Chapter 18
The Arrow
Nerissa
Evening sunlight glinted off the crimson crystal cradled in Nerissa’s palm, making the fracture lines within shine like hundreds of tiny mirrors. She passed the stone back to Raysel with a tired sigh and shifted to a more comfortable position on her bedroll. It had now been a week since the group left Barr and the village of Kisoji behind. With no specific guidance to follow regarding the whereabouts of either of the two remaining books, they had decided to wind southward out of the mountains toward the more heavily populated areas of Marise.
Since the Senka were aware of their guise as merchants, they could no longer openly enter villages without risking being sighted by Senka informants. That also meant they had to restrict their travel to lesser-used roads and to camp out every night rather than stay at an inn. Fortunately, the twins’ costuming skills allowed them to continue their search for the books undercover. Instead of venturing into towns as a group to inquire about antique books, Cole and Eloc donned disguises to scout for family crests with triangles in the design. Although she had seen the twins’ skills at work many times, their ability to take on completely different—and convincing—appearances still amazed her.
Today, their travels brought them near one such town, and the group had struck camp early despite having several hours of daylight to spare. Ever since the twins had set off an hour ago, Nerissa and Raysel had been sitting on their bedrolls and trying, unsuccessfully, to use her fire-fire pendant to light a pile of kindling. Neither of them had been able to evoke so much as a spark from the stone. It was the same result they had gotten every night for the last week.
Still, Nerissa knew Barr was right. She had actively used crystals before—even if she hadn’t been aware of what she was doing. In retrospect, lighting the torch in the cave wasn’t really the first time she had interacted with one. So many small oddities from recent months now made sense. It explained why the stone had flashed briefly at Raysel’s touch and the warmth she had felt from it outside Darci’s workshop.
It also explained her rapid and extraordinary recovery a few days after Ildiko placed healing crystals around her bed despite weeks of little progress. Suddenly, there seemed to be an underlying logic to the unpredictable nature of crystal healing. If she didn’t have the talent, would she ever have regained consciousness? It wasn’t a possibility she wanted to think about.
The rhythmic click-clack of wooden practice swords reached her ears, and she turned to see the others starting their nightly sparring practice on the far side of the camp. Desta sat beneath a tree not far from them, scribbling in the notebook propped against her knees. Nerissa watched as the three men took turns facing off against each other, but her attention was focused on Rian.
In the days immediately after Rian revealed he recognized her, she had been uncertain how to behave around him, afraid she would do something that would give away her true identity. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She knew he would be as reliable and trustworthy an ally as Raysel.
No, she’d been unsure how to behave because that conversation had made her realize—after all that had happened, and after all the time that had passed—her ploy to attend the masquerade anonymously had ended up giving her something she wanted, something she’d hardly dared hope for before. Too often her heart had been broken by the discovery that an admirer initiated a relationship because of what an association with her could do for him. But now, as long as Rian didn’t know her real name, she knew he admired her for who she was and not the title she possessed.
“We’ve been at this for days, and nothing is working,” Raysel said, loosening his grip on the crystal. He had been concentrating so hard and for so long that faint lines remained on his forehead after his expression relaxed.
“I know. Putting in that much effort without getting any meaningful result is frustrating, but giving up isn’t an option,” Nerissa said, sounding more optimistic than she felt. “If there is any hope at all to use the suspension technique on Casimer, you and I have to master the ability to use crystals at will.”
“Mastering the ability to use crystals is not the only problem we have,” Raysel said, rubbing his face wearily. “We need to get our hands on six identical spirit crystals too. We could have used the stones from each of the books, but we’re missing Shae’s, and Alden’s is broken in half.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I used to have a set of wind chimes that were made from seven spirit crystals. No two stones are perfectly identical, but I think you’d find few that are better matched.”
“I remember those. While they would be ideal, I don’t think there’s any chance of finding them in the debris of the manor. Even if they survived undamaged, Casimer’s men would have taken anything of value months ago.”
“And what if I told you that I know exactly where they are?”
“I’m listening.”
“Charis has them. She dug them out of the rubble shortly after the attack. They’re hanging in her bedroom window, so all we have to do is ask her for them.”
“That’s a stroke of luck. Once we have all the books, we can send the twins to Niamh to retrieve them.”
Nerissa sat up and held out her hand. “Then all we can do for the time being is focus on figuring out how to use this crystal.”
Raysel dropped the pendant into Nerissa’s outstretched palm. “If it could be accomplished by concentrating hard enough, we would already have set this whole camp on fire.”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything when I accidentally made the fire flare up with Barr, so maybe the problem isn’t a lack of focus.”
“All I know is that I’m taking a break.” Raysel then closed his eyes and flopped back onto his bedroll in half-feigned exhaustion.
Nerissa rolled the stone back and forth, watching the reflections of light dance with each movement. At this rate, she and Raysel would go mad from frustration before they made any progress at all. She needed to relax, to clear her mind of all stray thoughts. She needed to push away the pressure to succeed, to think without thinking. That, at least, was something she knew how to do. It was an old habit, one that had been driven into her through years of Einar’s rigorous training. It was the same habit that had led her to victory in numerous archery tournaments.
