by C. Greenwood
“And what is it that brings you to Swiftsfell, Ilan of Dimmingwood?”
“Nothing more than you already know,” I said, trying to contain my impatience. On the way to her home, I had tried to ask her what she knew about my mother, but this Myria seemed suddenly distracted. Still, I forced myself to be polite. Demanding answers would get me nowhere.
So I explained, “As my friend Hadrian was telling the head of your village, he is compiling a book. It is a history of magic and a study of magically gifted races.”
She appeared dissatisfied with my explanation. “I did not ask for your friends’ motives in coming here but yours. I believe your province is a fair distance from the mountains of Cros. Something must have compelled you to make the journey.”
I hesitated, but there seemed no danger in speaking frankly to this stranger. We were not back home, where I had to cloak certain aspects of my past. “I had reasons for wanting to put my province behind me. I was recently pressed into the service of a man I count my enemy. I cannot escape my duties indefinitely for, when a year has passed, I’ve promised to return. But until then, I accompany the wandering priest on his travels. And where I go, Terrac goes.”
“Because he is in love with you?”
“Because the Praetor of our province does not trust me to keep my word. He sent Terrac to ensure that I do not forget my promises.”
I didn’t tell her how that troubled me. I liked to think that I, and not the Praetor, owned the greater part of Terrac’s loyalty, but the truth was that I had never really pressed him to choose between us.
Myria’s thoughts followed a different direction than mine. “So you travel where your priest friend does. You did not come to Swiftsfell on your own account?”
“Why should I do that?”
She lifted a silver eyebrow. “When I realized whose kin you were, I thought you might have visited in search of your past. Looking for your mother’s people, perhaps.”
At last we were heading in the right direction. I said, “I do not remember my mother ever speaking of friends or family from her past. I had no cause to suppose any existed, let alone that they should be found in Swiftsfell. I’m sorry to say she did not mention you.”
“I understand.” Refilling my drink, she changed the subject. “And how did you lose your magical abilities?”
I started, nearly sloshing my hot beverage onto my hand. “How did you—”
But then I realized I shouldn’t be surprised. Just as I used to feel the presence or absence of magic in others, so must other magickers sense it in me. To this woman, the power that had recently abandoned me was probably as evident as smoke curling from a newly snuffed candle.
“My magic was burned out.”
It sounded abrupt, but I found myself unexpectedly sensitive on the subject. Her question felt awkwardly personal. If I were missing an arm, would she be tactless enough ask how I had lost that?
If she noticed my reaction, her expression was unapologetic. “Many a young, untrained magicker has overextended herself and destroyed her skill beyond hope of healing.”
“I was not untrained. Hadrian has mentored me these past three years. I was simply in a position where I had to make a choice. Push my magic past safe limits or allow a friend to die. I took the risk, and I don’t regret it.”
It was true. If I hadn’t sacrificed my magic to defend Terrac against a Skeltai shaman, he would be dead now. His life was worth the cost.
“I am glad you were loyal to your friend,” said Myria. “But a lifetime separated from your natural gift is a high price to pay.”
I feigned a casualness I did not feel. “What’s done is done. I would rather not dwell on it.”
“It may be that you are right.” Myria tilted her silver head to one side and tapped a slender finger against her chin thoughtfully. “But sometimes what we think is done is not really over at all.”
She hesitated, then appeared to come to a sudden decision. “Come with me, young Ilan. There’s something I’d like to show you. It’s a test, of sorts.”
I was baffled. “What kind of a test?”
Instead of answering, she vacated her seat by the fire and gestured me to follow as she crossed the room to draw back a thin curtain. The chamber beyond was scarcely worthy of the name. It was more of an alcove, with just space enough for a clothes chest and a hammock slung along the wall.
She beckoned me to a shelf that held an assortment of mismatched odds and ends. Broken shells, bits of jewelry, framed miniatures, and a carved wooden box of the kind often used to hold small mementoes.
She lifted the memento box down from the shelf. It was small, not much bigger than the hand that held it, but she handled it carefully as though its contents were great.
Her eyes met mine over the box. “What I am about to show you must be our secret. For although no one in Swiftsfell would steal it from me, there are others outside the village who would give much to possess what I hold.”
“Others?” My mind went to the general sense of wariness that seemed to hang over Swiftsfell and its inhabitants.
She followed my thoughts. “We are not easy with our Drejian neighbors in the near mountains. They have no liking for us, and neither does the dragon, Micanthria, whom they harbor.”
She shrugged slender shoulders. “But it is no matter, for I trust you to keep my treasure secret.”
“Treasure?”
“Perhaps I had better call it a family heirloom, for it was passed down from my mother, who discovered it entirely by accident.”
Without further explanation, she flipped the box lid back on its hinge to reveal its mysterious contents.
I half expected to find some sort of jewel twinkling up at me, but instead I was met with the sight of a plain, flat rock smaller than my palm resting atop a folded kerchief. The stone was flat and dark gray, like a piece of shale, but there was an iridescent sheen to the smooth surface, and it shimmered in the lamplight. The piece was meant to be worn as an ornament, and a silver chain snaked through a hole that had been punched in its center.
