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Chapters (70)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Map
  5. Epigraph
  6. BEGINNINGS
  7. PART I
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. PART II
  45. THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. THIRTY-NINE
  48. FORTY
  49. FORTY-ONE
  50. FORTY-TWO
  51. FORTY-THREE
  52. FORTY-FOUR
  53. FORTY-FIVE
  54. FORTY-SIX
  55. FORTY-SEVEN
  56. FORTY-EIGHT
  57. FORTY-NINE
  58. FIFTY
  59. FIFTY-ONE
  60. FIFTY-TWO
  61. FIFTY-THREE
  62. FIFTY-FOUR
  63. FIFTY-FIVE
  64. FIFTY-SIX
  65. FIFTY-SEVEN
  66. TRICKSTER
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. Also by Susan Dennard
  69. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  70. Newsletter Sign-up

Again, his words were like Leopold’s. The wiggling returned to that spot beneath her lung. You see emotions. You are far more powerful than she. Iseult squashed the memory. “What good is her magic to me, though?” She cocked her head sideways. “I can already see emotions. I want something different. Find me someone different.”

Now Corlant’s smile fell entirely. “This is your last chance.” He grabbed Alma by her hair and yanked up her head. Alma didn’t resist.

And she still didn’t speak.

The Purists did, though, murmuring excitement while their Threads shivered with anticipation for her pain.

“Take her Threads, Iseult. Now.”

Iseult didn’t. She wanted to. Of course she wanted to. She was a monster. And it wasn’t as if she liked Alma. The girl had always been there, perfect yet untouchable. Everything Iseult could never be.

Alma never failed; Alma always won; Alma was beautiful and talented and stasis through and through.

Corlant snarled. His Threads burned brighter. “Take her magic now or I will.”

Iseult’s lips widened. She lifted her maimed hands. Yank and snap. It was all she had to do. Yank and snap. Then she would be the untouchable one. She would be the girl to always win …

“Too slow,” Corlant snapped, and he slammed his palm against Alma’s forehead. “May you become as clean as Midne, as pure as the world when it was born.” Alma screamed. Her body arched, her head flew back, eyes huge. A pose to pierce Iseult’s skull and jam into her heart.

Her hair streamed toward the ground and her upside-down eyes found Iseult’s. No emotion burned within, only pain.

Until suddenly Alma’s screams stopped, and a spark of what might have been rage swelled in her pupils. “It didn’t have to be this way. We didn’t have to be this way.” She straightened, arms yanking wide and her ropes dropping to the snow.

She attacked Corlant.

FORTY-FOUR

The Nomatsis who’d escaped had returned. Winds barreled out, fires ignited, and stone punched up from the earth.

Iseult didn’t know where they’d come from. She hadn’t sensed them hiding among the Purists, clothed in matching gray. She hadn’t felt their witcheries writhing inside their Threads until suddenly they were using them.

Paces away, Alma swiped at Corlant with a blade that hadn’t been there moments before. The steel connected; blood sprayed from a shallow wound across his chest. But he only laughed and grappled for Threads that he—and Iseult—could not see. He was a tick filled with magic and witcheries. Impossible to defeat, and any moment now, he would grab hold and drain. Any moment now, Alma would lose.

It didn’t have to be this way.