Because You Love to Hate Me(38)

Sigrid held fast to the iron stake. With her other hand, she worried the carnelian stone hanging around her neck, which seemed to pulse and warm as Thomas rowed.

“What’s it saying?” Thomas asked. “Are we on the right track?”

Sigrid shut her eyes and held the stone tight in her palm. She called forth the memory of Alice’s ghost and its desperate cry. As the stone throbbed, Alice’s warning grew louder, stronger, and more urgent.

“We’re getting closer,” Sigrid said. “Keep rowing.”

The mist around them, dark as pitch when they left the shore, began to warm and brighten. It was a contrast to the growing burden of Alice’s screams, pressing in on Sigrid’s mind.

“Closer,” she said, breathing shallow. “Very close.”

Not a minute later, the boat scraped rocky land. Thomas leaped over the bow and dragged it farther ashore. Steep cliffs loomed over the shore. They walked cautiously, looking for any path, any sign of life.

“Don’t lose grip of the stake,” Thomas called over his shoulder.

Sigrid held it to her chest with a white-knuckle grip. If she let go, Hether Blether could disappear entirely. The stone in Sigrid’s hand began to throb with heat. “The sorcerer. He’s near,” she whispered.

A sharp crackling was the only warning before rocks rained down on them. Thomas grabbed Sigrid and shoved her against the cliff, flattening them both. When the storm of debris slowed, they saw a shape atop the crag, a darker shadow in dark fog.

Sigrid examined the cliff side. She tucked the iron stake into her bra. Its rough edges cut the gentle skin of her chest. Using slim footholds and crevasses in the cliff’s sheer sides, she climbed closer to the top, until finally her aching fingers grasped a flat edge with grass and stubborn-rooted plants. Sigrid looked up and saw Thomas peering over the side.

“How did you—”

Before Sigrid could finish her question she felt her toe slipping. “Help,” she gasped.

Thomas just stared.

Sigrid’s grip on the shrubs and barbed plants started to give way, shallow roots peeling back from the crag. With a final desperate heave, Sigrid dragged her elbows over the top. Using the last of her strength, she hauled one leg, then another, over the edge.

On her knees, she took gasping breaths. From the corner of her eye, she saw the filthy toes of Thomas’s trainers. “You rutting bastard,” she rasped, lifting her head.

But past Thomas, through the dawn-like glow of mist pressing in on them, a dusky shape moved . . .

Walking. Toward them.

Thomas turned. Sigrid stood. The figure moved through a halo of golden light. It took the shape of a broad-chested man wearing an elegantly draped tunic with a wide braided belt, and a heavy cloak lined with fur.

“It’s you,” Sigrid breathed.

He had olive skin and a mass of dark curls. His trimmed beard held two prongs of grey. He seemed to hold light, to exude an aura of calm.

“I don’t know your name,” she said.

The man shook his head. “You’ve brought much with you.” He waved a hand and the earth beside him cratered, forming a pit of loamy dirt. With a snap of his fingers, a fire appeared there, absent kindling to stoke the flame. It burned green and sulfurous. “It must all be sacrificed to get what you seek.”

Sigrid shook her head. “How do you know what I’m after?” she asked.

The man held his arms wide. “You seek everything,” he said simply. “Like all the rest. But first you must choose.”

“Choose?”

The man shifted his dark eyes to Thomas. “The others. Or yourself.”

Sigrid shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Only one of you can continue. If you seek to know all, to apprentice the heavens, to shape the universe—you must make a decision.”

Sigrid looked down and gasped. The iron stake was in her hand, biting the thin skin of her fingers.

Thomas stepped back. He stared at her with an eerie calm, the look that had returned fire for so many all-night arguments. The same expression that had gawked, unfeeling, at her as she teetered on the edge of the cliff.

“This was the choice you gave Alice Gray,” Sigrid said, meeting the sorcerer’s black eyes.

He raised an eyebrow. “After a fashion.”

In the end, the expedition had been asked to sacrifice one another so one among them could gain everything. And they’d all said no. Alice had said no.

Extraordinary, Thomas had called them. Brilliant.

Selfless. Stupid. Brave.

Thomas had no weapons, but his hands twitched at his sides, itching to gesture magic into being. Sigrid’s vision began to darken. He was calling magic to him, and pulling her into his sight—he never did learn to control it.

“What happened to saving the world?” Sigrid whispered.

“One of us would,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “And one of us can die trying. A legend. Just like Alice.”

The blackness overwhelmed her vision. Then Sigrid saw herself through Thomas’s eyes, staring back with a look that could cut diamond. Her white-blond hair, loose from its braid, whipped around her head in the chaotic ocean wind. She stood just a few yards from the cliff’s edge, legs spread wide, arms tight at her sides: a warrior’s stance. Her grip on the stake was so tight, blood seeped between her fingers.