Beside Iseult, the Bloodwitch inhaled audibly, his eyes swirling red. “We have two choices,” he said eventually, “either we descend beside the Amonra Falls, which is the safer route into the gorge. Or we travel northeast through the forests—and before you say ‘Falls,’ know that the path is slower.”
“How far is Safi?” Iseult asked, squinting in the direction of the gorge. Birds circled above.
“Far.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“No.”
Iseult’s nostrils flared. Stasis. “How do I know you are even taking me in the right direction, then?”
“How do I know that you possess the rest of my coins?”
He had a point—and they’d already established their inevitable betrayals. “How dangerous is ‘dangerous’?”
“Very.”
Iseult couldn’t help it now. She sighed.
No change in Aeduan’s expression, though he did say, “There is a settlement nearby. I can get you a horse. It will allow us to travel longer before you tire.”
“How near?” Iseult could get herself a horse.
“An hour north at my fastest pace. I would return by late afternoon.”
“And I … simply wait?” At Aeduan’s nod, it took Iseult two stabilizing breaths before she felt able to continue. “And the hours lost are worth getting a steed?”
“Your friend is that direction.” He pointed southeast into the Contested Lands. “She is many, many leagues away—and many, many days. A horse will help.”
His argument made sense, as loathe as Iseult was to admit it. Use every resource available. Still, the thought of waiting several hours …
The Bloodwitch took Iseult’s silence as an agreement. He extended his arm. “Return my cloak. Monks get better deals when bartering.”
Iseult could hardly refuse. It belonged to him, after all. Yet she found herself resisting, moving extra slowly as she slipped it off her shoulders. Air washed over her, cool and exposing.
She swallowed, watching the Bloodwitch flip the white side outward and shrug it on with practiced ease.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said gruffly, already turning away. Already sniffing and tensing. “Stay out of sight until then. There are worse things in the Contested Lands than Bloodwitches.”
* * *
A horse wouldn’t save much time. Not in the overgrowth of the Contested Lands. While Aeduan certainly intended to find a steed for the Threadwitch if he could, it wasn’t his main purpose for veering off alone.
Aeduan had caught a whiff of clear lakes and frozen winter. The blood-scent that had haunted him since Leopold’s betrayal. The scent of whoever it was who had partnered with Leopold to stop Aeduan. The scent that had lingered where Aeduan had hidden his coins, the scent he could only assume belonged to the talers’ thief.
How those coins had ended up in the Threadwitch’s possession—that was just one more answer he would wring from this person’s throat. And he would not be as generous with this person as he had been with Leopold at the Origin Well in Nubrevna.
Best of all, if Aeduan could find out who this ghost was and where he’d placed his coins, then Aeduan wouldn’t need the Threadwitch anymore. He could leave her to rot in the woods and leave Corlant to rot in his compound.
That thought spurred Aeduan faster. The trees were thin, the ferns low. All of it easily navigated. The world blended around him. Green and granite and bark, shrouded in endless mist.
Soon he would have answers.
After painstakingly tracking the Truthwitch, who was hundreds of leagues outside Aeduan’s magical range, this new hunt took no power at all. He used the extra magic to fuel his sprint faster.
Until, as it always seemed to be, Aeduan lost the smell. Between one bounding step and the next, it simply vanished. No frozen winters. No clear lake waters.
Aeduan slung to a stop, hissing, “Not again, not again,” under his breath. Every time, this was what happened. Every time, Aeduan would get so close, only to lose the scent entirely.
As Aeduan stood there, one foot on a bed of pine needles and the other on a gnarling cypress root, he closed his eyes. He turned his mind and his witchery inward. Breath by careful breath passed. The forest awoke around him, trickling into its usual routine. A wary thing at first, with hesitant skylarks. A cautious pine marten.
If he could quiet his mind and still his body, then his witchery could rise to its maximum height.
At least that was the plan until a throaty cackle sounded to his left.
Aeduan’s eyelids snapped up. His gaze connected with a rook’s, whose black eyes and gray beak were perfectly still. Its scruffy feathers ruffled on the breeze. It didn’t flee, didn’t move. It simply considered Aeduan head-on.
Which made the hair on Aeduan’s neck rise. He’d never seen a rook on its own. They usually flew in great swarms outside the forest.
Aeduan sniffed. From fish to fowl, all animals bore the same wild surface scent: freedom. Atop that scent rested … forest fog.
He coughed, a harsh burst of air that rattled through the clearing. The rook blinked. Aeduan repeated his cough, and this time the rook took the hint. It hopped into flight, carrying its freedom and its fog away from Aeduan’s as fast as its wings could go.
Except now a new blood coiled into Aeduan’s nose. His witchery jerked to life. Blood. Magic. Hundreds of people. So many scents mingled together. All ages. All types. All of it straight ahead.