by J. A. White
“Just ask the first question that pops into your head,” Father said. “Don’t worry about the order. We’ll figure it out together.”
“How do you know Mary?”
“We arrived here a few weeks ago. After Mary determined that my graycloaks posed no threat to her people, we became fast friends. She knew that I wasn’t really Timoth Clen from the start. Sharp old lady.” Father scrunched his brows. “Well, when she is old, that is. Her age changes from day to day, you know.”
Taff grinned. “We know.”
“I’ll never get used to this magic of yours,” he said. “Anyway, she told me how you fought the Forest Demon and saved the Thickety. I wish your mother was here to see the great heroes our two children have become.”
“We didn’t really do that much,” Kara said, blushing.
“She’s just being modest, Father,” Taff said. “You should have seen it! We were amazing!”
Taff immediately dove into a spirited retelling of their adventures in the Thickety and Sentium. He was a gifted storyteller, skimming over the nonessential parts and focusing only on the most important details (with the exception of signing his name on Querin Fyndrake’s door, which he skipped altogether). Though none of these events were news to Kara, she listened intently, reliving them through her father’s proud eyes.
When Taff reached the part about Lucas’s fall through the clouds, Kara kept her gaze firmly on the table, refusing to cry.
Later, she thought. When I’m alone.
“I’m so sorry,” Father said, folding his large hands around hers. “I know how much he meant to you. And I was fond of him myself, truth be told. I came to think of him as a second son.”
Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stop crying once the dam was breached, Kara shifted the conversation away from Lucas.
“You received my letter about the grim being in Auren, right?” Kara asked. “Did you find it? Rygoth said it wasn’t there, but I thought maybe you had just beaten her to it and—”
But Father was already shaking his head.
“Sorry,” he said. “We did get there first, but the grim was already long gone. It had been stored in the Silent Vault at one point—you were right about that. But after a thousand years of being told that magic was nothing but superstitious nonsense, the Aurians stopped believing that the grim held any sort of power. It was just a worthless artifact, nothing more. So they sold it.”
“To who?” Taff asked.
“A religious cult whose antiquated ideas had fallen out of favor. They swore that they would protect the grim from witches, the greatest evil in the world. The Aurians didn’t believe a word of it, of course, but the Fold’s coin was good, and they were happy to rid themselves of—”
“They sold the grim to the Fold?” Kara asked in disbelief.
Father nodded, smiling slightly.
“Once I learned that, I got an idea about where the grim might really be located,” Father said. “But Rygoth’s forces reached Auren before we could leave. It was a devastating attack. I lost over three-quarters of my men.”
Kara heard the sadness in his voice and realized that although Father was only pretending to be Timoth Clen, he legitimately cared for the soldiers in his charge.
“I led those of us who survived to Nye’s Landing, where we hired a ship to take us to De’Noran,” said Father.
“The Children of the Fold brought the grim here!” Taff exclaimed, his brain racing. “Of course! That might have even been the reason they picked De’Noran as their home in the first place. So far away from the rest of the world, a cursed forest—no one would ever want to come here. It’s the perfect hiding spot.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Father said, mussing Taff’s hair. “I think that the existence of the grim was a secret passed down from fen’de to fen’de.”
“Have you started looking for it yet?” Taff asked. His eyes glowed with a sudden thought. “Maybe Fen’de Stone left behind a treasure map with riddles and clues to—”
“I already found it,” Father said.
“The map?”
“The grim.”
“Oh,” said Taff, clearly disappointed.
Kara shook her fogged head, wondering if she had heard Father correctly.
“You have the grim?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
Father nodded. “It’s under guard, night and day—though my graycloaks believe that they’re protecting our stockpile of coin, not the most dangerous object in the world. The less people who know, the better.”
“Where did you find it?” Taff asked.
“Buried beneath the Fenroot tree.”
Taff and Kara exchanged a look of gape-mouthed surprise. The Fenroot tree had been the epicenter of their village. They had passed it dozens of times a day, sat beneath its limbs during Worship.
All those hours spent bewailing the evils of magic—none of us had any idea what was buried just a few feet away.
“We have to keep the grim safe,” Kara said. “Rygoth already has the other three. If she finds out—”
“She won’t,” Father said.
“Someone from Auren could have told her about the Fold,” Taff said. “She could figure it out, like you did.”
“There were only two men left who knew the truth, and they both died in the battle,” Father said. “I saw it happen. The secret is ours alone. And Mary Kettle’s. I feel like I can trust her, for some reason.”
“You can,” Taff said.
“This is a place of nightmares for Rygoth,” Kara said, thinking it through. “She spent two thousand years trapped beneath the dirt here. She won’t return without a reason.”
“Exactly,” said Father. “Without the final grim, Rygoth will never be able to assemble the princess’s grimoire. It’s the best ending we could have hoped for.”
Kara considered other ways that Rygoth might learn about the grim’s location. Not Safi—even if she had a vision, she’s already proven that she would never reveal it to the Spider Queen. Querin Fyndrake is a possibility, but if Rygoth knew of the Hourglass Tower she would have already gone there.
