Page 98 of Witchshadow
Control.The word curled up from the deepest recesses of Aeduan’s body, of Aeduan’s brain. It was the first soul again, and Aeduan’s initial instinct was to punch it back down. Stopper it behind the walls he’d buried it in.
Except the word came again:Control,and this time Aeduan knew exactly what it meant: he could control people’s blood. Anyone that he could scent, he could command. Which meant that the hunters watching him stood no chance. It meant these chains could be unbound in an instant.
Oh, what power he’d had within him for a month, yet he’d never known. No wonder people feared him. No wonder the Raider King had tensed whenever he was near. Such power was almost godlike.
And such power was truly worthy of the person he had once been.
Aeduan inhaled as much air as his lungs could contain, ribs bowing wide. The guards’ bloods coruscating against his senses. From the woman came a scent like a grandmother’s wrinkles and the tang of blood on steel. And from the man was wind from the north and bison fur still warm.
Control,the first soul nudged again, and so Aeduan did. Clumsily at first, his fingers shaping into claws behind his back, behind the column. He grabbed at the closest hunter—the woman—and squeezed.
But it felt like pawing at the breeze. He couldfeelher there, could even stretch his magic to reach for her, but he could not grab hold. His magic grasped nothing but empty air.
He tried again, this time focusing on the man. On the bison he had clearly hunted, on the Windswept Plains where he had clearly lived. There were deeper folds to his blood.A child’s laughter. A wine made from berries heated in the sun. A woman’s smile, one tooth crooked in front.
Aeduan inhaled more, all focus on the blood. On each new element rising to the top as he explored.Dogs barking. Fresh bison milk. The scrape of a knife on wood.
There. He had enough.There.He had finally grabbed hold. And now, as he squeezed, he took control—except that it was so much more. He was slithering inside, moving through veins and feeling the thump of a heart beating strong. He could stop that heart. He could freeze those veins. He could end this man’s life in an instant.
Control,the first Aeduan reminded.Only control.
It annoyed him, but the first soul was right. Death would serve no purpose here, at least not before Aeduan was free. So with hard, magic-fueled concentration, Aeduan spread his power into the man’s limbs. First into his arms, where he unfastened the keys at his waist. Then into his legs, where he sent the man stepping, one foot, then two, toward Aeduan.
Each movement was halting and crude, but the man could not resist—and the second hunter watched with too much confusion to intervene. It wasn’t until the man was almost to Aeduan that she finally called out in that language he didn’t understand. And it wasn’t until the man was behind Aeduan, a key grating into Aeduan’s locked chains, that she finally abandoned her post to hurry toward them.
But she was too late, too slow. By the time she was there, the chains had clanked to the ground. Aeduan was free.
He released the man’s blood, dumping it so fast the man collapsed. Not dead, but unconscious. Then he grabbed on to the woman. On to her blood and her body, his fingers clutching at her throat. His magic clutching at her veins.
She had just enough time to widen her eyes in horror before her breath choked off. Before she too went limp and hit the floor.
Aeduan smiled. Oh, what power indeed. No one could stop him, no one could contain him. Not even the Old One named Evrane. Not even Corlant with his Purists always around. There was only one person he could not control. A young woman with no blood-scent—a young woman with a power from the Void.
And a young woman who knew exactly what Aeduan could do, yet she’d said nothing and warned no one. Instead, she had taken the silver taler stained in his own blood so he could follow her. So hewouldfollow her. Why? As long as she lived, she was a risk to him. She had to know he could not leave her free.
The reason didn’t matter, he decided as he reached the tent’s flap. He was coming for her, and neither she nor the first Aeduan, still wrestling within, could stop him.
If Iseult was lucky, she would never see Alma or Gretchya again.
It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to stop in the Solfatarra, no matter what accusations her mother might have flung at her. Gretchya and this tribe had been an interruption in her path, an inconvenience blocking her way. Theyhad neutralized Aeduan for her; now Iseult didn’t need them; she could dismiss them as easily as Gretchya always dismissed her.
Each step away from the healer’s tent brought clarity to Iseult’s veins. Men had died at her fingertips, and people had whispered her name in fear. For once, on the road, she had been the one making the choices and the one making change.
But Gretchya and Alma didn’t see that—and they wouldn’t care if they did. They would only hate her more because it would be the final proof that Iseult was bound to the Void. That she would never fit into the tribe’s weave and never follow in Gretchya’s perfectly placed footsteps.
Iseult half ran, half skipped due west, back the way they’d come. Back toward Praga and Safi. She was exhausted, she was drained, but anger had gotten her this far. It would get her the rest of the way. Owl kept silent and obedient beside her. Dark clouds scudded across the sun as they moved; snow began to fall. A light, fluffy snow that Iseult would have thought beautiful several weeks ago.
Now she knew such snow made tracks easier to follow. Now she knew such snow killed, gentle as a mother’s embrace.
Soon conifers and old-growth forests swallowed them, muting the snow, and Iseult sensed hunters approaching. Three sets of hostile Threads—while countless more waited beyond. Then the first hunter reached them: a gray-haired woman, broad shouldered, with a carving knife drawn. “You are not allowed to leave.”
“On whose orders?”
“Our Threadwitch. No one leaves without her approval.”
“And I have it.” Iseult pumped authority into those words and copied her mother’s stiff posture. “Is there a trail leading through the fog?”
The woman hesitated. Then shook her head. “No.” Fresh aggression crystallized in the hunter’s Threads. “You’re not allowed to leave anyway. Come with me.”
