Chapters (70)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Map
- Epigraph
- BEGINNINGS
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- PART II
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- TRICKSTER
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Also by Susan Dennard
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
Iseult’s fingers extended, wide within the bandages, and she grabbed two sets of Threads. The lightning she knew so well seared against her scarred hands. She yanked and snapped anyway, clutching at the Threads right as the first tips of trees blurred past.
Then there it was: the power. New winds to surge into her body. Fresh, alive. Stolen too, but she would face that truth another time.
Slow, she commanded the magic, and her speed all but stopped. She became a feather. She became snow, falling in perfect time to the flakes drifting down. Until at last, her feet touched the earth—right between her newly created Cleaved—and she met Safi’s blue eyes.
FORTY-SIX
A vixen never hunts near her den.
As Vivia swam silently through cool moonlit waters, she couldn’t stop thinking that phrase. She’d read it once in a book plucked off her mother’s shelf, back before her father had removed all of Jana’s things. A vixen never hunts near her den.
It made sense that foxes traveled abroad to avoid bringing trouble near their litters. Too bad Vivia hadn’t remembered that phrase before leading the Dalmotti navy directly to her home. Then again, she hadn’t known people lived in Nihar, hadn’t known Noden’s Gift and its thrumming cicadas lived again, much less that they would dig so deeply into her heart. She just prayed her newest hunt, once more upon her own den’s shores, wouldn’t make things worse.
She had learned two things in her communication with Captain Kadossi of the Lioness. One, the entirety of Yoris’s hunters had been made prisoners of war, along with her crew from the Iris. And two, they would all be returned—alive—once Vivia and Vaness turned themselves in.
So Vivia and Vaness had agreed, and Baile’s Blessing now sailed in the same direction that Vivia swam. Slowly and on natural winds aimed for the Origin Well, it should arrive just in time for Vivia to board as if she’d been there all along.
First, though, she had work to do.
She coasted through the calm waters of a lull between tides. Below her, crepuscular fish awoke for their predawn meals and sharks skated over the ocean floor and sunken ships, dark shadows more interested in bite-size prey than her. She passed anemones unfurling and squid returning to the depths they called home. She glimpsed pelicans diving, crabs scuttling.
Stix had grown up by the sea, northeast of the Hundred Isles; Vivia had always envied her that.