Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

She rises and takes a quick inventory of the little room. There’s a small collection of bags and boxes lining the wall beside the trunks. To my right lies my pallet with its nest of blankets. A small wooden statuette of a crow stands on a brick-sized stone beside my bed, its head bent, beak pressing a key to its breast. She focuses on it for a moment, then looks away.

“That’s all, right?” I say, keeping my tone casual. I have no cause to hide the crow. Only she knows that it was carved by a breather, not a human. Right now the sight of Val’s parting gift is oddly comforting.

She nods, moving back toward the ladder. “Everything else should be fine.” She pauses with her feet on the first rung. “Hitomi? You remember that you’re to act as my servant?”

“I remember.” We’ve discussed this a few times, and I’ve played the part of serving girl during the few visits from locals we’ve had. It provides a simple explanation for all the rest of my belongings. “I am Hikaru, girl of all work, loyal unto death.”

Stormwind chuckles. “Don’t overdo it. Since we don’t know what this is about, I want you to stay outside as much as possible today.”

I hesitate. I could offer to collect deadwood from the forest — we need to stockpile more for the winter — but I want to stay close to the cottage just in case.

“I’ll keep working on the roof,” I say. It’s perfect, really. We’ve spent the last two afternoons on the roof together, Stormwind teaching me what I need to know. I can easily work on my own. Best of all, I can keep an eye on our visitors. And I’ll be near enough to help Stormwind if she should need me.

“It will keep me close but out of sight,” I press when she doesn’t answer.

“Very well.”

Her easy agreement worries me further. As a mage, she could easily call for a far-off servant to return. Without charms to anchor it, magic may not reliably deliver messages across mountain ranges, but a summons sent across a valley would hardly go astray. Only if she fears she won’t have the time or the leeway to do so would she need me nearby.

The last ward triggers as I tack down a new shingle, the hammer missing the nail as my skin prickles, an electric tingling raising the hairs at the back of my neck. This ward is silent, subtle, bound just to Stormwind and me, small enough that a visitor shouldn’t notice it. I rub a hand over my neck, my eyes traveling up the path to the high pass.

Soon our unknown visitors will enter the valley, their progress masked by the forest. It will take a little while yet for them to reach the cottage. I pound down the waiting nail and then check the next few shingles for cracks. They’re mostly in good condition, whole and still firmly attached. This past winter brought deep snows, but with just a few summer storms to cause damage, the roof has held up well since Val repaired it.

Perched on a roof, dreading the arrival of a mage, is probably not the best time to reminisce about a breather, but I have so few comforting memories. When Val brought me here, he was the only friend I had, the only memory aside from the fire that took my previous life. I didn’t fear him as most would, didn’t fear his ability to control those who meet his gaze, to take the life of those around him with a single inhalation. I assumed that, no matter his words, he would not use these talents against me.

As I peel off a broken shingle and check the wood underneath, I recall Val’s hands at work, his voice warning me not to trust him, the faintest of butterfly touches on my wrist as he explained how, truly, I should fear him. Now, with distance and time between us, I wonder whether I was more foolish to be hurt by his words or to keep pushing my company upon him. He knows himself better than I ever will. If he believed himself a danger to me, shouldn’t I have trusted that? Or was he merely trying to escape the thorns we had stumbled into, mage and breather becoming allies in a world where no such thing could exist?

Even now, nearly a year since his departure, I find that I trust him, trust the kindness with which he treated me, trust the wisdom and care he showed in nursing me back to health and delivering me here, to this valley, to study with Stormwind. As she said all that time ago:
A breather does not help a Promise become a mage.
And yet he had. It was dangerous ground.

I sigh, running my fingers over the weathered wood before me. There are no answers here, and Val is long gone, hidden away in the Amara Mountains with the breather prince he serves. According to my geography lessons, he is months away by horseback. I doubt I shall ever meet him again.

I look up at the faint thud of hooves against the packed dirt of the path. A man wearing a flowing desert robe, the warm brown of rich earth, rides at a quick trot down the path from the pass
,
followed be a second, riderless horse on a long lead.

I squint against the sunlight, studying the rider. He’s tall and slim, his tan complexion strikingly similar to my own, though his features are sharp, hawklike. His robe falls open in front in the tradition of many desert folk. Beneath it
,
he wears a long-sleeved tunic and loose cream-colored trousers tucked into riding boots. A faint line of geometric embroidery circles the collar and outlines the two buttons on the front, markedly different from the attire of the local men and women I have seen this last year.

Strapped over his tunic
,
he wears a belt with a curved sword and a dagger as well as a small crossbow. Here in the mountains, there is no need for either blade. The crossbow might be useful against a larger predator, but even those are few and far between. He is not just any mage, then, but one trained as a warrior.

I continue to check the shingles, keeping one eye on him. Stormwind steps into sight, calling a greeting as she walks to meet him. He dismounts with alacrity, the faint reverberations of his voice — deep and not unfriendly — barely audible. They clasp hands, and then Stormwind gestures to the cottage. As she turns, I see the smile that tugs at her lips.

Friends, then. But who is he? And why would he bring a second horse?

