The ones with more romance...💘

Three more Witchlight chapters for you!

ONLY TWO WEEKS UNTIL WITCHLIGHT HITS STORES. This is not a drill, not a joke, and I have finished copies of the book in my house.

Meaning only a truly catastrophic surprise can stop this book from finally—finally!—reaching your hands.

So make sure you’ve pre-ordered (get signed, personalized copies here!), make sure you’ve voted on the short story, and prepare yourselves for the epic finale to our story of the Cahr Awen.

OH, and don’t forget the Witchlight Tour! Make sure you’ve gotten your tickets for that as well. 🥳

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Chapter 23

Their blood was the wrong color.

Iseult had noticed it as soon as she’d cut into the first raider with her moon scythes. But it wasn’t until now, with the battle won and twenty-seven raiders scattered across the snow, that she could finally see it was not merely blood that was corrupted. Their Threads were the wrong color too.

All of them were cleaving. Just like the blacksmith and his wife and all the countless others she hadn’t been able to save. Every one of these Red Sails possessed faint Severed Threads at the heart of their beings.

“Why have y-you attacked us?” Iseult asked the woman with the pistol. She was the only raider still conscious.

“Because you were in our way.” The woman smiled, revealing teeth coated in blood. Her Threads hummed with a disturbing satisfaction.

“And is that smoke in the distance from you?” Safi clutched her right arm to her side, the pale furs marred with her blood. Red, all of it red, and from a wound that would need tending. “Over there—did you attack others?”

“They had the plague,” the raider answered, as if this explained anything. “So we had to.”

Iseult frowned at the black smoke choking the sky. Then she frowned at Aeduan, who crouched over two raiders. One by one, he was freezing the blood in their veins. Any who were still conscious, he pushed into sleep.

He was tired though. Iseult could see that even from here.

“She’s telling the truth, Iz.” Safi bent closer to Iseult. “Or at least she thinks she is. She really believes whomever they just killed had the plague.”

Iseult’s frown whittled deeper. She supposed it made a tortured sort of sense: the plague had marked the end of the Republic of Arithuania, and burning bodies had stopped its spread. But the dark blood of these raiders, the Severed Threads mingling across this clearing . . .

“Why do you think it’s the plague?” Iseult asked.

“Because they have the same pustules. The Raider King told us what to look for, so we do.”

Safi’s expression—and her Threads—turned grim. Cleaving, of course, made pustules. “So the Raider King has sent you to kill anyone with the plague?”

The woman spat shadowed blood onto the snow. Her Threads settled into a stubborn forest green. There was a hesitancy to them, though. A fear, even, that made Iseult think perhaps Ragnor did not know how many they were slaughtering to eradicate this so-called plague.

Safi sighed. “You have two choices here. Either you can cooperate with us, and we’ll leave you and these other survivors with healing supplies.” She turned a meaningful glare at the nearly thirty bodies scattered about. “Or you can choose not to cooperate, and we’ll leave you here with nothing.”

The woman sneered.

“Storm’s coming.” Iseult pointed to the sky. “I d-don’t think you want to be stuck here.”

The woman looked neither worried nor impressed, so Safi gave a lopsided shrug. “Good enough. The gods can’t say we didn’t try.” She turned away, flickers of pain wincing in her Threads. “Come on, Knifey,” she hollered at Aeduan. “We’re leaving these bastards behind.”

Aeduan straightened. His eyes pierced Iseult’s. One heartbeat. Two. Blood. Witch. Blood. Witch. Then his attention skated to the sneering raider.

Her Threads flashed with blue comprehension. “Hells, you’re him, aren’t you? The Raider King’s son. Which makes you two . . . Oh, this is rich. He’s going to be so happy. He told us to be on the lookout, now here you are.”

Two things happened in that moment. First, Iseult saw the woman’s Threads blare with a new shade, one that spoke of Aether magic and connections spanning miles.

Second: the woman’s whole body locked up. So fast it made her muscles crunch inward like a dead spider. Then she did die. Iseult saw her Threads snuff out moments before she went limp against the black-striped snow. Iseult spun toward Aeduan. His arm was raised, his fingers flexed as his eyes—now pure red—once more pierced hers from across the bloodied grass and snow.

“What the rut, Knifey!” Safi exclaimed. “We needed her!”

“No,” Iseult said. “He did the right thing, Safi. Look.” She knelt beside the fallen woman and tore the glove from her right hand.

