Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Iseult had no answer for the Raider King’s question.
So tell me now: Why has cleaving worsened with each Well you have healed?
Her hands went to her collar, cold and wet.
Then fell limp at her sides. Her nostrils flared.
Her tongue was stiff and lifeless as her mind scrabbled ineffectually for a reason, an explanation, a worthy reply for the man before her with his patient, serious Threads.
But every cohesive sentence got stuck to her tongue like flies on sap. Nothing she could conjure resounded with the same thunderous certainty.
So tell me now: Why has cleaving worsened with each Well you have healed?
Iseult’s ankles began tremoring on the snow. Only years of Threadwitch training—of stasis, in her fingers and in her toes—kept her from collapsing at the intensity of what Ragnor had just asked … and at the answers she didn’t have.
It truly felt as if the sun had moved to night and the moon had moved to day.
As if the land had flipped inside out, and nothing looked quite real anymore.
A small voice, almost lost to the confusion, squeaked inside Iseult: Do not falter.
Safi and Aeduan need you. But the voice was too small to mean anything—and besides, weren’t its conclusions based on false information?
Wouldn’t healing this final Well only make cleaving worse?
Cold clamored against her feet. She rested scarred hands upon her thighs.
And a strange, peaceful quiet settled over her as stasis rearranged into something new and logic laid claim.
Was it really possible for Alma to be wrong?
For Safi and the Cahr Awen souls to be wrong?
And Leopold too, and Monk Evrane, and so many people—could all of them be wrong?
Were Iseult and Safi truly making cleaving worse by healing the other Wells?
Ragnor gazed at Iseult, his face creased with such sympathy, it actually hurt to look upon him.
Threads that build, Threads that bind, Threads that break.
He possessed them all, spinning across his soul.
Brightest of all, though, were the Threads already broken.
The grieving blue core of him as pure as Sirmaya’s own ice inside the mountain.
People had died to save the Witchlands, and more people would die to finish this.
But how many people could be saved? How many Republics of Arithuania could form and flourish without empires to ruin them?
How many displaced lives—Nomatsis, Baedyeds, and yes, even Purists and Red Sails too, could find safe havens without empires to dominate or Wells to control?
Life is the price of justice, Aeduan had said once to Iseult, quoting this very man standing before her.
Do not falter! a voice squeaked again. It sounded like Safi. It sounded like the Cahr Awen souls. It sounded, even, like Leopold. But does it sound like me? Iseult wasn’t sure. Her logic mind was trapped between two possibilities that might both be true.
Ragnor shifted his weight upon his knees.
The sword sheath at his hip clinked. “‘Six turned on six,’” he recited.
“‘And made themselves kings. Then one turned on five, and stole everything.’ That one was the Rook King.
My former master. He tricked me, Eridysi, and the Paladins who wanted only good for this world.
He tricked us into killing the Exalted Ones.
Then one by one, he killed each of us too.
“Or he tried to.” Ragnor opened his hands.
The exposed clots of cleaving still glistened.
“Sirmaya protected me, Dysi, and my girls.
For a thousand years, we slept in Her ice.
Then one day, Dysi and I awoke to find the world had changed.
No longer did six all-powerful tyrants enslave and massacre the people.
No longer was magic confined to twelve Paladins chosen by Sirmaya.
Instead, witches lived everywhere across the land.
“The world Dysi and I had known was gone, and everything we’d fought for had been relegated to legend.
“As for my daughters, they were trapped inside this …
this sleeping ice, and nothing I did could get them free again.
If not for Aeduan—whom Dysi gave birth to right there inside our frozen tomb—I would never have left my girls.
But my new son needed me, and Dysi needed me too.
The goddess will release them when the world is safe, Dysi promised, and I had no choice but to trust her.
“So we stepped into the day, and instantly, we knew that all was not as it seemed. The signs were everywhere—the little songs Lisbet had sung to us, the warnings she’d told Dysi a thousand years ago.
We saw those warnings all around us.” Ragnor paused, his Threads flickering with something that was almost pink amusement, but mostly pale disgust.
“The people of today didn’t even know that Lisbet was the Sightwitch who’d seen the prophecies.
All her visions were attributed to Dysi and called ‘The Lament.’ An apt name, at least, since we could easily see Sirmaya was dying—and is still dying, because magic, Iseult det Midenzi, was never meant to be ours.
“If we do not stop the flow of power out of our goddess, then not only will She die, but everyone else will too.”
Iseult listened, unmoving despite the snow sinking into her clothes.
Into her hair. She had pieced together tiny fragments of this story from Eridysi’s diary, but most of it was new information that her brain couldn’t appropriately catalog.
Aeduan had two sisters? Eridysi was his mother and he’d been born inside the mountain?
The Lament was not written by Eridysi but by someone else?
Do not falter. Do not let these tales confuse you.
“Why,” she said as flatly as she could, “are you telling me all of this?”
“Because we must cauterize these wounds. We must save Sirmaya before it is too late.”
“You mean you need me to cleave the Wells. That’s it, isn’t it? W-without Esme or Corlant, there’s no one left who can do it, so now you are turning to me—even though for months, you’ve tried to kill me.”
