White Heart of Justice (9 page)

In the center of everything was a sparring ring and an archery range. I supposed they were there so customers could try out the weapons they were considering buying. Two brawny men circled each other in the ring. It looked a bit like a rank match except their weapons didn't glow with fire and they seemed like they were having fun. There were more archers at the range. At least twenty of them. I imagined that was because Hyrke hunters could use arrows to shoot down winged ice basilisks.

“How will we know which vendor has what supplies?” Rafe said, his voice raised against the wind. “I don't see any signs. It'll take us all day and into tomorrow to visit all those tents and huts.”

I turned away from the rail and started looking for a floor map or vendor list, finally spotting one near a set of iron stairs that led to the floor below—the same set of stairs the she-bear was ascending. Except it wasn't a she-bear. Or at least she didn't look like a she-bear. She looked human, although that didn't mean the woman looked ordinary. In fact, I suspected she was a demon.

“Come on,” I said, pulling on Rafe's cloak and pointing toward the stairs. “Something tells me that's Kalisto.”

The three of us reached the top of the stairs at the same time. I stared at the woman in front of us, somewhat awestruck. Everything about her was extreme—her size, her coloring, her clothing, her bearing. If I hadn't known she was a waning magic user, I might have thought she had giant's blood. She was big, but well proportioned, and from the way she carried herself, I was betting she was agile despite her size. Her hair looked like the pelt of a winter fox, all silvery gray and tawny brown with streaks of black, and her eyes were the color of ice with just the slightest hint of blue. She wore a fur-lined dappled leather cape paired with copper-colored leggings and snow boots. She carried no weapon. But then again waning magic users usually didn't. Our fire was our weapon. And, looking at her, I had no doubt that Kalisto was a master at shaping her magic. In short, Glashia would have
loved
her.

As my Guardian Angel, it fell to Rafe to initiate the introductions. He did, referencing our full names, family connections, and places of birth. Kalisto smiled then, her teeth gleaming and her eyes bright, and said in a booming voice that was easily heard above the wind:

“And I am Kalisto, Patron Demon of Bears, Hunters, and the Old Trail. I know your father well, Nouiomo. He told me you were coming—and where you're headed.” She grinned even more fiercely. “I've never outfitted anyone headed to Tartarus before. It is an honor and a pleasure to do so. Come.” She motioned, turning toward the stairs. Just before following her down, I glanced over at the vendor directory. Next to it was a larger sign with letters as big as my fist. It read:

STOP!

The southern Verge is one of the most dangerous and forbidding places in all of Halja. One out of every two hunters who follow the Old Trail will not return. Read the risks below. If you are unprepared to face these dangers, turn back now.

Under the warning was a long list of dangers hunters would face: freezing to death, starving to death, exposure, exhaustion, dehydration, getting lost, falling into a crevasse, losing a limb to frostbite, natural beasts, ice basilisks, as well as “other miscellaneous atrocities made of blood, bone, metal, and/or magic.”

I shivered.
One out of every two?
I glanced over at Rafe, feeling guilty again for getting him involved. I opened my mouth to tell him—

“Don't,” he said in a firm, serious voice that cut right through the wind. “
Don't
insult me or the vow I took by suggesting that I don't have to come with you.”

My eyebrows shot up. I wasn't used to seeing Rafe with his ruff up. “I wasn't going to say anything of the kind,” I said quickly. “I was merely going to point out that Kalisto forgot to include in her list of dangers snow blindness and scurvy.”

“Scurvy?” Rafe laughed. “Noon, you are such a bad liar.”

Throughout the morning, Rafe did his best to pay attention. But he'd always been the sort to learn on his own so it didn't surprise me when he wandered off during one of Kalisto's lengthy lectures about how to use the gear she was selling us. There'd been countless instructions: how to pitch a tent, pack the sledge, restring snowshoes; how to tie knots, repair ripped clothing, keep our goggles from fogging; how to keep our sleeping bags dry and our spirits up during the single most challenging thing I'd ever do in my life (and, yes, Kalisto was aware of some of the things I'd done already).

Kalisto managed to pack a semester's worth of outdoor training into a single morning. The only things she didn't teach me were how to build a fire (we'd both had a good laugh over that one) and how to use the metal weapons and tools I'd be bringing. Kalisto knew both Rochester and Glashia and was well versed in what my St. Luck's education had already taught me. There was nothing she could tell me about swords, knives, daggers, pickaxes, and poles that I didn't already know. She knew a lot about barghests too, she said, but the Demeter Tribe knew just as much and since that's who we would be getting the beasts from, the Mederies in Maize could tell us all about them.

