“But you don’t know much about horses and donkeys,” Nolan said evenly. It cost him to meet her eyes and keep his face bland, but he tried. “It’s not fair to make her rush if she’s hurt. We’re not even in a hurry anymore.”
To the donkey’s everlasting credit, the normally mild-mannered jennet laid back her ears and threatened to bite when Rhea traded places with him and tried to lead her faster. Nolan wished he had a lump of sugar to slip her for that move. He hoped she found a nice stable when this was all over.
Kris, for her part, also made herself look calmer. She stifled the smile that Nila drew for baring her teeth at Rhea. She followed Rhea’s orders in silence or made brief, monosyllabic answers. Nolan thought that was about as cheerful as she was going to believably get. Rhea seemed to agree—by dinner she looked exhausted, but smug.
Over the next few days, Rhea led them southwest. They resupplied, but she didn’t let them stop at any inns, or take charge of any watches. They drew strange looks in the town in any case; surrounded by blond, bearded, and round-faced Ostmontians on all sides, the Rusamites couldn’t have looked more out of place. Rhea must have slept, but she never did in front of Nolan. She slept outside the tent each night, and had them sleep inside ‘so she could keep track of them’. Nolan hated her smirk as she said it, but they obeyed. And lay silently, pretending to sleep.
Nolan wished he could tell how much of Kris’s power was really coming back, but he couldn’t ask her. And Rhea never took the star-jar out again, so he had no idea how much light was in it. Overhead, the night sky was full of stars again, so he knew they were down to weeks now instead of months. There was no point in saying as much to Kris—even if he could have voiced the words aloud without Rhea hearing, she could see the sky just as well as he could. But she didn’t say anything to him, and didn’t pick any fights with Rhea, so Nolan assumed her strength still hadn’t returned. And without some kind of distraction, there was no chance he was going to get Sabine’s necklace onto Rhea.
“Where exactly are you taking us?” Nolan asked her on the third day, when Rhea looked in a halfway cheerful mood.
“South,” Rhea said. “On a different road than you took before, so we’re not recognized. Just in case.”
“And then?”
“Western Marayne? Or western Suria—you said that bard and Jal might head there. We might be able to find them.”
This last was said more to Kris than to Nolan. Kris flinched, and then her face went blank.
“It would be good to find Tylan again,” Nolan said carefully.
“If they made it south, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to find them,” Rhea said, still watching Kris over her shoulder.
“Jal’s smart,” Kris said softly. “And careful. They made it.” Her lips curved in a sad smile. “It would be good to see Ty.”
Rhea grinned back. “Western Suria it is.”
Nolan tripped over a root and stubbed his toe. He wished he’d never asked where they were going. Either Kris’s acting skills were improving, or Rhea had found perfect bait. But no. Kris had been disgusted with Rhea, furious with her. She loved her brother, but she wouldn’t change her mind that fast. So she was a better actress than he’d thought, and Rhea might let her guard down just a hair now.
But all the same, Nolan knew it had to be pulling Kris apart to think of seeing Tylan again.
Neither of them slept well that night. After she crawled into her bedroll, Kris rolled away towards the tent wall, breathing shakily in the way that Nolan knew meant she was fighting tears. Nolan listened for her breathing to even, and to the sound of the horses eating outside the tent, and to Rhea’s quiet rustling as she laid out her own bedding, and felt as helpless as he ever had in his life. For the first time since Nut and Philippe had sent him north, he started to really wonder if he might not make it to the Dawn Caves, and to think that all of those millions or billions of lives in the star-jar might all actually die because of his wish. The thought made him sick. He hadn’t even made it to the Twilight Mountains.
