“No, Sibba,” Tola commanded, the tone willing Sibba to obey. “You will not die on me.”
But her breath was gone, and her chest felt achingly empty. She blinked once, bringing Tola into focus. Her eyebrows were knitted together and the kohl around her eyes was smeared down her cheeks. Her thin lips were twisted into a grimace. Sibba opened her mouth to say something—anything—but then shadows crept in around the edges of her vision, and she knew no more.
✽ ✽ ✽
Something heavy lay across her legs and someone was picking at her hair. Light from an unknown source fell across her face, burning her eyelids. Sibba groaned and shifted, surprised to hear her voice, surprised to be alive at all. Her eyes opened; above her, the rafters of the barn crisscrossed, rising into darkness. There was a shuffling sound to her left and she turned to it, blinking in the light that seeped through a crack in the open barn door.
Aeris took a step back and turned her head to the side, her wide, golden eye circling wildly. The bird made a curious, quiet noise and then began preening her feathers as if to say, My work here is done.
Sibba pushed herself up on her elbows and looked at her lap. Tola was sprawled there, her red hair cutting lines across Sibba’s legs. The face that had been screwed up in worry was now relaxed and smooth. Both of them were covered in blood and grime, and the pleasant scent of roses and eir leaf had given way once more to the tang of blood and vomit. Sibba’s hand wandered to her side, where the ax had cut her, and there was only the feel of thin new skin, an indent that she traced with her fingers.
There were sounds outside, footsteps and voices, quiet but still audible. Servants tending to the morning chores. You’re going to have to get us out of here. Us. What was the consequence of stealing a vala from her master? There was no time to wonder. It was now or never. Tola had done her part, had kept Sibba alive, and now it was up to Sibba to get them out of there.
She struggled to her feet, weak but steady, and approached a horse nearest to her, hand extended. The horse nuzzled her palm, looking for a treat, while Sibba slipped a bridle over his head, the bit going easily into his mouth. It was a docile creature, but strong and tall. They would both fit easily in the curve of his back. She led him out of his stall and to the door, and then hoisted the dormant Tola onto his back, draping her arms around the horse’s neck.
Opening the barn door the rest of the way, Sibba peeked out. The sun was just rising to her left, and the path south looked clear. They weren’t far from the southern gate, and the sentries looked sluggish and slow in the early morning light.
“All right,” Sibba said to no one in particular, preparing to pull herself onto the horse’s back. But then Aeris made a noise and Sibba looked around to where she stood. Beside her on the ground was Tola’s staff. Sibba hesitated. Could she touch it? Would something happen to her? To Tola? But she couldn’t leave it here.
She scolded herself for her silliness. Of course nothing would happen. It was just a stick. But then her hand touched her side. Wasn’t it? She picked up the staff and swung up onto the horse behind Tola, wrapping her arms around the vala’s small waist. The horse’s coat was slick beneath her, but she had been riding her whole life. She squeezed her legs to hold them steady, bracing herself for pain that never came. Tola had made thorough work of her healing, however she had done it.
“Hey!” The shout came from the door and a servant appeared carrying a pail of slop, looking up at them on the horse’s back. “What do you think you’re doing?” The door was wide open behind him and Sibba kicked. The horse surged forward and the servant threw himself to the side to avoid being trampled, the slop spilling over the edge of the bucket. He was shouting, but Sibba couldn’t hear. She was already gone.
The horse barreled down a small alley and she urged him left, through a yard and around a group of women carrying water buckets. The women flung curses at her back as the horse kicked up dirt, and then shouted in surprise when Aeris skimmed over their heads. They were almost at the gate. The sentries had noticed her but hadn’t quite understood yet. The gate was still open and she was under it before the first guard sounded the alarm, and several yards away before the first volley of arrows thunked harmlessly in the ground around her.
✽ ✽ ✽
She slowed the horse to a walk only when she was sure they weren’t being pursued. When Tola began to stir, they stopped at a creek and dismounted. Sibba broke the frozen top layer with the ax handle and Tola drank deeply from the chilled water beneath. When she had her fill and leaned back against a nearby tree, Sibba drank, too, then sat back on her heels and looked down at herself.