Around midday I started to feel the other waning magic signature I'd first felt when I'd entered the Crystal Palace—the shadowy, whispery, cloaked one. At first, I didn't recognize what it was. The feeling started out as ordinary hunger, which quickly morphed into exhaustion.
Small wonder,
I thought,
considering the sixty pounds of gear I'd been carrying around all morning.
I looked around for a place to rest, but all I saw was unbroken snow. We were near the edge of the palace's frosted glass wall, which was about as far away from the spectator seats and stands lining the sparring ring and archery range as one could get. I gazed at the palace wall, my neck craning from floor to ceiling, my gaze following the black skeleton frame as it zigzagged its way across numerous irregularly shaped frosted-glass panels. Against the dull, leaden afternoon light, the black frame's jagged spread made it seem as if the sky itself was cracking.

My limbs became numb. I couldn't tell if it was the cold—or something else. And then my hearing faded. The vendors' voices behind me grew dim and I heard only the high-pitched sound of the wind. It sounded like the squeal of an animal in a trap. I turned around. I wasn't much for premonitions, but I could feel something coming . . .

Something ancient and powerful. Something that was as dark and cold as fire was light and hot.

Pfft!
Searing pain shot through my left shoulder. The impact of it made me stagger backward and I dropped my gear in the snow.
Had my left arm just been torn off by a fireball? Even Nightshade wouldn't be able to regrow an arm,
I thought crazily. My upper chest
burned
as if it were on fire, but when I turned my head, I saw something redder than fire. I saw blood. My own and lots of it, leaking from the hole in my chest made by the arrow sticking out of it. I stared down at the gear I'd been holding, which was now scattered around me in the snow. My right hand clutched the shaft of the arrow. The only thing I seemed capable of comprehending right then was how tightly it was wedged in my chest. My grip on the arrow loosened and I stumbled backward, falling into the snow.

Above me Kalisto shifted into a bear and roared. She stood up on her hind legs and her pelt puffed out like a porcupine while she gazed around the lower level of her winter bazaar looking for the erring archer. On the ground, I wheezed as Kalisto bared her teeth and then snapped them shut. She fell down on four legs, causing a minor explosion of snow at her feet and then turned and ran toward the direction the arrow had come from.

Less than a second later, Rafe was at my side. His expression scared me so I turned my head and focused on the snow, hiccupping because I couldn't breathe right. The snow's lack of color was calming. Peaceful. The cold and the numbness returned. Rafe knelt beside me and pressed his cheek to mine. My breath hitched. And then I stopped breathing.

I passed out to the quiet murmur of Rafe's voice whispering spells in my ear.

Chapter 8

W
hen I woke up, we were on a train, but all around us was darkness. My head was in Rafe's lap and we were in a railcar alone. From the sway of the seat beneath me, I figured we'd pulled out of the station long ago. Above me, Rafe slept. His cheeks were hollow and his skin had a grayish green cast to it. I'd seen other Angels run out of
potentia
, but never Rafe. Until now, his power to cast spells had seemed limitless. I knew then, without a doubt, that the only thing keeping me alive was Rafe's
potentia
. I wanted to tell him not to worry if he failed. That my dying wouldn't be his fault. I knew, because of the memory I'd been given of his brother's funeral, how guilty he still felt over
that
death. I couldn't stand the thought of mine being another weight that he would have to bear.

Without thinking, I tried to raise my hand to grab his sleeve so that I could tell him that but pain immediately arced across my chest. I groaned and coughed and tried to talk, but couldn't. There was a thick, bubbly feeling in my throat, like I'd been gurgling with salty syrup and had accidentally swallowed some. But I knew it wasn't syrup. I looked down. The arrow shaft had been sawed off, but its tip was still in my chest. I could feel it. Rafe woke and looked down at me, his eyes bloodshot and wild. He swiped his arm across his face, rubbing at his eyes and cheeks with his sleeve. He then reached down and put his palm on my forehead and started feverishly murmuring the words to a spell again.

When I woke again, the train was still. Rafe was lifting me off the seat and into his arms. The pain was excruciating. I tried to tell Rafe to
leave me be
. I didn't want to move, even if I died on the train. I didn't have the strength to put my arms around his neck so I just lay there like a rag doll, my cheek pressed against his chest, my mouth opened in this horrible scream I didn't have enough breath to complete.
Leave me!
was my only thought. But there was no way to tell Rafe that's what I wanted. I didn't have enough energy to grit my teeth or move my fingers, let alone talk or grab Rafe's arm to make him listen.

