House of Blood and Bone

by Kimberley J. Ward

  Nessa was listening and learning, and not just during their night-time excursions. During the day, when she wasn’t catching up on lost sleep, she was being educated in a vast number of things: self-defence, the history of Ellor and the Twelve Kingdoms, and the Twelve Houses and their Dragon Riders. Nessa memorised their names, the colour of their dragons, which House each Rider belonged to. It was important, Nessa knew that, but she just couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter what she did, how much she did, it was never enough.

  “Lost some memories, have we?”

  Nessa shook herself. “No. Of course not. What makes you think that?”

  Heimaey pursed his lips, quirked an eyebrow, and then shrugged. “No reason, I suppose. Sissy’s puppet master must be back to her old games again.”

  “Sissy’s mistress,” Nessa mused, her thumb absently rubbing the brooch. “You don’t seem to like her much.”

  Heimaey laughed a short, sharp bark. “Ha! What gave it away? No. No, I don’t like Sissy’s alleged friend at all.”

  “Obviously. But who is she?”

  “Oh, just someone who runs a small shop in the Barrel. She claims to be a powerful seer, blessed by the spirits. Weirdly enough, people actually buy into all that. She’s nothing but a fraud, though, in my opinion. A hedge witch who’s particularly good at drawing in and manipulating gullible fools.”

  “Ah. Alright.”

  “She seems to have lured my dear, stupid cousin into her service, against both mine and her parents’ warnings.”

  “Well, sometimes people make bad decisions,” Nessa said diplomatically.

  “Yeah, and Sissy goes out of her way to make as many as possible.”

  Nessa grimaced. “Maybe this fraud isn't quite as much of a fraud as you think she is?” Seeing as she somehow knew where I’d be in order for Sissy to give me the brooch, and let’s not forget about its very pointed symbolism…

  “Be that as it may,” Heimaey said. “She’s still bad news and isn’t someone you should get involved with.”

  “Who said I was planning on getting involved with her?”

  “Just thought I’d warn you,” He shrugged. “What Sissy said about finding what you had lost; it’s just a vague line used to get you to start questioning things, things that only Sissy’s mistress can answer. The problem is, there will be strings attached, and in the end, you’ll only be left with more questions than answers.”

  “Warning duly noted.”

  Heimaey’s eyes twinkled at her dry response. He went to say something, but the quiet sound of a door opening made him pause, his attention going elsewhere.

  “I thought you had already left,” a deep, resonating voice intoned from the shadows of a doorway, “yet here I find you, standing idly about and chatting to…”

  The hooded stranger’s gaze settled on Nessa. She was entrapped by the sheer intensity in those blue eyes of his. She was hypnotised, utterly and completely, by their dark-sapphire depths.

  There was no escape.

  There was no one else in the world but them, nothing but them.

  For the first time in weeks, for the first time since Nessa had awoken in the woods, alone and frightened, all the fear and uncertainty faded away, replaced by a strange and profound sense of tranquillity, of belonging.

  Chapter 24

  Orm held the brooch between his thumb and forefinger, angling it so that the pale sunlight, filtered through the iced-over windowpanes, made the silver twinkle and the blue gems flash.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” Nessa asked from where she was huddled, wrapped in several layers of blankets and sat on her sorry excuse for a bed, back pressed against the wall.

  “Verdict?” Orm murmured, peering intently at the brooch.

  “On the thing you have in your hand.” Nessa shared an exasperated look with Hunter. She’d been awake for less than an hour and already she wanted to throw Orm out of the window. Hunter smirked and continued to fiddle around in the fireplace, feeding twigs and wood shavings to the sad flames that clung helplessly to the last slivers of blackened logs, trying to revive them.

  Nessa couldn’t help but think that it was a futile endeavour. The only thing that would help the fire was a good cleaning, which hadn’t happened once during the time they’d been lodging at Jerome’s guest house. The metal grate was overflowing with ash. Any logs that were added would sink down into it by a couple of inches. Even as she thought about it, Nessa had absolutely no intention of cleaning it out anytime soon. Certainly not today. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for tedious tasks.

