Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(42)

I shake my head again and whisper, “I can’t.”

Rowan gets abruptly to his feet. His chair bumps against the table, making all the plates and cutlery and cups of tea rattle. Florence looks at him, startled. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He shoves his plate and spoon roughly into the dishpan. “We need more wood for the stove.”

He grabs the lantern, snatches up the kindling basket and disappears out into the garden. Silence passes. After a while, the steady, rhythmic thud of the ax echoes back from the woodshed behind the house.

“What did he mean?” Arien asks, confused. “Tell them? Tell us what?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. We argued earlier, that’s all.”

“You really need to stop picking fights with him.”

Clover laughs. “No, don’t. It’s very entertaining to watch. You’ve really gotten him worked up. I thought he was finally going to stand up and confess how ardently he admires you.” She waves a hand in protest when Florence gives her a stern look. “You should be pleased! By the time he’s finished out there, we’ll have enough kindling to last until Summersend, at least.”





Chapter Thirteen


After dinner, we go out into the garden for observance. The beginnings of the long midsummer sunset have bled through the sky in streaks of crimson. We walk to the altar, careful to step around the sigil on the lawn, and kneel down on the flower-stippled grass. Clover reaches to the candles on the shelf beneath the icon. She touches her fingers to the wick of each one, and they flare alight with her magic. I fold my own hands closed.

Tell them.

I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of smoke and wax and honey. This is the first observance since we’ve come to Lakesedge. The last, we were in Greymere on tithe day, when everything changed. I press my shaking hands against my knees. The smoke, the candlelight, the altar … It’s all so familiar. These are the candles that Mother lit to burn Arien’s hands. This is the scent that drifted over me as I knelt on the shards of glass.

A sound escapes me, anxious, wordless. Clover gives me a concerned look.

“I—It’s just—” I blink hard. “I just—”

Arien stares at the candles fixedly, twisting his hands in the ends of his sleeves. Since we came here, I’ve seen him light candles at the kitchen altar and dip his fingers into the dish of salt, just like we did back in the cottage. But now, as we kneel in the candlelight, his face is set into a hard, determined expression. He reaches out and runs his blackened fingers through the bank of flames in a swift, abrupt motion.

“She wanted to raze me, like I was the blighted field.” He bites his lip. “Like I was ruined. Like I needed to be mended.”

I take his hand. His skin is still hot from the flames. “Well, you’re not. And you don’t.”

“I know.” He looks at the candles. “It’s not the same, Leta. It’s not.”

Florence comes across the lawn. She kneels down and puts her arm around Arien. “No one will hurt you here. Either of you.”

I put my forehead against Arien’s shoulder and take a slow breath. “I know it’s not the same.”

I can hear the rustle of leaves in the jacaranda tree. The far-off sound of Rowan in the woodshed, the steady rhythm of his ax biting into kindling wood. This isn’t the Greymere altar, with Arien trying to hide his uncontrolled magic. This isn’t the kitchen at our cottage, with Mother afraid and Arien hurt.

I place my hands against the ground, then work my fingers through the grass until I feel the sun-warmed earth below. Leaves and petals and dirt. We all begin to chant the summer litany. Our voices weave together like the strands of shadows that Arien has spent the past weeks trying so desperately to control.

As I fall into the rhythm of the song, I close my eyes and surrender to this moment of sound and voice and light. Even after everything—the cottage, Mother, the endless nights of fear and shadows and only dreams—this moment, this observance, is still so beautiful to me.

I can feel the hum and glow of the Lady’s light woven through the world, woven through me.

I feel her magic.

I feel my magic.

Faint and small and so long buried. But there.

I think longingly of the Lord Under’s offer. If I let him, he would help me. I could mend the Corruption all on my own. I could keep everyone safe. I could make sure that no one I love would ever be hurt again.

But what would it cost? Rowan had to give up his entire family. I can’t begin to imagine what the Lord Under would demand from me in exchange for the terrible, wonderful power he offered me.

Bargaining with him isn’t my only choice. I still have the magic that has inexplicably slept inside me all this time. It isn’t enough to use alone. But I helped Rowan when he paid the tithe. I helped Arien control his magic when he cast the spell. I still did something.

I take a breath. The air is full of song. The earth is full of light. I feel the heat in my hands and let it unspool. The Lord Under has a claim on this power. What will he do to me, to Arien, if I refuse his help and use these bare traces of magic instead?

At the altar, the bank of candles glows. In the ground, a second light reflects. Gold and warm and mine. I let the magic come from my hands. I let it gleam through the earth.