Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL)

by Archer, Jill

  The five of us (six, if you counted Virtus) huddled around the small fire Ari and I had made, while Delgato continued his odd slumber off to one side. The geese and swans were roasting on spits and the sun was just beginning its descent. I’d started to nervously eye the grass again, half expecting to see a crocodile or snake head emerge. The cynical, fatalistic part of me had to admit it would be pretty funny if, after all I’d been through, I died from an attack by something as mundane as a nonmagical swamp beast. But then I thought of Athalie, the girl from the Shallows whose demon complaint had started this whole journey.

  No, there was nothing funny at all about being lost in the swamp for her, I thought, glancing around at my surroundings. If the girl was still alive, I was going to find her.

  “I still want to try and find the Shallows,” I blurted out.

  Five sets of eyes turned toward me. I was happy to see that no one looked angry about the suggestion, even Russ, although Virtus just looked hungry. He quickly shifted his gaze from me to the swans.

  “You know we have no map, right?” Ari said, pointing out the obvious. I nodded and he continued. “And you know there’s no way of knowing where we are, except that we’re probably, hopefully, still somewhere in the Lethe’s river delta.” I nodded again. (If we weren’t still in the delta, we weren’t in Halja anymore, and I don’t think any of us wanted to consider that possibility.)

  “And you know the delta’s over a hundred miles wide?”

  This time I took more time to nod. I knew what Ari was saying. It could take the rest of our lives, or at least the better part of our youth, to find the Shallows. But I couldn’t give up. If there was even the smallest chance we could still reach the Shallows and find Athalie, or prevent further disappearances, then I was determined to try.

  I was also beginning to think that not only might Grimasca be real, but he was probably the demon who was behind both the hellcnight attacks on us and the disappearances in the Shallows. The fact that both demon complaints named him as a suspect combined with the fact that we’d been attacked twice by hellcnights on the way to investigate those complaints was too much of a coincidence to ignore. I shared my thoughts with the group. No one argued, but no one looked particularly convinced either.

  “I felt the waning magic blur too,” Ari said. “Just before Burr was attacked.”

  “That’s the other thing,” I said, pausing because I was much less sure of my analysis with respect to this part of my hypothesis. “I was talking to Burr yesterday about Grimasca.” I dug in the sand with a stick, hardly believing I’d sat in Delgato’s room with Burr only yesterday. “Burr said his mother told him Grimasca’s mate had been a big, black river serpent. Sound familiar? Burr believed Grimasca killed his mate. Well, I think Grimasca’s mate may have been Ebony and that’s why Grimasca’s hellcnights can impersonate her at the Elbow.”

  This last theory of mine was met with varying degrees of skepticism. Russ had never even heard of Grimasca (I guess his mother, like Aurelia Onyx and Joy Carmine, had not felt it necessary to terrify young Russ with the stories of Luck’s hungry, serpent-loving, spy assassin in order to make him go to bed).

  “Why does it matter what Burr’s mother thought?” asked Ari. “Why are her thoughts so much more important than Tosca’s mother’s or Mercator’s or Sasha’s?”

  I told them Burr’s mother had been Alba the Second. “The Albas and their onions go way back. If an Alba is saying something is true, I’m at least going to seriously consider it.”

  No one spoke as they digested this new information. Rafe, for once, seemed to be paying attention to the discussion, even if he wasn’t actively participating.

  Ari frowned. “Weren’t you the one who said you wouldn’t execute a demon based on the words revealed to you by ‘one tiny vegetable’?”

  “I still wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t ever use a black onion either. In fact”—I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the onion—“we can use this to find the Shallows.” I held it up so that everyone could see it. Then I neatly tossed it in the air and caught it again. I was just about to peel it when Russ stopped me.

  “Save it,” he said. “Once night falls, I think I can figure out where we are.” He pulled two small instruments and a tiny leather-bound notebook out of his pocket.

  “What are those?” I asked. “Navigational tools?”

  Russ nodded. “Sextant, chronometer, almanac,” he said, pointing to each in turn.

  I grinned at him, ready to cling to any good news, even if it was news that we now had the tools to tell us we were a hundred miles off course.

