Chapter 60 #2
Iseult watched as Eridysi focused all her time, all her life on crafting the blade and the glass.
It was a brutal, desperate determination that filled her.
And Iseult watched as two girls bounced and played nearby.
They were Ragnor’s daughters: Lisbet and Cora.
Aeduan’s sisters from before the sleeping ice could claim them—sisters whom Iseult had only just learned about from Ragnor.
Iseult also saw Saria, the Earth Paladin, as she quietly built magic doorways into the mountain. And she saw Midne, the Void Paladin, crushed by Portia on the Hell-Bard Loom.
Now there was Ragnor, younger, brighter, and stoically competent as he ordered armies wherever the Rook King directed from his fortress in the sky.
Until at last came that fateful day in the mountain, when the Exalted Ones descended on the Six.
When Midne betrayed them—unwillingly—and a battle of unmatched, raw power ensued.
Iseult felt the Rook King’s horror, followed by his cold detachment as he did what he thought he must do.
As he and Bastien eliminated all of the Exalted Ones.
They never realized that Portia had replaced Midne. They found a mutilated body with a golden chain, and they believed it to be their friend, slain by normal means. And when they found the one they thought to be Portia, they didn’t believe her cries to the contrary.
The Rook King and Bastien slew Midne with Eridysi’s blade.
Then, as if this was not awful enough to bear witness to, Iseult watched as the Rook King killed all of his remaining friends.
Bastien, Baile, Rhian, and even his Heart-Thread Saria.
The only people he let go free were the pregnant Eridysi, his general Ragnor, and the two daughters, Lisbet and Cora.
It was all real, vivid, tangible to Iseult as if she were right there with Elias, living through it all.
Wells formed. Magic changed. Witches became commonplace.
And the Cahr Awen were born and reborn century after century.
Until the day that a young imperial prince named Leopold saw an ancient tower and the memories of his past lives were triggered inside him.
It was then that Leopold had realized what he was—and what he must do to save the goddess at the heart of everything.
It was a magnificent show, unlike anything Iseult could have imagined.
She felt each of the Rook King’s emotions, each of Leopold’s.
And not simply because she could see and interpret the Threads, but because the glamour wove directly into her.
Directly through her. It played at her own Threads as if she were one more instrument inside Leopold’s orchestra.
Because she was.
She always had been.
Iseult came back into her body gradually. No more shadows. No more pain. She simply lay on the snow while Leopold gazed down at her with a look that said, I would never hurt you. Somehow, he still believed that.
For several seconds, the ghost of the Rook King lingered upon him. There was the hard jaw. There was the silver crown. Then that too fell away, and there was only a prince, green-eyed and golden-haired.
Iseult blinked as the final glimmers of the glamour melted like dewdrops off a flower.
Here was the biting cold. Here was the shrine.
And here was the snow slanting against her, carried by a burgeoning wind that flew toward Poznin.
It bit against Iseult’s cheeks and scraped at the old scars across her hands.
Above all, it struck flint on steel inside her heart.
Anger, she pinpointed instantly, and she couldn’t help but smile. Because this was an emotion that was useful to her. This was a feeling she wanted to be embraced by. Its fires warmed her muscles, sharpened her senses, and ground her body and mind into many years of training.
She had been a tool for so long, filled with Threads that had never been her own—and that had been placed there by this Paladin kneeling beside her. But he was hardly the only person who’d ever treated her as a tool or tried to hammer her into what they wanted her to be.
Make Threadstones, lead the tribe.
Protect Safi because no one can protect her like Thread-family.
Be the Cahr Awen and heal the Wells.
Do not heal the Well and instead cleave them.
Save Moon Mother before it is too late.
So many expectations. So many years spent trying to be what everyone else wanted Iseult to be—and all that had led to was disaster.
“I trusted you,” she said softly, searching Leopold’s face for some sign of humanity. Of regret. He was so beautiful—even more so now, for it was not merely the distant Well that reeled Threads of magic into it. Raw power bled into Leopold as well.
Before Iseult, he was becoming a god.
“I even cared for you,” she continued, and with tender caution, she tried to rise. Leopold reached to help her.
She shook him aside.
“After all that time we spent together in the Sirmayans, Leopold, h-how could I not care for you?” Iseult reached sitting. Now her eyes were only a few inches below Leopold’s. Wind pulled at his curls. Snow fluttered on his lashes. “But everything you’ve ever said to me was a lie.
“You never worked with Eron fon Hasstrel, but m-merely tricked me with a book from my childhood. And you didn’t kill Corlant so I wouldn’t have to, but so I wouldn’t form a new Well with the power of the blade inside me.
