The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War #2)(54)

We struggled on through an increasingly twisted land, across a wild heath where the occasional tree clawed slantwise toward the sky, angled by the north wind. Stones broke the sod with increasing regularity. Dark pieces of basalt that looked as if they had erupted from the bedrock but which must have been set standing by men. In places fields of such stones stood in rows, marching into the distance, aiming in toward the Wheel. I had no strength left to marvel at them. Later we passed black shards of volcanic glass, some pieces taller than a man, sharp as the blades the ancients made from the stuff. I saw my face reflected in gleaming obsidian surfaces, warped as if drowning in horror within the stone—and looked no more. Further still and the obsidian grew up in twisted and razor-edged trees.

Closer to the Wheel the rocks took on disturbingly human shapes, on a scale ranging from the size of a man’s head to larger than my father’s halls. I tried not to see the faces or what they were doing to each other.

I cast the occasional glance at Snorri as we went—trying to judge what kind of hold Baraqel might be gaining on him as we came nearer to the Wheel. Several times I caught him sneaking furtive glances my way, only confirming my doubts about him.

In one place we came across a ring of obsidian pieces, knife-sharp, each taller than Snorri, and aimed skyward though splayed as if some great force at the centre of the circle had pushed them outward. For fifty yards on every side the heath lay blasted, blackened earth with only the occasional twist of heather stem now turned to charcoal. Something silvery gleamed at the centre. Despite our need for haste, Kara angled us toward the ring.

“What is it?” Snorri posed the question to Kara’s back as she approached the standing stones. It looked as if softly glowing pearls laced the black earth within the ring, forming a rough outline of some explosion within. Kara passed between two of the shards and entered the circle. She went to one knee and scraped at the burnt soil with her blade. It seemed as though the glow intensified around her. A moment later she stood, something shining in her hands, making dark sticks of her fingers.

When she reached us I saw that what she held was neither silver nor a pearl. “Orichalcum.” She withdrew one hand. A bead of metal the size of a fist rested upon the palm of the other, its surface gleaming, lit with its own silvery light, but broken with sheens of colour like oil on water, moving one into the other, a slow dance, mingling and separating as I watched.

“Will it help us fight the Hardassa?” Snorri asked.

“No.” Kara led the way on. “Take it, Tuttugu.”

Tuttugu accepted the over-sized bead. Immediately the light in it died and it became merely shiny metal, like a solid drop of quicksilver.

“A magic was worked in that circle long ago.” Kara took the bead back and the glow returned. “Orichalcum leaks into the world at such sites, though I’ve never heard of it being found in such quantity. Skilfar has a piece.” She held her thumb and finger out to show how small, pea-sized. “One use for it is to assess a would-be v?lva’s potential. It has nothing to say of wisdom, but of affinity for enchantment it speaks volumes. This glow is my potential. Training and wisdom will help me put it to good use, as a warrior hones their strengths into skills.”

“And when Skilfar held it out for you to take?” Snorri asked.

Kara shook her head. “She bid me take it from a bowl upon a shelf in her cave. Though weeks later I saw her pass beneath that shelf and the glow from within the bowl was brighter than when I hold it now in my hand.” She held it out to Snorri. “Try it.”

Snorri reached for it, without slowing his pace, and she dropped the orichalcum into his palm. Immediately it lit from within, so bright it made me glance away. “Warm!” He passed it back quickly.

“Interesting.” Kara didn’t seem disappointed at being outshone. “I can see why the Silent Sister chose you. Jal, you try.” She held the bead for me to take.

“I’ve had enough of heathen spell-mongering.” I kept my distance and hid my hands beneath my armpits. “Last time we did something like this I ended up being stabbed.” In truth I didn’t want to be shown as dull before her. Tuttugu might seem pleased at sparking nothing from the metal—but a prince should never be seen to fail. Especially by a woman he’s hoping to impress. And was that a grin I saw on Snorri’s face as he outshone me, yet again? Aslaug had said the northman sought to usurp me, and now the whispers rose at the back of my mind to confirm it. For a moment I imagined that the Red Vikings had killed him. Would that have been so bad?

“Frightened?” Kara still held the orichalcum toward me.

To change the subject I asked, “Chose him? Nobody chose him—or me. It was accident that wrapped us in the Sister’s curse. A chance escape, a meeting against the odds.” I’d been expendable, a minor princeling left to die in her fire, an acceptable price to pay for ending an unborn. And my “meeting” with Snorri had hardly been planned. I’d run straight into him in a blind terror whilst trying to escape the crack spreading from my great aunt’s broken spell.

“I don’t think so.” Kara said no more as we struggled up a rise. At the top she continued. “The Silent Sister’s spell wouldn’t fit into just any man. It’s too powerful. I’ve never heard of its like. Even Skilfar was amazed—she never said it in so many words, but I could tell. A spell like the Sister’s needed two people to carry it, and to grow its strength from the first seed. Two people—opposites—one for the dark part, one for the light. It wouldn’t be left to chance. No, this must have been planned an age in advance . . . to bring two such rare individuals together.”