“Is this mud?” Jamie asked and picked it up.
“In the future, don’t simply pick things up off a witch’s workbench,” Yulia advised. “And, yes, it is. It’s not only crystals and precious metals that can focus spells. One that’s particularly useful at times is to take the water and earth of a specific place to make a protection spell. It only protects you when you’re there, of course, but for this, you’ll only be in one place.”
She handed one of the necklaces to Taigan and the other to Jamie. Both twins put them on, and the girl fought the suspicion that this was some kind of prank. As far as she could tell, it was merely a necklace with a hunk of mud—although it didn’t seem to be disintegrating.
“The forest will protect you as if you are part of it,” Yulia told them. “It’s not foolproof, so don’t be stupid, but people will be less likely to notice you. The webwork of spells in the forest will protect you as if you’re one of the trees—heal you quicker and give you more acute senses. That doesn’t mean you should take a knife to the heart, but a regular fight won’t tire you so quickly, nor a regular wound do so much damage.”
Taigan nodded.
“I’ve tried to divine Gwyna’s purpose,” the old woman told them, “but I can see nothing in the smoke. It might have helped me to see the spells she wove around the animals, but…no matter.”
The twins exchanged looks.
“Should we not have worn them away?” he asked.
“No, you did right.” She nodded and the rare praise came through gruffly. “It shows a good heart to want to do right by the animals and courage to cut through the spell—not to mention that you did it smartly. The two of you together have good heads on your shoulders, although I’m not so sure I’d trust either of you with this on your own.”
Taigan, who had grown used to the little snipes, only smiled slightly.
“But that’s the young, I suppose,” Yulia said. “In any case, I need the two of you to find me something at the well. It’s farther into the forest in what’s known as the Black Heart.”
“That sounds…” Jamie looked at his sister.
“Nonsense made up by the superstitious.” She waved a dismissive hand. “And it’s best not to have many of those at the well as it’s a magical place, but there’s no danger in the Black Heart. The forest grows close there, and dark. The legend is that the dark elves went there to capture dreams, even at high noon. Back when there were dark elves, of course. There aren’t many of them left and none in this forest. The well is their legacy—and the maze.”
“What is the maze for?” Jamie asked.
“No one knows. No one knows about the well, either, although it has magic in abundance—and that’s what I’m sending you for. Gwyna harnessed the power of the maze for pain and torment, and I must know if she’s tried to do the same at the well. If yes, follow your best judgment to dismantle anything she left.”
“Can we touch the well?” Taigan asked.
“You should be able to, although I wouldn’t swim in it. The real danger comes if you try to draw power from it—which I’ll ask you to do.”
“I, uh…” She looked at Jamie, then at Yulia.
“There are stones in the well,” the woman told them briskly. “They hold some of the well’s power but more than that, they hold some of its signature—the mark of the forest. It’s difficult to explain but necessary to harness its power.”
“And it’s dangerous to pick them up,” he clarified.
“It can be, yes, so I’ve made this spell for you to recite before you attempt it.” She handed them a slip of paper. Syllables were written out, some emphasized with an underline. “Try saying that. The girl first.”
She made them both repeat it, time after time, until she was satisfied.
“What does it say?” Taigan asked.
“It tells the forest that you are doing my bidding,” Yulia explained. “It tells it, too, that you were the ones who freed the animals at the maze. It says you are not seeking power for yourselves but instead, to help many to stand in the way of a threat. It is the kind of thing a forest likes—the image of humans standing together like a grove. Not to mention that it is true, and the forest values that.”
The girl hesitated. “What if it hurts us?”
“It will make it clear if it does not want you to touch it,” the woman said dryly. “That, I can assure you. Try the speech again if so, but if it will not allow you, come back.”
“Right.” Taigan folded the piece of paper and put it in the pouch at her waist. “Should we go now?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Is the forest not safe at night?” Jamie asked worriedly.
“It’s as safe as it is during the day,” Yulia said with surprising patience, “but humans are a damned sight more jumpy at night, and the last thing I need is one of you doing something stupid. You’ll stay here, have a proper breakfast, and set out with the day.”
Taigan nodded. She found herself wracked by indecision and she was not sure why. “Why are you helping us?” she asked finally, the words bursting out of her.
The woman looked at her for a long moment. Then, she moved closer to smooth her hair back and stare deeply into her eyes. “Because you have a strange, muddled idea of what a hero is,” she said finally. Her voice was gentle. “All your life, dreaming of being someone else, someone who wasn’t tied to a place, half a world away already in your heart so you could shed the ties more easily when the time came.”
She trembled, her face caught between the woman’s hands.
“If you’re to heal,” Yulia told her, “you must bring yourself home. You must see what it is to be a hero and be one for the right reasons. You have the instincts and the courage, girl, but unless you’re fighting for something, you’ll heal but only for your life to be wasted.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ben followed Gwyna into the shadowy interior of the caves. Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see there was a good deal of light. This filtered from cracks in the rock above to light the hallways and caverns and dust danced in the shafts of light.
