by JA Andrews
A wave of relief washed over him until he realized what she’d said and jolted forward.
“I don’t think she was hurt,” Sora said quickly. “There were a lot of injuries, but only twelve deaths, and all of that happened along the front line.”
Twelve dead. “Did they have families?”
“Most of them.” She paused. “Killien will never say it, but he knows the only reason there aren’t more is because of you.”
Will dropped his head down onto his fingertips, staring at the table without seeing it.
Sora shifted, and Will felt her hand on his arm. “We should have lost many more, Will. No one has ever heard of that many goblins on the Sweep.” She pulled gently but persistently on his arm and he lifted his head. “The only reason the clan wasn’t massacred is you.”
“Twelve dead.” He shook his head. “I should have done it sooner. I could have pushed the heat toward the holes in the ground as soon as they appeared, chased them back in.”
She dropped her hand from his arm, leaving a cool spot in the shape of her fingers. “Why didn’t you?”
He couldn’t look up at her. The goblins had come so fast, like a flood.
“You didn’t know you could do it, did you?”
His gaze flicked up to her, expecting her usual sharp contempt, but she was solemn.
He rubbed his hands over his face and let out a laugh. “I’ve never done anything remotely like that.”
“Will,” she said seriously, “you need to give Killien whatever it is he wants from you. I’ve never seen him this angry”
The blue book sat heavy and undecipherable on the table.
“I can’t.”
“Do something magical”—she waved one hand in the air, fluttering her fingers—“and give Killien what he wants.”
Will stared at her. “I can’t just do something magical.”
“You can make a wall of heat. You can walk through a crowd and have no one notice you’re there.”
“Congratulations.” Will glared at her. “You’ve named the two magical things”—he wiggled his fingers at her—“that I know how to do.”
She sat back in her chair, looking at him in disbelief. “You can’t do anything else?”
“Not anything worthwhile. Gerone, the Keeper who spent years trying to train me, says I have a motivation problem. Which maybe is true, because I just mastered the not-being-noticed thing since coming to the Sweep, and I figured out how to move the heat while the goblins”—it had been the goblins racing toward Sora. She’d looked so exposed in the face of their viciousness— “Ran toward us.”
“Are most Keepers better at magic than you are?”
He gave her an annoyed look. “Yes, but it matters less than you’d think. We do a lot of reading, and writing, and research. Most of the Keepers are elderly and never leave the Stronghold. I’m the youngest. Alaric is next. He’s the court Keeper. He’s decently good at magic, and he could decipher these runes in his sleep.”
She looked at him curiously. “Sounds irritating to have someone who’s better than you at everything.”
“He’s not better at storytelling,” Will corrected her. “And he’s not irritating. He’s been like a brother to me since I was ten.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “If he was the court Keeper, what was your job?”
“I traveled around Queensland telling stories and learning stories and looked for new Keepers. When a child develops the ability to do magic, around the age of ten, their family brings them either to court, or to the nearest Keeper. For poorer families that can’t afford to travel, it’s nice if there’s someone close.”
“But you’re the youngest.”
“I was looking for new ones, not finding them. There should be at least two younger than me. The gap between us is usually less than ten years.”
Sora gave him a long, probing look. “Is it true Keepers can sense people they can’t see? And suck the life out of them?”
Will let out a laugh. “We’re opposed to things like sucking the life out of people. But living things are full of energy—vitalle, and we can sense it when it’s nearby.”
Sora’s face grew taut and she sat perfectly still.
“Grass and plants have a little vitalle,” he continued, uncomfortable at her rapt attention. “Humans have a lot.” He cast out through the rift finding only Sora, blazing bright in front of him, and the compact energy of Talen, nestled in the other room. “You, Talen, and I are the only ones in the rift.”
Sora nodded slowly, her eyes losing their focus. Will waited for some sign of disbelief, or doubt. But she sat still, her eyes unseeing and her head slightly bowed.
“People are usually surprised to learn that I can do that.”
Her gaze flickered up at him, more uncertain than he’d ever seen her. She was almost frightened.
Several disparate ideas he had about her clicked into place.
He leaned forward. “You can sense it too.”
She flinched at his words.
Will stared at her for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “You can! Hal’s right! You have creepy magic. No wonder you can—what did Killien say? Find a mountain hare in a snowstorm?” He leaned closer, grinning. “You have magic.”
The edge of her lips curled into a reluctant smile.
“How much can you see?” he asked.
“It’s not like seeing. It’s more like a smell…or like feeling the temperature. I can tell when something is alive nearby, but not what direction it’s in. I just have to move and see if it gets stronger.”
“Fascinating! I’ve only met two people who had the ability to sense vitalle, but not manipulate it, and they were both in Queensland. It’s unusual for people to have abilities like you.”
“Can all Keepers sense things the way you do?”
Will hesitated. That was a complicated question.
“Can they sense vitalle as clearly as you?” she prodded, testing out the word.
