But hours later, it was clear there would be no rest for me; not while the cold air was trying to overwhelm my body with a thousand stinging needles. I reached for my necklace, only to remember I had left it with North.
I stood, pacing around the clearing, trying to get my blood rushing through my veins again. My feet were clumsy with fatigue, and rubbing my hands and arms did little more than turn them a brighter shade of pink. I needed fire, I thought, squeezing my eyes shut against the night air.
My loom lay in pieces nearby, bright in the moon’s strong light. I could do it, I thought, but what would that mean for me? For many years, that loom had been my entire world, my constant companion and source of happiness. But now, the loss of the future was more painful than the past. To do it now, to use the loom in such a horrible way, would mean not having the chance to finish North’s cloak, to tie it around his shoulders and see his face.
But nothing would ever be more important than the bundle of North’s work in my bag, than bringing it to the capital.
I folded the unfinished cloak and placed it in my bag before turning my attention back to the loom. The wood broke apart with surprising ease, snapping to pieces beneath my weight. I wiped the tears from my cheeks.
This is what I had wanted, wasn’t it? To be on my own, to live my own life the way I wanted to, away from my family, from the desert, from everything I had ever known. But I had never taken into account how very alone I would be.
I rubbed two pieces of wood together furiously, as hard as I could for as long as it took—which was nearly an hour. My body came alive, flooding with warmth, but the burning behind my eyes had nothing to do with my effort. I ground the sticks again and again, until sparks finally fell onto the pile of wood like a thousand little stars.
A cloud of white smoke twisted itself up into the sky. The fire ripped through the dry wood, crackling and popping. I collapsed on the ground beside it, my arms aching, and watched the gold and red flames whip against one another.
It was not my first sacrifice, and I knew it would not be my last.
The next morning, the fire had settled down into embers. I scattered them with my foot and left the circle of stones for the next traveler. I felt noticeably lighter as I took to the road again, finally rested enough to continue.
Soon Hertford, the last small village on the way, came into view. It wasn’t more than a resting stop, with a few taverns and beds for travelers. From there, it would be a full day on foot and then Provincia.
The village was unremarkable. A thin layer of frost and ice covered the dark stones, forcing me to watch every step I took until I reached the black doors of the nearest tavern.
I stepped inside the warm room—and immediately tried to walk back out.
“Sydelle.”
I let out the breath I had been holding, allowing the door to shut behind me. Sitting at the nearest table, his chair turned to face the door, was Wayland North. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his face was set in a furious expression.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said. The wizard still looked deathly pale, and there were dark, heavy circles beneath his eyes.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should be in bed in Arcadia, and you should be at my side, nursing me back to health!”
“Stop it!” I hissed, taking the open seat at the table. “Don’t turn this into a rotting joke!”
“I’m not joking,” he said. “How could you be so careless as to go off on your own like that? You know that Dorwan is still out there, wounded or not. What do you think would have happened if he had—if something had—?”
“You were in no condition to travel,” I said sharply. “You still aren’t in any condition to travel! The whole reason we’re together is to bring Provincia your report! If you couldn’t bring the news, then I was going to do it in your place. I want to stop this war as much as you do—I thought you would understand that.”
North’s face softened slowly, and he reached across the table and pulled the hat from my head. My hair tumbled down around my face.
“You foolish girl,” he muttered, now looking more relieved than angry. “You really are too much.”
“I would have made it, you know,” I said, pulling a piece of bread from North’s plate. “I had everything planned out.”
North leaned back in his chair. “You made excellent time for being on foot.”
“Why, thank you,” I said. “But how in the world did you get here before me? I only stopped a few times along the way.”
“A horse!” he said. “I don’t know why one wasn’t part of your cunning plan.”
“If you were on a horse, how long have you been here dawdling?” I asked. “And why did you not see me on the way?”
North suddenly found his gloves to be very interesting. I didn’t miss the way his cheeks colored.
“You got lost?” I asked. “North, it’s a straight road all the way to Provincia!”
“I might have taken one or two—or four—wrong turns trying to leave Arcadia,” he said.
“You’re hopeless!” I said with a laugh. “And besides, you shouldn’t have been riding with your injuries.”
“Yes, but how else was I going to keep up with my beautiful, beautiful darling? A wizard can only twist so far.”
I rolled my eyes.
“How did you get away from Pascal?” I asked. “He seemed intent on keeping you in Arcadia until you were completely healed.”
“He’ll be staying with Aphra for a while,” North said. “He’s angry about the entire situation, and I’m sure we’ll both be receiving a few scathing letters from him. But for now, he recognizes that Arcadia needs protection, at least until Dorwan’s been dealt with.”
“There you two are!” The table shook as Owain’s massive form sat down across from us. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised—North or me. He reached over and took one of the rolls off North’s plate and tore it apart with his teeth.
“What are you doing here?” North said.
“I’ve been skulking around here the past three or four days, waiting for the two of you to show up,” Owain said.