  * * *

  Later that night, after the geese and swans had been eaten and the fire banked, Russ announced that, with all the tall grass surrounding us on land, the best place for him to see the horizon would be from the middle of the river. Ari volunteered to go with him, both as oarsman to keep the boat still while Russ made his calculations, and as protection should something nasty pop up out of the water. Of course, this possibility prompted Fara to declare that she too was going, which naturally meant that either Virtus would go or that he’d wait for her return caterwauling at the water’s edge. Neither of those options suited, so after a brief verbal scuffle, it was decided that, oath or no, Fara and Virtus would stay behind.

  Fara and I stood on the shallow, sandy beach of the river’s edge, watching Ari row Russ out. As soon as they’d left, Rafe had flopped down on the ground in between Virtus and Delgato. The three of them were now sprawled behind us in various states of consciousness.

  Whichever tributary this was, it was about a mile or so wide here. Luckily, it was a clear night. Similar to last night, when we’d dined alfresco on the deck of the dahabiya, I was once again struck by how beauty could find one at the oddest moments. The black silhouette of two young muscled men rowing a dinghy amongst the soft silvery moonlit waves was . . . well, a magical sight. But then the image of Ebony’s posthumous, gaping black and red maw rising out of the water just before the hellcnight who’d been impersonating her clamped down on Burr’s leg and dragged him under ruined my peaceful reverie. I reached into my pocket and withdrew Burr’s filleting knife. I was just about to make a shallow cut on my palm as an offering to Estes for Ari and Russ’ safety when Fara placed her hand over mine.

  “They’ll be fine,” she said with quiet conviction.

  I paused and looked up at her. I realized she hadn’t quoted the Book once since we’d passed through the Elbow.

  “What happened back there?” I said, pointing behind me, toward the still-bubbling spot in the river. “Why did you throw your Book of Joshua into the water?”

  What I really wanted to ask was whether that book had saved us. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear the answer.

  “Noon, did anything unusual happen to you when you passed through Ebony’s Elbow?”

  Besides surviving? I thought, but didn’t say. I knew what she meant. The memory grafts. Or rather, the memory lifts and grafts. Because, even though the soreness was going away, it still felt like a part of my memory was missing. That there was something I should be able to remember but couldn’t, because it was gone. And when I tried to remember it, all I could remember was Rafe’s brother’s funeral, which was sad and weird and disturbing. I shouldn’t be able to remember that.

  What had Alba said to me in her café the day of Jezebeth’s execution? That Hyrkes liked to have a little fun with magic too. Really? Did they have any idea how warped and twisted magic could actually be? I shook my head.

  “Yeah,” I confided to Fara. “I now remember something I shouldn’t.”

  But, surprisingly, she smiled at me. “Exactly. Me too.” She looked at me expectantly, but there was no way I was going to share Rafe’s memory with her. Just the fact that I possessed it made me feel like I’d somehow betrayed the fragile trust that had started to develop between Rafe and me.

  “After finals last semester,” Fara said, “you and Ari hi
ked out to Lucifer’s Tomb. You remember finding Lucifer’s Tomb, right?”

  I nodded emphatically, remembering the stormy night Peter Aster and I had discovered Lucifer’s Tomb. Locating it had been a momentous occasion with professional and personal repercussions for both Peter and me. I couldn’t imagine a trip down a watery rabbit hole would erase that memory. But did that mean the memory that had been erased was even more meaningful? I scrambled to remember a late-semester hike out to the tomb with Ari and couldn’t.

  “I don’t remember it,” I croaked, worried. What had happened then? And what did it have to do with Fara tossing her Book in the river? But Fara looked anything but worried. She looked . . . invigorated.

  “When you and Ari hiked out to the tomb, you went with a purpose: to bring life back to the land around it. You went to try to remove the blight from Armageddon’s battlefield.”

  I looked at her blankly. “I did? And did I?”

  Fara laughed, somewhat giddily, remembering my memory. “Yes! Lucem in tenebras ferimus, Noon. Or rather, lucem in tenebras tulisti.”