“And you certainly never loved me. Not really.”
Leopold’s Threads tweaked with scarlet frustration—and a glimmer of that aching, lonely blue. “Of course I loved you. And I still do.”
“But only because you made me. Only b-because I was a looking glass to find what you needed. A blade to be stabbed into hearts you couldn’t reach yourself.”
Now Leopold’s cheeks twitched. “Yes, I did make you, but not because I wanted to. I had no other choice, Iseult. It was the only way to save Sirmaya.”
“Maybe.” Iseult shrugged one shoulder, imitating the mask of boredom Leopold always wore.
Cold seeped into her legs. Her hair swatted against her face.
“But I really don’t care if it was the only way.
Just as I don’t care what h-happened a thousand years ago or a hundred years ago or even three decades ago.
What I care about is what happened today. What you did today, at the Air Well.”
Iseult inhaled here, letting the cold fortify her and stasis slide into her toes. She did not shout, she did not emote. “How long do we have?” she asked.
“Before…?” He let the word trail out. His Threads flashed toward muddy confusion.
“Before the Exalted Ones are awake, Leopold. Before your ridiculous plan”—she pointed to the Threads, traipsing, twirling by—“is finished and magic is gone from the Witchlands?”
An upward tilt of Leopold’s chin. “This cannot be undone, if that is what you are asking. And it does not have to be, for I already have another plan set in motion. One of the Exalted Ones will join my side against the others. He is called Nadje. You knew him when he—”
“No.” Iseult released a sigh. “I don’t c-care about your plans and schemes. Don’t you see that? The Exalted Ones are your fight to wage and your history to reckon with. Not mine, and certainly not the innocent people of the Witchlands.”
“But they are your fight to wage.” His green eyes flashed. His Threads too. “For the Lament is not yet complete. You and Safiya must topple nightmares still and build us anew, while the Six and I—”
“No.” Now Iseult snarled. Now she pushed to her feet, stronger than she expected her body to be—and certainly stronger than Leopold expected, for alarm scattered across his Threads like meteors.
“I am done with that stupid Lament. It has locked you onto a path, and now you’re i-i-incapable of thinking beyond.
“So while you might say what happened at the Well can’t be undone, I don’t believe you. I reject that answer. I reject the Lament. I am not the shadow-ender, and Safi is not the world-starter.
“We are done being your tools. We are done being a blade and glass you wield with a flip of your hand, and we are done being Threadstones meant to shatter in a Void Paladin’s grip.
“The Cahr Awen was a lie you created a thousand years ago because, like a-always, you refused to act directly. But I will live that lie no longer, Leopold, and now that the magic is gone from me? Now that there’s a … a h-hole inside me where the blade used to be? I say good riddance and good-bye.”
Iseult squared herself before Leopold, her chin tipping high. He did not recoil, although his Threads paled with ashen uncertainty—a shade at odds with the sunrise glowing behind him.
“I was right,” she said, holding his gaze, “when I called you am-lejtu back in Cartorra. But I was wrong about why. You’re n-not a life sleeper because you don’t want Thread-family. You’re a life sleeper because even after centuries, you don’t understand what it takes to give love and receive it.”
Leopold sighed. A sound like the earth collapsing. Like a cave-in from which nothing would ever emerge and no Threads would ever grow. For half a breath, as Iseult watched the prince’s eyes sink shut, she felt each shiver and shadow of his sadness. It filled her up. Saturated her like a bonfire.
And for that half a breath, there was no denying that he was magnificent, this lonely god of old.
Then the moment passed, the blue grief passed too, and when Leopold opened his eyes, it was with the smug, wicked glint of Trickster.
“You’re right, of course.” He bowed his head. “As was the Moon Mother in that fable you so love to tell.” He dipped close to Iseult’s ear and murmured: “For I love no one but myself, and I will always be alone.”
He vanished then, as Iseult knew he would do, because the truth was that Leopold fon Cartorra—the Rook King, the Trickster god of old—was a coward who only ever snuck or hid or schemed.
But there was one small problem. It had been Leopold’s problem from the beginning: because he never acted directly, he couldn’t understand anyone who did.
So he wasn’t ready for what came next. He wasn’t ready for Iseult.
Or for her rage.
The moment before his body faded into the Dreaming, like smoke vanishing into the sky, Iseult grabbed at his Threads.
At the searing silver core that made him a Paladin.
At the forever-grieving heart of blue. At all the shimmers and shades cascading into him, filled with agonizing, bone-scorching heat.
Iseult grabbed on to all of them.
And then she simply held on.