Page 57 of Witchshadow

A tight-lipped glance at Zander showed him nodding. “New Hell-Bards,” he said, and no further explanation was necessary.

On the next landing, the cries of pain were softer, subdued, tired.

“Heretics.”

On the third landing, the stairs stopped and hoarfrost lay thick across the granite. It laced over the flagstones and through a crooked door. The stone changed from light to dark, though what color precisely, Safi could not say. Shadows and pale flame were all she could discern.

Her teeth chattered; her muscles ached; but she did not slow as Zander hurried her through the slashing entrance. Beyond was a tunnel, not so different from what Safi had explored with Leopold only the night before. Even the ancient sconces looked the same.

Each step brought more cold, more darkness. Her heart hurt in a way she did not know a heart could hurt. As if she were losing her magic all over again. As if the very core of her identity was being sucked away.

When she made the mistake of glancing down at her hands, she saw small black lines rippling beneath the surface. She was not cleaving yet—she was not turning into the husk made of shadows that Caden had become in Saldonica—but she would be. Soon.

After several turns in the tunnel, the ground dipped sharply. Steep steps had been carved into the stone, and Zander helped Safi descend. Without depth perception, without color, it was almost impossible to see where each foot needed to go. Zander’s touch, frozen and numbed though it was, was the only thing that kept her upright.

They were close now. She could feel it, like a new calling, a new tug. Now, instead of the noose yanking at her to run back, the Loom was yanking her to run forward.

When at last she and Zander reached the Loom, Safi’s footsteps were mere thudding shambles beneath her. She leaned heavily on Zander, and sensed more than saw that they had entered a large cavern with a vast empty bowl spanning before her, as if some god had planned to add a lake here but then forgotten.

What Safididsee was the actual Loom. “Gods below,” she rasped, gaping at it while Zander held her upright.

“Yes,” he replied.

“The shadows.” Safi squinted at the undulating mass before her. It reminded her of an anthill she’d seen as a child. It had been filled with so many ants that the ground itself had appeared to move.

“Souls,” Zander explained. “Each shadow is a Hell-Bard’s soul.”

So mine is in there,Safi thought.And yours too.Aloud, she said, “Brace me, please.” And then she felt his arms slide around her. She could not feel his warmth, could not feel his breath or see his face, but there was a comfort in knowing he was there.

With fumbling, frozen hands, Safi withdrew her Truth-lens, tucked in an inside pocket of her training clothes. Zander’s gentle fingers helped lift the lens to her eye. Then suddenly shecouldsee. A flicker of silver. A flash of orange. A spinning, writhing trail of blue.Threads,she realized. Iseult had described them so many times over the years, Safi had no doubt she was watching them now. Yet she had never realized how vibrant they were. How rich and real and beautiful.

Overwhelming too. She couldn’t conceive how her Threadsister had gone through life seeing such shades and movement all the time. No relief, no escape. It explained why Iseult had detached herself simply to exist.

Safi pored over the Loom, so many souls, so many colors, so many lives. She wondered if she could find herself. She wondered if she could find…

“Uncle,” she whispered, her voice a thousand miles away. “Where are you?” The Loom gave her no answer; the souls within kept dancing. “Help me… get closer,” she told Zander, already reaching for the drop-off into the Loom. He did as ordered, even though he too must be overcome by cold and shadow.

Each step brought more colors, more movement. Safi almost thought she could hear whispers, though they did not reach her ears. Instead, they vibrated inside her.

“Empress,” Zander said—his voice even more distant than her own. “We must hurry. The shadows are worsening.”

She knew it was true. She could feel herself unraveling and her soul reaching for the freedom of the Loom—although it was not really freedom at all.

“Uncle,” she repeated, louder. More forceful. “Where are you, Uncle?” Then again, “Uncle, show yourself to me.” Nothing happened. The ghosts of Hell-Bard souls did not acknowledge her, did not slow.

And gods, she was cold. It submerged her. Drowned her. She really did not have much time remaining.

“Please, Uncle. Wherever you are, I’ve come to save you. It’s me, Safiya.Please.” Still nothing, and now she sensed—as if beneath layers upon layers of snow—that Zander was tugging her away.

“We have to go,” he said, and suddenly, Safi was rising up, her feet vanishing beneath her.He is lifting me,she realized, though she could not wrap her arms around him or even grip his collar to hold on. Her muscles were no longer her own. She was dissolving into the Loom.

The Loom streaked sideways. The Threads within glittered away… But not before Safi saw it. Sawhim.

“Wait,” she said, still holding the Truth-lens to her eye. A cluster of Threads raced toward her. Zooming larger and larger by the heartbeat. Until they were right in front of her. Shimmery white.Uncle Eron,Safi knew. And ah, he was an Aetherwitch healer. All these years and she’d never realized it. She’d never known that he—like her—had had his magic cleaved away. And that he—like her—had been bound to the Aether Well.

Whispers drilled into her skull. They were not true words, yet somehow, she understood. The impressions, the feelings, the images all showed her exactly where Eron currently was. Somewhere with fog and heat and watersthat boiled on banks of yellow. Where sulfur tainted the air, and dampness soaked through everything.

He was sick. Very sick.