And what made him all the more sick was that, if he’d followed Jal’s advice and kept going straight north, and picked his own careful way across the Ostmontian mining country, he might have already found the caves by now. He couldn’t regret saving Kris, but it was one more decision to weigh on his conscience. If they really did run out of time, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to look her in the face again. Or his mother, or his father.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the second village the looks from the shopkeepers went from suspicious to downright threatening. Kris’s eyes drew the most attention, but all of them stood out in the crowd, and provoked whispers and mutters from passersby. Parents drew their children back towards themselves, forcing the children to look away, as though Nolan and the others all carried some kind of contagious disease. Nolan wasn’t surprised at all to see the pair of Night God priests in the village square. The village had the same ugly feeling that Tevesque had given him.
“Whatever we need, let’s make this fast,” he said, eyeing the frowning stall-keepers.
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Rhea said. “We just need to do everything normally, and they’ll leave us alone.”
She scanned the buildings and led them into a baker’s shop. The woman behind a counter full of buns and bread loaves turned stony at the sight of them. Flour dust across one cheek and a round, plump face did nothing to make her scowl less menacing. After four exchanges between her and Rhea, both women were shouting.
“Let’s go,” Rhea finally said aside to Nolan and Kris, seething. One spark ran through her hair. “She won’t sell anything to us.”
The woman followed them through the door. Once outside, she ran into the middle of the street, hands fluttering by her head, screaming in Ostmontian.
Rhea stiffened. Without needing to understand the woman’s words, Nolan did the same, and then wondered if he should run. If the woman saw Rhea’s spark, she could only be screaming ‘Witch’.
The sudden attention of everyone in the square, especially the Night God priests, confirmed it. Most of the adults were hurrying their children away, or grabbing their goods off of the few outdoor stall counters, but a few men and women and the priests started to walk towards Nolan and the Rusamites.
“We should go,” Kris said.
“There,” Nolan pointed at a street to their left that no one was blocking yet.
Kris started to jog towards it, but Rhea held her back by one elbow. Her hair threw two more sparks. “Why should we run from them, Kris?” she asked hotly. “They’re looking for a fight. I’ll give it to them.”
Nolan stared from her to the villagers in horror. If Kris could blow up half of a square by accident, there was no telling what damage an angry Rhea was going to wreak. “Just tell them we’ll leave.”
“We still have things we need to buy.”
“We’re not going to buy anything with you sparking like that,” Kris snapped.
Rhea ignored Kris and called out to the crowd in Ostmontian. The pair of priests stood side by side, though the balding one with the bulbous nose on Nolan’s right was clearly the leader. He shouted a volley with Rhea, quickly turning red through his face and neck. The younger priest watched the argument with a frown, but the one sentence he managed to interrupt them with had a measured, soothing tone to it. Whatever he said made Rhea throw her head back and laugh.
She gestured, and the young priest rose off of the ground. He flailed helplessly as Rhea lifted him six feet in the air. Several people gasped.
“Put him down!” Kris growled.
Rhea made a pushing motion, and the priest flew backward, landing on the gathering crowd.
A few people ran away, but more came pouring into the square. Several people carried knives. Two carried crossbows, which they leveled grimly at Rhea. The bows burst into flame. And then the shops in the back did. Rhea’s laugh turned smugger and higher, to a cackle.
Nolan st
epped quietly behind her and dug in his pocket, his heart thumping. Kris glanced at him, at the necklace he pulled out, and nodded. This was the best distraction they were going to get.
And Rhea was going to kill someone if they didn’t stop her.
A knife flew from the crowd toward them, and then a hail of stones. They met Kris’s shield. When Rhea gestured to retaliate, her lightning was swallowed in a new shield around the villagers. Rhea’s laugh stopped cold.
“Stay out of it, Kris!”
The sound of fire eating up woodwork mixed eerily with the sound of the balding priest’s deep-voiced invocations. He held a book in front of him with shaking hands. The younger priest picked himself up and stalked back towards them, yelling now and pointing for the crowd around him to leave.
Nolan stepped closer behind Rhea and held his breath, holding one end of the necklace in each hand. Rhea pointed, and a house caught fire. Nolan closed his arms around her neck and locked his hands together, closing his elbows down over hers to freeze her arms at her sides.
