Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1) - Susan Dennard Page 0,143

uncomfortable iron belt that cinched her waist wasn’t. Iron was all the fashion in Azmir—no doubt because Vaness had made it the fashion. She could, after all, control anyone wearing it.

Yet, even with the belt, Vaness had still insisted Safi don a steel necklace as well. It was a chain, delicate and thin, but with no end and no beginning. The empress had fused it around Safi’s neck, and despite grunting and straining as hard as she could, Safi hadn’t been able to snap it off.

Thank the gods, though, that Vaness had deemed Safi’s Threadstone harmless.

With a crooked smile at the landscape, Safi angled her weight onto her crutch. Her left foot was bandaged and healing, thanks to the concerted effort of six healer witches from Vaness’s navy. Apparently—as the Empress had continually insisted—she hadn’t intended to hurt Safi as badly as she had. Safi was simply too valuable (as Vaness put it) for any “rough handling,” and Safi’s life had never been at any risk back in Lejna.

Safi’s Truthwitchery had told her that that wasn’t true, but she’d let the lies slide.

Footsteps clipped out behind Safi, and the Empress of Marstok glided to her side. Her dress of black cotton flipped in the wind—a tribute to the eighteen Adders and sailors that had cleaved in Lejna. Vaness would hold a memorial once they reached her palace in Azmir.

“I have news for you,” she said, speaking in Marstok. “The Twenty Year Truce has ended.” Vaness showed no reaction as she added, “Cartorra already prepares for its first attack to try to reclaim you. So let us hope”—she raised a single, cool eyebrow—“that you were worth it, Truthwitch.”

She offered an emotionless, inscrutable smile. Then, without another word, the Empress of Marstok strode back the way she’d come.

And Safi sank onto her crutch, dazed. Lost. She didn’t know if she should laugh out loud or sob hysterically, for this was exactly what Uncle Eron—and everyone else in his scheme—had tried to prevent, wasn’t it? The Truce had dissolved early; now there could be no peace.

And Safi certainly wasn’t helping Uncle Eron’s plans by allying with Vaness—and therefore the entire Empire of Marstok. Yet she refused to feel guilt or regret to her recent choices. For once in her life, Safi had carved her own path. She had played her own cards and there’d been no one to guide her hand but herself.

A hand that includes the Empress and the Witch, she thought whimsically—even though thinking of taro made her think of the Chiseled Cheater … and that just pissed her off. She’d get her money back from him one day.

Forehead puckering, Safi brought out her Threadstone. The ruby glinted in the sun, and seeing the coral fibers wrapped around the rock made her feel less alone. She liked to pretend that Iseult—wherever she was—held her Threadstone too.

Safi might not be with her Threadsister, she might not be buying a home in Veñaza City, and she might technically be a prisoner, yet she felt no fear over what lay ahead.

All that physical training, Merik had said, plus a witchery men would kill for. Think of all you could do. Think of all you could be.

Safi sighed, a full exhale that loosed something tight from within her chest and sent her heart uncoiling in a way she’d never felt before—in a way that slowed her bouncing legs. Stopped them completely.

Because now she knew what she could do—what she could be. She had gotten Merik his contract and won negotiations with Marstok too. She had bent the world and shaped it into something better.

Safi’s magic hummed, happy and warm with that truth, and after dropping her Threadstone behind her dress, she opened her arms. Let her head loll back.

Then Safiya fon Hasstrel reveled in the sun on her cheeks. In the spindrift on her arms. And in the future that awaited her in Marstok.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I want to thank my Threadsister, Sarah J. Maas. Mhe Verujta, braj. You’re the soul twin I can’t live without; the best friend who reads draft after draft; the cheerleader who always hauls me out of my cookie-eating, video-gaming binges; and basically the inspiration behind this entire series. Friendships can be just as epic as romances—maybe even more so—and I wanted the world to see that. Plus, if we lived in the Witchlands, we would totally be the Cahr Awen, right? At the very least, we’d be sea foxes chomping up anyone who dared oppose us (“Get out of