“You couldn’t wait until we were in the city?”
“That was a rash promise I made,” Owain sighed. “They threw me out of the Wizard Command before I had a second to catch my breath. Not interested in the word of mere humans, I suppose. Figured I would wait until you got here to try again.”
I cast a sidelong look at North, but he didn’t seem surprised.
“We’d better head into the city,” he said. “They close the gates at nightfall.”
“I’ve got Vesta and a wagon ready, though I feel bad about making her haul the three of us,” Owain said.
“Not to worry,” North said. “I’ve got a horse we can hitch up. It’s tacked up around the corner, brown with white spots. Go ahead. We’ll catch up in a moment.” North nodded in the direction, and the larger man set off.
I had just enough time to change my clothing before Owain came to find us again. North took my bag as we walked out into the daylight. The wagon that Owain had scrounged up was covered with a patched sheet of linen, but the wood of the bed looked distorted and cracked.
North set our bags inside the wagon and turned back toward me expectantly.
“Your book is in my bag,” I said. “I didn’t lose anything, I swear.”
“No…I know you wouldn’t,” he began. “But where’s your loom?”
“I had to use the wood for something else,” I said, forcing a smile. “It’s…all right. I don’t think I’ll have much time to weave in Provincia anyway.”
North held my arm; the expression on his face perfectly mirrored the pain in my heart.
I hauled myself up into the back of the wagon. North climbed in stiffly, dropping onto the floor next to me. He took the book from my bag and placed it in his own. But when his hand emerged, there was a small velvet bag resting in it. He extended it toward me, unable to mask the slight flus
h of color high on his cheeks.
“Open it,” he said.
“What is this?” I asked warily. The wagon lurched forward.
“You aren’t one for surprises, are you?” asked North, exasperated. “Just open it!”
I gave him one more suspicious look before I untied the drawstring.
The three blue crystals slipped easily from the bag, attached to a small silver chain that coiled in my palm. A bracelet, I thought. The round crystals glowed like tiny stars.
“When did you…?” I mumbled. My mind had turned to sap. “I don’t…Why…?”
North scratched the back of his head, looking away from me.
“Do you like it?” he asked hesitantly. “I’ve had it for a while, but I was waiting for the right time to give it to you. This isn’t the right time, but I’m not sure what’s going to happen over the next few days.”
“Why are you giving this to me?” I brushed my fingers along the silver chain.
“Partially as an apology,” North admitted. He smoothed the hair away from my face. “I know it won’t replace your loom, but I swear I’ll build you a new one even better than your last.”
“This is too nice for me,” I protested. “It must have cost you so much….”
“May I?” he asked, opening the clasp. When he fastened it around my wrist, an overwhelming feeling of warmth raced through me.
“Thank you,” North said. “You are the only reason I’ve made it this far.”
“That’s not true at all,” I admonished him. “You probably would have run into much less trouble without me.”
“See, that’s the funny thing about trouble,” he said, grinning. “It tends to find you when you go looking for it, and I’m always in the mood for a little.”
Exhausted from the journey, I fell asleep in spite of the constant jarring of the wagon. When I woke again, the sun was setting, and North was sitting up front with Owain.
“I’m glad I almost punched you in the face that night for stealing my ale, lad,” Owain was saying. “Lost an ale but gained a friend. I’m sorry I let you down in delivering the message.”
“No, it was unfair of me to ask you,” North said. “I knew they’d be difficult. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Owain said. “Think about how unexciting my life would have been without you. No adventures, no dragons, only catching petty thieves here and there to stay afloat.”
“Well, we should be there in just a bit,” North said. “I can smell the Lyfe from here.”
“Have you told her yet?” Owain asked. “Warned her, I mean, about the other wizards?”
North shook his head but said nothing.
“You know, lad,” Owain said, snapping the reins, “finding girls as brave as dragons and sweet as flowers ain’t so easy anymore. I thought Vesta was the last of them. Clever, generous—”
“Stubborn, frustrating,” North finished.
“Ah, then, a perfect match,” Owain laughed. “She’s the only one I’ve ever seen kick that sorry bottom of yours straight. Promise me you’re not going to let her slip away.”
North glanced over his shoulder. “I won’t.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I don’t know what I was expecting of Provincia, but now that I was standing directly in front of its famous walls and four high towers, I was wholly underwhelmed. Even the tallest spires of the castle were smaller than I had imagined.
The city, and the castle within it, sat on a small isle near the shore of the great lake, the Lyfe. A stone bridge stretched over the water, providing the single point of entry aside from the shipping gates. I pulled back the flap of the wagon’s cover to see the large wooden ships docked at the famous south gate, but the tents and fires were the first things to catch my attention. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of tents in every shape and color on the mainland, just out of the lake water’s reach. The surrounding forest seemed to have been recently cleared away to accommodate them. I asked Owain what they were doing there.