A Witchmark winked into the gray light. A hollow circle with a scripted letter inside. “Voicewitch,” Iseult said.

“Well, shit.” Safi wiped her bloodied blade on the snow. “Shit in a gutter, shit on my ancestors. Was she able to send a message before you stopped her?”

“We have to assume so.” Aeduan’s voice was inflectionless. He was the least exerted of their ranks, and also the most detached. But just as Iseult did not need to see a wound to know it was infected, she didn’t need to see Aeduan’s Threads to know he was agitated. Not from the fight, although that certainly contributed . . .

But by what the Voicewitch had said. The orders she’d described from the Raider King to kill anyone who might be sick. That was his father, after all. A man he’d once followed and trusted.

“We’ll have to stay off the road,” Safi said.

“Yes.” Aeduan blinked slowly. “The horses ran off, but I will find them and bring them back.”

“No.” Iseult reached for him before he could stride away. She didn’t touch him, though. “We should stay t-together, Aeduan.” Do not lock up your feelings and walk away.

His lips parted. One heartbeat stuttered past. Two. Then his spine slackened ever so slightly. “As you wish. We will stay together.”

The last thing Iseult saw before she followed Aeduan and Safi into the grass was a bloodied head fallen atop the snow. Empty eyes stared into frozen nothing. Sever, sever, twist and sever. For all that she had avoided using her magic and avoided taking control…

People had still died here. The wickedness had come anyway.

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It slowed them considerably to be off the road. Snow fell. Small, hard flakes that found their way into gaps in Iseult’s clothing. The high grass whipped against the horses. Night was fast approaching. It also slowed them that Safi was hurt. It wasn’t a life-threatening wound, but it was bad enough that it would need tending—and bad enough that nothing but curses had left Safi’s lips for almost an hour.

Until she abruptly groaned out: “What’s that?” Safi pointed with her left hand; Iseult squinted into the darkening sky. Something thrust up from the grass, almost like a tree except it was only the trunk.

Aeduan was the one to answer: “A shrine.” He had once more tucked himself inside his hood. His voice was muffled by snowfall and salamander fibers. “There are many of them across the Plains.”

Iseult nodded; she knew of these shrines, for Nomatsis often stopped at them to pay their respects to Middle Sister Swallow. “Is it safe to make camp there?” she asked him. “Or will N-Nomatsis stop there too?”

What she didn’t add was that most Nomatsis had taken up the cause of the Raider King, so she couldn’t even trust her own people.

“I think we can stop for the night.” Aeduan’s hood swiveled, as if he sniffed with his Bloodwitchery. But there was no one for his magic to find, just as there were no Threads to brush against Iseult’s magic. And this time, Iseult really reached—even as it drained her. Even as she felt her other senses get muddy and numbed.

She couldn’t let them be ambushed again. She didn’t think they could survive another fight like that.

Soon, they were near enough to the shrine that grass and snow could no longer hide it: a stone pillar poking from the soil, twice Iseult’s height. Winds had kicked all the snow to one side of the clearing, carrying with it offerings: food, trinkets, coins, and the uncut stones of a Threadwitch. The Nomatsis feared Swallow’s fickle temper on the Plains; these gifts were meant to appease her.

Safi was the first to dismount—stiffly and with no attempts to hide her pain. Not that her Threads could hide it anyway. “Sit,” Iseult ordered, pointing to a smooth, smaller stone rising up from the snow. “Aeduan and I will make camp.”

Safi scoffed. A sound that was loud enough to reach across the winds. “You’ve got tits for brains if you think I’ll let you do this alone. I’m injured, not useless.”

Two seconds later, a snowball hit Safi’s head—and Safi’s laugh split the falling night.

In the end, Safi did help Iseult and Aeduan by using her heels to drive Nomatsi tent stakes into the earth. Then they guided the horses into the tent, arranging them at the back and using the remaining space to lay out a single pallet for Safi. This would not be the first night they’d shared their tent with the horses, but it would be the first night someone was injured.

Safi was worse off than she claimed—a fact which became obvious as soon as she tried to remove her cloak and her arm wouldn’t lift higher than a few inches. It made her face and Threads crumple with pain. So Iseult helped her peel off layers, each one more soaked with blood than the last. It filled the tent with a coppery scent that overwhelmed even the smell of the horses.

“Well, that doesn’t look great.” Safi grimaced at her arm in the light of a Firewitched lantern. They hadn’t made a proper fire; the smoke would be too dangerous. For now, the warmth of so many bodies would have to be enough. “It didn’t hurt that much when it happened.”