  “Oh,” Orm said brightly, “you want a verdict on this brooch.”

  “What else would I want a verdict on?”

  Orm shrugged. “On why you’re in such a grouchy mood?”

  “I am not in a grouchy mood,” Nessa scowled. “Even if I were, which I’m not, I think I’d know why without your input.”

  “Oh, I think everyone in the den knows why you’d be in a grouchy mood,” Orm mused, fiddling with the brooch’s clasp. “We all heard the sound of your skull hitting the floor when you fainted.”

  “Felt it, too,” Hunter said with a sympathetic wince.

  Embarrassment reared its ugly head again. How could she have fainted like that in front of so many people…? Especially her blue-eyed stranger… It was beyond mortifying, made worse when she recalled the reason behind the fainting. So busy staring at him, drowning in the sense of tranquillity and belonging, she had forgotten to breathe.

  Glaring, Nessa muttered, “I thought I told you to stop bringing that up.”

  “You told us,” Orm smirked, “but we just can’t help ourselves. It was one hell of a bang. How’s your noggin?”

  Nessa prodded the bump on the back of her skull. It was swollen and tender to the touch, throbbing in time with her heartbeat. “Sore.”

  “Well, finish drinking the magical drink I whipped up for you,” Orm told her. “It will make you feel better.”

  Orm had presented her a mug of noxious liquid upon her awakening. The potion was the colour of bile and tasted like it, too, in all honesty. Despite being abandoned quite some time ago, exiled to the nightstand beside the bed, steam still rose from the mug, drifting up in delicate swirls. Whatever magics Orm had poured into the potion were still going strong.

  “I tried some,” Nessa said. “It didn’t work.”

  “You had two sips.”

  “It tastes like liquid death.”

  “It does not.”

  “Does too. Anyway, how would you know?”

  “Oh, I’ve had my fair share of the stuff after sustaining a head wound or two,” Orm said, reminiscing. “Falling out of trees. Falling off horses.”

  “Being hit over the head with a broom by a disgruntled father as he chases you out his daughter’s bed,” Hunter mumbled from his place by the fireplace.

  Orm frowned, sifting through the memories of his misadventures, then grinned. “Ah, yes,” he murmured, smiling coyly. “Isabelle. She was most definitely worth the concussion.”

  Hunter rolled his eyes. “I should hope so.”

  “Another one of your conquests, I gather?” Nessa said with indignation. It seemed that Orm had a talent for getting himself into trouble, causing mayhem wherever he went. “You’re a real lady-killer. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, Nessie,” Orm gave her a wink. “I’m a lady-lover. Not a lady-killer.” He turned and scowled at Hunter and his feeble attempts at stoking the fire. Orm clicked his fingers, and green sparks went flying from his fingertips, whizzing around the room in a hectic dance, darting this way and that. One shot over Hunter’s shoulder, flashing erratically, and dashed into the fireplace.

  Flames flared and roared, ferocious and bright. Hunter yelped and fell back, landing in an awkward sprawl on the floor.

  “How many times,” Hunter fumed, pushing himself up onto his elbows and flicking messy locks of hair out of his eyes, “have I told you to give me a bit of warning before you d
o something like that.”

  “Sixty-three times now, by my count.” Orm turned his attention back to the brooch, peering closely at the tiny, blue gems, almost going cross-eyed. Then, abruptly, he cast the brooch away, flinging it onto the bed. Nessa frowned and snaked out a hand from her cocoon of blankets, scooping it up.

  “I guess there’s nothing special about it then,” she murmured with a twinge of disappointment. “Nothing that might lead me to ‘what I’ve lost’ like Sissy said it would.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Orm said. “It’s got a touch of magic about it. It might do something.”

  Hunter picked himself up from the floor and joined Nessa on the bed, settling down beside her, close enough for their shoulders to brush against each other with the slightest of movement.

