Inkmistress

by Audrey Coulthurst

  “How did it get here?” I never would have guessed I’d see a prize of the crown anywhere outside Corovja. Miriel had told me pieces like the chandelier were often presented to the revelers at midsummer and midwinter festivals in Corovja as a reminder of the monarch’s power and abilities—some decorative and others deadly.

  “The west wing of the palace in Corovja was redone about five years ago. One of the Swifts was able to rescue this piece for Nis before the entire wing was demolished. The lights weren’t working, but her research allowed us to restore it.”

  Another surge of anxiety made me bite my lip. Nismae’s research was deep enough to somehow give her—or one of her people—the ability to work with magic directly. It was easier to meddle than to create, and certainly possible for them to do simple enchantments, but repairing something as sophisticated as a prize of the crown wasn’t something ordinary mortals should have been able to easily do. I hoped that meant she was that much more likely to know something about my abilities and which god they had come from.

  “Are you ready to go in?” Hal asked.

  “Of course.” I nodded, squeezing the strap of my satchel with both hands where it crossed between my breasts. We were about to rejoin his people, including the sister who had raised him. Would he be the same person around them? Hal had become entirely familiar to me. We could set up or take down our camps without exchanging more than a few words, the tasks routine and companionable. I’d come to rely on our easy familiarity and was suddenly frightened it might be snatched away.

  What if Nismae didn’t like that he’d brought me here?

  And what if she didn’t know anything about Atheon or the Fatestone after all? Knowing the secrets of my origin wouldn’t help me if I couldn’t fix my mistakes.

  Hal tugged open a heavy wooden door so we could enter the adjacent room, a rectangular chamber filled with people conversing over food and hot tea. The windows along the west-facing wall stood open, though some unseen barrier kept the fog and the chill of the air at bay. A potted plant in the corner grew wildly over one windowsill, its heart-shaped leaves turned toward what little light filtered through the mist.

  “Hal!” someone said, and then everyone in the room surged to their feet, surrounding Hal, hugging him and clapping him on the back. I scanned the room, looking for Hal’s sister, but I didn’t see anyone who shared his features or who carried herself like a leader.

  “Where have you been?” an older man asked.

  “We thought maybe you finally encountered something you couldn’t outrun,” one of the younger girls joked.

  “Just took an unexpected detour on the way home is all,” Hal said, basking in the warmth of their affection. The younger people jostled Hal, showing him all sorts of improbable places they’d figured out to hide their weapons in their clothing. Was this what it felt like to truly have a family? Things had never been this way with Miriel, or even with Ina. The camaraderie in the room was so much bigger than anything I’d ever experienced.

  “Yeon, where’s Nis?” Hal asked the older man who had spoken first.

  “Said she’ll be back by the end of the week,” Yeon answered.

  “She didn’t say where?” Hal asked.

  Yeon shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask.”

  “Well, at least we have a place to stay until she returns,” Hal said. He didn’t seem concerned, but of course he wouldn’t be—he didn’t understand the urgency of my quest.

  I looked at him uncertainly, not sure how I felt about staying in this cold stone tower with all these people for days on end. He finally gestured for me to move up alongside him as soon as the others gave him a little space.

  “This is Asra,” Hal introduced me.

  Everyone stared at me, their expressions ranging from curiosity to distrust.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure yet that was the case.

  “Where’d you pick this one up?” the oldest man asked. “Not that special massage parlor in Kartasha, I hope. Remember that?” He guffawed and elbowed a slim person beside him, nearly sending them flying. They gave him an indignant look and elbowed him back even harder.

  Special massage parlor? That story hadn’t come up on our travels.

  “Yeon! That was Nis’s job and you know it,” Hal said, shooting me a panicked look.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I was with Nismae on a mission to bring a lord’s daughter back from Kartasha, and it turned out she was working in a special massage parlor there where the people provide their services . . . unclothed.” He rushed through the explanation, clearly mortified.

  “The kid was only twelve at the time!” Yeon slapped his knee, beyond delighted by the whole thing.