“Could you not sense how bad this was getting?” Iseult aimed her question at Aeduan, her voice sharp. “Why didn’t your magic alert you?”

He didn’t answer right away. He was rubbing down the horses, and his ministrations to Cloud continued uninterrupted. Gentle, steady. Until at last he paused near Cloud’s hindquarters and said, “Yes, I sensed the blood, but it was not a life-threatening wound.”

“And it still isn’t,” Safi insisted. “I’ve had worse.” She grunted and shifted her weight. The lantern wobbled.

“Sit st-still, Safi.” Iseult studied the gash. It was an ugly shredding of skin and muscle that hadn’t sliced cleanly through. Bits of cloth and fur were stuck in the open flesh, and although Iseult had brought Evrane’s healing kit . . .

Well, maybe they should have simply brought Evrane.

“We’ve switched places.” Safi’s voice was light, joking—but her Threads gave her away. “Only a few months ago, you were the one with an injury, and I was the one taking care of you.”

Iseult was willing to play along. “You mean Evrane took care of me.”

“I helped her.”

“Sure. By pissing off a prince, attracting sea foxes, kidnapping a Firewitch healer—”

“Yes, yes, I did all of that too.” Safi laughed, but it rang false. And no matter how many times Iseult murmured Relax, Safi couldn’t seem to soften her muscles or deepen her breaths.

After tending the horses, Aeduan brought a second lantern to Iseult’s side. All of their camping gear was now from Alma, which meant all was easily stowed and carried.

At Aeduan’s whispered Ignite, flames flared, while outside, the winds briefly flared too. The tent wavered and flapped. Drafts of frosty air swirled through the gaps.

Iseult smeared a Waterwitch salve on Safi’s arm, meant to keep the blood in her wound pure. Then a Firewitch salve to heal Safi’s muscles, and finally an Earthwitch salve for the skin. Scents of lavender and calendula soon replaced the smell of blood. And soon, Safi did relax, just like the winds outside.

“Thank you,” she mumbled once Iseult had wrapped the wound. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me hundreds.” Iseult tried for a smile. “But I stopped counting years ago.”

Safi matched her smile.

“Do you want a Painstone?”

“No.” Safi bit her lip. “Let’s save those, in case I need them to, ah, you know . . .”

Iseult nodded. In case you need them to get through a fight. In case you need them at the Well.

They were so close to Poznin now.

After unrolling two sleeping pads, Iseult helped Safi lie down. Then they shared the cold remains of a rabbit caught the day before. Once Iseult was satisfied Safi had eaten enough, she layered a blanket over her. “Sleep.” She tried again for a smile.

This time, Safi didn’t match it. She simply closed her eyes, and in seconds, her Threads hazed into sleep.

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Chapter 24

Aeduan was furious with himself. Beyond furious. Irate. Seething. He had not sensed the raiders until too late. The Cahr Awen had nearly died. How could he forgive himself for that?

Worse than his rage, though, was his fear. It was not an emotion Aeduan felt often. After all, as he’d once told Lizl: I do not know what fear is, so I can never be brave.

Right now, he knew fear. For if his father had been warned the Cahr Awen were coming, then it was only a matter of time until Ragnor caught them. He had witches; he had weapons; and he had numbers. The only advantage Iseult and Safiya had possessed was the element of surprise, and now they’d lost that.

Because of Aeduan.

Because the old wounds were getting worse. Crueler. And he’d been trapped in a rout of scalding pain when the raiders had arrived.

At least once a day now, the six holes in his chest would detonate. Like firepots loosing. Like pistols shot at close range. Sometimes he could barely move from the intensity of it. When Aeduan was atop Surefoot, he could hide the onslaught. Mask the sudden collapse of his spine with a pat for Surefoot’s head or a casual checking of his saddle.

But if he was trying to sense ambushing raiders . . . Or if he was in the middle of a battle against such enemies . . .

He’d almost killed the Cahr Awen with his lapse.

And now he was so angry. So afraid.

It was too cold, here on the Windswept Plains, to peel off his clothes and examine the wounds. He knew what he’d find anyway: blackened scabs that hadn’t been there before—that he knew had healed in the Well, but now were opening up again.

Aeduan had thought perhaps he was cleaving. After all, so many now suffered from that slow spread of oily black lines. It could strike anyone; it could strike him. But he had no lines; he had no shadows or pustules burbling beneath his skin; and the stench he’d smelled on those raiders had been death come early, a song cut short. Aeduan’s blood had none of that.

