White Heart of Justice (15 page)

“Are you also aware that Rafe's mother is one of the Amanita?”

“I didn't think you wanted to become the Laureate to please your Guardian's mother.”

I barked out a laugh. “I don't. But then again I don't plan on
not
becoming the Laureate to please my
ex-boyfriend's
mother either.”

Joy gave me a cryptic smile, but I doubted it was due to any oracle-type vision she was having. I think she was just glad I'd referred to her son as an ex-boyfriend instead of a
lying demon
.

“What would you do with the sword if you had it?” I asked. I wasn't going to promise her anything, but I was curious about her intentions.

“Nothing. If you are its hunter, I am its keeper. There's nothing more to it than that. And then eventually I'll pass on its keeping to my heir.”

“Ari.”

“Perhaps.”

“He's hardly a neutral party.”

Joy laughed. “No,
neutral
,
detached
, and
dispassionate
are not words I would ever use to describe Ari.” She patted my arm and turned toward the door. “The Council and the Divinity aren't the only ones who believe in you, Noon. And not all the letters in the tin box I gave you are hundreds of years old. One of them is less than six months old.”

*   *   *

I
spent a considerable amount of time at the party after that. Despite the fact that Joy's words caused an alarming spike in my signature, I refused to rush off to my room to read Ari's letter. It would have been rude and inconsiderate. I'd already spent half the night on the patio. And I didn't want to miss my last chance to mingle with Night and the Mederies he worked with.

And a small part of me was worried about what the letter would say. But I tucked that thought, along with the box of letters, away until later.

In the meantime, I ate and drank and laughed and talked, with no one (I hoped) being the wiser to my anxious thoughts. Toward the end of the night Rafe brought me a glass of wine. He said he'd been working with one of Empyr's sommeliers this semester and he offered to cast my choice of spells over it.

“What are my options?” I said, playing along. It was just like Rafe to learn how to ensorcell wine (a lauded Angel skill) and then use it purely for his own pleasure and his friends' recreational entertainment.

“I can offer you Chin Up, I've Got Your Back, or Good Night's Sleep.”

“Hmm . . .” I said, smiling at him. “Tough choices. But I'm going to go with unensorcelled, okay?”

To his credit, Rafe didn't look one bit disappointed. He handed me the wine, careful not to touch me as he did. It was the only moment of awkwardness between us since our almost-kiss.

“Where's yours?” I asked him. He looked surprised for a moment and then went to retrieve a glass. He came back with a glass that matched mine.

“If not a spell, then at least a toast?” he said, raising his glass.

I thought for a moment and then said:

“To barghests and new beginnings.”

We clinked glasses, took a sip, and then parted ways to talk with other people. Maize's Mederies gradually left in twos and threes, bundled against the cold for their walks home. My family stayed at the springhouse so that they could see us off the next day. Our plan was to leave from the barghest pen no later than midday tomorrow.

Around midnight I finally read Ari's letter.

Nouiomo—

I told you I would have told you the truth eventually. Now I'm not so sure. Letting you go and leaving you alone is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But it's probably best this way, at least for a while. I never could decide whether to help you stand on your own two feet or sweep you off them. I realize now, it was never my choice to make. Stay close to your Guardian. May both he and Luck protect you.

—Aristos

I crumpled Ari's letter up into a tiny ball and set it on top of the tin box Joy had given me. Then I burned it. The arrow tip in my chest burned too, but I ignored it. I watched as the white paper and black words turned red, then orange, and then white. Finally, when there was no further trace of the letter—not even ashes or a black singe mark—I put the box away.

Chapter 13

T
he squeals, grunts, growling, and yowling coming from the corral made it sound as if it were a demon prison instead of a barghest-breeding pen. Linnaea had confided proudly to me that Demeter was the only tribe that raised barghests. I'd already been aware of some of Demeter's unorthodox practice methods (which of the other straightlaced Mederi tribes would have taken in a male Mederi like Night?) but seeing the barghests made me appreciate anew just how open-minded these southernmost of the southern women were.

The pen was a huge, fenced enclosure in a cleared area of the woods. The ground was full of dirty snow, rocks, and other debris that the barghests had dug up. A stone path circled the rough rectangular perimeter. I looked around carefully, as I always did, to make sure there were no gardens or greenery that I might accidentally kill. It was a precaution I was used to, but here in Maize it was even more necessary than elsewhere. But there was nothing close enough to worry about. My guess was that Demeter was so used to Kalisto visiting the pen and picking out sledge beasts for her hunters, that they kept the area intentionally clear.

In all, there were twenty barghests currently in the pen: a dozen pups, five females, and three males. Rafe and I had come down at dawn to meet Linnaea and to spend some time with the pack before making our selections. The rest of my family was meeting us here later. We'd risen in the early morning light, packed up what little belongings we had at the springhouse—which for me included my race file, Bialas' journal, and the tin box of letters—grabbed coffee and biscuits, and had trekked up here, happy to see that Linnaea was already waiting for us outside the pen. She stood next to the sledge we'd be taking, which was now packed with all the gear we'd bought at Kalisto's Crystal Palace before I'd been shot.

