by JA Andrews
Killien scrambled forward, clinging to Lilit’s hand. “The bleeding stopped?”
Sora shoved herself up and stepped back, her face white. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, staring at Lilit. She looked at Killien, her eyes wide, shaking her head quickly. “I didn’t…”
Without finishing, she spun and shoved her way into the night.
More healers rushed in, and Will slid back against the tent wall. Killien bent over his wife whose eyes were cracked open. Her vitalle was still more like embers than flames, but it wasn’t pouring out of her any longer. Will slipped outside.
The wind whipped against him. The world had fallen into darkness and the fire burning near the tent, now blazing, lit only a small area. His feet dragged against the ground and his arms hung limp and heavy at his side. Shadow’s saddle horn stung against his sore palm as he heaved himself up and headed toward his own wagon.
The stirrings of the clan woke Will the next morning while the sky was still a faded yellow-grey. He pulled the blanket up over his face and stayed in the darkness, the rough wool warm against his face. His arms were heavy, and his eyes felt like someone had poured sand into them. He stretched his hands experimentally, but his palms were only slightly sore.
A voice called out, proclaiming the son of Torch had been born. The Roven around him let out cries of celebration, and Will shoved himself up, waiting to hear anything about Lilit. But the red-bearded man announced the caravan would move at midday, and moved on.
As the morning wore on, the ramifications of the night before grew heavier. The clan was abuzz with the news of the Torch’s son, Sevien. He heard enough to know that Lilit lived, although she was weak. But did Killien know what Will had done? The Torch had focused only on Sora. What had he thought she’d done?
Questions spun tumultuously in his mind and his stomach hardened into a cold knot. Someone must have noticed what he’d done. A trio of rangers trotted toward him and Will’s heart slammed into his throat. But they rode past without a word.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. If Killien knew he’d done magic, Will would already be busy explaining himself. Which meant Killien had a new baby, and a wife who had almost died, and Will hadn’t come by to show he’d even noticed.
Will pushed himself up and trudged toward the Torch. When he reached Lilit’s tent, he found Killien surrounded by Roven, holding a small bundle. There was no sign of Sora or Hal or Ilsa. Will worked his way through the crowd until he reached the Torch, his heart pounding so hard in his throat he could hardly swallow.
Killien turned and Will’s chest clamped down on his heart until the Torch’s face broke into a grin. “Come see the future Torch!”
A scrunched face with a shock of red hair peeked out of the blankets.
“He’s definitely Roven,” Will said, leaning closer and trying to look calm. The baby was asleep, his brow drawn in a little scowl as though he were put out by all the activity.
“He is indeed,” Killien said. “He’s got a cry that will wake the dead.”
“Congratulations. He looks like a fine boy.” Will tried to keep his voice calm for the next question. “How is your wife?”
Killien’s smile faded slightly. “She’s weak. But the healers think she is out of danger. They say it is safe for her to ride in the wagons. We reach the rifts in a couple days and she’ll rest better then.”
Will nodded and breathed out a long breath. “Good.”
“Last night in the tent, I heard you telling her that story,” he said, and Will tried not to flinch. “I appreciate what you did.” Killien set one hand on Will’s shoulder. “Lilit doesn’t remember your words, but I do. And I think they gave her some strength.”
Will pressed his fist to his chest. “If I helped in any way, I am glad.”
When he looked up, Killien was still studying him. With a curt nod, he said, “The little slave girl you wanted, when you leave, you may take her with you.”
Will stared at the Torch. “Really?”
“But I’d still love to know what those runes say,” Killien added, turning to a healer who’d just arrived.
Relief washed over Will. He could take Rass with him. And Killien had no idea what he’d done last night. He watched the Torch walk toward Lilit, wondering what he thought had happened in that tent.
There was no sign of Ilsa, so he headed back to his wagon and collapsed back down.
