by Shae Ford
Kael didn’t have time for this. He didn’t know how long it would take to plow the field, but staring at him certainly wasn’t going to accomplish anything — and he had no intention of being flogged.
“What do you want me to do?” he said to the giant behind the plow. He wasn’t sure if the second giant could even speak: his mouth was closed so tightly that Kael wondered if it’d ever been open.
“I don’t know. What are you good for?” the giant behind the plow replied.
“I’ve never done any farming,” Kael admitted. When the giant snorted, he added quickly: “But I’ve read all about it.”
“Have you? Well then, by all means …” The giant skipped out from behind the plow and bent his arms in a grand, sweeping gesture. “Lead us on, Lord Rat.”
Kael wasn’t surprised at his mocking. The Atlas had mentioned that the giants weren’t very fond of outsiders. The few times in history when the giant clans had stopped fighting each other long enough to band together, it’d been to stop another race from sneaking in. They guarded their fields against invaders and chased all would-be settlers from their lands.
But Kael wasn’t trying to steal anything from the giants. He’d been tossed into slavery right along beside them. He wasn’t going to let himself be bullied for it. “Heckling me won’t get the fields plowed any faster,” he said, meeting the giant’s glinting eyes.
“Oh no, you misunderstood me. I wasn’t heckling you — I was just clearing a path. What with your book knowledge and all, I thought you might be able to teach us a thing or two.”
He looked so sincere that for a moment, Kael almost believed him. Then the second giant spoke:
“We haven’t got time for jokes, Brend.” He grabbed another harness off the plow and tossed it at Kael’s feet. “You’ll pull alongside me, rat.”
Kael shrugged the harness on as quickly as he could. It was far too big for him: the strap that was meant to go around his waist dangled almost at his knees. The shoulder straps felt uncomfortable as well, but he couldn’t figure out why.
“Have I got this on right?” he said, hoping one of the giants would answer him.
“Most definitely,” Brend said with a nod. “You just tuck that cord between your legs and pull it along by your important bits. That’s always the most sensible way to drag a plow.”
Kael’s face burned as he turned the harness around. He hadn’t realized that he’d had it on backwards. Brend could’ve just said as much.
“Ready, Declan?” Brend hollered.
“Yeh,” the giant next to Kael said, answering with something that was halfway between a grunt and a yes.
Declan leaned against the harness and pointed his chin at the opposite end of the field. Kael mirrored him — and that’s when he noticed something odd: Declan was easily the smallest giant he’d come across. He still stood over Kael, but it was by no more than a few inches. Perhaps he was only half-giant.
Kael looked him over quickly, but could see no other race in his features. Declan’s hair was pure white, his eyes were stony grey, and his limbs were even properly thick. He was exactly like all of the other giants — only smaller.
“Ready, wee rat?” Brend called.
“Ready,” Kael said. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask Brend for help. He’d just figure it out as he went.
“And I’ll tell you now, in case I don’t have a chance to tell you later — I’m sorry if I slice you in half.”
Kael spun around. Brend’s face was serious, but his eyes were a joke. Kael couldn’t decide whether to be worried or annoyed. And Brend didn’t give him the chance to figure it out:
“Lead on, Declan!”
He charged forward, and Kael most certainly didn’t want to be sliced in half, so he leapt to catch up. The plow was much heavier than he’d expected it to be. His skinny limbs shuddered at the end of the rope, and he knew he couldn’t rely on his body’s feeble strength to get the blade moving.
So he put every ounce of his concentration into pulling, using the power of his mind to steel his muscles and weight his steps. The blade moved easily — so easily that the sudden shift made Declan stumble. He caught himself on his hands and sprang back up to his feet. His heels almost nicked the tip of the plow blade as he leapt to catch up with Kael.
“All right there, Declan?” Brend called to him.
“Yeh,” he grunted. He shot a glance at Kael — who kept his eyes purposefully forward.
Blast it all. He needed to be more careful. It was obvious that the giants thought of him as a weakling, and it would be best if they went on thinking it — because if they ever found out what he really was, they’d turn him over to Gilderick.
And there was no telling what would happen to him, then. But he doubted it would be pleasant.
Chapter 6
Mage Studies
After she’d uncovered Shamus’s plan, Kyleigh realized that she would have to pack her things and leave Copperdock immediately. There were no two ways about it. So once the mess in the courtyard had been taken care of, she went straight to her chambers.
She found her armor crammed inside one of her dresser drawers. Crumfeld didn’t like her to wear it around the castle, but she had far too much to do before nightfall to waste time worrying over Crumfeld. Besides, she could think much better if she was comfortable.
The blackened armor fit her like a second skin: the jerkin molded to her torso, the ridged gauntlets wrapped snugly about her arms, and the leggings formed to her shape. Because the armor was made of dragon scales, and not something burdensome like iron, the air came through it easily — which meant she never had to worry about baking alive.
In fact, it was practically as comfortable as running around naked.
She slipped on her boots, careful not to nick herself on the deadly spurs coming out of their heels. Then she began digging through her bed covers for the final piece.