It was impossible to forget that someone lived there. Tiny alcoves in the rock had been fixed with candles, and all the tiny traces of dust that came from human living were visible—threads, bits of grass, and a few now-dried, muddy footprints from a wet day. From somewhere ahead, he could hear the crackle of a fire and smell food—nothing fancy, but enough to make his stomach grumble. It was homier than he had expected.
He was surprised, therefore, when they rounded a corner and came into a cavern with no light of its own and—in the dim glow from the hallway—not a single piece of furniture or scrap of decoration.
Behind him, stone scraped on stone and everything descended into blackness.
A wave of fear washed over him, cold and then hot. Did she know the truth? Did she bring him there to kill him? He drew his sword without thinking.
Laughter echoed in the small room. “You think a sword will keep me at bay?” Between her moving and the echo of her voice off every stone wall, he could not tell where she was.
Ben didn’t answer her. Every sense was turned toward locating her and moving as quietly as he could in the meantime. He didn’t know what powers her magic gave her. Could she see in the dark? He would have to find out.
It was something of an unsettling thought and he wasn’t sure what he’d do about it if he did find out, but a tiny scuff from his left told him that was where she was. He turned in that direction and backed slowly away.
He reminded himself mentally to deny everything before he opened his mouth. “You’ve trapped me here with you. Why?”
“Why do you think?” She was enjoying this, that much was clear.
What would someone say if they had come searching for a teacher?
“You aren’t truly a witch at all, are you?” he asked. He could feel himself splitting in two—the part that needed to stay separate and watch all this unfold and the part t
hat descended into the character of the scared apprentice mage. “You lure people here to kill them and you hate people who have magic.” He shook his head. “But I saw you transform. I don’t understand.”
She was close to him and he felt her warmth and her hands as they pushed the sword aside and traveled up his chest and down his arms.
“Try again,” she whispered in his ear. “What else might I want?”
Ben was standing stock still when her fingers reached his hands. With one quick twist, she slid the iron ring off him and was gone again with a light laugh.
“Let’s see who you are,” Gwyna said. “Truly—when the iron chains are gone. Fight me. Prove you’re worthy of being here.”
Her first blast of magic caught him in the chest. It was a blaze of flame that spread to coat his skin. He flailed and yelled. The sword heated in his hands until he could no longer hold it. He threw it aside with a curse and cried out as he slapped at the flames that would not stop spreading.
Unlike the sword, the flames weren’t hot. He held a hand up to look at them flickering on them and frowned when they disappeared in the next moment. The room was pitch-dark once again.
“So you can distinguish between a true threat and an illusion,” Gwyna said. “It’s the first test, and the easiest one—and know this, apprentice. Most do not survive their training.”
The next spell she threw at him went through his chest like a spear, so real in its sensation that he cried out and pressed his hands to a wound that did not exist. His hands patted the flesh repeatedly and pressed against his sternum. He could still feel where the spear had traveled and he feared that he was bleeding internally.
What was happening was slower—a creep of cold that spread through each bone. His teeth chattered and his torso seized with shudders. He bent to grasp the sword and could barely do so. His fingers were cold as well and could not close easily. He stumbled and fell, and his unprotected fingers closed around the blade instead of the hilt. Panicked, he screamed.
“You want a blade to fight me?” Gwyna said contemptuously. “Fight me with magic.”
“I don’t know how to use magic!” He cradled his fingers to his chest. Were they bleeding? He couldn’t tell and the darkness made it difficult to know where any of his body was. “I told you, I’ve never used it.”
“You should use it now,” she warned him. “If you don’t end the spell, you’ll be dead in a few minutes.”
He could believe it. It hurt so badly. Muscles seized and jumped. His fingers ached dully. “I…don’t know how.” His voice was rough and guttural from pain.
“There’s no how to it, apprentice—open the floodgates and save your damned life!”
“I don’t know how!” Ben yelled. Rage threatened to erupt and he clamped it down. “I came here for training and you’re…you’re…” His teeth chattered too hard for him to make out words.
“You were so close.” There was a swell of warmth behind him. “The power was there. Reach for it, I can see it like a tidal wave inside you.”
How did she expect him to do this without any training? He was angry again. Right now, he could not remember a time when he had not been angry. He could remember the turn of every job and every relationship, the constant frustrations, and the way he had tried to stick it out while the anger spread like a fire through every part of his life.
“Open the door and let me go. I won’t be your apprentice.”
“That door opens when you prove yourself, one way or another.” There was no give in her voice. “You show me that you can be my apprentice, or you show me that you’re too weak-willed and dangerous to be alive, and I take care of the problem. Show me your answer.”
“Let me go!” He had found the place where the door should be and he drove his body against it with all the force he could summon. The rock was surely an illusion, but it didn’t feel like one. His shoulder exploded in pain and he hissed through his teeth as the motion jarred his injured fingers against the hilt of the sword.
She said nothing and he felt as if he were drowning in rage. This was not where it would end. It couldn’t be.