“No.” Ragnor shook his head. “I’ve never tried to kill you.
Capture you, yes. But I have never intended for you or the light-bringer to die.
Tools should not be penalized for being tools.
” His right hand—still gloved—moved to the sheath at his hip.
Then with the practiced ease of a soldier, he withdrew his sword. Steel flashed.
Iseult sank back, her left arm rising defensively. Her right arm groping for her boot. But she stopped before retrieving the knife.
Because Ragnor was not attacking.
Instead, he held the blade toward Iseult like a merchant showing his wares. And it was no ordinary blade. For one, the steel was shattered all the way to the hilt. For two, hovering over the jagged sword’s edge were three wriggling Severed Threads.
Sever, sever. Twist and sever. Threads that break, Threads that die.
“What is that?” Iseult asked on an exhale. A single swipe of that steel, and Threads would shear beneath it.
“This is the source of your power. This is what makes you the Cahr Awen. Eridysi made the blade. Then the Rook King used it to create you and the light-bringer.”
A wave of recognition rolled over Iseult. As if she was suddenly a Truthwitch; as if she suddenly knew Ragnor spoke true. This blade was a mirror. This blade was a piece of herself.
Do not falter. Do not let these tales confuse you. She pressed her lips together. He is the reason for the Cleaved. He will see slow cleaving decimate the land. The proof of this was everywhere Iseult looked.
But then, so was the proof of Ragnor’s words. Cleaving had worsened with each new Well healed.
One truth, however, did not negate another. If there was one thing Iseult had learned from Safi over the years, it was that two things could simultaneously be true. Right and wrong were not clear sides on a coin; good and bad did not adhere to easy lines.
Do not falter, the voice ordered again, and this time, Iseult knew it was her own. She believed in healing the Wells because she believed in the Cahr Awen. And above all, Iseult believed in herself.
So she finished sinking low, fingers reaching for the knife. She felt her boot, wet with snow. She felt the hilt, warm from her skin. Then she levered upright, her leg lifting to carry her forward. She would need to disarm Ragnor first, then aim for that gap in his armor.
But Iseult was a few fractions of a heartbeat too slow. Ragnor saw what she intended. His Threads flared. His eyes widened. And although belief and certainty propelled her forward, Ragnor moved faster.
He sprang like an asp, and the broken blade was his fangs. It happened too quickly for Iseult to follow. Too fluidly for her to fight.
The broken blade pierced her abdomen. Through fur, through wool, through flesh, through muscle and stomach wall. No pain, for the steel was too sharp. No comprehension, for Ragnor moved with more skill than any opponent she’d ever seen.
Sever, sever. Twist and sever. Threads that break, Threads that die.
The broken sword went all the way into Iseult, right up to its cross-guard. She swiped with her tiny knife, her muscles still acting out the instructions her brain had provided them. Attack at the gap in his armor.
Her knife grazed skin. It cut muscle and sinew, releasing hot blood into the dawn. But it did not stop Ragnor.
“Take comfort,” he told her as he pushed against her shoulder and withdrew the shattered blade. “Your death will not be wasted, Iseult det Midenzi.”
Iseult fell backward then, the steel withdrawing from her by the same route it had entered. Her body hit the frozen ground. Her eyes sank shut.
Above, the sky sang with snow.
Kullen,
I sit in your tomb right now, writing this. There are two holes in the ice where the girls once slept. I expected to find that, which is why I came here. This morning, instead of pulling the usual cards, I instead drew four new ones: the Nine of Hounds, the Twins, the Giant, and the Knife.
The Nine of Hounds has always been Cam, with his nine fingers. You might not remember him, but he was the ship’s boy with me on the Jana—and he is my Thread-family.
The Twins, meanwhile, can only be Lisbet and Cora from a thousand years ago. So I came here to find them, and sure enough, their tombs are empty. I would have sent the Rook to explore for me, but …
He has gone again, and I’m trying to pretend my heart isn’t hurting because of it.
I can’t stay long. The ice comes for me, and the whole mountain rattles. I keep thinking of the old skipping song Tanzi loved to sing:
When the sky splits and the mountain quakes,
Make time for good-byes,
For the Sleeper soon breaks.
I can’t let Sirmaya break, Kullen, but I also can’t stay in the Convent or the mountain or the Crypts. Not if the sisters are awake, not if Cam is near and I might find him.
I’m sorry, though. Goddess, I’m so sorry that I couldn’t find a way to wake you. I see all the letters I wrote you, just lying here untouched on the floor. And now there’s a diary beside them as well—Eridysi’s. The other half of what I gave you over a year ago to read.
I didn’t put that diary there, Kullen, and I don’t know who did. But I am going to take it, in hopes that there are clues for what I am meant to do …
I am no longer the last Sightwitch Sister. I have no idea what that means for me.
I love you, Kullen. My Captain. My Paladin.
Ever since that day in the mountain when I chose to ignore the Rule of the Accidental Guest and to help you instead, our Threads have been bound.
And they will remain bound for as long as I live, as long as I breathe.
I am not giving up on you. I’ll come back when I can.
Good-bye.
—Ryber