Father was right. The final grim was safe.
“So what’s next?” she asked, feeling a foreign sense of relief.
Father looked at her strangely.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing?”
“We stay here. Protect the grim. Live our lives. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but this isn’t the Thickety of old. We can make this a home. Be a family again.”
Kara couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing while Rygoth lays waste to Sentium.”
“We don’t want to do anything that risks drawing attention to ourselves. That will only increase the chance of Rygoth finding the grim. Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action.”
Kara stood up, knocking her chair backward.
“Not when people are dying! We need to fight!”
She stared at him fiercely, black eyes blazing, daring him to contradict her.
Father smiled.
“You look exactly like your mother when you’re angry,” he said, and despite her anger Kara felt a glimmer of pleasure at the comparison. “Just hear me out, please. One question. And answer honestly. Promise, Moonbeam?”
He indicated Kara’s chair. She reluctantly took a seat.
“I’m too old for that name,” she said, crossing her arms peevishly.
“You might be right about that,” said Father. “So I’m going to treat you like an adult and tell you the hard truth of what’s going to happen. In a few days’ time, leaders from all over Sentium will be gathering at Penta’s Keep.”
“Yes!” Kara exclaimed. “Instead of trying to fight Rygoth on their own they can band together, form a common army . . .”
Father shook his head.
“I think this is hard for you to appreciate,” he said, “because you have magic at your command. But imagine what it�
�s like for a common soldier. Rygoth can conjure monsters out of nothingness. Her witches can control the weather, befuddle minds, make inanimate objects come to life. What use are swords and bows against power like that? We’re like children kicking at dragons. All we can do now is try to save as many innocent lives as possible.”
“What are you saying?” Kara asked, a sick feeling in her stomach.
“These leaders are not meeting to figure out the best way to fight Rygoth,” Father said, unable to meet her eyes. “They’re meeting to prepare their formal surrender.”
“No,” Kara said. “They can’t do that. It’s a mistake.”
“I agree,” Father said. “I warned the leader of Auren when she told me their plan. They shouldn’t trust Rygoth, even for a moment. But it’s not up to us. They’re going to proclaim her the Supreme Ruler of Sentium and swear their loyalty to—”
“NO!” Kara shouted, slamming both of her hands down on the table. “If they do that, she wins!”
“She’s already won!” Father exclaimed. “It’s just a matter of how many more people have to die before we concede victory. The best we can do is keep the grim out of her hands so at least we still have a world to live in.”
“What about Safi and Bethany?” Taff asked quietly. “Are we just going to forget about them?”
Father inhaled deeply and scratched his beard.
“I will let the leaders know about your friends,” he said, almost—but not quite—meeting Kara’s eyes. “Perhaps their freedom can be negotiated when they meet with Rygoth. But I won’t have you two gallivanting off on some foolish rescue attempt. The risk is too great.” He took them in his arms. “You’ve done enough. More than enough. This is your life now, children. You’re home at last.”
The village doctor used her gnarled fingers to pop Kara’s shoulder into place and offered her herbs for the pain, which Kara refused; she had a lot to think about and didn’t want her brain fogged by medicine. What she needed more than anything was some time alone, away from people—and so she hurried to the paddock that Mary Kettle had told her about, just outside the main village.
Shadowdancer was waiting for her.
Kara leaped over the fence and wrapped her arms around the mare’s neck. Shadowdancer told her the story. She and Darno had tracked down the graycloaks, as planned, and the mare had been welcomed into the cavalry. The scorpion-wolf followed them at a distance, and when Shadowdancer had boarded the ship that brought them here to De’Noran, Darno snuck into the cargo hold.
Reaching out with her powers, Kara felt the wolf crashing through the undergrowth of the Thickety, joyously free. Though she missed his companionship, she did not call him to her side.
He’s happy. Let him be.
Kara nuzzled her face close to Shadowdancer.
“You up for a ride, girl?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. The paddock, despite its lush grass and freshly painted wooden fence, was no more than a prison to the speed-starved mare.
They galloped west to what used to be the village of De’Noran. Overgrown with fields of vibrant wildflowers, it bore little resemblance to Kara’s childhood home, but she was able to recognize enough landmarks to find what she was looking for: a small hill overlooking what used to be a schoolhouse.
Kara sat down, brushing the silken grass with her fingers. Forest creatures peeked between branches and out of dens, eager to comfort their queen but sensing her need for solitude.
At last she allowed the tears to fall.
Lucas.
She had known loss before, but never like this, a physical force that drained all the strength from her body and left her feeling numb, as though death itself had tunneled through her veins and made a home of her heart. Kara’s grief was tinged with guilt, not only because she hadn’t been a good enough wexari to save her friend, but for the memories of Lucas that she had sacrificed to magic. It seemed inconceivable that she had thought a spell—any spell—could be more important than a moment with the boy she loved.
If I had known he was going to be taken from me, I wouldn’t have parted with a single memory.