We watched Linnaea feed the barghests their morning rations: some hideous dried concoction made up of crow, vole, and lizard parts. We'd be taking a few bags of the stuff on the sledge, but the barghests would also be able to hunt for live food off the trail.

The barghests looked as horrible as their food. Only in the vaguest sense did they resemble dogs. They had four legs, a tail, claws, and jaws full of sharp canine teeth. But barghests are to dogs the way drakons are to bats. First off, they were huge. Everything about them was bigger and meaner. On four legs their faces were even with mine. Upon seeing them it became easy to imagine a demon like Lilith riding one. They had barrel chests and wolfish grins. Their teeth were as large as horns and their paws four times the size of Rafe's booted foot. And their fur . . . well, let's just say seeing it on the living creature didn't improve its appearance. It reminded me of long, thick, tangled rat fur. I shuddered and tried to reconcile myself to the fact that, so long as I didn't get eaten by one in the pen today, two of them would be under my care by midday.

“So which of you is first?” Linnaea said, motioning to the pen.

“Do we lasso them? Saddle them?” Rafe asked. Hands in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels surveying them. “Cast a spell over them?”

Linnaea snorted. “I wouldn't cast a spell over them at first. In time, as they get used to you, you might be able to cast something simple over them, but don't start that way. In the beginning, all you're going to do is let them get used to you. They'll try to push you around. See what you're made of. They're as curious about you as you are about them.
Don't
show any fear.”

Like dogs and demons,
I thought.

“I'll go first,” I said, walking over to the gate. “What about waning magic? What's their response to that?”

Linnaea smiled, but it wasn't reassuring. “That depends on the user.” She walked over to the gate and held it open for me.

“You're not coming in?” I asked, trying to ignore the growls coming from the beasts behind her.

“Nah, it's better if you go in alone,” she said, winking at me.

Better for who? Her or me?

I took a deep breath and tried to steady my nerves by reminding myself that these were nonmagical beasts. As long as I kept my fear and my magic in control, I'd be fine.
Just like a Gridiron match,
I told myself. But instead of facing one Ludovicus Mischmetal, I was facing the equivalent of twenty tigers.

Well, Virtus, Fara's tiger, hadn't been that bad, right? In fact, he'd been extraordinarily helpful when we'd battled the
rogare
demons who'd attacked us last semester. But I knew I only felt that way because Virtus had been on my side. Now I just had to convince these barghests that they too should side with me, not against me.

Follow me, not attack me.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Linnaea called. “Don't let them knock you down.”

I swallowed and nodded stiffly to her.

Thankfully, the barghests couldn't sense my signature. Because if they'd been able to, I surely would have spooked them. The beasts appeared to be clustered in three main groups. One group was a male and female with one small whelp who had a white star on her forehead. That gave me pause because the little whelp looked like a miniature version of the huge, slobbering, grinning beast I'd seen under the water at the spring yesterday morning with my mother.

The second group was a lone pair. They were two of the biggest beasts in the pen, which meant they were probably the other two males. They grappled with each other in a corner. When one of them butted the other, causing him to crash into the fence, I idly wondered if Linnaea ever worried about them getting loose. The third group was the closest with four females and eleven pups that ranged in size from large whelps to nearly full grown.

The moment I switched places with Linnaea and stepped into the pen, the closest group rushed me. I tried not to panic.Under different circumstances, it might have been humorous. Last year, I'd been completely green and untested as a fighter. I'd never engaged in hand-to-hand combat and had never killed so much as a house spider. This year . . . well, I couldn't say the same. And yet . . . I had no experience with animals. Virtus didn't count. He'd been Fara's tiger. We Onyxes had never had any pets. The very idea of four-footed creatures permissively trotting around our family's estate during my formative years was laughable. So I had no wellspring of furry-friend love to tap into when faced with these bizarre half-domestic, half-wild beasts.

Should I try to cluck my tongue? Snap my fingers? Whistle? What would make them listen and obey? What would make them stop rushing me?

Too late, I remembered Linnaea's warning not to let them topple me over.

All eleven of the pups immediately got tangled around my feet while two of the adults butted their noses against my chest. There was no way to prevent stepping back. Not only did instinct cry out for me to
get away
from their jaws, but the strength and weight of them pressing against me forced me to step back. I spared a second's glance behind me, trying to gauge where the whelps were so I wouldn't step on one of them, but the motion caused an awkward shift in balance and I started falling. I cried Rafe's name in alarm.

Odd, perhaps. What could he do? He was outside the pen. But Rafe had cast Impenetrable and other spells over me so many times during our last semester that calling out to him for help just came naturally to me. Luckily, he knew exactly who I wanted to protect. And it wasn't me.

