by JA Andrews
“You feel a bit like an enemy sometimes.”
This earned him a small smile. She motioned to his beard. “Getting more Roven by the day.”
He felt the beads. “Do you like it?”
She raised one eyebrow.
“I mean—” He shifted. “—does it look right?”
She leaned toward him and he pulled back.
“You’re a very nervous man.”
“I’m not nervous.” Even he could hear the petulance in his voice. “You’re just scary.”
She let out a short laugh. “If goblins attack, I wouldn’t have that silver anywhere so easily grabbed.”
Will rubbed one of the beads between his fingers. He imagined a bony goblin hand reaching for his face, and shuddered. Sora trotted ahead and he followed.
When he caught up, her armband caught his eye. The wide, dark fabric wrapped around her upper arm, and the claw tied to it with thin leather strips was viciously sharp. Under the band, a white, puckered scar ran down to her elbow.
“What sort of claw is that?”
Sora glanced down at her arm. “Snow cat.” Turning away she added, “Killien’s just ahead of the wagons,” and rode away.
A handful of tall covered wagons, including the one with Lilit and Ilsa, rolled along in a clump. There were fewer rangers around today, and none near Lilit’s wagon. Making sure Sora had disappeared, Will turned so he would ride through them to reach Killien. From the back of Lilit’s wagon he caught a glimpse of long brown hair and his heart squeezed out several painfully strong beats. Will angled Shadow closer, feeling his pulse all the way down to where his palms gripped the reins.
A horse laden with a tall load of blankets was hitched to the back of the wagon, plodding along after it. Colored silks hung over the back, fluttering in the breeze.
Ilsa stepped out from between them.
She climbed down, grabbed a bundle of blankets, pushed them into the fluttering silks and disappeared after them. Will slid off Shadow and walked toward her, too many emotions churning inside of him to name. He picked up the next bundle, intending to offer his help, but when the silks opened and she saw him, she froze. The sight of her made everything in his chest claw its way up into his throat, and his offer was strangled out into the single word, “—help?”
Her face grew alarmed. “You need help?”
The idea was so wrong he let out a laugh that sounded a bit unhinged, and she drew back. “No.” He stepped closer, desperately trying to speak normally. “I was wondering if you would like some help.”
She eyed him a little warily, but when he held out the blankets, she took them and went back into the wagon. He wiped his sweaty palms and picked up the next bundle. This wasn’t going well.
When she appeared again, he managed a reasonably normal smile. She pulled the silks shut behind her and climbed down, glancing around with a worried expression.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “If the Flame saw you…” Her voice reminded him so much of their mother, but her accent—the rough Roven-ness of it cut at him.
“I’ll just help for a minute.” He felt as though he were trying to absorb everything about her. Now that he was closer, there was something of their father around her eyes. She looked healthy, and her grey slave’s dress was well-made. She reached for the blankets. A line of thin scars from a switch ran across the back of her hands.
“Thank you.” She glanced around again before continuing in a whisper, “I liked the story you told about Tomkin and the dragon.” Tomkin’s name sounded sharper the way she said it. Like the Roven accent could even make bookish Tomkin more savage.
“I’m Will,” he whispered, something inside him breaking at the need to introduce himself.
She glanced back at the wagon. “You should go.”
A jab of disappointment shot through him at her answer, but he tried not to let it show. There really wasn’t any other way this relationship could begin. In her eyes he was nothing but a stranger. A dangerous stranger as far as Lilit was concerned.
“It’s just…” He fumbled around for something to say. “It’s just nice talking to someone who’s like me.”
She pulled the blankets out of his hands. “There’s not much the same between you and me.”
With a flick of silk, she disappeared into the wagon.
Will stared numbly at the back of the wagon until Lilit’s voice floated out, jolting him back into motion. He mounted Shadow and wove his way out from between the wagons toward Killien.
Unnecessarily close behind the Torch rode Lukas, with a book spread open in front of him, making small notes in the margins and eating a roll. Nearby, Sini balanced on her toes on the wide saddle, her knees tucked up against her chest and her arms outstretched. She was such a little thing that even balled up she didn’t fill the saddle. Her blond hair was busy falling out of a ponytail, her bag of heatstones hung from the saddle, and she chattered at Rett who rode silent beside her. He held one hand fisted on his saddle horn, and when he opened it to peer inside, Will caught a dim glow of green. The stone Lukas had given him last night was fading. Rett looked at it, then clenched his hand closed, his face worried.
Sini glanced over at the big man, a little crease of worry forming in her brow too. “Look, Rett, I’m a bird.”
The big man considered her solemnly. “If you fly away, can I come with you?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t look like a bird, you look like a shrew.” Lukas's face was serious, but his voice was light.
Sini dropped her arms. “With wings?”
“Her nose isn’t pointy enough for a shrew,” Rett disagreed, looking back at his stone with a troubled expression.
“He’s teasing, Rett. Lukas is just envious because I have two good legs.” Sini wiggled her knees from side to side. “One leg—” Sini balanced on one foot and stretched the other leg to the side. “—two legs.” She switched feet and stuck the other out. “One leg, two legs…”
Lukas laughed and threw the end of the roll at her. It bounced off her grinning cheek, and even Rett managed a smile. Lukas glanced forward, catching Will’s eye, and his expression soured.