He wasn’t exactly a part of her armor, but her hip just didn’t feel right without him. “There you are, old friend,” she said as she fished Harbinger out from the foot of her bed.
The curved white blade glinted fiercely against the brilliance of the rising sun. He took in the peaceful golden light, swirling it across his surface until it began to look more like dancing flames. His voice was low and steady as he hummed against her grip.
Harbinger was a part of her. She’d forged him from her own scales. On the day he’d come out of the fire, and she’d held him for the first time … well, that was the day that she began to feel like a true warrior.
She couldn’t help but grin as his excitement thrummed against her palm. His voice made her veins tremble like fiddle strings. Harbinger was a bloodthirsty fellow, and he suited her.
She’d just gotten him strapped to her belt when someone knocked on the door: “My Lady? A word, if you please.”
Kyleigh silently implored the skies for patience as she let Crumfeld in. “I’ve solved the problem with the gate —”
“I know, but now we’ve got a new one.”
He seemed out of breath, like he’d charged up the stairs with his coattails on fire. A few of his hairs had even popped out of their usual slicked-back arrangement. But that wasn’t the most alarming thing.
It took her a moment to realize it, but the potent smell wafting from him wasn’t anything the cooks were preparing for breakfast: it was burnt flesh.
“What on earth have you gotten into?” she said, carefully pulling the arm he was trying to hide out from behind his back. The skin on his hand was red and raw. White blisters already sprouted up on the tips of his fingers.
“It’s that mage,” Crumfeld said, grimacing as she turned his hand over. “I only wanted to clean. He’s been locked in his room all winter — Kingdom only knows the mess he’s made. But he’s hexed the door! When I tried to turn the knob, it burned me.”
“Well, you’re going to have to go straight to the healer.”
�
�But my lady —”
“No, straight away, Crumfeld. I’m serious.”
“Very well,” he huffed. Then he noticed her armor, and he opened his mouth to protest.
“No — healer, first. You can fret about my outfit later,” Kyleigh said. She turned him by the shoulders and marched him down the stairs.
*******
Jake kept his room tucked deep into a corner of the west wing, up a poky flight of stairs and hidden in an alcove. There were other, grander chambers in Roost, but he’d insisted on that spot in particular because he thought he was less likely to be disturbed. And with the exception of Crumfeld, his plan seemed to be working perfectly.
Kyleigh stopped outside of the door. It looked safe enough: just a small, rounded opening about the size of a closet’s. But she still approached it carefully. She didn’t want to risk her hand winding up like Crumfeld’s. Her armor could protect her against blades and arrows, but could do nothing against magic.
So instead of knocking, she raised her voice: “Jake?” Though she tried to keep her frustration hidden, the word still came out like a growl. She leaned as close to the door as she dared and thought she could hear papers rustling on the other side. “Jake — open up this instant.”
“No!”
It was an oddly defiant reply, and there was a bit of shakiness in his voice. “Open this door, or I swear I’ll kick it in.”
“I don’t care!”
It was obvious that Jake was upset about something, and she thought she might’ve been able to guess what it was. “Nobody blames you for what happened to Gerald,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “It’s not like you meant for the wall to disappear.”
“But it did — and it’s all my fault.”
Poor Jake. He always meant well, but his spells rarely turned out the way he planned them.
The incident with Gerald happened two weeks ago, when Crumfeld had decided to add cleaning to the guards’ regular list of chores. They were none-too-pleased and complained loudly about it for days. So Jake had taken it upon himself to try and make their work a little easier.
He weaved together a spell that he thought might do the work of soap and a brush, then tried it out on a particularly filthy section of Roost: a wing that appeared to have been burned to the ground by invading armies and rebuilt several times over. The walls were streaked with black lines of soot, which Crumfeld declared to be unacceptable blemishes.
Jake’s spell erased the soot on the first wall, and everything seemed to be working well … except for one small problem: the wall looked like a perfectly normal, clean section of wall — but when Gerald went to lean up against it, he’d slipped straight through and fallen down into the courtyard below.
Luckily, a pelt merchant had just arrived at the castle and had been trying to persuade Crumfeld to buy the various furs he had for sale. Gerald crashed through the roof of the merchant’s cart and spooked the horses pretty badly, but he’d walked away with nothing more than a broken arm and a hefty dislike of magic.
Things could’ve certainly gone worse.
“Gerald’s on the mend,” Kyleigh reasoned. “And I bought every ware that merchant had to offer in payment for the hole in his cart. So there’s really been no harm done —”
“No harm done?” Jake bellowed through the door. “I’ve broken an innocent man’s arm! He’ll never forgive me for it.”
“Oh, please — he brags about it every chance he gets. Not two nights ago, I saw him down at the tavern, wooing a pair of desert women with the tale of how he’d survived a blast from a battlemage.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the door. “Well, that’s not exactly how it happened,” Jake muttered.
Kyleigh shrugged. “You broke his arm — he gets to tell the story however he likes. Now, won’t you let me in?”
There was a great deal of huffing and tossing books about before the door finally swung open.
