03 - Sworn (23 page)

And so I did, back toward the western mountains for what I could only hope would be the last time.

15

NOX

I
set a jar of calembella petals into a small crate next to one full of heartleaf bark strands, packed straw between them, and made a note of both on Mama Bunn’s list. Her own handwriting was so shaky as to be illegible, so I had taken over the note taking as well as the packing. The old woman sat on a spare crate and leaned back against the wall, leafing through her potions book and fanning herself with a folded paper while directing my actions.

“Mind you keep the swamp-grasses away from the starflower,” she said absently.

“I know, Mama.” I held back the irritation in my voice—or at least, I thought I did.

She snapped the book shut. “You know a lot, don’t you?”

I took a slow, deep breath and wished for a nip of the distilled barley that still sat on the top shelf. I’d never get to it without her noticing, though. “As I’ve said, I’m happy to learn more from someone as experienced as yourself.”

She cackled. “Your false humility is always entertaining. Tell me, have you figured out how to make the oak reaction?”

I thought she’d forgotten about that little riddle. “No, Mama.”

She opened her book again, apparently satisfied that she’d put me in my place. “You talk to me again when you’ve got that figured out.” She hummed to herself as she traced her fingers over the scribbled notes and drawings on the pages before her.

I got back to work. It was past time for us to be on the road, but everyone was moving slowly. We all should have been eager to leave. The gardens were dead, there was no sign of rain, and every animal save for the horses and the hunting dogs were dead and eaten. We’d starve if we stayed, and certain members of the community had been encouraging their leaders to move on to greener spaces for months. But to move on meant uncertainty. Maybe riches lay ahead for those who supported Ulric, or maybe war and death. There was no knowing.

At least starvation was a quiet certainty.

I picked up a dusty paper packet marked in a scribble that said something like “yrbex mimsy” and opened it. Powdery pink petals crumbled as the light hit them. They didn’t give off any energy. I turned to ask Mama what they were, but found that she’d dozed off. The crone’s ability to flip between sleep and complete awareness was incredible.

I noted “yrbex mimsy, ask later” on the paper and tucked the envelope into the crate, then reached for the bottle of barley. I mixed a half-portion with essence of sun-lily and a drop of pinesap, careful not to let the spoon clink against the side of the chipped teacup.

The potion burned as it went down, but immediately relaxed me. I finished packing and carried the last crate out to the wagon, then returned to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

“You ready to go?”

The rough edge to Kel’s voice made it unrecognizable until I turned to see him standing just inside the doorway.

We hadn’t spoken much the previous night. Hadn’t done much of anything else either, in spite of finally having the tent all to ourselves. When his hands had roamed, I’d tensed. Said I was tired. He hadn’t objected, and certainly hadn’t tried to talk about our relationship again.

What the hell is wrong with me?
I looked him over, and felt ashamed for hesitating. Anyone would be a fool to not be climbing all over him the moment they were alone with with him. And yet I’d frozen. I thought I loved him, but I’d been wrong about that before. I knew I wanted him, but giving in to that would finalize things in a way that made me want to flee for the mountains. I’d always known that sex and love weren’t the same thing, but it felt like for us, they might be.

Should have jumped on him before it came to this.

I knew what I wanted, and was still afraid to embrace it. Choices I’d made in the past and diverging paths for my future crowded my mind, as they had as I lay awake the night before with his arm draped over my waist. My sleep had been filled with frightening dreams of abandonment and loneliness, death and monsters in dark woods. Morning’s light had been a relief, though I rose feeling no more rested than when I’d lain down.

Kel cleared his throat. He sounded worse off than I felt, and as flat as his eyes looked.

“Kel, what’s wrong?”
Gods, say it’s not me. Say my hesitation hasn’t crushed your pride or your will to live, or—

He forced a smile. “Just the usual. The dryness is hitting me hard today. Do you need a hand with anything there?”

I smiled back and pretended I didn’t notice the dark circles under his eyes. “Not unless you want to carry the old woman out.”