It was just the old wounds, returned after a brief respite. A cruel pause he’d thought would last forever.

The world was quiet around Aeduan as he stalked in concentric circles around the camp. Around the shrine. The night sky hung low, a ceiling of gray. No stars, no Sleeping Giant. With the lanterns snuffed out in the tent, there was only the snow to brighten the world. Everything became black-and-white. Everything became a threat.

Aeduan would not lapse again. He would not let this awful, inexplicable pain consume him.

He scanned the tall, endless grass around them. This shrine was too vulnerable to raiders. And to Itosha too.

That name—Itosha—was not one Aeduan knew. It had clawed up from the depths of his memory, where the marks of Nadje would never be scrubbed free. And while Aeduan could conjure no face, he could hear a cackling, hateful laugh.

Itosha. The Exalted One.

Nadje had feared her, and illogical as it was, Aeduan now felt that ancient fear too.

He spurred his magic wider. Harder. And for hours, he only ever sensed Safiya and the horses. And of course, the silver taler Iseult always wore around her neck.

Which eventually stirred within the tent, and moments later, Iseult revealed herself. Her eyes were thick with sleep, her face creased from a bedroll. “The first watch ended an hour ago,” she scolded. For once, the winds had softened on the plains—as if perhaps one of the many offerings here had finally appeased Middle Sister Swallow. “You should have woken me.”

“You need the sleep, Dark-Giver.”

“As do you, Bloodwitch.” She stepped toward him, picking her way through cleared snow. “Let me take over.”

“No.”

“Please. Aeduan.” She’d rarely said his name since leaving the hunting lodge. They had both been careful to adhere to their roles. He was a Bloodwitch monk; she was the Cahr Awen he served. Or failed to serve. Formality was safest when so much was at stake.

And yet . . .

“Forgive me.” Aeduan felt his face crease inward while his feelings reached outward in a way he didn’t want to place upon Iseult. “For earlier. I failed you and the Empress.”

“How?”

“I should have sensed the raiders coming. But I did not, and I failed you.”

“You failed no more than I did. I d-didn’t sense them either.”

“Yes, but you have not sworn vows to protect me. This is my one duty. The reason I’m here.”

Iseult’s golden-green eyes thinned. For several seconds, she simply stared at Aeduan. Then she murmured: “Maybe I should, though.”

“Should what?”

She didn’t answer, but instead claimed another step toward him. “Have you ever not had a master?”

“I . . . don’t understand.” It was true: he didn’t understand. He also didn’t like how instantly his abdomen tightened.

“You became a monk so young. Have you ever existed w-without some outside force telling you what to do? First it was the monastery.” Iseult waved vaguely east. “Missions that sent you out for coin. Then it was Guildmaster Yotiluzzi. Then it was your f-father. Then . . . the Old One.” She shivered here. “And finally . . . me.”

Aeduan’s abdomen knotted tighter. “You forget the times I disobeyed.” Now he was the one to approach. To claim a single step. “I broke orders to help you find Safiya. To search for Owl and her tribe. To get you from the Aether Well to safety. And now . . .”

“And now,” Iseult replied. Her face pinched up. An inward frown that sent her gaze to the snow. Made her head wag with a self-loathing he recognized. “I don’t like it. I know I accepted your vow at the lodge, and I know I a-agreed to bring you—”

“Do not make me go back.”

“No.” Her gaze shot to him again. “But I want to know: if you could do anything, Aeduan, what would it be? If there was no Cahr Awen, no Well, no Raider King or slow cleaving or war across the Witchlands. W-what would you do?”

He sucked in sharply. Frozen air sliced his throat, his lungs. He felt the six old wounds throb as if they too awaited his answer. Run, my child, run.

“I do not know,” he said eventually. It was an honest answer, if a bleak one. “I . . . do not know.”

Iseult sighed. It was a sound of sadness, of grief, of pain. “Then I will make a vow to you.” She closed the space between them. Her fingers came to touch his jaw; they were cold, but then so was he.

Her eyes bored into his, a shade like the sun through forest leaves. “When this is done, you’ll serve no one but yourself, and we’ll find what you want. Together . . . i-if you will have me.”

Aeduan’s heart skittered. More frozen air cut deep. Then he scoffed and shook his head. “Stupid.”

Iseult blinked. “My vow is stupid?”

“No. Wondering if I will have you is stupid. Have I not made it clear?”