  “It was very . . . educational,” Hal stammered.

  “You northerners are so prudish, probably because it’s too gods-damned cold to take off your clothes ten moons out of the year,” Yeon said with a chuckle.

  A few of the other Nightswifts—also from the north, I presumed—gave him dirty looks.

  I couldn’t help a laugh at Hal’s red cheeks.

  “Asra isn’t from Kartasha, nor does she work in a massage parlor. She saved my life when we ran into trouble in Valenko,” Hal said, doing his best to change the topic.

  “Wondered how you were gonna get out of there without a manifest, but you always manage it.” Yeon shook his head.

  “No thanks to you,” Hal teased.

  “Not my fault you can’t fly like a proper Swift. Let’s give thanks to Asra, who helped our Hal escape!” Yeon said, raising a mug of tea from the table.

  The rest of the room toasted me as well, and though I wanted to melt into the floor to disappear from the intensity of their attention, it still felt better than the skepticism with which I’d initially been received. They beckoned us to join them at their tables, sharing their bread, cheese, and bittersweet preserves, and caught Hal up on the humorous mishaps from their latest missions. I didn’t know what to say to anyone, so I kept quiet, smiled when it seemed appropriate, and stuffed myself with warm, crusty bread slathered in a thick creamy cheese veined with salty blue.

  After nearly falling out of my chair the first time a bird flew through a window and took human form beside me, I soon became accustomed to the way the Nightswifts came and went—always through the window, always in and out of manifest form. They all seemed to have an affinity for the wind god. By the time we retired for the night, I’d met at least two dozen Swifts. They’d come from every part of the kingdom and every walk of life, now united by their purpose and their leader.

  The accommodations turned out to be nicer than I would have guessed, largely because Hal gave me his west-facing room instead of one of the windowless guest chambers.

  Besides a practical lantern, the table beside Hal’s bed bore a tiny set of chimes made of hardwood—a symbol of the wind god. A painted portrait of a woman who shared Hal’s deep brown skin and long-lashed eyes hung on the wall; she could only be his mother, because she fitted no description he’d ever given me of Nismae. Her hair was worn free of any braids or twists and framed her face in a halo of spiraling curls. She sat poised on a stone bench with a cluster of blossoms in her hands, but she had the slightest mysterious smile on her face—one I’d often seen on Hal. She even had the same single dimple in one cheek. I wondered who had painted it, if that person had loved her, and if the painting was something Nismae had stolen, perhaps from the temple of wind where their mother had been a cleric.

  Because the Nightswifts spoke about things in a veiled way with me in their midst, it took a few days before I realized that many of the missions they referred to in passing or joked about over meals were still ones of death. Now they worked solely through Nismae instead of on behalf of the king. The lives and magical objects they stole made a lucrative business from the sound of it, though I couldn’t quite make out if Nismae’s goal was to obtain riches, knowledge, or something less specific. I didn’t know how
she managed to serve in the role of contractor, researcher, and black market merchant, all without the king’s spies or soldiers catching her.

  The scholars and craftsmen were a smaller and quieter group than the rest of the Swifts, from a young red-haired girl named Poe who couldn’t stop looking at Hal and blushing to a man about Yeon’s age who called Hal “son” even though he clearly wasn’t. Hal explained that the scholars and craftsmen didn’t participate in missions, but were a supporting force to help design weapons and patch up anyone who came back injured. The scholars were eager to hear what I knew of herbalism farther south, and we passed many hours in conversation. Meanwhile, the craftsmen showed Hal some enchanted blades specially designed for the Swifts. When Hal passed his hand over the bone handles of the daggers, an iridescent eagle appeared over them for a moment.

  “These are very fine,” he said, hefting one of the larger blades and weighing it in his palm.

  A blond woman with powerful arms who had to be their smith passed him another. “I’ve developed a new forging technique that allows us to imbue the blades with magic. It’s even better than the ones used by the king’s craftsmen. The weapons respond best in the hands of someone who can sense the energies.”