She was disgusting. There was no sense denying it. She listened for a moment; there was only the sound of Tola’s shallow breathing and a gentle breeze rustling bare branches. Satisfied that the Endar guards had written her off as nothing more than a common thief not worth pursuing, she pulled her shirt over her head and examined it. It had been a deep blue once but now was brown with dirt and dried blood. She put it to the side and used her cupped hands to splash water over her torso. The scar was long and jagged. She brought a hand up to her cheek and wondered if it was just as ugly.
Tola was beside her suddenly, her frigid fingers covering Sibba’s, pressing their hands against her cheek. “Who did this?”
“Evenon,” Sibba answered, the name bitter on her lips. She should have known. She never should have let herself trust him.
Tola grunted and leaned back, her eyes focused on some spot over Sibba's head. “I should have known,” she said, echoing Sibba's own thoughts. “I felt the darkness around him but we all have our darkness, don’t we?” Tola was absentmindedly scrubbing at Sibba’s back with wet hands, working up to her shoulders until they were in her hair, picking at spots of something. Gods, was she picking out vomit?
Sibba's teeth chattered together as a chilled breeze froze the water on her skin, but she managed to say, “My fault. You…you saved me. What did you do?”
“I healed you with my energy. Some people call it spirit-healing.”
“Spirit?”
Tola bent to examine the scar. Sibba shivered again, but not because of the cold this time. “That’s what valas are meant to do,” Tola said almost absently. Lithe fingers pressed against her abdomen. The fine, downy hair on Tola’s arms tickled the sensitive skin there. “Use our connection with the spirits to heal, not harm. But my mother and Chief Grimsson have corrupted our way of life. That is why I feel I must come with you.”
“Why?”
“Estrid told me everything. Where you’re going and why. I will help you, but you have to take me with you when you leave the Fields.”
“Why me?” Sibba asked.
“Because I think you have the power to make a difference. You saw me. You called to me. You survived.”
Together they worked to clean her up, and then she reluctantly slipped back into the dirty shirt. There was no time to wash it, and she had lost her spare on the Malstrom.
“Come on,” Tola said. “We have to find Estrid.” Tola hauled her to her feet. Though Tola was as tall as Sibba, she was much thinner, her arms bony and straining beneath Sibba's weight.
“It will be dangerous,” Sibba said, stepping away from Tola and gathering up the stolen horse’s reins. “Especially with Evenon working against us, and your mother in Ydurgat.”
“But it will be less dangerous for you with a vala at your side. I may not agree with my mother’s methods, but I am no less powerful.”
Sibba swung herself onto the horse’s bare back and then reached down for Tola. The vala stared up at her. Her eyes were a shocking green in the light of the noon-day sun. When she put her fingers in Sibba’s hand, Sibba felt something light in some deep, hidden place inside of her. Tola was sturdy enough to hang on now, so she slid on behind Sibba and wrapped her arms around her waist, her hands meeting just at the scar on Sibba’s abdomen. It felt like flint striking metal, then a spark became a flame, burning in her belly.
✽ ✽ ✽
They rode through the afternoon, reaching the forest just as night fell and the moon, driven by its god, Narchos, eternally searching for his lover, Fusilis of the sun, peeked over the eastern ridge before they disappeared into a copse of trees. It wasn't until they were several yards into the darkness that the flickering light of a fire came into view. A figure rose in alarm and then sagged with relief. Estrid dropped the stick she had been using to poke at the kindling and came forward to wrap Sibba in her arms.
“What happened?” Estrid asked, pulling back and guiding Sibba to the fireside. “I saw you leave with Evenon and I thought”—she paused, flushing—“well, I didn't think this.” She lifted a hand to Sibba's bloody shirt.
On the other side of the fire, two horses were saddled and tethered to a tree, their heads drooping in sleep. Sibba’s eyes followed Tola as she led their horse to the others, wrapping its reins around a low tree branch. Estrid pulled Sibba down to sit beside her beside the fire, leaning her raven-haired head on Sibba’s shoulder. Tola came and sat on her other side, her face illuminated by the dancing sparks from the fire. The three of them huddled close together for warmth.