  “Into the darkness, we bring light?” It was what Ari had said to me the first time we’d lit a bonfire together with our magic. “I brought light?”

  She nodded excitedly. “Right! Well, you brought fire.”

  “I used waning magic to bring something back to life?” The tone of my voice conveyed just how preposterous I found the whole idea.

  “No, of course not!” Fara laughed so hard that Rafe looked over. He removed his arm from where he’d flung it across his eyes and peeked over at us. Sufficiently reassured that we weren’t being attacked by demons or monstrous reptilian swamp creatures, he turned the other way. But by now I was well and truly vexed with Fara.

  “Just tell me what happened,” I said.

  “You lit a bonfire, Noon.”

  “So what?”

  “On ground that hadn’t seen fire for two millennia, since Armageddon! But you know what’s even more remarkable?”

  I just stared at her, desperately wishing she didn’t have an Angel’s love for All Things Dramatic.

  “You didn’t use magic. You used faith! Well, faith and a match.” She cleared her throat. “But that’s how I knew. How to save us from Ebony and the Elbow. I used faith and a book. The Book.”

  It was then that I realized Fara was waiting for me to remember. She thought that by telling me about the experience, it would somehow trigger its return. But the memory was gone. It was like it had never happened. And now whatever I’d learned from it resided in someone else’s memory. Fara’s. Where she’d used it to save our lives.

  If indeed that’s what had happened. I had my doubts. Apparently, Fara now had my faith. Well, she could keep it.

  I patted her shoulder. “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “And for saving us.”

  She gave me a wicked smile and then snickered. “The bonfire wasn’t exactly the hottest part of the memory.”

  Virtus saved me from responding. He walked over and sat down next to Fara, rubbing his head against her leg for a pat. Fara gave Virtus what he wanted, sighing contentedly and gazing out across the river toward the silhouetted skiff. Ari and Russ were still at it. I glanced back at Rafe, who still had his arm draped across his eyes.

  How much of our discussion had he heard?

  I pressed my lips together. Time to give him back his memory.

  Chapter 19

  I took a seat next to Rafe’s sprawled form. Now was as good a time as any. I didn’t know when we’d have a chance to be alone again. I sensed instinctively from the mood of the memory that it wasn’t something he’d ever shared with anyone. Tentatively, I reached out to touch Rafe’s silver bracelet. The moment my hand made contact, he started. Sometimes I forgot he couldn’t sense me the way Ari could. He couldn’t have been sleeping, right? He sat up and crossed his legs together, facing me on the ground. I looked at Delgato’s sleeping form and then Fara’s back over at the water’s edge and then into Rafe’s eyes.

  Maybe he didn’t want the memory back. It wasn’t as if it was a happy one. Why had Fara been given a memory that galvanized her, invigorated her, made her laugh? Whereas I’d been given one that was infinitely sad and heartbreaking? Each of the moments seemed significant, defining even. But why had the magic of Ebony’s Elbow worked the way it had? Legend said that Ebony gave her memory of how to get home to her wandering lover so that he could find his way back to her. It was a romantically fictitious tale for a creature that’d been horridly real. And yet . . . was the tale that hard to believe? What if Ebony’s lover had been Grimasca? Maybe Alba the Second’s story was true. Maybe Grimasca accidentally bit Ebony and she drowned in the Elbow. It didn’t excuse Grimasca from any sins he’d committed, but it did cause me to feel just the slightest pang of sympathy for the two doomed lovers. If Ari’s destiny was to wander Halja’s hinterlands, wouldn’t I give him anything, even my most cherished memory, in the hope that he might somehow use it to find his way back to me?

  I thought about the Field Guide’s advice for passing through Ebony’s Elbow unharmed. What if the contributor who’d written about using an anchor to save himself hadn’t been writing about ship anchors? What if he’d been writing about memories? The types of memories that define us, anchor us, and make us who we are. Apparently the rushing white water in the bend of Ebony’s Elbow took our “anchor memories” away and gave them to someone else.

  Why? Who knew?

  I only knew I had to try to give Rafe’s anchor memory back, even if it was one he might be better off without.