  “Asra, feel this knife,” Hal said, handing the smaller blade to me.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want it. The magic in my blood stirred uncomfortably at the thought of what I might be able to do with an enchanted knife. I’d done enough damage already without a weapon at my disposal.

  I sighed as the conversations continued to go on without me, half wondering if I should give up on Nismae and start doing research of my own. Corovja might be a good place to start—if I could get there. But before I could start to follow that line of thought to a conclusion, Hal stood up and inclined his head toward the window, a slow smile blossoming on his face.

  “What is it?” I asked, hope fluttering in my chest.

  He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear so that no one else could hear.

  “She’s back.”

  CHAPTER 19

  NISMAE’S RECEPTION WAS DIFFERENT FROM HAL’S, though no less enthusiastic. Admiration and respect radiated from the other Nightswifts as they greeted their leader.

  I never could have mistaken her for anyone other than Hal’s sister—she had the same broad shoulders, high cheekbones, and strong jawline. Her eyes were almost hazel and her skin a warm shade of amber. A long glory of box braids cascaded over her shoulders, the top half of them pulled into a twist at the back of her head. Both of her forearms were laced with scars below her rolled-up sleeves, and ornate iron cuffs adorned her wrists. The cuffs appeared strangely dead in my Sight, as though magic could not touch them.

  Her serious expression softened as soon as she laid eyes on Hal.

  “About time you turned up,” she said, pulling him into a tight embrace.

  “About time you did!” Hal replied, matching his sister’s smile as they pulled apart.

  “I see you had to do your twists yourself,” she teased, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “Only about a three on the ten-point disaster scale this time.”

  “Hey!” He ducked, his voice indignant. “We don’t all have teams of people to spend hours braiding our hair before heading out on a mission.”

  “You rarely even have enough hair to braid, you loon.” She laughed.

  Hal pouted, but his eyes still held a spark of amusement.

  “And what did you drag in with you this time?” she asked, finally taking a look at me. Her eyes traveled up over my body in critical assessment.

  “I’m Asra,” I said, standing up straighter, trying not to worry about what else Hal had brought back with him in the past. Did she mean other things? Or other people? The thought sent a prickle of jealousy through me. It had felt special to be let in here, to meet the people he was closest to.

  Her gaze didn’t waver as she waited for further explanation. Fortunately, Hal cut in.

  “After the attack in Valenko, the two of us got caught. Asra helped me escape, but I got sick after overextending myself tricking the guardsmen into setting us free.”

  “You shouldn’t take risks like that,” she scolded him. I could tell it wasn’t the first time they’d had the conversation.

  “Asra dosed the guardsmen with something and it’s the only reason they didn’t come after us. She could have left me after I got sick, but took care of me instead.” Hal was clearly playing up what I’d done to ingratiate me to Nismae, but she didn’t seem particularly moved.

  “I’m an herbalist,” I added. If nothing else, she should appreciate the knowledge I’d shared with her medics and craftspeople.

  “I knew one of those in Corovja,” Nismae said. Her dark tone of voice did not invite questions.

  “Actually, Asra was the one who asked to come to you,” Hal said. Then, lowering the pitch of his voice, “She’s a demi, like me.”

  A spark of interest finally lit in Nismae’s eyes. “You always manage to bring home the most interesting souvenirs from your misadventures.” She turned back to me. “Let’s talk about it at my table.”

  Everyone parted as she moved toward a table in the corner. Hal gestured at me to follow. I did so reluctantly. What did Nismae mean by “interesting souvenirs”? Maybe Nismae saw me as another useful magical object, like her stolen prize of the crown. The thought made my tension rise further. Still, I wanted to impress her if I could. Getting her help to find the Fatestone depended on it, and I needed it to change the past to save my village. I took a seat at the table, trying not to let my uncertainty show.

  “Tea?” Hal asked me.

  “Yes, please,” I said. He poured Nismae a cup without asking her, and then filled mine. The strong aroma of bergamot wafted from our earthenware mugs.