The day passed in an uncomfortable sort of loneliness. Will fell asleep in the wagon, which helped curb some of his exhaustion, until the caravan rolled out around midday. He caught one glimpse of Hal riding toward the herds, but no glimpses at all of Sora.
Huge storm clouds built up along the western horizon dropping the Sweep into an early shadow that night. He wrapped his cloak around himself, but the rising wind tugged at it like greedy fingers.
“This storm will be big,” a little voice said behind him.
He turned to see Rass, and a blaze of affection rose in him for the girl. She looked…healthy. Still too thin, but healthier. He found a pile of flatbread and dried meat at a nearby fire and sat on the wagon, Rass’s bare feet dangling down as she chattered at him.
“Rass,” he said when she had quieted for a moment, “You know I’m not staying with the Morrow forever.”
She looked at him and let out a little sigh, but nodded.
“When I leave…” He stopped, feeling suddenly nervous. He glanced down at her hands, stained brown with dirt. “Is there really no one here who takes care of you?”
She heaved an irritated breath. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” he assured her. “I just…” He rolled a piece of the flatbread between his fingers until it formed a snake. Taking a breath, he pushed the words out. “When I leave, would you like to come with me?”
Rass looked up at him, her eyebrows shooting up higher than he’d ever seen them. She didn’t speak and something very much like terror clamped down on Will’s chest. She tilted her head to the side. “Would you like me to?”
Will nodded, although the motion felt awkwardly wooden. His mouth felt dry and the next words rushed out. “I have a home, of sorts. It’s a big stone tower. And you could come there with me.” The idea of bringing this little, eccentric girl to the Stronghold made him grin. “The people there would love you.” He leaned close to her and whispered, “They know about magic too.”
She gave him a small smile, but her brow was still creased. “You’d leave the grass, though. Wouldn’t you?”
Will looked out into the darkness of the Sweep. “I’d leave this grass, but then we’d go places with other grass. My tower is surrounded by it.” He gave her a smile. “It’s hard to find places with no grass.”
Rass looked away, and he couldn’t see her expression for an excruciating handful of heartbeats. When she turned back, though, she smiled up at him and nodded. “I think I’d like to go with you.”
Will let out a long breath and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “That makes me very happy.”
She leaned against him. “You’re funny, Will.”
Her shoulders were definitely less boney. The idea nagged at him as he let Rass fall into her normal chatter. He’d known her less than a fortnight. And while he’d shared his food with her, he was hardly feeding her a lot. But there was no doubt she was gaining weight. Her face was filling out too, although not exactly how he’d expected. She was gaining some roundness to her cheekbones, but the rest of her face was still thin. Her chin was still pointed and long. She looked less and less like someone from Queensland, and more like…someone more exotic. She reminded him of something he couldn’t quite place.
Rass’s eyes flew open wide and she scuttled behind Will.
Sora strode over, her face thunderous. Will leaned back from her fury.
“You did something,” she hissed, pointing a finger in Will’s face.
He batted her hand away, his heart pounding in his chest. “What are you talking about?�
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“You did something to the Flame.” Her voice was low, but sharp enough to cut through the Sweep itself. “Killien thinks it was me.” The word ripped out of her throat.
Rass grabbed the back of his shirt and pressed herself up against him.
If Will had ever thought he’d seen Sora angry, he’d been wrong. Her body shook with rage, her eyes dug into him as though she could rip his heart out with a thought.
A different sort of fear jabbed into his gut. “What is Killien going to do to you?”
“Do to me?” she asked, incredulous. “Probably build me a shrine.” She leaned close again and Will forced himself not to pull away. “But I didn’t do it.”
Will stared at her at a complete loss. She was angry about getting credit for healing Lilit? He could understand a reluctance to accept it, but not this level of rage.
“Stay away from me,” she said slowly, biting off every word, fixing Will with a look of pure hatred, “or, I swear by the black queen, I will tell Killien everything I know about you and you’ll be dead by morning.”