  In the bluish black of night, Rafe’s taupe eyes appeared darker than usual, almost iron gray. He was still wearing his oil-splotched, mustard-colored pants, although now they were even filthier. Sometime during last night’s fight for survival he’d lost his flannel outer shirt. Now all he had on was a thin, sleeveless undershirt. Somehow it didn’t surprise me, but being dunked and nearly drowned hadn’t wrecked Raphael Sinclair’s carefully carefree countenance. His sandy blond hair fell in riotous uncombed waves to his bare, and—I couldn’t help noticing—well-sculpted shoulders.

  “You know we never finished our conversation in the hallway,” he said.

  “What conversation?”

  “The one where I was telling you the last thing I ever wanted was a ward.”

  “Oh,” I said, frowning and leaning back. Maybe now wasn’t such a good time after all.

  But he smiled at me, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “Just before Ari and Fara started firing the cannons, I was telling you that it wasn’t until I met you that I was even remotely interested in having a ward.”

  I blinked. He hadn’t said that. I narrowed my eyes. “I know, I know,” I said, waving a hand in the air. “I’m like a jar of pickled hearts.”

  “Something like that,” Rafe murmured, his gaze never leaving mine. Something occurred to me.

  “Rafe, do you remember something now that you shouldn’t?”

  His smile was so knowing that a slow blush started creeping up my cheeks.

  “What did you see?”

  “You, Noon. I saw you.”

  We stared at each other for a few moments. Oh, Luck. Had Rafe been given a memory like the one Fara had been given?

  The bonfire wasn’t exactly the hottest part of the memory . . .

  Had Rafe been given one of Ari’s memories? Of me? I squirmed and broke eye contact. But the tall reedy wall surrounding us offered no inspiration on how to extricate myself from this perilously awkward social situation so I turned back to Rafe. He was still looking at me, but his carefully carefree look was gone. I didn’t know what this new expression meant. I’d never seen it on Rafe’s face before. I glanced out at the river. Ari was rowing the boat back toward the shore.

  “I think I figured it out,” I said quickly. Rafe raised his eyebrows. His lips curved in the slightest hint of a smile.

  “The whirlpool at Ebony’s End mashed up our memories,” I continued.
“It took one from each of us and gave it to someone else.”

  Rafe’s smile fell. The carefully carefree look was back.

  “I got yours,” I said.

  “Oh?” His tone was flat.

  I wasn’t sure how to begin. I glanced at his silver bracelet again. The one with the word “Bhereg” etched on it and the date his brother died.

  Rafe’s gaze followed mine. “Which memory was it, Noon?” His voice was harsher. “You know, I have so many happy ones.”

  I winced. “It was your brother’s funeral.” When he didn’t say anything, I said, “I know what happened, Rafe.”

  He looked at me disbelievingly. Ari dragged the skiff onto the beach.

  “You couldn’t possibly. Or you wouldn’t still be sitting here.” I couldn’t sense Rafe’s mood or feelings the way I could with Ari, but it was pretty clear he was in pain. I pointed to the bracelet. The fact that Rafe wore it told me I was doing the right thing. Even though the memory was painful, he wanted to remember.

  “Does Bhereg mean ‘brother’ or was that his name?”

  Rafe clenched his fist and stood up, glancing over at Ari and Russ. He looked back down at me, his expression contemplative. After a few moments, he offered his hands to help me up. I slipped my hands into his. They were rough and strong and smooth and gentle all at the same time.

  “It means ‘white’ or ‘bright,’” he said, pulling me to my feet. “I named him.”

  We stood for a minute, hand in hand, staring at each other. Somehow, I felt guilty that I couldn’t feel his pain. But then again, that wasn’t really true. Because I could. Through his own memory.

  “It was an accident,” I whispered, lightly squeezing his hands. Although it wasn’t part of the memory, I imagined six-year-old Rafe holding his infant brother, trying to soothe the crying child so his mother could rest, walking down the uneven boards of his family’s weathered pier . . . tripping . . . falling . . . and Bhereg . . . tumbling from Rafe’s arms into the Lethe. Had Rafe dived in after him?