“Liar. You can’t smell my blood.”

“I can.” He couldn’t. “You reek of despair and loneliness.”

The mother tensed, a mere fraction of movement. Then she snapped with atypical force: “If you do not offer us answers, then you are no use to us. When the tribe moves on, you will remain bound in chains. Corlant will not find you. No one will.”

He laughed again, this time lolling his head like a wolf might bay at the moon. They would not leave him here. Iseult would not leave him here, for the dark-giver loved the man who’d worn this body before, and she still—foolishly—believed he was in here. Humans were always desperate like that. Hope dies last, as the Old Ones used to say.

Gretchya twisted away from Aeduan, and in the language Iseult always used, she barked something at the guards. Then she strode away, each step surprisingly long for a woman as petite as she.

Iseult did not follow. Instead, she waited until her mother was gone from the tent before approaching Aeduan. He bared a grin as she cleared the gap between them. She was so near, her nose mere inches from his. “You are no match for me, Old One.”

Aeduan’s grin fell. He hadn’t realized she knew what he was.

“I went into death and brought him back, you see. The real Bloodwitch. The real Aeduan.” With gentle fingers she reached for his face … only to pause several inches away.

And for some reason that made no sense, the air between them thickened. Like static heat swelling before a summer storm. He wanted her to back away. He wanted her to keep coming.

“I know he still lives inside you,” she went on. Her fingers were not beautiful fingers, not shapely or fine. They were callused and too slender, with knuckles that felt too wide. He couldn’t look away from them.

“I saw him in the forest. I even see him now.” Her fingers inched closer. He did not move, he did not breathe. Then she dragged them sideways, floating just above his lips. Unbidden, his breath shuddered out.

“You know that I tell stories—something you can only know if you speak Nomatsi. Something you can only know if the real Aeduan still listens within.” Her hand fell, and before he could understand what she intended to do, she leaned in close. Lips to his ears, breath along his neck. “Mhe varujta, Aeduan. Te librahje ma-in, mhe varujta.”

She drew back, her golden eyes briefly settling on Aeduan’s face. Her lips briefly twitching with a smile. Then with fingers he hadn’t prepared for, she dug out the silver taler hanging at his collarbone and snapped the leather thong to which it was attached. “I’ll take this back now,” she said.

Moments later, she was gone.