Killien spared a quick glance at Sini and Lukas as he greeted Will. Between the unusual slaves and the nearness of Ilsa, Killien was hard to pay attention to. But the Torch had read the histories Will had written, and the rest of the morning passed discussing them.
It was irritating to talk to the man. Killien had thought-provoking questions and sharp insights into the minds of other leaders. His thoughts about a historically weak king of Coastal Baylon made Will see the story in a whole new light. Will kept finding himself enjoying the conversation no matter how often he reminded himself not to.
The sun was high in the sky when Lukas closed his book with a snap. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw him take a bracing breath, set his face into a mask of determination, and ride away.
Not long after, several rangers rode up to Killien, and Will excused himself. There were too many people around Lilit’s wagon to even consider trying to see Ilsa, so he set off for the books. To the northwest, clouds were piling up in the blue sky like glowing swells of whiteness, while underneath a dark line sat heavy on the horizon.
When the wagon came into view, Lukas knelt on the back of it, looking into a dark grey sack. Will wove through the crowd until he trailed a little way behind. Lukas pulled out a book, pushed the bag into a crate, and tucked the oilcloth back around the books.
Lukas's brow was drawn, his jaw set. His eyes burned with something jagged. He took a breath and shifted his legs off the back of the wagon. A snarl of pain crossed his face and he pushed himself off, dropping into the grass, one leg twisting underneath him. With obvious effort, he limped to his horse and pulled himself into the saddle.
Will waited until Lukas had disappeared before spurring Shadow closer. He climbed down near the corner where his own red bag was, while the rangers driving the wagon watched him
. Will reached into his own bag of books and pulled out a few titles. When the ranger turned back, Will pushed the orange cloth to the side and saw the crate with Lukas's bag. He reached in and pulled out the first book he found.
Methods of Transference.
Will stared at the brown leather cover, his mind tangled up in the odd words. He flipped the book open and his hand froze on the page.
Methods of Transference
based on the stonesteep practices of
Mallon the Undying.
Chapter Fourteen
Will stared at the name.
Mallon the Undying.
The title Undying was chilling. He was Mallon the Rivor in Queensland. When he’d invaded eight years ago with an army of Roven, the first people to bring a report to the queen were gem cutters, and they called what Mallon did riving—cutting a gem so deeply that it became worthless. It was a good description of what he did to people’s minds. He cut something so profound inside them that they lost their will to refuse him.
What was unsettling about the Undying title was how true it felt. Everyone in Queensland had thought Mallon had been killed by the elves eight years ago. Until Ayda the elf showed his body to Will, not dead, just trapped.
Will lifted his gaze up to the Scales, as though he could see through the mountains to Alaric and see if the other Keepers had found a way to deal with Mallon.
Will set the book on the back of the wagon and flipped to the first page. Diagrams of stones and energy and animals filled the pages, detailing how to suck the energy out of a living creature and store it in burning stones.
This is what Killien had Lukas reading?
It discussed the sacrifice of the animal coldly, mathematically, as though it was of no importance. The focus was on how the energy, forced into lifeless gems, created the burning stones. Distaste and fascination warred with each other as he skimmed the pages. It was unnatural to put living energy into something not made to hold life. The entire process was ugly. And terribly inefficient. More time was spent on how to keep the energy from fading out of the burning stone than on how to put it there in the first place. Energy did not like to be contained.
A quarter of the way through the book he found pages heavily notated with small, wiry script.
Compulsion Stones
The transference of thought is relatively simple. A gem can be filled to hold an idea with relatively little sacrifice, a cat or other small animal, will provide more than enough.
But the idea in the compulsion stone is only a suggestion. The closer it matches the target’s natural inclinations, the more effective the process. While it is occasionally successful with animals, results are not positive in humans. The foreign nature of the idea is recognized too quickly.
Will scanned the rest of the page. This was essentially a cumbersome way to do an influence spell, with similar limitations. An idea that was too foreign wouldn’t work. Convincing someone to not notice a single person among a crowd was easy. Convincing them to not notice a single person walking into their room at night was almost impossible.
The rest described how to infuse a burning stone (aquamarine worked best) with a single thought. The process was messy and complicated, with a dozen reasons it could fail. It ended with a comment that Mallon was one of the few who could create compulsion stones reliably, but his methods were unknown.
The scribbled notes on the page were far more interesting.
Not thoughts—Emotions.
Mallon used natural resonance of emotions. Humans inherently susceptible to foreign emotions.
Will ran his finger over the note.
The natural resonance of emotions.
The phrase caught his attention like a glint of light out of the grimness of the book and something profound shifted in his mind. He spun his ring, turning the idea over in his mind.
He’d always thought of reading people as an extension of his other abilities. Emotions weren’t exactly like vitalle, but he’d always thought of them as a form of energy other Keepers couldn’t draw into themselves. But he didn’t draw emotions in, he opened himself up and let his own body resound with them.