She closed her eyes and envisioned herself standing in front of an archery target with her bow in hand, nocked arrow pulled back so that the fletchings brushed behind her ear. Then the image in her mind altered, almost on its own. The archery target became the pile of kindling, and the bow became the fire-fire crystal. All that existed was the target. She reached out with her mind, visualizing an arrow flying effortlessly through the air to strike its center. When the image was firmly embedded in her mind’s eye, her fingers released the imaginary string as naturally as they would a real one.
Heat flared from the crystal in her palm, and her eyes flew open in shock. Thin curls of smoke began to rise from the growing flames within the pile of kindling.
“I did it!” she cheered, staring down at her hand in disbelief. Despite the searing heat from the stone, her skin was completely unharmed.
“You did it? You did it!” Raysel said, scrabbling over on hands and knees, his green eyes practically glowing with amazement. “How?”
“I didn’t really mean to do it, actually. I was trying to clear my mind using the visualization technique Einar taught me for archery, and I ended up changing my focus from the bow and target to the crystal and the wood.”
“I was taught a similar technique for sword training, maybe that method will work for me too.” Raysel stomped out the flames and gathered another handful of sticks. “Can I try?”
Nerissa reluctantly relinquished the stone. She was eager to try again, but she couldn’t deny her friend when he shared her enthusiasm. Raysel sat down and closed his eyes, putting one hand on Thorn’s hilt while grasping the crystal in the other. For a moment, nothing happened. Another minute stretched
by and still nothing happened. Then, just as Nerissa began to worry the technique might not work for him, Raysel gasped and dropped the pendant. A tiny red-orange flame crawled up the pile of kindling.
“That’s hot!” he exclaimed, checking his skin. “How strange. It felt hot enough to burn me, but there’s no mark.”
Nerissa grinned. “The same thing happened to me too. It didn’t burn me in the cave either, even though my wraps were scorched, remember? I think the stones don’t hurt the person using them.”
“That seems to be the case,” Raysel agreed. He pushed back a loose lock of hair with one shaky hand. “I have an idea about why the visualization technique works.”
“I’m listening,” Nerissa said, repeating Raysel’s words with a wry smile.
He grinned back at her, still pleased with his success. “When I was concentrating before today, I only thought of my desire to start a fire and the crystal, and nothing ever happened. Just now, I tried to use the same visualization technique that I do for sword forms, but nothing happened then either. So I decided instead to imagine the bow and target like you did—and that’s when it worked.”
Nerissa bit her bottom lip as she considered this new piece of information. “That is an interesting observation. So what is your theory?”
“In my initial attempts, there were only two components—the crystal and the wood or the sword and the target. Your visualization technique, however, has three components—the kindling as the target, the crystal as the bow, and the arrow.”
Nerissa nodded vigorously as understanding dawned on her. “Barr said crystals work when energy passes through them. Maybe that’s not so different from how an arrow passes through a bow. We were so caught up focusing on what we can see and touch that we forgot about what we can’t.”
“Exactly,” Raysel said. “The talent gives us the ability to manipulate the flow of energy through crystals, so when you imagined the arrow, you unknowingly added the component we had been missing.” He closed his fingers over the pendant and grinned as the flame in the pile of kindling steadily grew to be a foot tall, spreading until all of the sticks were on fire.
“No hogging the stone!” Nerissa teased. “I want to try it again too.”
“If you’re going to start cooking dinner, shouldn’t you light the kindling a little closer to the cook fire?” Desta said, strolling up from behind them with her notebook pressed against her chest.
“This isn’t for the cook fire,” Raysel answered. “We were practicing using the stone.”
Desta’s eyes widened, and the notebook tumbled from her hands, forgotten in her excitement. She grabbed Raysel’s hands, bouncing up and down with glee. “You finally figured out how to use it? The two of you have been working so diligently every night! Your hard work has finally paid off!”
Raysel laughed at her exuberance. “I think you might be even happier than we are, though I’m not sure if that’s possible.”
Nerissa picked up Desta’s pen, which had bounced loose when the notebook hit the ground. As she reached for the book, intending to close it and lay the pen on top, the pages fanned over, stirred by the gentle breeze. They came to a stop on the very last page where the printer’s mark was stamped in blue ink. Nerissa jerked her hand back in shock. What she saw was almost as surprising as the heat she had felt from the crystal.
The printer’s mark was the outline of a rabbit sitting up on its back feet, gazing at a star. Below, as was done for all modern works, both the city and year of printing were identified. The design itself wasn’t what caught Nerissa’s attention—it was the way the star was drawn. Instead of being a solid shape, it was drawn to show that each of the five points was formed by a triangle.
Raysel shook his hands free of Desta’s grip and came over to Nerissa, placing his hands on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
Nerissa pointed to the star. “Desta, of all the notebooks you could have chosen from that stationary shop, you picked this one. You really do have uncanny luck.”