There was a breath’s length of pause while Rhea seemed to absorb what he’d done. Kris put out the fires around the square without anyone seeming to notice. Another hail of stones and a pitchfork bounced off of a new shield Kris cast around Rhea and Nolan. For just a moment, Nolan thought they had her beat.
Then Rhea shrieked, rounding her back and smashing him against the bakery door. A wall of raw energy struck every part of Nolan that was touching her, punching him in the gut and jarring his hands down to his bones. Nolan clung on to her shoulders, horrified, and did his best to pin her arms to her sides. Her magic was supposed to be gone.
“Get. Off, you worthless piece of filth!”
“Tie it, Nolan!” Kris screamed.
Tie it. Nolan fumbled desperately with the ends of the necklace, half choking her in his hurry. He felt Rhea stiffen at Kris’s words. A moment later she grabbed both of his wrists in her hands and bore down. Heat poured through his coat and over his skin.
Nolan’s fingers slipped over each other twice. His gloves were too thick to tie the knot. Rhea writhed in his grip, knocking him against the door again so fiercely that he felt something crack in his torso. The heat in her hands built quickly. Nolan could smell his coat starting to smoke, and an odd sound, half grunt and half moan, wrenched itself out of his mouth.
He bit the finger of his right glove and yanked it off with his teeth. She let go of his right wrist and swiped at him. Nolan ducked his head to cover his hand, letting her land a blow that felt like a hot iron on his cheek. With all of his might, Nolan focused on twisting the ends of the necklace together.
Rhea slumped in his hold before Nolan noticed any drop in the fire on his wrist and hands. Panting, he dropped to the ground with one knee on her back, dragging her arms behind her while she spat at him furiously.
“You…dare. You mundane bastard—”
“And you’re an evil, treacherous witch,” Nolan gritted out. A thick tear fell off of his cheek and onto the back of her neck. His coat sleeves were blackened, and his blistered wrists chafed against what was left of them every time he moved. Compared to his face, though, his wrists felt wonderful. He’d never felt pain like this before, burning as hotly now as when Rhea first touched his cheek. If he hadn’t been struggling so hard to stay upright and keep control of Rhea, he thought he might have passed out. But he wasn’t dead yet, and that was a small miracle in itself.
When he looked up, the people in the square had stopped throwing stones. Kris stood in the middle of the street, panting slightly, surrounded by the charred marks of vanished fires, rubble, and a few ownerless knives. Around the square, other people were lowering their bows and sheathing their knives. They’d all stopped screaming, leaving an eerie silence only broken by Rhea’s grunting. Everyone was staring at him somberly. Nolan wondered fleetingly if he looked that much like he was dying.
“Kris, get some rope or something.”
Kris startled. The younger Night God priest called out a question, and a man beside him hurriedly slipped off his leather belt and handed it over. The priest stepped forward cautiously and held out the belt to Nolan.
“Will this work?” he asked in lightly accented Surian.
Nolan nodded, wincing as Rhea lurched underneath him again. “Just—tie it around her wrists. So she can’t get the necklace off.”
Rhea didn’t make it easy, but between them Nolan and the priest wound the belt around and between her arms, trapping them behind her. It wouldn’t last long, he thought critically, studying it with the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. But it would hold her for a little while.
“We owe you thanks,” the priest said, helping Nolan pull Rhea to her feet, “for helping to stop a worse tragedy. Though why you would travel with such a dangerous young woman—”
Nolan nodded, which made the world spin around him. The priest squinted at Nolan and frowned. “You need a healer.”
Kris hovered on the other side of Rhea with her fists balled. “Nolan you need…”
“Rest. Salves. And a healer,” Nolan answered. “But we need to get out of here. The crowd…”
“I agree,” the priest said. “But I think I can help. I have friends outside the town.”
Nolan started to shake his head and staggered. Kris caught his arm. The men and women around them started to stir.
