Before she can collapse from the force of it all, their Threads wink out. One moment, they are in her grasp and alive. Molten whips she can barely contain.

Then suddenly they are dust. Vanishing twirls of Aether. No heat, no pain, no power. Their bodies fall, and a third set of Threads hits her senses.

“Leopold,” she croaks, taking in the prince and the bloodied scene at his feet: two dead Hell-Bards, spines severed. He holds two short sabers, his Threads a cacophony of rage, focus, disgust, pain. And, of course, the wild core that never seems to fade. A crown of silver to pour into the sky.

He drops the two swords and strides toward Iseult, stepping lightly to avoid blood. She doesn’t realize she is about to fall until he is there to catch her.

“We have to go,” he tells her.

“But Safi,” she begins.

He only shakes his head. “It is too late for her, Iseult, but it is not too late for you.” And without another word, he slides a bracing arm behind her back and hauls her into a run.

THIRTY-FIVE

There was only one place Vivia knew to go: her final Fox ship, Baile’s Blessing, still waiting in the Hundred Isles. It was the last hole this little fox had to run to. The final place she might find safety.

She and Vaness had sprinted for the first mile, the sun rising before them as the Well’s power and the magic in their blood fueled them east along a worn coastal road. Vivia couldn’t maintain the curtain of water forever, though, and eventually, the hunters would wrest themselves free of Vaness’s restraints. But they had a lead—a large one—and they used it. Even when they were both barely sucking in air and Vivia’s vision was starting to spin, she didn’t let them slow. She insisted they half jog, half walk, each step thudding after the other.

Every rasping breath, Vivia expected Yoris’s hunters to appear. Every heartbeat clashing in her ears, she expected to hear Dalmotti fire. But no one and nothing came.

At some point, she and Vaness released hands. At some point, where a limestone cliff came close enough to the sea to reveal the Dalmottis, they abandoned the road and flew into the wild, breathing forest. Vivia led the way. She was not a hunter; she was not trained for stealth. But at least moving within the trees offered shelter against Dalmotti weapons or mounted hunters on the prowl.

Eventually, they reached a stream heading east. Its burbling waters calmed Vivia’s muscles and pacified her frantic mind. Though logic told her there would be no undergrowth, no minnows darting in the sunlight if this water were poison, she couldn’t bring herself to drink it.

Vaness did, even as Vivia barked a warning. “The waters in Nubrevna aren’t safe.”