And that's when I felt the other waning magic signature. But this one wasn't dark and malignant like the one I'd felt just before the arrow pierced my heart at Kalisto's palace. This one was white-hot and felt like the sun. It was Ari. Or rather, it was an echo of Ari. It was my dying memory of him because it faded as soon as Rafe started whispering the words of his healing spell in my ear again.

Rafe walked down the aisle of the train and descended a short set of steps, trying—and failing—to keep my bleeding body still. It was an agony I thought I'd never survive. When Rafe's foot hit the ground, the impact jolted me. Instantly it felt like my bones had just been pulverized and turned to dust. If felt like the simple act of moving me off the train had reduced me to nothing more than a sack of skin that Rafe was going to drop in a grave somewhere. My eyes rolled up in my head and I let the darkness take me. My last thought was that Rafe was saying the wrong prayer. Instead of a healing spell, he should have been saying the Final Blessing:
breath to ember, ember to flame, flame to fire, fire to ember, ember to ashes . . .

*   *   *

W
hen I woke for the third time, I knew I wasn't dead and likely wouldn't be anytime soon. But then, the very next moment, I almost wished I was. It hurt
that much
.

I lay in bed, in a darkened room with log walls, a vaulted ceiling, and a large glass window that overlooked ice-covered evergreens and a blanket of unbroken moonlit snow. Inside, an oil lamp flickered on a small bedside table and beside me, in a large armchair, Rafe slept. For a single moment I wondered if maybe I
had
died. If maybe, in death, I was caught in some vicious never-ending cycle where I would relive the last moments of my life by waking and sleeping and waking again next to the man who'd tried to save me.

“Rafe,” I said. My voice was a scary surprise even to me. It sounded as if someone had shot an arrow down my throat, not into my heart.

Instantly, Rafe was awake. He bolted out of the chair and over to the bed. His eyes weren't quite as wild as the last time I'd seen them, but they were pretty close. But as soon as his gaze met mine, his expression softened and some of my fear fled. His shoulder-length, straw-colored hair was tangled and clumpy and he had the beginnings of a beard, but he smiled when he saw me.

“For a while there I was worried you might follow in Crae Ibeimorth's footsteps.”

Crae Ibeimorth had been a minor demon, but she was firmly entrenched in the public's affection. She was the Patron Demon of Sleep. It was said when her lover first kissed her, she swooned and fell into a deep sleep for days. Her lover had finally revived her in a most ungentlemanly way, by throwing a bucket of ice-cold water on her.

“Were you tempted to throw a bucket of water on me?” I said. I laughed then but the pain in my chest brought tears to my eyes and I stopped.

“As a matter of fact, I do know a spell called Bucket of Ice-Cold Water,” he said softly, “but I think you've had enough of my spellcasting for now.”

“What happened?” I asked, my voice croaking like a frog's.

“You were shot in the chest with an arrow.”

I wanted to scoff at him but didn't have the energy. “I know
that
,” I said, coughing. But it came out as a sick-sounding bark. Rafe got up and walked over to a dresser. He poured some water into a glass and came back over. Thankfully, the glass had a straw because sitting up to drink it suddenly seemed like it would be as difficult as hiking to the moon. While I drank, Rafe brought me up to speed.

Apparently, the arrow had lodged in my chest right next to my heart. There hadn't been a lot of time to decide what to do, but Rafe, Karanos, and Aurelia had all thought heading straight for Maize was best, so my brother Night could heal me. Karanos contacted Demeter's monarch via the tribe's one electro-harmonic machine and then arranged for our unscheduled train trip south.

During surgery, Night had been able to remove most of the arrow, but he was forced to leave its tiny, barbed tip inside my chest. He suspected the arrow might have been ensorcelled. My brother then stabilized me with waxing magic and I'd been resting ever since. Night was also resting, in the other room, and I'd been here—at Demeter's springhouse—for a day and a half.

I breathed an inward sigh of relief. A day and a half meant it was only Wednesday night. I could still compete in the race. We could leave from here on Friday just like I'd originally planned. That is, we could if I could make it out of bed by then. And what had Rafe meant when he'd said Night thought the arrow tip may have been ensorcelled? That didn't sound good. But I had all day tomorrow to worry about me. Right now, I wanted to know how Rafe was doing.

“And you?” I said to him. “Are
you
okay?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. I know you almost ran out of
potentia
.” Just because I hadn't died didn't mean I didn't still want to tell him what I'd wanted to tell him on the train.

“Rafe,” I said slowly. “If I die during the race . . . promise me you won't feel responsible.”