But how was he supposed to keep that from happening? He slid down the wall with tears of anger trickling from his eyes and down his cheeks in little lines of fire. He was dying, but his anger would keep him warm while he did.
All that anger, always trying to outrun it, and in the end, it was the only thing left with him. He could see that now. Whatever you devoted your life to, that was what was there at the end.
The chill was everywhere—so cold that it didn’t even feel cold anymore. He had the sense that he should be dead, and maybe he was. The only place that hurt was around the core of him, at the barrier between cold and hot, magic and anger.
Could anger fight magic?
His eyes opened into the darkness. You were so close. That was what Gwyna had said.
What if his anger was magic?
The fury welled inside him, burning hot—the tidal wave she had mentioned—and it took all his courage not to run from it. For his entire life, he had turned his back on the things that made him angry. He didn’t want to be angry.
It had never occurred to him that he could channel it. What he was doing now—getting close to using the anger—seemed wrong to him on every level.
On the other hand, he would never have a better opportunity. If the worst happened—if he lost control entirely—the only person he would hurt was the one who turned vulnerable people into monsters.
Also, she would kill him if he didn’t use his magic. He shouldn’t forget that part.
Ben took one more breath into his aching lungs and let the power loose in a flood.
Heat and light burst through the room. It was as bright as sunlight and as forceful as magma. It couldn’t hurt him, not his own power, but he heard Gwyna cry out. In that one, euphoric moment, he even found it in himself to hope that he had done it. If she was dead, there would be no more wondering and no more worrying.
The conflagration cleared, however, to show her still standing. The waves of energy beat against a shield she had made for herself. She regarded him through narrowed eyes, her arms folded, and tapped one set of fingers against the other arm.
“So you can use it.”
“I thought it was…something else,” he said lamely and thought for a moment. “Although, all things considered, I’m glad I didn’t ever let loose with it before.”
“Really?” She frowned.
“I could have hurt people.” It took a moment for him to remember that his anger wasn’t magic in the outside world. He wouldn’t have hurt his parents, Mike, or Eve. Still, he was glad he hadn’t used the magic in this world, either.
“You would have hurt someone who threatened you,” Gwyna said simply. “And then you would be free of your old life, never able to go back. It sounds like a curse but believe me, it’s a blessing. So many choose to repress what they are and they waste years trying to conform to a society that will never revere them as it should.”
“Uh…huh.” Ben was distracted. He poked his body to make sure there wasn’t a spear wound. There wasn’t, but the cuts on his hands, unfortunately, were real. “Can you heal these?”
“I could but I won’t.” She raised an eyebrow in the fading light of his spell. “Let it be a lesson to you to not seek out paltry ways of doing things. It might even aid you in learning magic. Some of the most powerful mages are those who society considers weak. They use their powers because they cannot rely on brute force.”
He flattened his hand against his chest and watched her as she gestured for the stone to open and allow them into the corridor. The sudden wash of sunlight made his eyes ache.
As he followed her, he thought about Yulia’s words. The old witch had said there was nothing particularly noteworthy about her, and he wondered now if that was what made her so dangerous. She wasn’t a melodramatic supervillain, hiding in a secret lair and sweeping around in a cape and headdress.
&
nbsp; Gwyna was someone who viewed the world entirely logically and from a position of complete self-interest and reverence of magic. She thought it would be better if he had killed his family and come to her on the run because he would then never be tempted to return to a world where he had to hide his powers.
What unsettled him was that she wasn’t passionate or unhinged. On the contrary, she spoke after quiet consideration.
That, to him, seemed far more dangerous than monologues and vendettas. A vendetta, at least, bound someone to the world. What was to stop her, however, from deciding tomorrow that all of Heffog should be under her control? She’d already put most of its nobles under her sway, and it would be easy enough to turn their minds away from Kerill’s purpose and to her own.
She might do anything without caring who it hurt.
That made him shiver as he followed her.
Chapter Fifteen
He woke the next morning, shivering in the dawn air, with a soft coating of dew on his hair and his clothes. Everything was damp. Ben sat with a wince—his neck had a crick in it and his entire back seemed to be sore—and looked around.
It remained unclear whether Gwyna had any other apprentices but he hadn’t seen any. He seemed to be the only other person there and he also realized that she did not intend to teach him any magic in short order.
The rest of the day before had been spent hauling water from the lake in two heavy buckets. The task was extraordinarily painful with his injured hand, and when he finally finished and thought to ask why he’d been sent for it, she informed him that she wanted to take a bath.
He’d been treated to a glimpse of her quarters, which were quite luxuriously decorated with expensive carpets and a fire in a magical hearth before she sent him to sweep the kitchens and prepare something for dinner.
Assuming this hardship was part of her priming him for his training, he’d done it with relative goodwill. That had faded considerably when he saw his sleeping quarters—a room of bare rock with no place for a fire and a sliver of open sky showing through the crack in the ceiling. He had only his cloak for a blanket and it was not enough to keep out the night’s chill.
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