Then the weasel shared an image of Henrick fon Cartorra. He wore simple hunting clothes, forest green draped in snow, and were it not for the crown still clutching his brow, he might have been no more than a weary soldier. He moved with a comfortable stealth Safi had suspected, but never seen.

And he was right outside the tower.

“Is he alone?” Safi asked the weasel, but she knew the answer well before the creature shoved her frozen nose into Safi’s cheek.

More soldiers, she showed. Dressed like Henrick, circling through the trees. Approaching without noise and with swords clasped tightly.

“Cow piss and goat shit,” she snarled. “Henrick is here.”

“I am,” said a voice behind her, and when she spun about, hands rising, she found him stepping lightly through the tower’s ancient door.

There was a logic to Iseult’s plan—haphazard though its assembly had been. And as wrong, wrong, wrong as the final impetus was. But it was as if the last two days had slowly contributed a scaffolding of ideas and knowledge.

First, she knew that Corlant wanted the Threadstones more than anything. So badly, in fact, he’d been willing to trek all the way across Cartorra to claim them from a capital filled with soldiers.

Second, she knew that Threadstones possessed power, and as a Weaverwitch, Iseult could take that power. She could cleave the Threads bound to stones and absorb them as her own.

Third, she knew that Corlant was not what he pretended to be. He was not a Purist, he was not a priest, and he was not even truly human. He was a Paladin reborn with the raw power of the Void coursing through him. Iseult could never defeat him on her own.

Nor could she fix what she had done by unraveling her mistakes and weaving anew. Not without power. Not without whatever rested inside the Threadstones she and Safi shared.

They rested now on the ruins, exactly as they were in life, except that here they glowed with such brilliance, Iseult had to shield her eyes. In fact, they shone brighter than Corlant’s Threads, thickening behind her.

And it was like stepping into daylight. The longer Iseult stared at the stones, the more she saw within and around. Hundreds of Threads—thousands even—climbing and flying, coiling and connecting toward the cloudy sky. Unlike Corlant’s storm these Threads wore only a single shade: the sunset of friendship. The sunset of family.

And the last nail in her scaffolding hammered down. No wonder Corlant wanted these stones. The bonds of love were powerful. It was why Esme had always cleaved the Threads that bind. And now such power was contained in two uncut rubies wrapped in string.

This was more magic than Corlant could gather in a morning. More magic than he could gather in a lifetime, and now all Iseult had to do was take it.