  “Something?” Hunter scoffed, squinting at the brooch as Nessa perched it on her knee.

  “Yeah. Something.”

  “Like what?” A fragile kind of hope bloomed in Nessa’s chest.

  Orm shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Nessa sighed. Of course, when it came to Orm and magic, there was never a straight answer. “You don’t know?”

  “There’s magic embedded in the gems,” he explained, “but it’s weak, barely there. Whatever the spell was designed to do, it won’t be doing it with any kind of potency, that’s for sure. I can barely detect the magic.”

  Nessa ran her fingers over the brooch for what felt like the hundredth time, the tiny ridges and dips of the gems and detailing almost ticklish against her fingertips.

  “How can you sense it?” she asked, wondering, because she certainly couldn’t. It wasn’t like she was completely insensitive when it came to detecting things of magical origins, either. Such as her grimoire, which made her blood sing and her Rider’s Mark tingle when she handled it, or the presence of the dark entity back in Arncraft.

  “I can see it.” Orm grimaced. “Kind of.”

  Nessa was impressed. “I wanna be able to do that.”

  “It’s an easy thing to learn. There’s a knack to it.”

  “A knack?”

  “A knack,” Orm confirmed, leaping onto the bed, making the wooden frame groan in protest, the slats straining under the combined weight of all three of them. “All you need to do is focus on it, let your mind relax, then unfocus.”

  “Are you serious?” Hunter said. “Focus and then unfocus? That’s utter rubbish.”

  Nessa had to agree. She raised her eyebrows quizzically and looked at Orm, her doubt clear for him to see.

  Orm rolled his eyes and reached out, forcing the brooch into her grip and positioning it in front of her face. “Look at it,” he murmured, his voice dropping low, suddenly holding a hypnotising quality. “Focus on the details of the gems. See how they shine? See how they shimmer?”

  “I’m looking,” Nessa said, doing as Orm instructed even though it felt like he was working under the influence of alcohol. She was fairly sure she could smell it on his breath. It was faint, but it was there. Whether or not he was still tipsy from their time in the den, or if he’d had a glass or two since their return, was anyone’s guess.

  “I’m looking too,” Hunter stage whispered from Nessa’s left. “What do you reckon we’ll see? The answer to life? How to get rich in a matter of hours? How to turn an enemy into a toad?”

  While keeping one hand on Nessa’s wrist, holding the brooch aloft, Orm reached around her with his other and gave Hunter a sharp cuff.

  Hunter scowled and shifted out of reach, rubbing his head. “Just trying to make light of things, ensuring it remains all fun and stuff.”

  “Well, don’t,” Orm said. “Nessa is taking her first official step into learning about magic.”

  Nessa turned to him in surprise. “I am?”

  “Yeah. Kind of. I suppose. Baby steps first, eh? Slow and steady wins the race, right?”

  “If you say so.” Nessa hadn’t heard a word after the ‘yeah’ part, excitement coursing through her veins with a wild roar. She’d been waiting, longing for this since she’d learned that she was an Old Blood. Magic hid somewhere inside her, soon to be awoken. Nessa was sure of it, and she was impatient to learn what she could before that happened.

  “Now,” Orm continued, “as I was saying before Hunter decided to try and delight us with his wit, or lack thereof, focus on the gems. Look deep into them, see past their facets and peer into their core. That’s where the magic lies.”

  “They’re only small, Orm,” Nessa said, staring at the tiny gems until she was on the brink of going cross-eyed. “There’s not much for me to look at.”

  “Shhh. Let’s have less talking and interruptions. And can you just do what I say without arguing? I’m the teacher here. I’m in charge.”

  There was no need to look to know that Hunter was smirking. Nessa could feel it and was helpless against murmuring a sarcastic, “Yes, master.”

  Hunter snorted, shoulders shaking as he bit back a laugh, and earned himself another cuff around the head. He’d underestimated how far Orm could reach.

  “No more of that,” Orm instructed. “Now, Nessie. Can you see how the light catches on the back of the stones, reflecting around inside?”

