The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch #3)(101)

“I had hoped I was wrong. That someone else had contaminated the herbs when you were unaware of it. But you gave us a fresh batch back at the Odalian camp, and the rune was just as strong there. I could have explained away the first, but not the second. Surely you wouldn’t have been so careless.”

“I had no intentions of hiding any longer, Tea, and hoped you would discover it once you had left the Odalians and Yadoshans. I encouraged you to leave quickly, as you’ll recall. After learning you had gone to Stranger’s Peak and endured the Gorvekan trials, I knew it was time for us to join strengths.”

“You could have killed Likh!” Kalen all but snarled.

“We needed collateral, a contingency for occasions like these. Tea was our priority, but another asha would do. I trusted that you would find a means to stay Likh’s condition, and I was right. I could not have taught you so much of what I knew only to see you fail.”

“And what can you offer me that Aenah could not?” I asked bitterly. “Did you think our previous friendship would be enough for me to accept your offer when I rejected hers?”

“This is not a betrayal, Tea. I do this to save your life. I was complicit long before you were asha, almost twenty years now, in fact. I was too late for Mykkie—I had no idea where her heartsglass had gone, you see. That was Aenah and Telemaine’s doing, and the elder asha exacerbated the matter by refusing to investigate. I would not have been complicit in something that would so affect her health that way.

“I raged when Polaire died—if there was a way to bring her back, I would’ve done so. It was always about her, about Mykkie, and, then later, about you. I knew the Dark would claim your lives as it has everyone it was unfortunate enough to touch. But shadowglass would ensure your survival. We have no need for magic, child. I would destroy every rune to keep you both safe.”

“How? By Blighting everyone else? By putting Likh in danger? By corrupting Aadil and starting a war among the kingdoms? That’s your idea of helping?”

“Yes. What better evidence to show how easily spells are abused than by demonstrating them in all their corrupted glory? Runic magic was not made for us mortals. No person should hold this much power. It will be used to destroy people as much as help them, as you have already seen. We must start anew—in a world without magic, with nothing but our own will.”

“I can’t. Fox—”

“You know as well as I that there is a way to save Fox. The juice of the First Harvest, wasn’t it? Failing that, well, perhaps shadowglass can be used to shape the world according to how we want it to be. As a god, you would have no limits. We could remake the world, make it a kinder place.”

“Are you insane?” Kalen shouted. “You cannot build a kinder world on the blood of innocents!”

“Can Tea tell me, with yourself as the exception, if there is no other heartsglass Tea would value more than Fox’s? Is the price too great to see him alive in the truest sense? Ask her if I lie, Kalen. Her heartsglass tells me all I need to know.”

“I can’t do that,” I choked out. “So many lives already—Yarrod, the Drychta, Aadil’s madness, Knightscross, Kance and Telemaine…Daisy…”

“Daisy was an unfortunate accident. The Dark was stronger in you than I thought.”

“I escaped the blight, but your medicine made me weaker, more complicit to accept the Dark. You plagued me with fevered dreams, made me doubt myself, made me think I was falling into darkrot. You did it so that Kion would turn against me, to make me more susceptible to join your cause. You offered your services to Kance under the guise of healing, but instead you gave him nightmares and headaches. And you gave him Blight for a time, in case I needed further persuasion.”

She offered no defense, and my rage grew. “And Daisy—why did you make me kill her?”

Altaecia gazed serenely back at me. “I did nothing of the sort, Tea. My herbs may have given you greater cause to take in the Darkness, that is true, but your actions have always been your own.”

“And what of this Faceless?” Likh demanded, staring at the figure. “Druj committed countless atrocities. How could you stoop so low as to ally yourself with him?”

Laughter, nearly hysterical, bubbled at the back of my throat. “Because we trusted Druj ourselves. Didn’t we, Althy? How many times had we gone to her, asking for advice? I should know—I went to the temple more than anyone else.”

“Tea.” Likh quaked. “What do you mean?”

“Nobody knows what Druj looks like, because Druj had always lived inside Ankyo. What better sanctuary than in the Willows itself? Hadn’t Aenah taught us that even Ankyo can be compromised? And yet, we made the same mistakes we should have learned from when she posed as a young servant of the Valerian. How would Druj know to carve out a moon-and-crescents symbol in a Seeking Stone for me to find—a symbol that resembled a crescent pin I own? A pin that I had tried to sacrifice to her sacred fires not long ago and was refused?

“Druj too went through the same trials I had at Stranger’s Peak—and failed. What were the gifts that mountain granted? Greater strength in the Dark—and the ability to look into the future. Perhaps Druj was better at prophecy than I am, with more years to hone her foretelling. Isn’t that right, Oracle?”

The figure removed her hood, revealing features only previously hinted at during my visits to the temple: long, flowing hair the color of corn silk, so light it was pale under the moonlight; bright-green eyes no longer hidden under a thick veil; pale, unblemished skin; a wide, lovely mouth. “I had hoped you would know me,” she said. Even out in the open air, a faint chorus of voices echoed her words.