She must have misheard. It was the only possible explanation. Because of course she was not his daughter, even if that answer inside her was now scratching higher.

She didn’t want to examine it—and couldn’t while Corlant watched her, while Aeduan still gripped her arm and her mother stared at the dirt refusing to lift her gaze.

This wasn’t right, this wasn’t happening. Iseult’s hand fell to her thigh. Her stance weakened and balance wavered. Only her jaw held, open and with teeth bared. But there was no power there anymore, no desire to chomp down and kill.

Daughter. My daughter.

The pleasure in Corlant’s Threads had shifted to the sunset gleam of family. Tendrils that reached for Iseult and Gretchya. He smiled so widely, his face had almost folded in on itself, and the stained linens drooped to one side. For once, no trenches marred his forehead, no eyebrows lifted high. There was only delight suffusing his body and his Threads.

Iseult wanted to flee, to run, to fold into a ball and disappear inside herself. But there was nowhere to go, and there was—as she knew, knew, knew—no outrunning who she really was.

My fault, my fault. With no one to save her. No weasel, no Alma. She was trapped, faced by a Cursewitch whose Threads gleamed with family. Daughter, my daughter.

For two seemingly endless breaths, as the breeze swept up mist off thawing hoarfrost and as Threads danced around her, Iseult was paralyzed by guilt. By how much she hated herself and her magic. Sever, sever, twist and sever.

But then she considered one important thing: if Corlant was her father, then she’d been cursed from the day she’d been born. Tainted by evil blood and the Void. Moon Mother’s glow had never reached her and never would. Yet like the monster hidden in shadows nearby, there was freedom in darkness. There was power where light never reached.

It was as if, in that moment, time punched forward. No space for thought, no space for logic or concern or the stasis that had never helped her before. There was only action, only instinct, only rage.

Her spine straightened, her arms flung high, and Iseult stretched her fingers long. Aeduan’s grip released, and her fingers closed around Corlant’s Threads. Lightning seared up her arm. Shock waves to pummel her elbow, her shoulder, her ribs. Even her vision ignited with cold and light—freezing it away. She saw nothing but Corlant’s Threads. Nothing but throbbing purple pleasure and that sick sunset love.

But also a dark, icy core she’d never noticed before. One that her fingers closed around. That crackled outward in arcs of power.

Too much power. More than she could control, more than her small, human mind could comprehend.