“Yes. They can all sense vitalle.”
She waited a moment, her eyebrows raised expectantly. “There’s a but coming. Do they do it like I do? Without knowing really where it is?”
“No, we all send out a…wave of sorts, searching for energy, and it echoes back to us where things are.”
Her brow knit together. “So what can you do that they can’t?”
“I can…” He’d never told anyone this outside the Keepers.
“I don’t really talk about it,” he said.
She leveled a gaze at him, her face incredulous.
“And you don’t talk about your creepy magic either,” Will said. “Right.” He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “I can feel people’s emotions.”
One of her eyebrows shot up. “Feel them?”
Will nodded. “Right around here.” He pointed to the left side of his chest.
Sora was silent, pondering this. “Can you tell what they’re thinking?”
Will shook his head. “It isn’t like that. You know how if someone’s angry, it can make you feel angry? Well I can feel that anger as strong as they do, but still separate from my own emotions.”
“Can you read me?”
Will laughed. “I gave up trying to read you ages ago.”
Her brow dove down and she looked at him, insulted.
“I’ve never met anyone who keeps their emotions as clamped down as you. When I try to read you, all I feel is…emptiness.”
She considered him for a moment. “How many times have you tried?”
“At the beginning, a lot. You were terrifying. And finding out you had no emotions made it so much worse.”
She looked satisfied by that answer. Then her eyes widened. “That’s how you tell stories so well. You feel the audience. You change your story to please them.”
Will shifted in his seat. “Well, it helps, of course. But all storytellers do that. They watch expressions and notice when attention starts to wander. I just have…a little more
information. And I like to think that my success lies in the fact that I have some storytelling skills.”
She shook her head, smiling. “I was right about you, storyman.”
“In the most negative way possible.”
“Let’s see if I can control how much you feel. I’ll try to open up.” She leaned forward expectantly. It was strange to see her face so pleasant. The slight smile in her eyes was distracting and he closed his eyes before opening up toward her.
Emptiness bloomed in his chest and he shook his head. She kept her emotions too tightly controlled. As though she didn’t want to feel them herself, never mind let anyone else know they existed. But then he felt a hint of…something.
“Curiosity,” he said, “and a bit of worry, or fear.”
She made a noise that sounded like agreement.
He focused and found the current of seething anger that he’d felt in her a few times before. It was so deep-rooted and so…foundational.
“What else?” she asked.
“You’re angry,” he continued, keeping his eyes shut so he didn’t have to look in her face. “It’s down below everything else. Like it’s fundamental to everything you are.”
He waited, with his eyes closed, listening and feeling for a reaction to his words.
Her silence filled the room, and there was no change in her emotions.
He was just about to crack an eye open to see if she was glowering at him when he noticed a thread of something else. Something…
“Happy.”
He focused on the tiny bright feeling that was intertwined with the worry and the curiosity that floated above all the anger. It was definitely happiness.
He snapped his eyes open. “What are you happy about?”
She looked at him and laughed.
An odd thought struck him. “Are you happy to see me?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Or are you happy to see me captured?”
She rolled her eyes and stood up.
“Or are you happy that you were right about me all along?”
She ignored his questions. “Killien’s not a patient man, Will. Figure out a way to get him what he wants.” She picked up the small cloth and draped it over the glimmer moss bowl, dropping the room into darkness. Her feet crunched softly on the hard floor as she left.
He peered into the blackness after her from the doorway. He couldn’t see a thing, but he cast out toward her and felt her vitalle moving slowly down the path.
“What are you happy about?” he whispered after her.
Nothing but a little ripple of laughter came back to him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Morning sunlight barely dribbled over the edge of the rift, leaving it a dim honey color. Will’s back felt like it had hardened overnight. Lying on the hard clay was even worse than the wagon.
He pushed himself to his feet and splashed some of yesterday’s water onto his face. He tried a sip, but it tasted like clay. Outside, nothing had changed. Aside from the two guards at the top of the rift, it was empty. He sighed, sat down at the table and pulled Kachig’s book towards him, his palm stinging slightly.
He cast out and felt the vitalle pressing against the inside of his palms, working to grow new skin. It would take more energy than he could possibly find to heal them. It had always seemed stupid that Keepers couldn’t heal burned palms, when it was one injury they were almost guaranteed.
Will picked up the last page he’d translated. It was a list of gems with notes as to which held more souls, which damaged them, which tainted them.
Topaz, apparently, was what you wanted when trying to suck someone’s soul into a stone.
He dropped the paper. He couldn’t give this information to Killien, but before he could decide what he should do with it, footsteps sounded outside his door. He snapped his attention to the door, but it was only Sini, followed by a guard.
“I told Killien that you might work better with some saso.” The girl held up a clay pitcher and a cup.
“You’re amazing.” Will shoved his work aside so she could set it down.
She pulled another stack of paper from a bag slung around her shoulders. “In case you need more.”
He poured himself a steaming drink and the smell of dark roasted caramel filled the room.
