Her hands were wrapped in fresh gauze, her fingers stiff and raw. Pain suffused upward in jagged spikes flooding cold across her body. Frostbite from Corlant’s Threads.

Pain didn’t bother her, though. Stasis had claimed her so completely, she felt no urgency, no impatience, no fear.

She had been wrong before, when she’d thought life without emotion was no life at all. This was still life—she still lived and breathed and moved where her mind conveyed. But it was easier now, without obstacles or frustrations or Threads she could not control.

And if that was who she was—who she was meant to be—then she could stop fighting it. She could give in to this power that she loved. This control, this rage. She could stop trying to be something she hated.

If only Gretchya had told Iseult about Corlant all those years ago, then Iseult would have given up on Threadwitchery and saved herself a lifetime of agony. For so long, she’d had an arsenal of weapons at her disposal she’d never known about. She could have fought against those who had hissed, and those who had hated.

Now she knew, though, that she was the daughter of a monster—that she was a monster, and monsters could do whatever they pleased.

Oh yes, it was good to have an explanation. To have absolution and finally know what stasis felt like. No feeling, no worries, no shame. Just existence and a path to tread that led where it had always led: to Safi.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, gazing at canvas and tasting the smooth folds of true stasis. She didn’t know how long it took her to realize she wasn’t alone, but eventually the awareness of eyes—of breath—prickled against her skin.

She swiveled her head, disinterested. There was only one person it could be tucked out of sight like that.

“You should have told me,” Iseult told the corner where her mother watched. “Why didn’t you?”

“I hoped you would never have to know.” Gretchya’s voice rasped, as if she’d been crying. Which was impossible, of course. She eased a step toward Iseult, shifting into the stove’s weak light. Her ankles were bound by a stretch of rope. Her wrists too. She could move, but she could not run. “Corlant is not the same man that I first knew.”

“And I am not the same daughter.” With creaking bones and flimsy muscles, Iseult lugged herself upright. A woolen blanket fell from her torso. Fire-warmed air brushed against her, and she realized someone had dressed her in a new gown while she was unconscious. Threadwitch black, with gray dashes, sage circles, and magenta lines sewn into the hems. Even the new velvet pantaloons had been dyed black and marked with Threads.