Jake was a skinny fellow. He wore wrinkled blue robes and a pair of round spectacles — which always seemed to wander towards the end of his long nose. And today, it appeared that he was in a rather foul mood: his thin lips were pulled into a frown.
“I’m a failure.”
“Nonsense,” Kyleigh said as she slipped past him.
“No, it makes perfect sense. I’m a mage who can’t cast a proper spell. There’s no clearer definition of a failure.”
She thought carefully about what to say as she made her way to the one clean corner of the room.
Crammed into Jake’s tiny chambers were a bed, several shelves of books, and a banged-up table that he seemed to be using for a desk. It might have been a decent space, if he’d kept it tidy. But instead, he had books littered across every spare surface: on the table, under the table, lining the windowsill, propped against his pillows, and covering the floor.
The books were all flipped open, lying on their spines like a flock of birds that had fallen from the skies. Some of the pages were badly stained, and they were filled to every margin with a strange, swirling language. It made Kyleigh’s eyes cross just to look at it.
Navigating Jake’s mess was a tricky patch of work. While it may have looked chaotic, the books were actually arranged in very specific circular patterns. The rings overlapped each other like links in a chain, connecting to form something like a net that covered the entire room. It would have looked very peculiar if Kyleigh hadn’t known it for what it was: mage studies.
Long ago, she’d discovered that mages arranged their thoughts in the placement of their books. Every ring was linked to a specific study, which relied on an idea from the ring next to it in order to make a complete thought. It was all a very complicated, delicate process. If Kyleigh knocked one book out of place, Jake might lose a month’s worth of work.
And she’d found out the hard way that nothing got a person hexed faster than ruining a mage’s studies.
“Are you close to solving the great mystery of life, then?” she said as she skipped from one circle to the next. She landed lightly, careful not to nudge a single book out of order.
“Not quite,” he mumbled as he closed the door. “Though I might’ve been a lot closer if that silly man hadn’t wandered in here and ruined everything.”
“Yes,” Kyleigh said, as she finally made it to the clean spot next to the window. “Crumfeld showed me where you hexed him. His hand looked like he’d just taken it out of the oven.”
Jake’s mouth twitched slightly upwards. “Well, I’ve already told him that I don’t want him in here. I suppose next time he’ll listen.”
Not surprisingly, Crumfeld and Jake weren’t the best of friends. The first time Jake went out for a meal, Crumfeld swooped in behind him. He’d placed every book back on its shelf and swept every speck of dust out the door. When Jake returned and saw the damage, he’d blown a hole through the roof.
Kyleigh glanced up at the ceiling. She frowned when she saw the gray clouds that had suddenly gathered overhead. Fat drops of rain began falling from them as she watched. They struck the spell Jake had placed over the hole and went sliding harmlessly down the roof.
“Your barrier seems to be working well.”
Jake made a scornful sound. “Of course it is — it’s a shielding spell. Every battlemage can cast one.”
“And your hex certainly worked on Crumfeld.”
“Traps are the second thing we learn — right after the lesson on how to blow people up.” He plunked down at the desk, removed his spectacles, and began to vigorously clean them on the hem of his robes. “I can also freeze your blood in your veins, if you’d like. Or strike you blind for a few months.”
“Tempting … but I think I’ll pass,” Kyleigh said lightly. When Jake didn’t smile, she sighed. “This is my point: you aren’t a failure. You’ve cast plenty of proper spells —”
“Proper, maybe. But they aren’t useful.” He slid his spectacles back on and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. He glared at the wall for a m
oment, his eyes flicked across the mortar lines as he gathered his thoughts. “I suppose I always imagined that things would be different, once I was freed,” he said quietly. “I thought … I hoped that the King had made me like this — that I was really a good man, but one just being forced to kill.”
Kyleigh didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
Granted, her hands weren’t exactly the cleanest in the realm. Sometimes she would have nightmares about the battles she’d fought in, the friends she’d lost … the many lives she’d taken. But those nights were few and far between. She supposed it was because she had the comfort of knowing that she’d chosen to fight. She knew in her heart that good men lived on because she’d had the courage to slay the bad ones.
But Jake’s story wasn’t like that — he’d had no choice. He spent nearly his entire life in chains, his body enslaved by magic. He killed the men he was forced to kill: first for the Duke, and then for the Witch of Wendelgrimm.
She couldn’t imagine the sort of nightmares he must have, and so she didn’t try to. Instead, she simply listened.
“It’s me, though,” Jake said after another long moment. “I’m a battlemage, through and through. The spells make sense to me. They come easily.” His head fell into his hands, his thin fingers clutched tightly at his hair. “I’m a murderer.”
Nope — that was enough. He’d slipped off the edge of reason and directly into a vat of nonsense. She wasn’t going to let him feel sorry for himself.
Kyleigh hopped her way back across the room and grabbed him by the shoulder, careful to be gentle. Her strength was perfect for battle and hunting. But on more than one occasion, she’d accidentally broken a friend’s bones by just squeezing too hard — and Jake’s bones were thinner than most.
“Look at me.” She waited until his eyes met hers. “Do you think I’m a murderer?”