“It’s where they’ve put the lower-ranked wizards and the humans that were conscripted to help fortify the castle,” he said. “The humans will be sent home before the fight begins, whether they like it or not.”
The freezing rain started the moment our wagon wheels touched the bridge. We joined an endless line of people making their way into the city, their carts and trunks dragging sullenly behind them.
I leaned between North and Owain, trying to get a better view of what was ahead, as North moved quickly, untying his cloaks and stuffing them inside his bag.
“What are you doing?” I asked, startled.
“I have to be a man in this city,” North said as we rolled through the elaborately carved gate. Astraea’s stone face watched us impassively from the top of the arch, sending a tremor through me. North kept his head down, but I didn’t understand why until one of the guards, an impossibly large man, stopped us.
“Man or wizard?” the guard asked.
“Man,” Owain said. “Here to volunteer.”
The guard snorted, then turned to North.
“Man, of course,” North said. “Harrington Marshall.”
The guard gave me an appraising look.
“My wife, Sarah,” North ground out. The guard merely clucked his tongue in annoyance. Another guard came around the back of the wagon, lifting the flap to look inside. Seeing it was empty save for our bags, he signaled to the guard up front.
“Head in, then.” The guard stepped out of the horses’ way. “Curfew starts in an hour.”
“What was all that about?” I whispered once we were past.
“They would have made me sign the Wizard Registry,” North said. “It doesn’t matter that I’m unranked. They want to keep track of all the wizards going in and out of the city, and I don’t want to alert people to my presence just yet.”
We didn’t have to fight any crowds once inside, though the rain did seem to be coming down harder than before. I caught my first real glimpse of the royal palace through a heavy downpour.
After the horses were boarded for the night and Owain gave Vesta a very long, tearful promise to return in the morning, North led us to the Good Queen. I was so miserably wet and cold that I didn’t bother to see if there were any other taverns to choose from.
It was painfully obvious that there was something wrong with North. He kept his head down during the entire meal and barely spoke.
“Are you going to meet with the Sorceress Imperial tomorrow?” I asked.
“I was hoping to look for her tonight,” North said, his finger tapping against his knife. “But tomorrow seems a little more realistic.”
“And what about Oliver?” I asked. “He’s a member of the Guard, isn’t he? Could you talk to him about this?”
North sat perfectly still as the group of men behind him roared over some unheard joke.
“Of course I can talk to him about it,” North said, “but I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of his laughing in my face.”
“In any case, you two will have to manage without me,” Owain said. “I’ll be down in the undercroft of the castle, helping to secure the gates.”
“Lovely,” North muttered. “Down there with the rats.”
“North,” I gasped.
“What are you implying by that, lad?” Owain asked severely.
“It’s exactly what I told you before,” North said, leaning across the table. “The Guard isn’t going to look on you as anything but that. You should have stayed out of this like I told you. It might have saved you some loss of pride, at least.”
“Don’t confuse how folks feel about me with how they feel about you,” Owain said. “I’ll do everything I can to help protect my country, whether I have to knock in a few wizard skulls or not.”
North leaned back in his seat, a dark expression crossing his features. Owain’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
“That’s enough out of both of you,” I said. “It’s
obvious we need to rest if we’re already at the point of drawing blood.”
“Fine,” North said, pushing back his chair. “I’ll go check the availability of rooms—”
The sword thrust down so quickly, I didn’t have time to even gasp. The blade cut straight through North’s bag, pinning it to the floor.
North fell back into his seat, looking annoyed but unsurprised. The dark-haired man sitting directly behind him, proudly wearing his black leather armor, leaned back in his seat with an infuriating smile on his face.
“I think,” he said, “you’d best come with me instead.”
North pulled the sword up from the floor, tossing it back to the other man in disgust, and examined his torn bag. “That was completely unnecessary!” he said. Owain’s hand had returned to his own sword.
“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” the other man—wizard—said. “It’s unfortunate for you that I know this is the only rathole you stay in.”
North clucked his tongue thoughtfully. “So I suppose you’re here to arrest me, then, for evading the registry? It’s a little sad they’ve forced you to stoop to this—I’m sure you have far more important things to do with your time. Drinking wine with the court, for example, or writing pretty letters. However did you fit me into your day?”
“If you take him, you’ll be going through me first,” Owain warned. “Don’t think I won’t break that pretty face of yours.”
The wizard favored him with a look of annoyance, but Owain didn’t back down.
“I’m here to tell you that the Sorceress Imperial wishes to speak to you,” the wizard said. “Though I have no idea why she continues to waste her time with you.”
North chuckled. “Maybe she just likes me better than you, Ollie.”
This is Oliver, I thought, the very same one I had been hearing about for so long. His dark hair was perfectly trimmed, and he was shorter and stockier than North. With that uniform and loud voice, he had seemed much older at first glance. But now I saw the way his teeth ground together when North spoke and how his hands were fidgeting with the red fabric braided into the hilt of his sword.