Page 82 of Witchshadow

“Can you tell it to me?” Iseult folded the map back into her cloak’s pocket.

“Long ago,” Owl said quietly, “when the gods walked among us, Moon Mother and her little sister got trapped in one of Swallow’s storms.”

“Oh no,” Iseult murmured, glancing behind them and reaching, reaching for the weave of the world. For the silver Threads they could never outrun.There.Several hundred paces away and to the right. “And how did the goddesses get free, Owl?”

“Little Sister turned into a bird that could fight against the raging winds, and she went to find Trickster.”

“Why Trickster?” Iseult pulled Owl faster.

“Because Trickster could travel without a body, and Little Sister Owl thought that he could enter the storm and save Moon Mother that way.”

“And did he?”

Owl hesitated. Umber confusion twined through her Threads. “I… don’t remember.”

“Ah.” Iseult pulled the girl toward a clearing framed by alders. So far, her game was working; Owl had forgotten her pain. “Tricksterdidgo into the storm, remember? He turned into his soul form and found Moon Mother, clinging to a stone altar on the Windswept Plains.”

“He promised to take her with him,” Owl picked up, a flash of excitement in her Threads—and on her face as she, unbidden, walked faster. “But only if she agreed to marry him.”

“Exactly.” Iseult forced a tight smile. The silver Threads had picked up speed too. “Trickster said,I will save you from this storm if you agree to marry me. I love you, you see.But Moon Mother only shook her head sadly, even as winds and rains raged around her.You love no one but yourself,she told him.And you will always be alone.”

Owl frowned as Iseult said those words, and for a brief moment, it was as if the collar were not there. Her Threads burned bright as a bonfire laced with silver. They pulsed, outward and upward. A firepot ripping loose.

Then the moment passed. The Threads shrank; the color dulled to its usual dampened shades.

Iseult said nothing. She simply held her breath and listened to the forest’s wintry silence. Felt for the silvery Threads, which were definitely coming faster now, and gaining ground too. But the lake was so near. Thathadto be Iseult’s and Owl’s salvation.

They had just moved past the alders when the landscape abruptly changed. Like reaching the edge of a farm during fallow season, one moment there was growth, the next there was nothing but fog.

As soon as Owl saw it, her excitement over the story shriveled away. She dug in her heels. “Bad.” She bared her teeth, hugged her swollen wrist to her chest, and when the weasel snarled at her to move, Owl snarled right back.

“No,” Iseult said, panic creeping into her voice. The Threads were closing in, and now was not the time for Owl to be difficult. “Look, Owl. It’s just water.” Iseult rushed toward the fog. Its edges roiled and moved like foam on the lip of a tide. She thrust in her hand.

And two breaths later came the pain. Harsh, insistent, fiery. Iseult stumbled backward.

“Bad,” Owl cried at her. “I told you, bad, bad,bad.”

Iseult’s hand felt like she’d dumped it into boiling water, and already, blisters puckered.Acid,she realized. Then fast on that thought’s heels came another: the lake must be inside this fog, and it was no ordinary lake.

It was the Solfatarra, famed across Cartorra for its waters filled with heat and acid. At one end was a hot spring, where the waters were pure enough to enter. At the other was a sulfur mine. Both had been marked upon the map, but Iseult had been too dense to put it all together. What a fool she was. Always a stupid, stupidfool.

Worse, more Threads now sped into her awareness, corrupted by avian shadows and headed this way.

Aeduan would reach Iseult and Owl even faster than the silver Threads.

An image burst into Iseult’s mind from the weasel.A small gap in the fog. A wishbone-shaped stick shoved into the mud.

Iseult gasped. A Nomatsi trail was right here, and for once Iseult knew exactly what to do. Even better, Aeduan would not. The old Aeduan hadn’t been able to read such trails; this new one should fare no better.

He wouldn’t understand this innocently placed vine Iseult now saw meant a trail waited ahead. He wouldn’t recognize that stick ahead pointed toward a near-invisible gap in the fog. He would have to rely entirely on his Bloodwitchery to follow instead of whatever other tracking tools he’d used to get here—and with Owl completely covered in salamander fibers,surelyIseult and Owl could gain ground.

The weasel cut left to where a small slip of clear air was winding into the fog. Easily mistaken for a trick of the wind.

Iseult quickly covered Owl’s face with the salamander hood’s fire-flap and to made sure all the girl’s limbs were covered too. Then she wrapped her own face in the remaining strip of salamander fibers, and together, she and Owl dove into the world of the Solfatarra.

Fog rushed around them, tendrils reaching and gusts rolling. Several times, acid blew into Iseult’s face, forcing her to shut her eyes. Forcing her to wait and pray and suck in breaths. But the moments always passed; their forward progress always resumed.

Unfortunately, although Aeduan’s Threads had slowed, the silver Threads still hunted too—always, always.