Rafe's cast of Impenetrable over the whelps had to have been the fastest cast in history. I landed with a thump as the whelps twisted and struggled their way out from beneath me completely unharmed. But I realized—as I looked at the slobbering, slavering jaws of the full-sized adult barghests that now lunged toward me—that I'd gone and done exactly what Linnaea had warned me not to do. I'd let them knock me down. In a rush I gathered waning magic to me to use as a shield, but . . . fact was, if I used it on these beasts, they'd be dead.

I only had a split second to decide. Trust that they wouldn't hurt me or start blasting them into oblivion. I raised my arm to cover my eyes, and just before I shut them I took a good look at the creatures.

Would they really hurt me?

Linnaea started shouting from the side of the pen. I felt several spells slip into place over me. But the most unusual feeling of peace came over me. It was similar to the feeling that I felt when I'd been at Demeter's hot spring with my mother throwing the waning magic that I shaped into fiery frogs. Suddenly I knew these beasts weren't going to hurt me, even if I was sprawled on the ground in front of them like live meat for the taking. Or they wouldn't so long as I didn't lose my wits and act scared. So I flung my arm off my face and sat up. My signature still hummed with all the waning magic I'd gathered to me, but instead of shaping it into a shield and bladed weapon, I shaped it into fireballs that I rolled along the ground.

The barghests
loved
it. They chased after my waning magic fireballs with tails wagging as if lethal fire was a toy for them to play with. Each time one of them got close enough to actually catch one, I'd snuff it out just before they reached it so the fire wouldn't burn them. Time and time again I watched as barghest jaws opened wide to try and catch my fire, but then closed on nothing more than smoke. A few of the whelps sneezed and looked puzzled, but most growled and shook their heads and then immediately searched for a new one to attack. I knew then that these beasts were even fiercer than I'd first thought. They willingly chased fire
and
tried to eat it.
We'd get along just fine,
I thought.

After a while, when it seemed as if my rapport with the barghests was well established, Rafe came into the pen. Remembering how Virtus had hissed and spit at him when they'd first met, I was wary. It would make things difficult if Rafe and our sledge beasts didn't get along. But he was one step ahead of me. Instead of fire . . . he offered them bacon. They soon abandoned me and surrounded Rafe, who unsurprisingly looked like he was having the time of his life. I was quite sure, in that moment, that if Linnaea had allowed us to take the entire pack, Rafe would have happily agreed.

Instead, over the course of the next few hours, we selected the ones we would take. In the end, we picked the dam and sire of the smallest whelp with the star on her forehead. Telesto, her sire, had been the most fearless about chasing my fire, beating the other barghests to the ball nine times out of ten, while Brisaya, her dam, had been the first one to figure out if she got too close to it, the ball would disappear. Fast, fearless, and smart seemed like good traits for the animals who would be our only friendly company to have. And Linnaea assured us that the little whelp was more than ready to move to the larger group (“
Paratus sum
, remember?” she said).

By midday, when Karanos, Aurelia, and Nightshade arrived to see us off, I felt as if I knew enough about barghests to start breeding them myself. Linnaea's lessons had been thorough. Rafe and I now knew what they liked to eat (frost herons, graupel porcupines, and auster hares), what else they could eat (carrion, yeti entrails, and hiburnal grubs and maggots), what they couldn't (
any
demon meat, including ice basilisk or berserker carcasses), how to put them in the sledge harness (bacon helped, but would be in short supply), and the commands we'd likely use the most (whoa, hike, gee, haw, easy, and on by).

Since Telesto and Brisaya were already rigged and ready to go by the time my family arrived, our good-byes were short. Night and Linnaea gave us big hugs and Night promised to regrow my tooth when I stopped here on our way back to New Babylon. If I didn't know Night to be one of the most honest people in all of Halja I might have thought then that Night had lied to Rafe about the reason for not growing it back earlier—that Night had chosen not to regrow it so that, no matter what happened to me, he might always think I was on my way back up to Maize so that he could finish healing me.

But then I shook my head to clear it of such melancholic thoughts.

As she had for my last assignment, Aurelia brought parting gifts for me. This time her gifts came in a dirty burlap bag that she handed directly to me. I could tell immediately from its weight and shape that it was full of sharp pieces of metal. I gave Aurelia a puzzled look and untied the top. I pulled out something with a wooden handle and a flat, half-moon-shaped blade at the top. “An edging iron,” my mother explained. My puzzled frown deepened as I sifted through the bag pulling out first a rusty pair of hedge trimmers, then several different-sized pruning hooks, a daisy gruber, hand hoe, and finally a scythe.

What exactly did Aurelia expect me to do with gardening tools?

She saw the confusion in my face and took pity on me, laughing. But when I glanced up from the bag to her, her smile was colder than the wind blowing in from the south. I knew her smile was for my enemies though, not me.