Sibba closed her eyes. She had to talk, to say something, to keep her mind off of the fact that she was sandwiched between these two, her heart racing almost audibly in her chest. “His brother is the man I killed,” she said, flinching away from the cold rag on her cheek. Estrid jerked upright, her hands flying to her mouth to hold in a gasp. “He wanted revenge,” Sibba said simply, leaving out the crown and the vague details about the Malstrom family. If Darcey was a Malstrom, that meant she was a Malstrom and that someone across the Impassable Strait wanted her dead. She didn’t want to dwell on that, or how close to death she had truly come.
“Where did he go?” Estrid asked.
“To Ydurgat, to find a way across the Impassable Strait.”
“Across the Strait? Why?”
“He was going home. And he stole something from me—something that belonged to my mother.” It hadn’t occurred to her until just then how much the loss of the circlet meant. It was the last thing she had held onto, the last clue she had into her mother’s past and her own history. “I’ll never see it again. She is lost to me forever.”
“Not if we stop him first,” Tola said. During the course of the conversation, she had scooted closer to Sibba until she was flush against her, leg to leg, arm to arm. Not a breath of wind sneaked between them. On her other side, Estrid had buried herself deep in her furs. Warmth radiated off of the trio in their own little pocket of the forest.
Sibba thought about her options. They could continue on to Ydurgat as if nothing had happened. Evenon thought she was dead and he would tell Chief Isgerd that. The chief would think she had time to spare before her father’s next rescue attempt. Maybe that would be the best choice, but it felt wrong to Sibba. It felt incomplete. She wanted to catch Evenon; she wanted her revenge. Maybe she was Fielding after all. Tola shivered, shaking the log they sat on, and Estrid leaned forward, stoking the fire with a long stick that sat nearby. Stretching an arm out beneath her cloak, Sibba wrapped it around Tola’s shoulders and squeezed.
“He's long gone,” Sibba said in response to Tola's optimism, trying to ignore the way the vala fit perfectly against her side.
“We'll see about that.” Tola dug in a drawstring pouch at her belt, then paused and looked over at Sibba. They were so close that Sibba felt Tola’s breath on her lips. “We can catch him if you want.”
Estrid looked back at them, the fire lighting one side of her face. A horse nickered and overhead, branches rustled. Aeris, Sibba though absently. She saw Estrid’s eyes flick to her hand on Tola’s shoulder.
“I do want to,” Sibba admitted. “But how?”
Withdrawing a pinch of something like dried leaves, Tola threw them onto the fire and then dropped to her knees. Cold air wrapped itself around Sibba’s side where Tola had been, and she tucked her arm back into herself, feeling suddenly very small. The fire flared and bellowed blue smoke into the air. With her eyes closed, Tola leaned forward and inhaled sharply. Estrid pulled the neck of her dress up over her mouth and nose, and Sibba followed suit with the collar of her tunic.
There was a change in the air as if all of nature turned to their camp and focused its attention on the vala. The trees, the horses, even Estrid, faded away and Tola was sandwiched between the eerie glow of the firelight and the creeping shadows behind her. She began to chant in her deep voice, words that Sibba didn't recognize but rather felt deep in her bones. It reminded her of Evenon’s tattoos—something she should recognize but that had been long forgotten. A chill raced up her spine when Tola threw back her head and spread her arms wide, blue smoke streaming from her mouth. Sibba wanted to go to her, to shake her out of her trance, to make sure that she was okay, but she was stuck, less able to move from her spot by the fire than she had been when she was frozen on the barn floor.
She closed her eyes and was struck with an image of a small beast running through the woods, four legs scampering quickly and confidently over roots and leaves, great tusks protruding over lips. There was the sound of heavy breathing, a squeal, ragged snorting, a scuffle in the leaves. And there was pain. Sibba pressed a hand to her stomach but didn’t—couldn’t—open her eyes. There was pain, and there was a hand on rough skin, and blood. So much blood.