He gave me a sardonic look. “I'm your Guardian, Noon,” he said in a dry voice. “Of course I'm going to feel responsible.” He frowned and bent down to open one of the drawers in the bedside table. The table and the bed frame were both made of white enameled cast iron. The furniture and the slightly antiseptic smell were the only indications that I was in a convalescent house.

I wanted to tell Rafe that's not exactly what I'd meant. That Luck, and Luck alone, was responsible for when someone died. But maybe Rafe didn't believe that and wouldn't appreciate hearing it. And he
had
managed to keep me alive against all odds during the trip down here. Whether it was Luck, faith,
potentia
, or simply Raphael Sinclair's sheer will that I remain alive, who was I to argue?

I handed Rafe the empty glass of water and was just about to close my eyes again when he held up a pack of gauze, tape, and some sort of ointment.

“What's that?” I said warily.

“I think you know,” he said. “Hold still.”

Rafe peeled back the covers and, with no warning, started to untie the strings that held my tunic together.

“Wait!” I cried (although my voice was so weak, it sounded more like a squeak). “What are you doing?”

“Changing your bandage,” he said patiently. “It might be uncomfortable, but it won't hurt.”

“Have you done it before?”

No one worries about being seen naked when they're near death. Holding on to life (or wishing you were dead if the pain's that bad) is all anyone thinks about. But now that I wasn't in agonizing pain or hovering near death, my natural modesty returned. Baring my demon mark during a fight was one thing. Baring anything lower than that—for any reason—was quite another.

Rafe laughed. “No, one of the Mederies has been. But it's not like it's complicated and—”

He interrupted himself as something occurred to him. “Are you
shy
, Noon? About me . . . undressing you?”

He grinned.

I felt the blood rush to my face. It betrayed emotions I'd rather Rafe not have seen. If I didn't think about him in
that way
, I wouldn't be shy, right? And I didn't. Think about him in that way.

Except that I just had.

I tried to clear my throat, but the sound came out as a hiccupy grunt.
I'd probably best shut up now,
I thought and leaned back on the pillow.

I tried to relax.

But it was hard when Rafe started to untie my laces again.

In the end, however, it was much less awkward than I thought it would be. Nothing untoward was revealed. Rafe untied the laces at the top of my tunic and then peeled the shirt down just low enough to see the bandage he'd be changing. My chest was unbelievably sore too, so once Rafe got to work, there was nothing suggestive about anything he did. And when I got a look at the arrow's entry point, it was off-putting to say the least.

My demon mark was gone, obliterated by a thick, nasty looking, dark slash that was crisscrossed with stitches.

“And they say ‘
X
marks the spot,'” I said. “Looks more like
X
s mark the spot.”

“It'll heal,” Rafe said offhandedly. Once he'd started changing the bandage, he was all business.

“I know,” I said, gazing up at the ceiling as Rafe worked. “Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to cut my demon mark off?”

Rafe paused and our gazes met briefly.

“No,” he said, his tone indicating the information was either surprising, unsettling, or both.

“Oh yeah,” I said matter-of-factly. “I tried to gouge it out with a kitchen knife.”

Again Rafe paused, but this time he didn't meet my gaze.

“You must've really hated your mark.”

“I hated my magic,” I clarified. “But it didn't matter. The mark grew back, darker than before—with no scarring.”

Rafe looked at my wound with a doubtful expression. “I'm not sure even Nightshade could prevent scarring this time.”

I shrugged. I didn't really care. And then something occurred to me. I ran my tongue across my teeth, feeling the gap where Vicious had knocked my tooth out.

“Night didn't grow my tooth back,” I said.

Rafe put the last piece of tape in place and started tying the strings of my tunic.

“He said your body had had enough of stuff being pulled out of it with waxing magic. He said that healing can be more violent than people realize. Sometimes bones need to be rebroken in order to be set properly. Fevers can ravage a body for days before finally burning off a deadly infection. Even learning how to move—how to fight—after an injury like yours can be . . . painful. He said the tooth could wait.”

He tied the last strings together and then placed his hands gently on my shoulders.

“Better?” he asked softly.

I nodded. I hadn't heard him casting any spells—and he'd said I'd had enough of his spellcasting for a while—but whatever he'd done had taken away the burn and eased the ache. I had a feeling my wound would be throbbing again by morning, but for now, it felt wonderfully numb.

For a long moment, Rafe didn't move. I could see the outline of his face in the moonlight. He had a strong chin, which was now covered in stubble, and high cheekbones. His taupe-colored eyes looked like granite in the low light. He looked absolutely serious, but suddenly I remembered the silly wish he'd made at Kalisto's fountain two days ago.
I wished I could kiss your gap-toothed smile.

Did he still want to? Would he now?

Is that what
I
wanted?