Her lips twitched with a nearly imperceptible smile. “Made . . . w-what clear?”

“In Lejna, when I told you to trust me as if my soul were yours—I had never said that before. Yet I was compelled to do so. I still am.”

The smile widened. “Then you accept my vow?”

“Stupid,” he replied before kissing her. Deep, full, with all the fury and the fear that still pulsed inside him. He had failed her hours ago by the road, but he would not fail her again.

He pulled away within moments. It was his only choice; otherwise, he would get distracted. He would lose sight of the plains and the bloods and the cold, gray night. “Go back to sleep,” he told her.

Her lips were parted. Her eyes wide. “No.”

“I will keep watch.”

“No.”

Now she was the one to kiss him. A brittle, urgent thing. Before she too pulled away. Then pointed at the tent. Her hand, Aeduan couldn’t help but notice, trembled slightly. “I will take second watch, Bloodwitch. I command you to sleep now, and please remember: I am your master, so you must obey.”

He sniffed. He could argue if he wanted, but truth be told, he was exhausted. Now that his wrath had quieted, there was only gaping fatigue left behind. And the wounds, of course. Always those six old wounds.

So Aeduan bowed his head, “As you wish, Dark-Giver.” Then he kissed her on the forehead and returned, pace agitated, to the tent.

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Chapter 25

“How bad is it?” The Truthwitch’s voice rasped through the tent, and when Aeduan turned from where he checked Surefoot, he found her gazing up at him. Her face, much too pale, glistened with sweat. Her freckles stood out like constellations.

Aeduan didn’t try to help her as she sat up.

“Earlier,” Safi continued with a grunt, “you said you sensed my injury wasn’t life-threatening, and that was a lie.”

Yes, it had been a lie.

“So how bad is it?”

“Better now.”

Safi rolled her eyes, a move that was barely visible in the shadows. She finished sitting up, her hurt arm hugged tightly to her chest. “You know you can’t lie to me, Knifey. So I’ll ask again: How bad is it?”

Surefoot snuffed. Dandelion stamped. But there were no sounds to suggest Iseult was near enough outside to overhear them.

“It’s more than a surface wound,” Aeduan said honestly. “And you should be resting.” He tried to turn away, to resume his careful checking of the horses. But Safi leaped to her feet, surprisingly agile for someone with an injury as bad as hers—and it was bad. She had lost enough blood that the mountain ranges and cliffsides were nearly swallowed up by the meadows filled with dandelions and the truth hidden beneath snow.

That didn’t mean her magic had suddenly become stronger, but rather that all those Cahr Awen souls inside her were crushing down on the pieces that made Safi who she was.

Her arm muscle was also ripped apart. Aeduan was no healer, but he would wager there was bone damage—and also that she had the start of a fever. It did not radiate off her yet, but there was a certain shallowness that hit blood when infection took hold.

Safi’s was beginning to throb that way.

“You can’t help me.” The way she said this was more statement than question. “You, who controls people’s bloods . . . you can’t do anything to help me.”

“No.”

She staggered toward him. Aeduan tried to withdraw, but there was nowhere to go. And in the shadows of the tent, her blue eyes had become storm gray.

“Because you will not or cannot?” She crooked toward him, her voice lowering until it was almost lost to the winds outside, until not even the horses could hear her. “Make me a promise: if I cannot walk to the Well, then you will walk me there. You will take control of my blood and move me like a puppet every step of the way.”

Bloodwitches cannot do this. They cannot control people like this.

Aeduan swallowed. “We have Painstones.”

“Not many.” Safi’s right hand whipped out and yanked him close. The feverish gleam in her veins was unmistakable. “Not enough to last us two days and carry us through armies. Which means, Knifey, that when the time comes, you will take control of my blood. Whatever consequences might come from that magic, we’ll reckon with them after the Well is healed.”

Aeduan did not answer. He took in the sweat on Safi’s forehead, the faint scar above her brow. He took in the intensity of her eyes and the strength of her grip upon his cloak.

He didn’t like this Truthwitch. Perhaps he never would. She was rash and loud, spoiled and obscene. But there was a steel in her he recognized, a determination to do what had to be done no matter the cost to herself.

And, at the end of the day—at the end of everything that was careening nearer and nearer—Aeduan had sworn his vow to the dark-giver and the light-bringer. “Yes,” he said at last. “I will take control if I have to.”

Demon. Monster.

Safi nodded. Her shoulders relaxed and her grip on him too. As she drew away, her muscles shook. But Aeduan didn’t let her get far before asking: “What did you mean by consequences?” It was a flat question, almost bored.