Kris eyed the square around them uneasily. “You’re telling the truth?” she demanded. “You priests have never helped us before.”
The priest nodded. “I understand. But he needs help.”
He led them through two side streets. The other priest’s voice and the noises of the crowd gradually faded. Nolan focused on putting one foot in front of the other across the cobblestones of the town streets, then the dirt road leading out of town. The pain on the right side of his face was almost blinding. He wished he could just pass out. The priest’s grip on his upper arm was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Behind them, Kris pushed Rhea along ahead of her. They were arguing, but Nolan couldn’t follow what they were saying.
“You are Surian?” the priest asked, shaking Nolan’s arm to get his attention.
“Surian? Yes.”
“I have never met a Surian man in person. One does have to wonder what you are doing so far from your home at this time of year.”
There was intelligence and honest interest in the priest’s face. Nolan decided he might be a different kind of priest from the others he’d met lately.
“Focus,” the priest said urgently.
Nolan found his voice again. “With…a welcome like today’s, I’m not surprised you don’t see many foreigners.”
“Unfortunate,” the priest nodded. “We once welcomed all traders, and new people with new stories. But this has been…a dark year for all.”
“Dark.” Nolan stumbled and winced. The priest righted him, putting more of his own weight under Nolan’s elbow.
“Now all are suspicious of all others,” the priest continued. “Foreigners. Strangers. Witches. This is a shame, when so many come with…no bad wishes.”
“We didn’t come to hurt anybody.”
“No?” The priest raised his own eyebrows. “You none of you carry a sense of peace with you. Especially the blue-eyed witch. Here we are.”
He steered Nolan off of the road and towards a farmhouse nearby surrounded by a barn, a chicken coop, and a few trees. Nolan could hear the sound of someone chopping firewood behind the house.
“What’s ‘here’?” Kris asked.
“Dirt,” Rhea answered.
“A home of witches.” The priest called something else in Ostmontian.
The door opened on a blond woman in a blue woolen housedress. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, lingering on Nolan’s face. She and the priest traded a few more phrases. After a clear hesitation, the woman added one final comment and beckoned to them. She called something over her shoulder.
“They’re healers?” Kris asked.
&nb
sp; “Yes,” the priest answered. “With many other skills. And they are honest people.” He hesitated. “I’ll leave you here. In good hands. Good luck.”
The cottage door opened on a tidy, spacious kitchen. The first thing Nolan saw were the chairs surrounding the kitchen table, and he sank into one gratefully. A second woman with a ruddy face set aside a plate she was drying, and an old man whittling something by the fireplace stopped working. Kris backed Rhea into the opposite corner of the room, hissing an order for silence that the other girl finally obeyed.
The ruddy-faced woman reached out to Nolan gently, murmuring sympathetically. Nolan flinched away, but she grabbed his head with her other hand to hold him steady.
Her touch was cool. The heat on the point of his cheek dulled, and then the surrounding area. In thirty seconds the heat in his face was gone. Nolan felt his jaw drop slightly. He’d never met a witch who could heal like that. Ever. He reached up to touch his cheek, and found subtle hard ridges. His cheek couldn’t feel where his fingers touched.
The woman touched his sleeves gently, and pushed them back to show the red, weepy skin underneath it. In another ten seconds, the skin was unnaturally white, but painless. Nolan pushed up the sleeve on his left arm, and she did the same there, talking softly in Ostmonton all the while.
The old man snorted and waved a hand. “Didn’t I teach you translation spells by now?” he asked her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Tell me you could have healed those burns that well.” Her words didn’t match the movements of her mouth, but they were clear. She looked back at Nolan. “So now that you’re more than half conscious…well met, Nolan Newman.”
He stared, massaging his left wrist. “How do you know my name?”
“The old one thought you might come this way.”
The old man turned his frown on Nolan. “So. The little would-be adventurer who wanted to own the stars themselves.” The wrinkles around his eyes crinkled sourly. “I thought you’d at least be taller.”
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