Sibba’s eyes shot open, the iron taste of blood in her mouth. All at once, the fire swelled and then died, leaving only smoldering black sticks in a circle of hot rocks. Tola fell to her knees in a cloud of black skirts and red hair, and Sibba was freed from her trance. She rushed forward, wrapping an arm around Tola's back. There was a rush of energy that set Sibba's arm to trembling and then Tola pushed herself up to her knees.
Sibba leaned back. “What was that? Are you okay?” she asked.
Tola ignored her and instead lifted her eyes to the tall trees around them. She raised an arm and extended a finger, pointing into the canopy. Sibba followed the slope of her arm to a bare branch high above them, to a flash of golden and white feathers.
“He won’t be going anywhere now. We'll follow the bird. Aeris will show us the way,” Tola said, a small smile on her lips before she collapsed sideways into Sibba's waiting arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rayne
Unfortunately for Rayne, the Orabel garden was a popular spot. The mild southern weather and the way the abundant flowers masked the permeating fish smell meant that it was always teeming with people. Most of them avoided the sorrow tree in favor of the more classically beautiful flowers, but she didn't want to risk anyone seeing her anywhere near the leaves that would kill her sister, and so she stayed away, biding her time.
Her days were full of Edlyn. She knew that it would only make things harder, but staying away was impossible. They talked about the lives they had led before Madlin's death. It was cathartic for Rayne to remember those better times that had been forbidden when she was in Shade. But they both avoided everything that came after—Madlin's death or the five years that separated it from the present. It was as if their memories held a blank, Madlin-shaped void that neither of them dared to fill.
Though her time with Edlyn brought her close to Prince Danyll many times, Tierri was conspicuously absent since his admission to her. She could only assume it was for the same reason that she didn’t want to be seen near the sorrow tree—the less association with her, the better. She hoped it wasn’t more than that. There had been a strained silence between them after she learned his surname, and it had morphed into her apologizing meekly and him waving her off as if the fact that her family had annihilated his meant absolutely nothing.
Edlyn told Rayne about how he and his family had been discovered hiding on their estate, which had been presumed abandoned. His grandfather was the Malstrom king's brother and Captain of the king's guard, and his execution—as well as those of Tierri's parents, high ranking Malstrom nobility—had been
public displays of power. But Tierri and his sister hadn't been so lucky as to die. Tierri's little sister had been sent to a brothel in the Far Lands in exchange for an exorbitant sum, and Tierri—whose elemental powers far exceeded any of those currently in the Hail army—was bound and given as a dowry to the Ashsky prince, who had been extorting that power ever since.
“He collects them,” Edlyn had told her, her voice low as they bent over a game of chess. Danyll was across the room with a book open in his lap, his head drooping in sleep. The fact that he was relaxing his guard gave Rayne a bit more confidence. Edlyn glanced at him with an affectionate half-smile that Rayne had a hard time imagining could ever be directed at the Danyll she knew.
“Collects what?” Rayne asked.
“Wielders.” Edlyn moved one of her white pieces forward two spaces. Rayne jumped her knight and claimed it. “You wouldn’t believe how many sources of power he has. But Tierri is the strongest of them all.”
“Did he not have magic of his own?”
Edlyn’s eyes slid sideways and then her voice dropped even lower. “He’s a mediocre spellwielder at best. But having elemental wielders bound to him…I once saw him suffocate a man without lifting a finger, stole the air right out of his lungs.” She squeezed her fist as if in demonstration.
Rayne swallowed nervously, then thought of Tierri, who had used his power over the wind to fill sails. She remembered the breeze on her skin like gentle fingers. “And you love him still?” she asked.
Edlyn moved another pawn and Rayne saw her plan. She thought Rayne would move to take the pawn as she had done before and leave her king open for slaughter. Was she that predictable? That aggressive? “Love,” Edlyn quipped, her eyes on the board, giving away nothing. “Human connections are so limited here, behind my closed door. Certainly, I admire him for bettering himself in preparation to rule this country. I appreciate him for dedicating his life to my protection. How do I know if it’s love or not?”
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