  “Your cuffs,” I said tentatively. “What are they?” I couldn’t figure out why they looked so empty in my Sight.

  She raised an eyebrow, impressed. “They neutralize magic,” she said. “Helpful when working with volatile energies. Even more useful if something magical and unpleasant is attacking.”

  “She won them in a game of dice in Kartasha,” Hal added.

  “How did you know they were something beyond ordinary?” she asked, intrigued.

  “I have the Sight. I can see magic more clearly than most.”

  “Perhaps we can put your skills to use,” Nismae said. “What can you do besides keep my brother out of trouble?”

  I glanced at Hal, nervous about what might constitute “useful” by Nismae’s definition. Hal gave me an encouraging look. I took a deep breath. She already knew Hal and I were demigods, so what else did I have to lose?

  “I can infuse tinctures with magic to make them more powerful.” I thought of Kaja. “And I didn’t know it until recently, but I can draw magic from other beings and repurpose it for healing or growth.” I thought back to how I’d pulled Leozoar apart. How easy it had been. How powerful it had made me feel and how some of that energy had lingered all the way until I gave the last of the magic to Kaja. I twisted my mug in my hands.

  “Fascinating,” Nismae said. She looked at me as though she could dissect and examine all the ways I worked.

  “There might be some other things,” I mumbled. I could destroy a village. Make a dragon. Create a flood that killed thousands.

  The memories burned like brands.

  “Asra is still exploring her powers,” Hal said.

  “I haven’t had much training in anything beyond herbalism. I don’t have any family, and I don’t know who my parents are,” I admitted. The farther I got from home in search of answers, the clearer it became that I knew very little about myself or anything else.

  “Well, we Nightswifts care for our own,” Nismae said. “Perhaps you’d like to join our family, learn the art of our trade, and exchange a bit of work for information that might help you discover the full range of your gifts? My research into those like you and my brother has been substantial, if not my
primary focus. It sounds like you have skills that could be useful to us, especially with further development.”

  My stomach dropped as I tried to match her sharp gaze. Become an assassin? Of course an herbalist’s knowledge included poisons and their antidotes, weapons like nightshade powder . . . but I couldn’t. I had never wanted to hurt anyone.

  “I don’t think I could do that,” I said. All I’d ever wanted was a quiet life as part of a community. I wanted a family, and to know I belonged, but not with those who dealt in death.

  “Don’t pressure Asra,” Hal said.

  “I’m not. I only take those who join out of loyalty and passion, not those who are coerced. Though she may regret turning down the opportunity, given what I’ve brought back from my latest excursion,” Nismae said, a sly grin on her face. “I finally have what I need to take care of my unfinished business in Corovja.”

  A shock ran through me. Her plans to exact revenge on the king were already in motion?

  “Are you going to challenge the king for the crown?” I asked tentatively. Or had she already found the Fatestone and figured out how best to use it to make him suffer?

  “I’m not stupid enough to want the crown,” Nismae scoffed. “My family is too important to me.” She gestured to Hal, then the rest of the room. “Monarchs don’t get to have this. I do.”

  I looked around, knowing she was right. Family meant vulnerability—too many pathways to hit people where it hurt most: their hearts.

  “I could have been the king’s second. His top adviser. He could have had my knife and scrolls in exchange for his ear, but he chose to betray me instead.” Her expression hardened so subtly it was barely visible. She’d obviously cultivated the art of restraint.

  “I wish he’d made a different decision,” Hal said.

  “You and me both,” Nismae said. She turned back to me. “So if you don’t want to join us, what can I do for you?”

  “Hal told me how broad your research was, so I thought you might know of a place called Atheon.” I kept my voice very careful, studying her response. I couldn’t bring myself to show her Veric’s letter. I wasn’t yet ready to give up the only extant piece of my past—and I didn’t want to know what she’d make of my blood gift. No good could come of her knowing I could shape the future, or that my blood could be enchanted for mortal use.