“Since we left the lodge, there is something off inside you.” She wiped sticky hair off her brow. “My magic senses it.”

“Like . . . cleaving?”

“No.” Her breaths sawed in. Out. “Something different. Something else . . . wrong.”

I can smell it on you: you’re bound to the Void, a cursed beast with ’Matsi poison running in your veins.

“Clearly you don’t want Iseult to know about it. And I don’t want her to know about me. So.” She gestured at her hurt arm. It made her whole body sway. “You will tell her I am healing quickly. Do you understand?”

It was a threat, and against his will, Aeduan found his estimation of the Truthwitch rising. Iseult was their Sleeping Giant, forever pointing north, and if they lost her, then both Aeduan and Safi would have nothing left to follow. No reason to keep traveling to Poznin. When Iseult had called herself a “master,” she hadn’t been far wrong. But it wasn’t because she forced people to follow. It was because everyone who met her felt compelled to.

So Iseult had to keep going because it was the only way Aeduan and Safi could keep going too. Yet Iseult would stop immediately if she thought either Aeduan or Safi were hurting.

Aeduan bowed his head at the Truthwitch. It was the closest to an agreement he would offer Safi, and she seemed to realize this, since she finally released him. But rather than hobble back to her bedroll, she reached to her neck and withdrew a length of silver chain from beneath her many layers. Bits of quartz and brass dangled off it.

Aeduan’s fingers flexed. “The Truth-lens.”

“Yes, Knifey. Good job at stating the obvious. I . . . want you to take it. The person I made it for is in Nubrevna, according to Uncle’s spies, and in case I don’t survive this . . . Well, it’s your job to deliver it to her.”

When Aeduan didn’t claim it from her, Safi sighed. Impatience set her muscles into motion. She shoved it against the skin of his neck and wrapped it around like a scarf. Against his will, he staggered back. “That is . . . overwhelming.”

True, sang the crystals and glass. True, so very true. It was a heady feeling that buzzed like a hundred Painstones in Aeduan’s skull. He ripped the necklace back off again and thrust it at Safi.

But she flipped out a weak hand of refusal. “You don’t have to wear it, Knifey. You just . . .” Pant, pant.“Have to deliver it if I can’t. I’d give it to Iseult, but then she’d know what’s wrong with me. So just . . . shove it in your pocket and deliver it to Vaness if I don’t make it out of the Well.”

“You will make it out of the Well. I already said I would control your blood.”

“To get me to the Well, yes.” Her eyes scrunched. She wiped clumsily at her brow. “But neither of us knows what will come after that.”

There is something off inside you.

Demon. Monster.

The necklace glinted and swung in Aeduan’s grasp. The wounds on his chest throbbed. He didn’t nod or agree, but he did slide the lens into his pocket where it couldn’t affect him.

“Good,” Safi said, though nothing in her voice sounded triumphant. “Now, I can sleep.” She slogged back to her bedroll—and snorted loudly when she got there. “I agree,” she declared as she folded herself back into the covers. “This tent is way too small for this many bodies. But I promise it’s not me that’s stinking up the place.”

---

Aeduan had nightmares after speaking to Safi. He saw the Cahr Awen ghosts inside her skull, pushing at her like too many crabs inside a basket. He saw Iseult with her abdomen carved out and Threads crawling from it like worms. He saw the Truth-lens, but on each bit of quartz or glass was a shadowy face he couldn’t recognize.

He saw a mountain filled with stars where shadowy ice clawed for anything it could grab on to—except for him. It never dug into him.

He saw four Exalted Ones in quick succession. Ferisien on a mountainside. Itosha on the plains. Rakel beside the sea. And, most violent of them all, Lovats spreading flames. That Exalted One was the one they’d all feared, even Portia with her power over Void. And certainly Nadje, who had never quite known which side he ought to choose.

Then Aeduan smelled it, poignant and inexorable: A sky singing with snow. Meadows drenched in moonlight. Sun and sand and auburn leaves falling.

“Run, my child, run,” said the voice like his mother’s while heat roared, wood cracked, and embers flew. Blood dripped from her mouth. “Run.”

Aeduan did not run. He did not move. He waited, exactly as he had as a child, for the flames to overtake him and the world to burn alive.

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As mentioned, I’ll share the last three Early Access chapters next ready. So stay tuned for that, and thank you—as always—for reading and supporting.

💚 - Sooz