“How very unusual,” I said, trying to look suitably impressed. It was a pretty enough ornament, for someone who couldn’t afford better, but hardly looked worthy of the term ‘treasure.’
Myria fingered the item. “I see you do not know what you behold. This is no ordinary ornament but the scale of a dragon.”
My blank expression must have disappointed her because she added. “As you have been instructed in the ways of magic by your priest friend, I am sure you understand that dragon teeth, claws, and scales are a few of the many objects which possess magical properties. Such objects are sometimes used to augment a magicker’s natural powers.”
I understood nothing of the kind. It was exactly the sort of subject Hadrian would have avoided discussing with me. He detested any attempt to create or capture magic where it did not formerly exist. It sounded as though this dragon scale skirted dangerously close to that line.
Myria continued, “A dragon’s scale is one of the most coveted augmenters among magickers. Even a magickless person could use it if he were skilled in the unnatural art of magery. But it is not the greed of mages that concerns me.”
“The Drejians you spoke of?” I guessed.
“Just so. It is risky to possess such an object now that Drejians have settled into these parts. If they learned of the augmenter, they might wish to possess it. That is why I am making it a gift to you. You may take it away when you leave, for I will rest easier to think of it being carried far from their reach.”
I hesitated, wondering what Hadrian would say to my possessing an augmenter. I could not imagine he would approve. But if it was a favor to this woman…
Unaware of my internal struggle, Myria lifted the dragon scale from its box and pressed it into my palm, closing my fingers around it.
All my doubts evaporated instantly. Something unexpected flickered inside me at the cool touch of the augmenter, something I had not felt in f
ar too long.
Magic.
Chapter Three
Instinctively, I grasped the magic as a drowning person might clutch at a rope, with the wild fear that it might be snatched away again at any moment. It was a strange sensation, filtering power through the augmenter instead of drawing it directly from the source. It felt muffled, less immediate. But compared to going without, it was good, like regaining a lost sense. One I hadn’t known I missed so badly until it was restored.
Filled with magic, I was aware of Myria at my side in a way I hadn’t been previously. Before, I had seen and heard her. But now I could vaguely pick up her emotions. Her face was placid, but inside she was… hopeful. Sad. Pleased. A curious mixture of emotions.
I felt the presence of other people too, Myria’s neighbors moving about in their cottages. I stretched my senses farther and found Terrac and Hadrian somewhere in the distance. I couldn’t read their minds, of course, or tell what they were doing. But their emotions were quiet, indicating they were safe and content.
After spending the past weeks closed off from such knowledge, this was a sudden wealth of awareness.
Myria had been watching me, noting my reactions. “You rely a great deal on empathy, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Tracking people’s movements and feeling out their moods has always come naturally to me.”
“It is good to have an area of strength. Your mother had one too. But I hope you do not practice this one to the exclusion of others.”
“I don’t think of it as exclusion. It’s something I fall back on unconsciously.”
“But your mentor, the priest, has taught you more than this?”
“We used to practice and exercise many skills before I lost my powers,” I said. “Most of them mental or emotional. Why? What was my mother’s special ability?”
She glanced around. “It is not something I could safely show you indoors. Come with me.”
I followed her outside. Evening had fallen, and the last light of day was fading on the horizon. Peering over the railed walkway, I could barely see through the gathering gloom to make out the white river flowing far below us.
Joining me at the rail, Myria stretched out a hand toward the river, and a streak of blue light shot from her fingertips to blaze a trail through the shadows.
I lifted my eyebrows. “I can see why you didn’t want to do that indoors.”
“My aim is not always reliable,” she admitted ruefully. “But your mother’s was better.”
“I know. I’ve seen her summon lightning like that.” A memory flashed through my head of Mama holding off the Praetor’s soldiers with the blue fire crackling from her fingertips. It was the last thing she ever did.
I shoved the memory aside and asked, “Could you show me how to do it?”
“Of course. And after you have mastered the skill, you will learn to modify it for other purposes. The same technique can be used in forming a ball of light to illumine the darkness or in creating a spark to light a campfire. You will find it useful for many purposes.”
A niggling concern tugged at me. “Hadrian never taught me things like this. Maybe it was beyond his abilities, or perhaps he did not think they were necessary. Either way, I am reluctant to proceed behind his back. He would likely not approve of the augmenter either.”
“You want to consult him?” she asked.
“I am not going to ask for his permission. But I value his guidance and want to hear his thoughts on this.”
The rash young thief who used to be me would have shuddered at such a comment. But nowadays I was learning not to take my friends for granted. I didn’t have many left.
She nodded. “Then perhaps we will return to this another time.”
I agreed. “Maybe now would be a good time for you to answer those questions I asked earlier. About my mother?”
At the change in topic, I sensed a wave of sadness settle over Myria. “You look a great deal like Ada.”
“You said as much before. You also said that you were aware of her death. Can I ask how the news reached you?”
“Ada and I shared a special bond. I felt it severed in the moment when her life was extinguished, even though there was a long distance between us. Later, I tried to discover the details of her death, but no one could tell me.”