  Nessa nodded. The gems were small, and although they were coloured, they held a strange translucency, allowing her to almost see the interior of the settings through them.

  “Now, can you see how the light catches on the facets? Twinkling gently with even the slightest of movement?”

  Another nod.

  “Tell me about the difference between the two.”

  “Between the light on the surface and the light inside?”

  “Yep.”

  Nessa frowned and tried to bring her hand closer, tugging against Orm’s grip so that it would be easier for her to see the gems. Orm stopped her, though, his hold tightening on her wrist.

  “Focus,” he whispered. “You can do it like this. All you need to do is focus.”

  “Focus,” Nessa muttered. “Easier said than done when it feels like you’ve got a herd of angry dwarves stomping around in your skull.”

  “I told you to drink your magic drink. If you had, you would be feeling better by now.”

  “If your magic drink was as magic as you say it is, then I wouldn’t need to drink so much for it to work.”

  Orm looked contemplative. “I suppose it could be made more concentrated. It could be like a shot.”

  “If it’s possible to make it more concentrated, then why haven’t you done it yet?”

  Orm shrugged, jostling her hand a little. “Never really thought about it. Now, back to the matter at hand, pun intended. Focus, Nessie. Focus with all your focusing might.”

  Blowing out a breath, Nessa blocked out the world around her, drowning out the sound of the crackling fire and Hunter’s mumbled musings as to whether or not “herd” was the correct term employed when describing a number of dwarves. The room’s walls, painted a pale yellow, faded from sight, as did the curtains and the matching rug.

  Nessa’s line of sight contracted until she could see nothing but the brooch. She felt like she was looking through a kaleidoscope, an ever-shifting sea of blue and silver…blue and silver…

  “Now unfocus.”

  The words seemed to float through the air, as soft and intangible as the gentlest of summer breezes. They pushed at her kaleidoscope, making it twist and spin. Blue and silver…blue and silver…blue and silver.

  Ever faster it went, the colours spiralling together until they were almost indistinguishable from one another, a bicoloured swirl of hypnotic quality.

  Then, suddenly, it shattered into a million pieces like a pane of fragile glass.

  Instantly, Nessa’s vision cleared and sharpened, and she was back to staring at the brooch, held up a foot away from her face. She blinked, waking from the trance, and frowned.

  “The brooch,” she exclaimed. “It’s glowing.”

  A gentle shimmer of golden light came from each of th
e little gems, soft and mystical.

  Orm let go of her wrist, and Nessa brought the brooch closer, turning it this way and that, watching, marvelling as the light shifted and moved, refracting around inside the gems like they were prisms. The gems, though, weren’t prisms. No, the halo-like glow came from within the gems themselves.

  “What you’re seeing there is magic,” Orm said, his lips curling with a faint smile as he watched Nessa’s growing fascination. “Energy in its purest form. A perfect, if somewhat weak, example of external magic.”

  Nessa looked at him. “External magic?”

  “Oh, bollocks,” Hunter groaned, head falling back against the wall. “This is going to be a long-winded discussion about something I can’t join in with because I’m a boring, old, non-magical human.”

  “Shhh, little human,” Orm said, grinning from ear to ear, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “You can still take part in the theory side of magical learning.”

  “You’re making me feel very excluded and unappreciated.”

  “I appreciate you,” Nessa said. “Sometimes. You know, when you’re actually being helpful and not annoying the devil out of me.”

  “I am never annoying,” Hunter said confidently. “I am charming. There is a difference. But, I thank you nonetheless for trying to make me feel better. I think.”

  “What else are friends for but to fill one another with a sense of value.” Nessa’s attention went back to the brooch, only to find that the glow had vanished. The brooch once again appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. “Hey, the glow’s gone!”

  “No, the glow is still there,” Orm told her. “You’ve just stopped seeing it, that’s all. You let your concentration slip when you were talking to us.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway,” he continued, looking at Hunter, “we don’t have time for a long chitchat. We have work to do. People to meet. Plans to conjure.”