Kara had hoped that a return to their hill, the scene of so many happy times together, might help her recall some of these lost moments. She squeezed her head between her hands, willing herself to remember, but it was pointless; the gaps in the fabric of her mind remained, as immutable as the darkness between stars. For the first time, Kara understood the extent of the sacrifice demanded by wexari magic, for memories are the building blocks of life. They make us who we are, she thought. They guide us, teach us, and act as a comforting blanket when days are cold. Without our memories, we’re barely even human.
This thought planted itself in her mind and, as great ideas often do, grew unnoticed until blossoming into an epiphany during her ride back to the village. Kara slowed Shadowdancer to a crawl, turning this unexpected revelation over and over in her head.
Could it be true? she thought.
Only one man could tell her for sure.
After getting directions from a young graycloak too afraid to meet her eyes, Kara journeyed to an area of the Thickety that hadn’t yet changed from the dark forest of old. A thick canopy blocked the light of the sun, and tree limbs reached for them like dangling claws. Shadowdancer didn’t like this sudden change in their environment, but Kara found it surprisingly comforting.
“Relax,” she whispered in Shadowdancer’s ear. “There’s nothing to fear here.”
Kara could sense her creatures nearby, more monstrous than those found in the brighter part of the forest but every bit as loyal. There was no need for mind-bridges; they knew who she was, and they welcomed her like family. Kara basked in the glow of their simple affection and shared her affection in return.
They’re starved for a kind thought, Kara thought. If there’s one thing all monsters have in common, it’s that they haven’t known enough love in their lives. She was reminded of the faenix, who had only wanted a companion during its lonely hours in the dark, and Grace, desperate for her father’s approval.
These thoughts led to Princess Evangeline.
What did you want? What made you into a monster?
Kara suspected that might be the key to everything.
She found the massive old tree that the graycloak had told her about and knocked on the door built into its trunk. When no one answered, she opened the door and entered a room-size tree hollow. There was very little furniture, just a simple cot, a pair of stools, and a long table covered with vials and jars of herbs. Shells of sunflower seeds littered the floor like a rodent’s bedding. Kara approached the table and looked through a magnifying glass propped over a large brown seed. It had been cracked open with incredible precision and stuffed with what appeared to be bird feathers.
“Leave that alone,” a voice said. “It’s not finished yet.”
Kara spun around to find Sordyr standing in the doorway. His brown hair had turned almost completely gray since she last saw him, but his eyes remained the same piercing green.
Watcher fluttered through the door and perched on a roost in the corner.
“What are you doing?” she asked, indicating the seed.
“Nothing. Just an experiment to pass the time. It probably won’t even work.”
“I thought you couldn’t do magic anymore.”
“I can’t. This won’t need magic until the very end. I’ll ask Mary to enchant it if I actually think there’s a chance—” He crossed the room and threw a scrap of linen over the dissected seed. “It’s not important.”
“Did you know I was back?” Kara asked.
Sordyr nodded.
“I would have come to see you, but . . . I’m not exactly welcome in the village. Oh, they say the right things, but I see them whisper when I pass. They can’t look at me without remembering what I did.”
Sordyr had been one of Sablethorn’s most promising wexari until Rygoth had transformed him into a Forest Demon. In this guise, he had infecte
d the Thickety with evil and forced the residents of Kala Malta to construct the grimoires that now wreaked havoc throughout Sentium, retaining just enough of his humanity to keep Rygoth imprisoned on the island. It was a status quo that Kara had unwittingly destroyed.
“Do you want some tea?” Sordyr asked. “I should have asked that straight off. I don’t have guests often, so I’m afraid I’m out of practice with my niceties.”
“Tea sounds wonderful,” Kara said. “As long as it’s not Clearer tea. My friend Lucas had to drink that stuff to cleanse his body from the Fringe weeds they burned. Worst thing I ever tasted. He used to dare me to drink it.”
Kara thought that the memory might make her sad, but it didn’t. She was happy that she still remembered it.
“It’s just regular tea,” Sordyr said.
“Perfect.”
She watched him hang a kettle over a small fire carefully contained within a circle of stones. It’s hard to believe that this is the man who once struck terror in my entire village. He kept looking in her direction, smiling uncertainly, as though to make sure she wasn’t going to leave. He’s human again, and lonely out here all by himself.
Though she was anxious to ask her questions, Kara waited patiently until the tea was ready, taking a hesitant sip from the steaming mug and then a longer one. It was bitter but delicious.
“I like it,” she said.
“I’m glad.”
Kara put the mug on the table.
“I have some questions for you.”
“I suspected you might.” Sordyr shook his mug gently, swirling his tea. “Are they about . . . her?”
Kara didn’t believe that Sordyr avoided saying Rygoth’s name because he was frightened, but because it still pained him to think about her betrayal. She had once been his friend, maybe even more.
“I was actually more interested in Princess Evangeline,” Kara said.
Sordyr pulled up a stool with interest.
“I told you everything I remembered in my letter. She was an unhappy little girl, and I never should have given her the grimoire. She took to its dark power all too well.”