Chapter 73 #2
“But,” the abbot was saying, half leaning against the stones and fully oblivious to his lapse in concentration, “I’ll respect your decision to keep it a small party.
For now. If you end up targets, though, I’ll force you to bring more monks—understood?
We might have a slightly different mission, now that we know the true origins of the Cahr Awen …
But we monks are prepared for anything, so we will continue to serve. And to serve the new tool-bearer too.”
“Yes,” Aeduan replied. If Lizl noticed that he sounded rougher, cooler than before, she gave no sign. “But until we know exactly how the rulers and leaders of the Witchlands will accept—or will not accept—the mandate of the Cahr Awen, then it’s easier and safer this way.”
“Right, right.” Lizl swatted the air, her eyes flitting again to the satchel at Aeduan’s chest. “The light-bringer explained all of that to me when she came. I am simply asking that you not make this as difficult as you always make things for me.”
Aeduan knew this was a joke; he knew he was meant to laugh; but with the silver taler so near, he could barely grind out a smile. He bowed his head. “I understand, and I promise we will not keep you waiting, Abbot.”
“Good.” Lizl nodded. “In that case, I will make sure the thirteen I have so far are in top shape for whenever you return. I’ve already got one of Evrane’s lessons in mind.”
Aeduan’s eyebrows lifted. For the first time in several moments, this fully captured his attention. “You’ll teach them yourself?”
“Why not? You just said how much responsibility and weight these new roles carry. What better way to instill that than having the abbot be their teacher?”
Aeduan saw the logic to this—and also felt a surge of gratitude. His fingers flexed at his side. Once. Twice. “Thank you, Abbot. For this and everything else.”
Lizl gave an absent grunt as she squinted into the valley, toward the campfire flickering like a candle in the wind. Then past that and up, up into the steep mountains beyond.
“You know, Bloodwitch,” she said eventually, “you still owe me a number of life-debts. Six, I think, was the count before the battle at Poznin. Now, though … Well, I’d wager that battle alone added at least another ten.
” A sidling glance. A crooked smile. “In other words, don’t die before I can claim them, yeah? ”
This time, Aeduan didn’t have to force the smile or the laugh. “Yes,” he told her, bowing again, now in supplication. Now with the respect she deserved for the title she’d earned. “I have not forgotten, and if you ever need me, Abbot Thewan, I will come right away to repay you.”
She sighed, a sound that was satisfied, but also.… wistful. Like perhaps she envied that Aeduan would get to leave while she had to stay behind. Yet Lizl gave no final good-bye nor bow—nor even glance as she twirled sharply away. Her cloak streaked white. Her steps clipped out.
And the scent of speed and daisy chains, of a mother’s kiss and sharpened steel faded along with the sight of her.
Iseult knew her hatred of the Old One Nadje wasn’t wholly justified. In the end, that Exalted One had chosen correctly—and in the end, it hadn’t been his fault he had taken Aeduan’s body. That he’d hurt Aeduan, and in turn, hurt Iseult and Owl.
Yet as Iseult stared at the jagged crater where the Aether Well had been—while dry, Sirmayan cold crisped around her, while her breath tendriled from her mouth like Threads, while her hands ached inside the gloves she always wore …
Iseult hated Nadje.
And she was glad—glad—that he was gone.
She was glad that Leopold was gone too. Owl had told Iseult what had happened; Aeduan had told Iseult what he’d seen in the Sleeping Lands.
And while she couldn’t deny there were shards of grief dug into her heart—as if the looking glass that had once been a part of her soul had left fragments behind—most of her was glad he was gone.
That she no longer had to navigate him and his thousand-year Trickster plans.
Or him and his thousand-year-old Threads. Too bright, too dominating for a mind such as hers.
She was a Threadwitch again. And a Weaverwitch of sorts, able to touch Threads.
Control them as the Puppeteer once had. But for reasons she didn’t understand—but that the Sightwitches were already racing to research and explore—she could no longer cleave.
She could no longer sever, sever, twist and sever.
She didn’t grieve the loss of that magic.
She almost hoped Ryber and the other Sightwitches never found an answer.
The night’s sky, stippled with stars, was unmarred by moon or clouds. Only the Moon Mother’s own Threads hovered here—although these days, no one but Nomatsi Threadwitches could see them.
Iseult crouched at the edge of the Well, where snow had banked. Soon, this hole would be filled with that snow; soon it would look solid when it was not.
“You’re here.”
Iseult almost leaped out of her skin. She spun so fast, jolted so high, that she lost her balance. Her arms windmilled.
Then Aeduan was there, catching her before she could topple backward into the new abyss.
His breaths feathered as hers did. His eyes were near, and she couldn’t help but notice—as she did every time she’d looked into them since the Great Collapse—that they were not quite the same blue they’d once been.
Now there was a ring of silver around the edges.
A faint glow like the annulus of an eclipse.
“You’re here,” he repeated, harsher this time as he pulled her away from the edge and toward her nearby campfire. She’d set up a small tent.
“Yes,” she said. “I—I took Blueberry.”
“Why?” Aeduan’s jaw fluttered with worry. “Has something happened?”
“No. I…” Iseult was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she’d come a long, long way.
And she was suddenly feeling thoroughly stupid for that decision. Fanciful fool. “The T-Truce Summit,” she squeezed out, “is all organized. And Safi is in Venaza City, making final preparations for our new role and title. H-her uncle will be the first to announce it.”
