Page 22 of Bloodwitch
Iseult didn’t need Safi’s magic to knowthatwas a lie. The woman was marking up the price; her Threads made it clear she wanted Iseult to leave. But Iseult had something to prove now, and Moon Mother save her, she was about to waste a lot of coin just to make a point. Just to defend her own people.
Safi would be proud.
From the folds of her coat, she eased out a silver taler and slid it onto the counter. Then she offered her best attempt at a smile. “How about twice that?”
Instantly, the woman’s Threads erupted with suspicion. She straightened, knife rising—not quite a threat, but notnota threat either. “Did you steal that?”
“No.” Iseult’s voice was perfectly still, her expression perfectly blank. She was Threadwitch calm through and through. “It was payment for… sewing.”
“Oh?” The suspicion in the woman’s Threads spread wider. “I thought sewing was a man’s work for the ’Matsis.”
Ah. Well,thatwas unexpected. Of all the innkeepers for Iseult to encounter, she had to find the one who actually knew something about Nomatsi culture.
“It is,” she said as evenly as she could.Give her what she expects to see. Give her what she expects to see.“I… learned the skill from my father. But my father was killed by raiders, and now my family and I”—she motioned to Aeduan and Owl—“are just looking for a place to stay a few nights. We’ll leave soon, I promise.”
A thoughtful grunt, and slowly the woman’s Threads melted. First into the bright cyan of understanding, but tinged with midnight blue grief. Then at last, a wave of pink acceptance.
Iseult’s good fortune scarcely lasted a heartbeat, though, before Aeduan started coughing. A great explosion of air and sound that sent nearby patrons spinning toward him, a blanket of horrified Threads.
The same horror rushed over the innkeeper’s Threads, and her face sank into a scowl. The knife tilted back to its threatening slant. “No plague.”
“It’snotthe plague.” Iseult pitched those words loud enough for the innkeeper and the nearest patrons to hear. She even rolled her eyes in the most Safi-like way she could manage. “If he were sick, then my sister and I would be sick too. That’s how disease works, you know.”
The woman did not like Iseult’s tone, but she also didn’t argue.
“He was injured in the raider attack,” Iseult went on, “and the wound hasn’t healed well. In fact, if you could point me to a healing clinic, I would be grateful.”
After a moment of consideration, the woman’s Threads blurred back to acceptance. A curt nod, and she finally set down the knife in exchange for the silver taler still gleaming on the dark counter.
“There’s a clinic a few blocks east of here,” she said, crooking down to grab a key. “But it’s unlikely you’ll find anyone to help. Almost all our healers have been pressed into service and sent to the border.” When she stood again, the dark sorrow was back in her Threads. “I know what it’s like to lose someone to raider violence. Here.” She offered Iseult the key, and also a pile of bronze coins. “Room thirteen. Third floor, third door on the left.”
“Thank you.” The word fluttered out, softer than Iseult intended. No act, no Threadwitch control. The woman had charged her far less than fifty cleques, and for that she was grateful.
“A word of advice.” The woman’s chin tipped up. “Keep you and your family hidden. People are saying the Nomatsis have moved to the Raider King’s banner. They aren’t welcome in Tirla because of it.”
Iseult blinked, stunned. “But that’s not true. He has been killingus.”
The woman did not look impressed. “It doesn’t have to be true for people to believe it, so stay out of sight and don’t make trouble.” A bounce of the woman’s eyebrows, and before Iseult could even nod, the innkeeper was back to carving her ham.
Sharing a room, Aeduan discovered, was vastly different than sharing a forest.
Through the torture that pulsed within his skull, he could not sort outwhythe walls made a difference—he was technically no closer to the Threadwitch or Owl here than he had been in their little cave the night before. Yet, somehow this space felt a hundred times smaller. A hundred times more crowded.
A low bed sagged beneath a single window, its green coverlet finely made, if well worn. A chipped washbasin with cobalt leaves around the edge rested atop a table near the door, and there was even a warped mirror hanging above it.
Owl was immediately fascinated by the mirror, and Aeduan was grateful to have her distracted. Pain thumped in every organ, every limb, and it banged harder with each passing minute. He could barely keep the coughing at bay. Then there was the blood, an endless seep from not only his old scars, but now the twenty-one new ones. The shirt Iseult had gone to the trouble of cleaning was now stiff and red once more.
At least,he thought as Iseult helped him sit,I did not get any of my blood on her.“Thank you,” he tried to say as he sank onto the bed, but all that came out was a harsh sigh.
The wood groaned beneath him. The dark-paneled room listed sharply. Then the Threadwitch moved in front of him, a hazy vision of pursed lips and green-golden eyes. Her hands moved to his throat, gentle as always, and it took him a moment to realize she was removing his cloak.
He stiffened. She hesitated. A faint lift of color reached her cheeks. “May I? We need to tend your wounds.”
There was thatweagain.
He nodded, and as she eased off the cloak, he realized the problem was not that the room felt too small. No, the problem was that Iseult felt too big. She filled every space in his vision. Every touch, every word, every breath. There was no escaping her.
She folded Aeduan’s cloak, acting as if it were not filthy and pocked with holes, before carefully placing it on the floor. Brows drawn in concentration, she twisted back to him. Her fingers reached for the edge of his shirt, as if she intended to tug it from his pants. As if she intended to peel it up over his bare, bleeding chest.