I watch them converse as they lead the horses around back. Stormwind seems as unruffled as always. The mage’s gait is long and easy, but when a bird takes flight from the long grasses growing near the trees, his head whips toward it. I can’t tell if he is especially on guard, or if warrior mages never really let their guard down.

They close the horses in the goat pen, empty for the moment while our goats are out grazing. Stormwind untacks the chestnut while the mage tends to his own horse. They pile the tack outside the fence and head for the cottage door.

I perch sideways on the roof, digging out a bit of black rot and trying not to look as clumsy as I feel. This way, I can track them from the corner of my eye.

They continue to chat as they walk, and while I cannot make out the words, I can hear the rhythm and tone of their voices: familiar, pleasant, as if they are catching up with an old but dear acquaintance. The sound of it eases some of my fears.

As they’re about to pass from sight, the mage glances my way, eyes hard and measuring. I remain still, neither moving to break his gaze nor allowing my expression to shift until he steps into the cottage.

Once the door latches behind them, I ease back on my heels, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Of course he would assess me. He’s a warrior mage, used to evaluating situations before he walks into them. And as a half-trained Promise — albeit better skilled than I was a year ago — I am still unsworn to the High Council and would easily meet his definition of a rogue.

Perhaps I should have suggested Stormwind send me off to collect deadwood after all.

No.

I glare at the empty spot before me, then slap a new shingle in place and hammer it down with unaccustomed force. I’m not going to let fear drive me. And, like Stormwind, I’m not going to run.

There’s something powerful about being high up on a roof, a great shimmering expanse of lake off to the side, forested mountains rising to frame the wide blue swath of sky. With each swing of the hammer, each nail driven home to hold a shingle in place, I feel my blood thrum through my veins. Despite the lake breeze that cools me, my tunic sticks to my back, the taste of salt on my lips. Even as my arms tire, each swing of the hammer weighing heavier, I don’t want to stop. It’s a temporary magic, if you can call it magic at all.

The cottage remains quiet as the sun continues to creep toward noon. I descend from the roof once to refill my flask from the bucket Stormwind left. I can detect the faint murmur of voices, but with the door closed, I cannot catch the words themselves, nor can I hear any better crouched beneath the shuttered windows. It isn’t until just past noon, my rooftop magic grown threadbare and the muscles of my arms aching, that Stormwind comes outside.

“Hikaru!” She steps around the corner carrying a bowl of stew.

I clamber down, hammer in hand. Stormwind tips her head toward the cottage, her brow furrowed and her pale eyes steely. “How goes the roof?”

“Not too bad.” I ladle water from the bucket to rinse my hands. Is the mage listening, or is she simply warning me to exercise caution? “What about your visitor?”

“He is High Mage Harith Stonefall.”

I raise my brows in question.

“He’s one of the High Council’s best rogue hunters.”

“You’re a
rogue
?” I can’t keep the disbelief from my voice. It seems about as likely as her spontaneously breaking into song and dancing across the surface of the lake.

“The Council sent him because they expected I would be hard to find. They do not wish to waste their time looking.”

I stand still, water dripping from my fingertips. To my knowledge, Stormwind has had nothing to do with the Council since I arrived here. “What does the High Council want from you?”

“Stonefall brought a summons. I must go back with him at once.” The words are as abrupt and sharp as the crack of lake ice in the night. I experience a plummeting moment of nausea. Then I take the bowl from her and sit down cross-legged with it. A summons could mean anything. It’s what she hasn’t said, the things her expression won’t let slip, that worry me.

“What do they want?” I repeat softly.

She stares down at the dirt by our feet. “I’ve been charged.”

“With?”

She raises her gaze to me. The hollowness of her eyes has a familiarity that reaches back into the ashes of my past. It is a look that has no place in this quiet valley. “Treason.”

The word hits me low in the gut.
Treason.
The same charges levied against the Degaths a lifetime ago in Karolene. “Tell me,” I demand, all pretenses of eating forgotten.

She counts the accusations on her fingers. “Conspiracy to overthrow the High Council, conspiracy to assassinate First Mage Talon, perjury under oath, failure to renew my oaths of allegiance, and developing alliances with creatures inimical to the High Council.”

“Creatures—” I stumble, wondering if someone somehow learned of Val. Then her other words catch up with me. “
Assassinate?
”

She looks suddenly old, weary. “Yes. The charges were brought forward by Arch Mage Blackflame. It seems he has won a great deal of support on the High Council.”

Blackflame? “But you’ve had nothing to do with him this past year. What does he know about you?”

“My past.”

I wait, but she doesn’t elaborate. I’ve known since I arrived that Stormwind has some history with Blackflame, but I never learned what. She offered me shelter, and it seemed unnecessary to pry into a past she put behind her. Whatever it is, it has come back for her now.

“They’re all false,” I say into the smothering quiet. “The accusations.”

“They are either false or greatly exaggerated.”

She glances to the side, her gaze following the wall of the cottage. Nothing we’ve said should stand out to Stonefall as strange, other than perhaps Stormwind treating me more like a friend than a servant. And there are still things I need to know, especially if I don’t manage to speak with her alone again.

“Blackflame’s not on the Council, is he?” I ask, even though Stormwind would have told me of any changes.