Aeduan nodded. They had reached the fire’s warmth now, and he released Iseult—although he didn’t step away. “I just finished speaking to Lizl. She asked that we not take too long before choosing apprentices.”
“Yes.” Iseult had expected this.
And now they were out of conversation topics. Which was silly. After everything they had been through together—everything they’d done for each other …
“I wanted to see you,” she blurted at the same moment he said, “I love you.”
Oh. She squared herself toward him. Firelight cast shapes across his white cloak and pale face. His eyes glittered—and the annulus glowed.
“I love you,” he repeated, a rigidity claiming his muscles. His face. “I should have said it when we parted on the Windswept Plains. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“Because you didn’t n-need to.” It was true: Iseult had known he loved her, even if he hadn’t said those exact words. Did the phrase mhe varujta not tell her as much every time he uttered it?
Yet, she was discovering that it was one thing to know something abstractly and quite another to find it real and within your grasp. Like knowing that your body and its organs could function without you commanding them …
Versus hearing your heartbeat stutter or having your lungs fill so full they ached. All these weeks, Iseult had sensed how Aeduan felt for her.
But now she knew.
He loved her, and she loved him too.
Her throat closed up. Her tear ducts sharpened. And it was—as it so often tended to be with Aeduan—too much. She hurt from it even as she wanted this hurting to never stop. So she reached for him, one gloved hand extending.
He stepped in close. Then her arms came around his waist, and she laid her head against his shoulder.
Her eyes closed. She breathed in cold air that smelled like Aeduan’s armor, like the lanolin he used on his blades, like blood and starlight and the man who had walked a thousand years and would—if she asked him to—walk a thousand more.
“I made a vow to you,” she said into his neck. “That when this was all over, you would serve no one but yourself, and we would find wh-what it is you want.”
He squeezed her more tightly. It pressed his knives into her chest—and also the pouch that held the Truth-lens.
Iseult rested her hand over that pouch for three heartbeats.
Then she drew back. Just enough to find his eyes.
To hold that gaze of understanding. “I made a vow, yet here we are again, with this lens and this sword.” Her hand slid down to the pommel at his hip.
“You are y-yet again, serving someone else. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. ”
For several seconds, the only sound was the fire crackling. The wind briefly twisted, and smoke whispered between them. It hazed Aeduan’s face. Softened how tense he had become.
Then the wind resumed its southern aim and Aeduan finally spoke: “There is a difference this time, Iseult. I am choosing to become the bearer of the sword and the necklace. I am choosing to follow you and the light-bringer wherever your path takes you. It’s my chosen cause, and that…
” A frown. A slight shake of his head. “It’s not the same as serving a master. ”
Now Iseult was the one to frown. She felt her brow pinch, felt her nostrils flare.
She supposed he wasn’t wrong. When she had been Cahr Awen—when she’d been nothing more than the Rook King’s tool—it hadn’t been her choice.
As much as she’d wanted to be special, she would never have chosen it that way.
Now though, being the Cahr Awen was her choice. Iseult and Safi were taking on that title because they wanted it to stand for something; because they believed that someone needed to steward magic and ensure it was never abused as it had been.
“I understand,” Iseult said softly, and with cautious—and still painful—hands, she cupped Aeduan’s jaw.
Then lowered his head until she could rest her brow against his.
“There are words,” she began, feeling her tongue instantly thicken.
Stasis, stasis. “Th-that the Nomatsis say. In their braiding ceremonies. In o-our braiding ceremonies. A Threadwitch who leads the tribe will ask questions, and the couple answers them.”
Aeduan nodded against her. “Are you married? Do you have a lover? Are the Threads between you true?”
Iseult swallowed. “You know them.”
“I do.” His left hand came to her hip. His right hand slid behind to rest on her low back. “And here are your answers: I am not married. You are the only lover I have. And the Threads between us are true. At least.” His lips parted. Shut. Parted again. “For me they are.”
Iseult’s tongue tripled in size. “Y-you aren’t the only one who needs to swear this vow. I must too.”
“Then do it.” He said this in a way that was both playful and also brutally serious. A subtle juxtaposition Iseult had first glimpsed on him in the Contested Lands, when it had been only the two of them wondering who would betray whom first.
The fire snapped; orange light flared.
“I am not married,” she told him. “I have no lover … b-but you. And the Threads between us are true. Mhe varujta, Aeduan Amalej. Te varuje.”
“Te varuje,” he repeated back, and although neither of them said it, they both knew it was true: now they were not just Heart-Threads to each other, now they were braided in the Nomatsi way. Now they were bound with the Moon Mother’s blessing.
Iseult kissed Aeduan then. A tender, almost tentative thing because her insides felt scraped clean. Like everything had been yanked out, leaving only heat and fullness behind.
“It’s more comfortable in the Monastery,” Aeduan offered after several minutes of delicate lips and gentle hands.
“I—I don’t want to be near people.” Iseult kissed his jaw. “And the tent is comfortable too. You’d be surprised how many supplies I could fit on Blueberry’s back.”
Aeduan laughed—it was a sound that, again, was simultaneously light and solemn. “He would be angry if we wasted his efforts.”
“Yes,” Iseult agreed, and after slipping her hand—sore though it was—into Aeduan’s, she led her Bloodwitch toward the tent. The campfire hissed and shuddered as they passed.
And the stars shone like fireflies waiting for wishes to come true.