“Bah!” Mama Bunn vacated her crate, stepped onto the porch and climbed into the front of the wagon without any assistance, taking up the reins attached to a bony gray nag that dozed in the sunshine. It snorted as the old woman twitched the reins and whistled, and heaved its weight into the collar.

“Best be off,” Mama called back over her shoulder.

“Guess we’re walking,” Kel said.

“I could try to fix you something,” I said, though my lack of optimism came out in my voice.

Kel smiled and shook his head. “Really, it’s nothing. We’re moving toward water, right? That’s all I need to know to keep me going.”

I didn’t bother looking back as we joined the moving column of people, horses, carts, and makeshift sleds that filled the forest and then the road when we reached it. This wasn’t my home. Whatever came next had to be better.

Well, perhaps not better. But it would be something.

Kel didn’t seem to want to talk, so I used the next hours to consider Ulric’s problem. Nothing I’d found among Mama’s supplies had given me any hope, but I’d find the answer even if it killed me. Getting his magical strength back up was the surest way of getting Severn off of the throne, and that had been my goal since the day I’d left my old life behind.

I tried to focus on the idea of creating something to help protect one’s mind from magic—an interesting problem, even if there was no immediate need for it, and I did love a good challenge. My thoughts kept drifting to Severn, to Luid, to everything I’d lost. And from there they turned to my mother, to the loveliness of her face even as life carved lines into her skin, to the love she’d found to give me even when crushed under her own heartbreak. Her determination to go on after she’d lost everything had been an example for me, shaming me when I wanted to collapse under my own struggles.

“What’s on your mind?”

Kel’s voice snapped me back to the road. “Nothing. My childhood.”

“In Cressia?”

“Silly, right? I should leave the past in the past.” I said it as a defense, putting myself down before someone else could, but the truth of it struck me. I had decided to look to the future, but the habit of ruminating on old hurts anchored me.

“I’d like to hear about it,” Kel said. “I’d appreciate something to keep my thoughts occupied, if you’re willing to tell me.”

“You haven’t told me much about your childhood, either.” I’d have loved to know more. To hear about how mer children lived, how Kel became the person he was.

“We’re not allowed to talk to humans about our lives.” He sounded apologetic. “I can defy my elders when it won’t harm them personally, but the wall we’ve built between our culture and yours isn’t meant to be breached.”

How promising for our future,
I thought, but couldn’t fault him for his loyalty.
Well, not much.
Being rebuffed, even gently, still stung.

“How old were you when your mother was banished?” he asked.

“Four.”

Thanks to the plodding pace of Mama Bunn’s ancient horse, the rest of the group had passed us. Kel and I slowed further, leaving us alone with my story. I spoke words I’d thought many times, until they’d become something like a story in my mind. I’d never told it to anyone else.

“We nearly starved that first winter,” I began. “Whatever money Ulric sent with us disappeared along the way, though my mother never told me how. I had this constant, gnawing ache in my belly. In time, I stopped noticing it so much, started sleeping more. The people in town tried to help us, but had so little to eat themselves that there wasn’t much to spare. They gave what they could.”

I paused, and Kel nodded for me to go on.

“They let us stay in an abandoned temple after we arrived. Mother said it was good luck to shelter under the gaze of the white dragon. He frightened me. The paint on his eyes was peeling off.” If I closed my eyes, I could still see the image as vividly as if I were a child again. White paint on old wooden wall, with a chipped and flaking forest in the background. A fearsome monster, but flat and powerless.

“The what?” Kel asked.

“The white dragon—the diamond dragon, actually. I found out later that he was supposed to be either the Goddess’s pet or her earthly aspect. Or something. People weren’t too sure by then. Whatever he was, he didn’t bring us any luck. Just stood there painted on the wall and watched us waste away.”

Kel reached for my hand. “No luck at all? You survived somehow.”

“My gift saved us, not the dragon. I was looking out the window on a sunny day during the winter, watching the red birds in the trees, wondering what they’d found to eat out there, imagining I was one of them.”

As I spoke, I was transported back in time, existing in both the present and the past.