“Why would he build a shrine to you, but kill me?”
“Because you and I are nothing alike. Stay away from me.” With a last look that threw daggers, she spun and stalked off.
He stared after her. A gust of wind tumbled around him bringing cool, stormy air and a vacant sense of waiting. Thunder growled through the clouds, and the smell of rain whipped past.
Rass peeked out around his shoulder and looked at Will with wide eyes.
“Don’t wander too far away,” Will told her, spinning his ring, watching the direction Sora had gone. “We may be leaving the Roven sooner than I’d thought.”
Chapter Nineteen
The storm charged closer like an attacking army, smashing into the clan with breathtaking force. Will and Rass copied the other Roven and huddled under the wagon, still pelted by raindrops shot under it like arrows. Lightning stabbed down from the clouds in a chaos of blinding flashes and howling darkness. The wind howled like a creature out of a nightmare, but it whipped the storm quickly past, driving it away to the south.
Rass ran into the grass to sleep, and Will lay watching stray clouds chase after the storm, troubled by Sora’s unaccountable fury. He could understand frustration or awkwardness at getting credit for something she hadn’t done, but Killien merely thought her prayers had been answered. What was so terrible about that? Of course, the question as to why Killien begged her to pray in the first place was equally unanswerable. Killien’s desperation he could understand, but Sora had never given any sign of being religious.
The blackness of the Serpent Queen hung overhead, clouds scuttling across her, seeming to spread bits of her darkness across the sky. Is that who Sora had prayed to? The monster set on devouring the stars? His mind circled back on the questions, not finding any answers.
To distract himself he ran over every interaction he’d had with Ilsa. It didn’t take long. The urgency to talk to her again was growing, but with Lilit needing so much attention, he doubted he’d have a chance to see her before they reached the rifts in a few days. And then, would Killien let him stay longer? At what point was the Torch going to tire of his new storyteller? All the thoughts spun in his head like a second storm.
He finally slept, but the next day turned out to be just as agonizing. Hal was busy, Killien didn’t summon him, and there was no sign of Ilsa, and no sign of Sora. Although that last thing wasn’t bad. Will watched Lilit’s wagon, but if Ilsa was there, she was staying inside.
The caravan had just stopped for the night, and Will was sitting down to some dwarf-talk with Hal, bracing for another meal of flatbread, when a rider arrived from the north, cantering down the serpent’s wake. She carried sacks of bread baked in the rift and the Roven crowded her, eagerly grabbing fresh loaves.
The ranger reported that the caravan should reach the rift the morning after next, and the news along with the bread worked a sort of magic. Will sank his teeth into the thick, spongy bread with relish, hoping he never saw flatbread again. From their spot a little away from the fire, Lukas sat with Rett. When Sini arrived Lukas handed her a small loaf with a flourish, and she squealed with happiness and sank down in between them.
Before he’d even finished eating it, another ranger raced up from the west. He galloped toward Killien, his horse staggering to a stop, its sides heaving.
“Shepherds killed, Torch, three hours hard ride west. Three Roven from the Panos Clan, and four dozen sheep.”
Will felt every person near him tense. Killien’s face turned stony. “Cause?”
The ranger’s eyes flicked to the people around the Torch. “No sign of weapons. The meat was ripped off the sheep. The carcasses left to rot.”
Murmurs of “goblins” rippled through the Roven.
Will stretched out and felt fear growing in people. A spot of coolness appeared as Sora stepped up next to Killien. Will drew back when he saw her, but she didn’t even glance in his direction.
“And…” The ranger paused, his eyes wide and slightly wild. “There’ve been fresh signs of goblins in every ravine I’ve passed.”
Will focused on Killien and felt a growing dread in the Torch.
“How many?”
“Dozens.” The ranger twitched a nervous half-shrug. “Hundreds, maybe.”
“How long ago were the shepherds killed?” Sora asked.
“Within the past day.”
Sora sent a girl running to fetch a horse. “Landmarks?”
