivia had earned a reputation for the same fierceness and temper as the rest of the Nihars. People didn’t understand that it wasn’t her, but the waves. She was just a little fox letting power course through her in the name of what had to be done.

“To port!” she screamed as she pushed all of her being, all of her heart into the tiller and into waves.To port, to port.Everything tipped. The sky, so blue, rose up on the port side; the sea loomed in on the right. No oars moved, no sailors moved. Even the world held its breath, each drumbeat seeming twice as long.

Then the ship righted and the world righted too.

“Hold!” Black stone rushed in close. She shoved. With magic, with muscles. That narrow passage ahead—invisible if you didn’t know what you were looking for—was tighter than a needle’s eye.

“Row!”

The oarsmen obeyed. TheIriskicked forward, and Vivia gripped the tiller, gripped the waves.

They reached the gap in the rocks. A wave rocked against them—unexpected. Laughing. And theIrislurched hard to starboard. Stone thundered against wood. Oars snapped and oarsmen dove sideways. But Vivia already had the tiller moving again, already had her own waves fighting back.

The ship veered. Then settled. Then slowed. No more rowing. No more winds. They were in the passage.

They were safe.

THIRTEEN

Iseult stared at Aeduan, shocked. Elated. Aeduan was here, somehow, and standing before her. A mere forty paces away with only lazy waters to separate them. Except that as she took two steps forward, Aeduan’s forehead pinched. His gaze swept up and down her. His body tensed with caution.

And a strange, heavy heat tunneled through Iseult’s chest. Yes, she had changed since she’d last seen him. She had entered Cartorra a Weaverwitch; she was leaving it a Puppeteer. But surely he would still know her?

“It’s… me,” she called. When he still looked confused, she added, “Iseult.”

And then it happened: Threads, clear blue with understanding, swept toward the sky. Iseult gasped. Rocked back a step, and even rubbed her eyes for good measure. Yet the Threads remained.

Which waswrong.Aeduan did not have Threads.

“No,” Iseult breathed. Then again: “No.” For it was not merely colors that dazzled her eyes and magic but shadows and shapes. Only once had Iseult seen such darkness on someone’s Threads: on Evrane, the woman who had saved her almost seven years ago. The monk who’d sworn to protect her and Safi.

Evrane had been possessed in ways Iseult still did not understand, and now Aeduan was corrupted too.

“No,” she said once more as a slow smile spread over his lips. A full, hungry thing that stretched his face. Foreign, wrong. The Aeduan she knew did not smile. He did not leer.

Later, Iseult would curse her instincts. Later, she would wish—not for the first time—that she had Safi’s gut to guide her instead of her own slow logic. For logic was the last thing she needed here. There could be no arranging the puzzle pieces before her; there could be no coherent shape found. And because of that, this Aeduan-who-was-not-Aeduan had the advantage. The extra burst of two seconds that would ultimately decide whether Iseult escaped the fate the Bloodwitch had planned for her…

Or became his prey.

He charged into the waters, straight for her. No concern for depth or cold or difficulty. His Threads radiated purple hunger and green focus. He hunted her and nothing would stand in his way.

Those Threads finally forced Iseult to move. Aeduan-who-was-not-Aeduan wanted her, violently, just as Evrane-who-was-not-Evrane had wanted her at the Monastery.

Iseult spun to flee. Her heel slipped on the wet shore. She fell to one knee, but the subsequent pain was distant. Swallowed by a determined, rhythmic splashing from behind.

She used her staff to scrabble upright, and ran for the trees. But what had been an easy race down to the water now seemed viciously steep, viciously long. Her feet wouldn’t land properly. Her staff kept getting in the way.

And the splashing,the splashing.No normal human could move so fast.

Iseult reached the first snags of barren underbrush and pine-needle earth. There was the trail she’d taken before, obvious from her footprints still fresh in the cold soil. She had no time to try to hide them, no time to find another way.

But as she skidded around a pine trunk, she realized she could no longer hear splashing. Maybe that meant he had stopped.Please, please, please.

He had not stopped.