“My mother was sleeping again. She always was those days. Suddenly something outside called to my heart like music. Or like a delicious smell, though the only scents in that temple were dust, rotting wood, and wet ground. I wandered out to see what it was.” A remembered chill came over me, prickling my skin. “I was afraid of the dark forest, but felt certain that I needed to find whatever it was that was calling me. My skin was all goosebumps, my teeth chattered. And I just kept walking.” I remembered it all so clearly now that I was speaking about it—every detail down to the long, ragged tear in my too-small red skirt.

“The day stretched on, the shadows grew long. I decided I’d imagined the lovely thing. I imagined a lot that winter, when I had the energy for it. But this had been so real. I laid down, and the snow soaked through my clothing. I didn’t care. I was just so sleepy. I opened my eyes to see the last of the sunlight, and caught a glimpse of something bright in the shadows beside a boulder. I crawled toward it, just to see, and that feeling grew stronger.”

Kel waited, then asked, “What was it?”

I smiled at the memory. “Lichen. Orange and purple lichen. It glowed, and the closer I got to it, the brighter it seemed. I touched it, and it felt warm. I tasted it, and I grew stronger. Like the glow was in me. So I ate more, until I thought I could fly.”

Kel smiled too, just a little. “Did you take off and soar back to the temple?”

“Not quite. I gathered as much food as I could in my pockets. By then it was getting dark, though, and I realized I was lost. But suddenly the woods were full of voices, calling out for me. Mother had roused herself, panicked, and begged the townspeople to help.”

Kel let out a low whistle, and Mama Bunn looked back over her shoulder.

“Lucky thing that they found you,” he said. “You must have been nearly frozen by then.”

“I was. And my mother was upset, but relieved to have found me. When we got back to the temple and the other people left us, I shared the food from my pockets.”

“Just with your mother?”

I pulled my hand away from Kel’s, hurt by the implied judgement. “They’d have taken it. My mother and I had nothing. The lichen I collected kept us alive over the winter.”

He held his hands up as though to defend himself. “Nox, I’m not saying it was wrong. It’s just interesting that a four year-old had that kind of foresight.”

“That’s one word for it.” I supposed others would call it selfishness. I’d been accused of worse.

“And that’s how your mother figured out you were a Potioner?”

“Yes. Her mother was a great one, so she knew my gift when she saw it. After that she dedicated herself to trying to get me an education so that I could make a place for myself someday.”

“Maybe the Goddess’s dragon was smiling on you, after all.” Kel stopped and sat down next to the road. “I just need a minute. I’m not used to being on my feet all the time. Or to having feet all the time.”

Mama’s cart creaked to a stop, and she climbed down to the road. “Problem?”

“No, we’ll catch up,” I said.

Mama Bunn grunted and rooted through the boxes in the back. She returned carrying a dark bottle and a paper box in one hand, and her teacup in the other. “Pondsquinch three parts, dusty blarch two. Stir and drink, repeat an hour later.” She passed the items to me and shook her head sadly. “Foolish merfolk think you’re invincible, don’t you?”

Kel raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you knew. I appreciate you not saying anything to everyone else.”

Mama Bunn scratched at her chin. “I’ve lived enough years to have seen a great many things and to know what’s what. You’re too beautiful to be a human if you’re not a Sorcerer, and the only men I’ve known built like you were clam-divers and merfolk.” She patted his shoulder. “Keep on, young man. We’ll find water soon.” She hobbled back to the cart, clucked her tongue, and started off again.

“She’s not so bad,” I mused as I mixed the simple potion. The combination hadn’t occurred to me, but now that I held the ingredients together, I felt their incredible potential. One item from the land, one from a lake, combined to create a reaction that would bolster a mer’s resistance to this dry world.

I do have a lot to learn.

Kel gagged at the taste of the potion, which smelled like rotting meat, but drank it down. We followed well behind the cart and didn’t speak more. I kept thinking, though. I’d spent years focusing on the bad things that had happened because of Severn. From the moment I’d learned my true birth story, I’d been filled with resentment—for the opportunities I’d lost, for the fear that surrounded us for years, for the fact that my mother had to offer her services as housekeeper to a Potioner in order to secure me an education, and the fact that she’d had to share his bed. I’d seethed over having to hide my talents so as not to upset my teacher.