Raysel squeezed her shoulders, and she could sense his elation. “We will replot our course tonight and set out for the city of Warren first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 19
My Phoenix
Nerissa
Hours later, after copious amounts of stew had been eaten, Nerissa sat on the back steps of the wagon with an unopened book on her lap. A cold, steady wind carried clouds across the night sky, making the night darker than usual by allowing only intermittent glimpses of the moon to peek through. Everyone else had already crawled into their bedrolls in preparation for an early start in the morning, but she was too worked up from the excitement of their two breakthroughs to sleep.
Moonlight streamed through a gap in the clouds just in time for Nerissa to catch a sign of movement in the corner of her vision. Momentarily startled, she reminded herself that Cole had the first watch of the night. She saw him sit down at the foot of a tree on the opposite side of camp. When the moon disappeared once again, his form became indistinguishable from the other shadows.
Deciding she was too antsy to read, she slipped the book back into a trunk and dropped the hand-held glow lamp she had borrowed from Raysel into her pocket. She went to the far side of the wagon so that she wouldn’t disturb the rest of the group and drew Harbinger. So much time had been spent focusing on the crystals that several days had passed since she practiced with the sword. Perhaps going over the sword forms would help burn off some pent-up energy.
She had just lost herself in the familiar series of movements when she heard footsteps rustling in the grass and the rattling of a sheathed sword. A cold bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck, chilled by the autumn air, and she told herself to be calm. Whoever it was, they were probably part of the group. Cole would have sounded the alarm if he had seen an intruder…unless he had been incapacitated. Nerissa shook her head to be rid of the thought. Surely, no one who was this noisy would have been able to catch him off guard. Still, she prepared herself to yell for help and leap into action.
Then a form rounded the side of the wagon, and she heard Rian’s voice. “I hope I didn’t startle you. I know you’re jumpy about sudden sounds, so I tried to make sure you would hear me coming. I take it you can’t sleep either?”
Nerissa let out a breath and lowered Harbinger. “No. I know I’m going to be tired in the morning, but I’m not ready to go to sleep yet.”
“Do you mind a little company? I didn’t get to practice my drawing technique earlier. If you’d rather not have me around, I can go somewhere else.”
“No, don’t go,” Nerissa said, a bit more hastily than she had intended. She tried to play it off by adding, “There’s plenty of room here, and since we’re out of sight of the rest of the group, there’s less chance of waking someone.”
Rian nodded, and Nerissa was both relieved and disappointed when he said nothing more. He picked a spot a short distance away and got into a ready stance. In the blink of an eye, Bane was free of its sheath and smoothly arcing out to cut an imaginary foe. The only sound was Rian’s foot planting down in the grass and the hiss of air flowing around the blade. He sheathed Bane and started over, drawing the blade free and striking in one continuous motion.
Nerissa knew that Raysel was the First Swordsman of the Ohanzee, but she could see why he and Rian were rivals. Rian may not be able to match his skills in a fight, but she had never seen anyone—not even Raysel—draw their sword that fast.
She turned her attention back to her own exercises with renewed vigor. It would take years to catch up to his skill level, so there was no point in comparing herself to the others. Mastery came through time and practice. For now, her goal was to be able to fight and defend herself well enough that she wouldn’t be a burden during a confrontation with the Senka.
Nerissa didn’t know how long they continued practicing side by side. Eventually, when her breath was labored and her arms and legs felt heavy, she sheathed Harbinger and sat down in the dewy
grass. She heard the click of Bane being returned to its sheath, and then Rian sat down beside her.
They stared up at the rolling clouds in comfortable silence for a time. Has it really been only a month and a half since we first sat together watching the sky? Nerissa wondered. So much had happened that it seemed much longer.
“It’s a good thing there’s not a meteor shower tonight,” she said, still thinking of the first time they stargazed together. “There are so many clouds that we wouldn’t have been able to see it.”
“Actually, there will be another one in a few days.” Rian’s fingers grazed hers as he laid Bane in the grass between them. “We should watch it together, if we can.”
Nerissa tilted her head to the side and offered him a tired smile. “I would like that.”
“Why do you practice your sword-drawing technique so often? None of the others do,” she asked after a moment of silence.
He didn’t answer right away, and Nerissa worried the question had offended him somehow. But then she felt his fingers brush hers again, and this time, he didn’t pull away. Instead, he laced them through hers and squeezed them gently. Her pulse quickened, and she squeezed back, afraid he would let go if she didn’t respond right away.
“When we visited Shae and Desta’s village, Shae shared one of her visions with me. It was a warning.” His fingers curled even more tightly around hers. “She said my father would attack a woman that I care deeply about and that her life will depend on how fast I draw my sword.”
“And that’s why you practice so much,” Nerissa concluded.
“I would do anything to protect the people I care about. I practice at every opportunity because if the time to act comes and I fail, I would never stop blaming myself. I would always wonder if I could have done more. I already experienced that feeling once, after meeting you and then losing you at the masquerade, and I don’t ever want to feel that way again.”
Reflection- Thorn of the White Rose Page 16