Page 91 of Witchshadow
“So you are a hero then, Mother?” Iseult hated how petulant she sounded. How… how jealous. She was the Cahr Awen, yet here she was whining that Gretchya had become a hero. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she simply wished she’d been a part of it. That it had beenherat Gretchya’s side instead of Alma.
How foolish. Iseult really should be used to that old ache by now.
Gretchya halted so abruptly that Iseult stalked two steps onward before noticing. She rounded back. “I am not a hero, Iseult. I did what had to be done.”
“As did I by coming here.”
“I saved these people. You condemned them.” Gretchya’s gaze skated past Iseult, soaking up the camp around them. The hurrying people, the soft voices, the Threads shot with fear but bound by a single purpose: escape.
Nearby, the false Aeduan’s Threads flared. Wings hurtled skyward.
Gretchya’s attention refastened on Iseult, green, sharp, and so familiar. “Did Corlant hurt you?”
Iseult reared back. This was not a question she’d expected, nor the faint flicker behind Gretchya’s eyes. “No,” she replied. “Though he tried.”
A nod. Then Gretchya stared pointedly at Iseult’s right hand. “And that?”
“Th-they… marked me in Cartorra.” No, no—not the stammer. Not right now.
“Why Void instead of Aether?” Gretchya asked, even though Iseult could see in her eyes that she already knew.
The lie fell off her tongue anyway: “They mark all Nomatsis this way.”
Something new flickered in Gretchya’s eyes. A tightening along the lids, a pinching in the brow. Almost sadness, almost disappointment, except gone so fast, Iseult couldn’t be sure.
Her mother didn’t contradict her, but her next words made it clear she believed nothing Iseult said. “So it is true, then. The rumors of a new Puppeteer.”
Iseult swallowed. Heat swept up her chest and face, and the urge to deny—to drop out more lies as easily as Safi or Mathew—expanded in her lungs. It had been so long since she’d felt this small or unwanted.
Iseult had done everything she could to mold herself into what her mother had expected her to be. But Gretchya had given up on her then, and she was giving up on her now. To her, Iseult would only ever be the daughter who had failed. The Threadwitch who could not make Threadstones, who could not weave herself into the tribe and one day take over as leader. She was an embarrassment to be hidden, a mistake to be forgotten.
A cold wind pulled at Gretchya’s hair. “How many people have you killed, Iseult?”
A heartbeat pause. A heartbeat more of that instinct to deny. Then it was gone, and Iseult answered truthfully, “Many.” Though she couldn’t help but add: “They w-were going to kill me.”
“And now you have led such people here.”
“Not on purpose.”
“But the damage is done all the same.”
And just like that, Iseult was boiling in gray heat again. Her chest felt crushed, her tongue rolled flat.
Stasis, Iseult. A true Threadwitch shows nothing, feels nothing.
Her breath wavered.
Stasis, Iseult. In your fingers and in your toes.
Her eyes shuttered.
Stasis, Iseult. Do not shame me. Do not shame Moon Mother.
Iseult had never wanted to shame Moon Mother, she had never wanted to shame Gretchya. Not then, not now, not ever. It was inescapable, though, for she couldn’t be the block of stone her mother wanted.
Yet she also couldn’t be the effusive, expressive human everyone else expected. Only Safi had ever understood that, only Safi had ever really cared.
Sensing Iseult had no reply, Gretchya turned away.