As she spoke, a gradual awareness came to me. Since first we met, I had sensed a connection to this silver-haired woman, one not felt in the presence of another person in a long time. I tried to recall the last occasion when I had experienced this. It was in the presence of the Praetor. The man was my uncle, though he did not know it.
That was when I realized the truth.
“You and I share the same blood,” I blurted out to Myria. “That is why there is this link between us. My mother was not your friend but your kinswoman.”
“She was my daughter,” Myria said, correcting me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned back against the rail, knees weak, legs suddenly inadequate. Our previous conversations took on new light as I thought of the miniatures lined up on Myria’s shelf, of a particular portrait I had noticed, a rough sketch of a silver-haired girl. It had looked familiar, and now I knew why. It was a youthful version of my mother.
I tried to wrap my mind around this new revelation. “So you are…”
“Your grandmother,” she supplied. “But you do not have to call me that. Not when we know one another so little.”
Blinking, I took a slow breath. “And do I have any other family I should know about?”
“None surviving. That is why it was such a blow when I became aware of Ada’s death.”
Her eyes misted with unshed tears, and I realized how hard it was for her to speak casually of her loss.
I swallowed. It was strange that a person I had only just met shared a grief with me that even my closest friends could not know. Strange but comforting.
I made a decision. “If you would like, I could tell you how she died.”
* * *
Myria and I stayed up late into the night. I told her the story of how my parents had been killed all those years ago and of my own fate after. But we shared more than sorrow because there were good stories to be told too. Myria described my mother in her childhood and told me she had last seen her when she was little older than I was now. She had married a man from Ellesus, my father, and settled in that province, never to see her own mother again. My existence had never even been guessed at until now.
I spent that night sleeping on a cot in the small cottage, thinking as I drifted to sleep how much had changed in the past day. Thanks to the dragon scale on its chain now nestling in the hollow of my throat, I could access magic again. It wasn’t like before, when the magic had come directly to me. But in time I would surely get used to filtering it through the augmenter. And I had found my family, or what was left of it. Mama had no brothers or sisters, and my grandfather was long deceased. But at least there was Myria. She was a stranger to me, but with the link of our common blood, our bond could only grow.
I awoke in the morning to find Terrac had come for me. He and Hadrian had passed the night as guests of Calder, but Terrac had been worried when I failed to join them.
I reintroduced him to Myria—I wasn’t ready to call her “Grandmother” yet—and she made us both a good breakfast. Then although I was reluctant to leave so soon, with Myria’s reassurance we would talk more later, I let Terrac lead me away.
Calder’s home was at the far side of the village, but I didn’t mind the distance. I was already growing used to the heights that had made me dizzy yesterday. Besides, it was a pleasant, sunny morning, and my heart was light.
Terrac’s, I quickly realized, was not.
Wearing the augmenter, I was aware of his mood in a way I had not been in some weeks. As we walked hand in hand across the suspended walkways, I wondered what was troubling him. Why did his mood feel so sour? Maybe I should ask, but I did not want any unpleasantness leeching away my good humor
.
Instead, I told him of my newfound connection to Myria and was relieved when he seemed pleased for me.
Calder’s house was bigger than Myria’s but crowded because all his children and grandchildren lived packed under one roof with him. It was a convenient arrangement because the old man never lacked an affectionate grandson or granddaughter to lead him around by the hand. But the noise of so many voices and the commotion of so many small bodies was hectic. I was relieved when we left them behind and shut ourselves into a separate room that seemed something like a study.
Hadrian and Calder greeted us here, Hadrian barely looking up from the books and scrolls Calder was shoving at him.
“It is a continual regret to me that I am no longer able to read them,” the blind man was saying. “But I am pleased you, at least, may make some use of them.”
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to an intriguing-looking parchment on the table before the two men.
Hadrian was painstakingly copying the sketch into his book. “That is a map of the Arxus Mountains, not far from us.”
“And they are important?” I wondered.
“They matter to us in Swiftsfell,” Calder put in, “because the Drejians have made their home on this side of the range.”
Drejians. Myria had mentioned them in our conversation last night. “Those are the people you are at war with?”
“There is no war,” Calder corrected. “Not really. The Drejians merely plague us and other neighboring communities, demanding tribute in exchange for leaving us in peace.”
Terrac interrupted. “But surely they have no authority to make such demands. Your province is governed by a praetor, the same as ours. What does he say to the Drejian threats against his people?”
Calder shrugged. “The local praetor does nothing, and he never will. As long as the dragon people do not trouble the cities, he leaves the villages bordering the desert and mountains to fend for themselves.”
“And do you pay the tribute?” I asked.
“So we have in the past.” Calder looked troubled. “But you come to us at a dangerous time. The Drejians have a ridiculous impression that we here in Swiftsfell have amassed some sort of hidden wealth. You have seen how simply we live here. But they are determined to believe we are sitting on secret piles of gold, which we withhold from them out of greed. Because of this, their demands have grown increasingly more unreasonable until at last we find ourselves unable to meet them. We have missed the time for our payment and have nothing left to give. This is why you find us in a state of wariness and why you would be well advised not to remain with us long. There is no sense in your becoming caught up in whatever is to come.”