“Between the white bluffs and that rift with all the bones.”
Sora fixed him with the exact same gaze she always gave to Will. “It’s getting dark. Can you be more specific?”
The ranger shifted slightly. “A bit closer to the bluffs, I think. There’s not much to see out there.”
“Not if you don’t open your eyes.”
Killien looked out over the Sweep to the west, his eyes scanning the emptiness. “Word from any other rangers?”
The man shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone since I left the rift yesterday.”
“Take someone with you,” Killien ordered Sora.
“They’ll slow me down. I’ll be back by dawn.”
The girl ran back with a horse, and Sora swung into the saddle. For once Will could pick out her emotions strongly enough to tell them apart from the Torch’s. She was angry, which seemed to be directed at Killien, but she was also filled with a roiling fear. Feeling Sora lose her tight control was far more frightening than the ranger’s report.
“Sora,” Killien said, his tone dangerous. “You are not going alone.”
She shot him a furious glare and galloped across the grass.
Killien’s fury and sharp fear matched Will’s as he watched Sora’s shape shrink into the vastness of the Sweep. The Torch barked orders, sending Roven scattering.
“Hal,” the Torch called, “get the wagons in tight circles tonight, the children and elderly inside. Split the animals into as many groups as you can build fires around. As much fire as you can. Form a line along the western side. Everything done before dark.”
Sora’s silhouette disappeared over the first ridge, outlined for just a moment against the red sky.
The dark came long before the frantic activity of the clan subsided. The wagons were drawn into wide circles around tight knots of children and elderly, protected by a ring of Roven with campfires. Hundreds more Roven lined the western edge of the clan, their own fires well-stocked.
North of the clan sat wagons loaded with all the metal they could find, including Will’s three silver beard beads. Around the metal wagons, a wall of grass and dried dung bricks were stacked, ready to be turned into a ring of fire. The only metal left in the clan was in the weapons they’d need to fight.
The flurry of activity settled into a quiet nervousness.
And nothing happened.
Will lay on the ground at the edge of one of the circles of wagons and actually missed the hard wood o
f his wagon. The brooding Serpent Queen worked her way up the sky and he spun his ring, waiting, straining for any sounds of goblins in the night. The ground was uncomfortable, and no matter how he adjusted the wool blanket, cold air crept in somewhere.
The knife he’d been given felt awkward in his hand, too long, the blade weighted oddly. It was sharp though, so there was a chance his wild, unskilled hacking would turn out to be an effective fighting strategy against goblins.
He was forgetting something he should have done by now. He just couldn’t figure out what.
Part of it was that he had no idea where either Rass or Ilsa was. A cold wind slid over him, sneaking down inside his blanket. Two Roven sat at a fire not far from him, and Will looked at it enviously.
He gathered in some vitalle from the flames. He focused on the air above it, bending it into a cloth, gathering up some heat and drawing it closer. His fingers tingled with the effort, but it reached him with a rush of warmth lasting for three or four breaths before it cooled.
Will gathered in a little more vitalle from the grass, an idea forming. If he created a tent of cloth from the fire to himself, then the heat would just roll along the tent continually. Slowly, starting near himself, he constructed the idea of the tent, pushing vitalle into it, ignoring the tingling in his hands.
He pushed the tent forward until the end of it was over the flames. The first bit of warmth rolled over Will’s skin and he smiled. The warm air wrapped around him, warming his blankets and his clothes. When he was thoroughly warm, he cut off the vitalle and let the warm air rise into the dark sky. It didn’t take long before the cold seeped back in.
He was forgetting something. The feeling nagged at him. But the harder he tried to think of what it was, the more his brain offered up the wrong answer.
You forgot to take the silver beard beads out, his brain offered for the hundredth time. He heaved a sigh. He had done that. He’d searched his bag three more times to make sure there was no metal left in it. Still the thought niggled at him. What had he forgotten?