Resonance fit it perfectly. Because everyone was affected by other’s emotions to some extent. A happy friend could lift one’s spirits, anger could spread from person to person like a flame. Emotions were contagious.
He spun his ring slowly. Maybe Will’s particular gift was that he could isolate others’ emotions from his own so he could feel them clearly. The idea sat inside him like a lamp, shining onto other ideas, linking things together that he’d never connected.
Along the very bottom of the page, was scrawled:
Emotions resonate—they do not move. Once the stone is created, transference of emotions, unlike thoughts, requires NO ENERGY.
The lines under the final words were dark and thin and victoriously emphatic.
Will nodded slowly in agreement. It took no effort for him to feel the emotions of others.
He traced the wiry script. Was it Lukas's?
Whoever’s it was, this much enthusiasm for controlling people was unsettling. The fact that it reminded Will of the influence spells he’d been using throughout the Sweep made it even worse.
A distant rumble rolled across the grasses. The clouds were closer, climbing high against the blue sky. Their tops so bright white they were almost blinding, and the dark line beneath them as dark as a sliver of night.
“Stow those books, fett,” the ranger barked at Will.
Will shot him a scowl and tucked Lukas's book back into its grey sack. He was about to close the bag when he remembered the book Lukas had bought from Borto—the blue one with the silver medallion.
He peered inside, but none of the books were blue.
Grabbing Clans of the Eastern Sweep from the bag he was supposed to use, he tucked the oilcloth snugly around everything. Back on Shadow, he took his place along the eastern side of the clan, his mind still toying with the ideas of resonance, and that Lukas was reading books about magic.
Killien didn’t have any stonesteeps. He’d paid an outsider to create the heatstones, another to bless the herds. What was Killien planning to do with knowledge he couldn’t use? When he didn’t come up with an answer, he turned his attention to his own book.
Clans of the Eastern Sweep was short and boring. There were only two tribes besides the Morrow this close to the Scales, the Temur and the Panos. The end of the book was dedicated to the Morrow’s history. It was uninspiring.
Always the smallest clan, they were conscripted by whatever nearby clan needed them when infighting broke out in the Sweep. The book ended with Tevien, 17th Torch of the Morrow Clan. It was noted that he had one son named Killien.
A new hand began beneath it.
Tevien, Torch of the Morrow, led his people for 23 years. His goal was to unite the Roven clans. He brought Torches together who had never met in peace.
On Midsummer’s Day, in his twenty-third year as Torch, Tevien was summoned to mediate a skirmish between the Temur and the Panos. He was struck by a stray arrow and returned to the grass, giving his life and his strength back to the Sweep.
Killien, 18th Torch of the Morrow, took his father’s place at age 18, uncontested.
Will looked toward the front of the caravan where Killien rode.
Eighteen was so young.
At eighteen, Will had been seven years into his training at the Keeper Stronghold and just starting to travel Queensland in what would end up being fruitless searching for new Keeper children, traveling through a safe land, and telling stories to small towns. Not exactly the same as becoming the Torch of a small, vulnerable Roven clan.
A raindrop slapped against his neck and Will snapped the book shut and tucked it into his saddlebag just as the real rain hit. Around him, the caravan moved on unperturbed. Hoods were up and heads were down, but every horse, wagon, and person plodded forward, as if nothing was happening.
The storm was fierce and blustery a
nd short-lived. Killien didn’t send for him when the wagons stopped, and he jotted stories for the Torch until it was late enough to try and sleep. The boards of the wagon were hard against his back, the chill of the night seeped through his blankets, and the black Serpent Queen snaked through the stars like a stain.
The pale light of morning came too soon. Will rolled himself out of the wagon, toying with the idea of walking until his body loosened up, but weariness won out and he mounted Shadow, riding along the eastern side of the caravan.
They’d barely started when Sora appeared. A fresh wave of exhaustion rolled over him at the thought of talking to her.
“Good morning,” he said, without enthusiasm.
She raised an eyebrow. “No unwarranted cheerfulness this morning?”
He didn’t bother to answer, and they rode in silence until Talen’s tiny form dove down and landed on Will’s bedroll.
“Good morning,” Will said, ignoring the mouse he dropped.
“I was wondering if I’d get to meet your hawk.” Sora looked at the bird with keen interest and ran a finger down its feathers. The hawk fixed her with its expressionless gaze.
“Sora,” Will introduced her, trying to sound polite, “meet Talen.”
Sora took in the bird’s drab, tiny feet. “Talon? Did you name your horse Hoof?”
“My horse is Shadow,” Will said, patting the pinto’s mottled neck with affection, “because I’ve always wanted a black horse named Shadow. The Roven wouldn’t sell me a black one, so I bought this one instead. And named him Shadow.”
Sora fixed him with an unreadable expression. “It’s fitting that you would take something as beautiful as a brown and white pinto and, just by changing the words you say about it, think you can change it into what you really want.”
Will stared at her. “Do you ever have any fun? Shadow’s name makes me happy. And Talen’s name isn’t ‘Talon’ like the claw, its ‘Talen’ like the coin because he was payment for a job. Although whether he was a good payment or not, I haven’t decided.”