Page 71 of Witchshadow

And like the eye gouge, she’d never actually done this move before. She wasn’t prepared for how easily his spine broke. Pain, dark as thunderclouds, laid claim to the entirety of his Threads. He toppled forward and collapsed to the earth.

For several wild, breathless moments, the world was silent. Iseult’s lungs were locked; her booming heart was a distant, forgotten thing. Even the silver Threads vanished from her awareness as she stared at Aeduan. As Owl stared at Aeduan. As the weasel stared at Aeduan, his body facedown on the dried stream and his back shuddering with broken breaths.

Then his Threads began to shrink, and Iseult clapped a hand to her mouth. She’d killed him. Oh goddess, she’dkilledhim.

“Aeduan.” She sank to his side. With a grunt of strength, she gripped his shoulder and rolled him over. Now his Threads were almost completely gone. Now his chest scarcely moved. Why wasn’t he healing?

“Aeduan, please wake up. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Nothing happened. Thelast of his Threads scattered away. “No, no, no.” She dug her fingers into his cheeks. “Wake up, wake up. Please, I’m so sorry—”

His eyes opened. Ice blue and clear.

Iseult gasped. Recoiled. Then understood. For of course Aeduan’s Threads were gone. Not from death, but from life. The true Aeduan had returned.

Te varuje.

A laugh curled up from her stomach. Hysterical and overloud. She leaned in. “It’s you. I can’t believe it. You’re here.”

“No.”

Iseult stilled.

“Go.” Aeduan swallowed; his eyes—now swirling with red as he healed—held hers. Steady in the way that only the true Aeduan could ever be. “He… returns.”

“Who?” she asked. “Who returns? Who possesses you and Evrane?”

He did not answer right away. He couldn’t. His face was tightening, his eyes closing. Not with pain but with concentration. “The Old One,” he squeezed out. “From the Well.”

Now Threads were wavering to life. Weak bursts of birds as the one who controlled Aeduan broke through.

Aeduan’s eyes snapped wide again. Such beautiful eyes, Iseult had once thought. The shade of pure understanding.

“Run,” he rasped, holding her gaze. “Iseult,run.”

She did not run. Too many points were connecting in her brain, gumming up her muscles. Slowing her in the way that logic always did.The Aether Well. The Old Ones. Paladins forgotten and gone.

A scream shattered the night. Near and desperate, it broke off in an instant. Not human, but equine.Lord Storm Hound.Iseult pushed to her feet, vision briefly darkening and the moonlit forest briefly wavering. Someone had gotten the horse. Or somethinghad, for there were the silver Threads, muted but closer. Muted but hunting.

With no grace and all brute strength, Iseult grabbed Aeduan’s shoulder and flipped him onto his stomach once more. He did not react. His eyes were closed, his face pinched with focus while someone else’s Threads fought to rip through.

And still he healed. She could hear his body mending itself, new bone growing by the heartbeat. She could also hear a rustling in the trees, as if the wind whispered this way. A cold, killing wind with Threads of immortal hunger.

Iseult tore off Aeduan’s Carawen cloak. Then she unsheathed Aeduan’s sword. In moments she had his salamander cloak slashed in half. The bottom strip, she tied around her own shoulders—dirty, but warm. Then the main cloak, she draped over Owl.

The child did not resist. Wherever her mind currently was, it was not within the stream. She didn’t even sense the approaching creature. She was pain, pain, horror, and loss.

“Come,” Iseult said, wrapping her hand around Owl’s good one. “It’s time for us to run again.”

The Bloodwitch named Aeduan fought against the water.

Fathoms below the surface with no air to fill his lungs, no light to fill his eyes, he kicked and reached and strained against the weight that held him down.

He was not drowning, but he also did not breathe.

Hehadbreathed, though. Briefly, when he had seen the face made of moonlight and shadows only a foot away from his. Iseult’s hair had flown on the breeze, her knees had trembled against his ribs, and he’d thought he had somehow returned to the past. To that day beside the lighthouse, when she had broken his spine and stabbed him in the heart.

But this was not that day, and the waves that washed against him were not from the warm Jadansi. These were dark waves with talons that held fast to his ankles, his hips, his lungs. And he knew they would never let him free. Not until they found a different body to hold on to. Not until they claimedhers.

He was glad she hadn’t found the silver taler still tied around his neck.