“I told Killien I had faith in you.” She picked up a page of split-up runes, holding it upside down and frowning. “You are figuring it out, aren’t you?”
Will held the saso in front of his face for a long moment, breathing in the scent. Nothing good could come from this book. Even though Killien had no way to perform this level of magic, Will couldn’t translate it for him. But he couldn’t risk what Killien would do to Ilsa if he didn’t.
“I thought I was on to something,” Will said, taking the paper back from her and tossing it onto the others. “But it turned out to be nothing.”
Sini’s brow creased. “Killien will be back this afternoon. I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“People keep saying that.”
The girl hesitated, fidgeting with the papers. “That’s because it’s true.”
She didn’t continue, and Will took another drink. “I thought Lukas said prisoners don’t get saso. Does this mean I’m not a prisoner anymore?”
Sini gave him a small smile. “It means that Lukas hates you.”
Will sat back. “Yes. As subtle as he’s been about it, I’d picked up on that. What I don’t know is why.”
“He doesn’t hate you personally, he hates what you represent.”
“The Keepers?”
She shrugged. “All of Queensland. He feels like the entire country betrayed him because it let Vahe take him.” She looked down at her own hands. “It’s easier than blaming his family.”
The thought sank into Will, thick and bitter.
“Lukas’s not as bad as you think. His hip hurts him a lot, but he still tries to be nice—to everyone but you. I was only twelve when I came to the Morrow, and he took care of me. He spent weeks letting me trail after him, introducing me to the nicest of the Morrow, helping me learn the skills that would make me useful to the Torch.” She stared unseeing at the table. “He and Rett are like brothers. Lukas created a place for me here until it began to feel like home.” She flickered a glance up to Will. “Not a home like my real home, maybe, but still a home.”
Will set the saso down. “How long have you been here?”
“This is my third summer.”
“I’m sorry…” He stopped, not knowing how to possibly say everything that needed saying.
She tapped the papers into a neater stack, not raising her eyes. “It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be. The Torch treats us well. And there’s always enough food. My family lived outside Queenstown, in a shed behind an inn. I used to slip into the city and steal food for us, but I had five younger brothers. There was never enough.”
Queenstown. She’d been surrounded by so many people who should have protected her.
“When Vahe came to take me, we hadn’t eaten in two days. My father barely put up a fight.”
“Vahe?” Was he the only wayfarer who ever took children? Or was he the only one who delivered them to Killien?
She nodded, but a mischievous grin spread across her face. “He had three money bags, so, while my father tried to stop him, I tore one off and tossed it to my mother. They should have had food for a while.”
Will grinned at her. “Too bad you couldn’t get all three.”
The guard cleared his throat loudly and Sini flinched. Will shot him a scowl which was utterly ineffective.
“Good luck, Will.” The girl turned and hurried out of the hut.
Will stared at the empty doorway. Sini, Lukas, and Ilsa, all brought here by Vahe? Why them? And how many others had he brought?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Will pulled out a new piece of paper and separated out a new page of runes, translating two more pages. “Translating” was too strong
of a word. There were too many runes he wasn’t sure about. The more runes he deciphered, the more chilled he felt. The human soul was nothing more than a commodity in this book. Something to be taken, stored, and used.
He couldn’t give this information to Killien.
He needed to get it back to the Stronghold. The Keepers could study it, understand how Roven stonesteeps used stones for magic.
What he wanted to do was set this book on fire. He set his finger against the corner of the book and began to gather in vitalle. It felt deeply right to destroy something this evil.
Except he couldn’t.
As evil as it was, there were things here the Keepers didn’t understand. There must be more copies of this book. Destroying this one wouldn’t keep the world from having the knowledge, just the Keepers. He let the energy dissipate, not entirely happy with his decision.
Still, he couldn’t give this to Killien. He picked up the pages with the real translations and grabbed his own books out of his pack. He tucked his translations into empty spaces among his other writings. Thankfully his books were eclectic enough that phrases scattered about didn’t seem too out of place.
When he finished he wadded the pages into balls and set them around the pitcher. It would be nice to have some warm saso. There weren’t enough to surround it, so he grabbed two more blank sheets from the pages Sini had brought.
Writing on one caught his eye.
We’re not random.
The letters were round and smooth. Was this from Sini?
He thought back over their conversations. He’d mentioned something being random…What was it?
His hand tightened on the paper. It had been with Lukas. Will had said no one knew that wayfarers were still taking random children.
Were Lukas and Sini not random? Had they been taken for a reason? Did that mean Ilsa had been too?
He crumpled the paper and tucked it next to the others, mulling over the idea. Gathering some vitalle, he set them on fire. Flames licked up the side of the pitcher, the paper turned to ash, and he still didn’t know what Sini meant.
With a warm cup of saso, he set to creating useless pages for Killien, runes turned this way and that way, his best guesses at their meaning scribbled, scratched out, and rewritten.