Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(100)
“We need to go right now,” I said to Hal.
He nodded. “Good luck,” he said to Nismae.
“Don’t be stupid out there,” she said. They embraced, fiercely, with the tightness of two people who know they are unlikely to see each other ever again.
Then we turned and fled.
I looked back only once, just in time to see the intricate silver wreath of the Zumordan crown placed on Ina’s head. As we passed beneath the arches leading out of the coliseum, the flags around the edges of the building changed from red to white in a burst of magic.
In my Sight, something cracked. Or perhaps it was the sound of the Grand Temple breaking under the pressure of the magic rushing toward it. The ground trembled as the Great Temple began to slide off the side of the mountain. Chunks of rock and shards of stained glass tumbled down, sending up clouds of dust.
The king hadn’t lied about one thing—the gods were leaving Zumorda with him. They wouldn’t tolerate a ruler who had a manifest outside their gifts, who didn’t need them in order to be strong. Magic sank slowly into the ground in my Sight. Though the collapse of the kingdom had barely begun, I could already feel how it wanted to take me with it. It was like sinking into deep and paralyzing mud. None of the demigods would last long under Ina’s rule. Not with the bond between the monarch and the gods severed.
“We have to go. Now. My Sight is already fading, and I don’t know how long we have. Can you spread word on the wind to all your siblings? Tell them to gather everyone like us. Tell them to flee,” I said. We had to get to Havemont, where my power would still be reliable, for there to be any hope of changing the past. I needed time to sit, to think, to figure out how to unravel the series of disasters since Ina and I had left Amalska.
Hal nodded. He whispered to the wind, to the ears of all who were listening. He whispered of the change about to come, of how magic would leave the land under Ina’s rule now that the bond between the gods and the crown was broken. I hoped they could feel it already, the way power was draining out of us, crackling out across the landscape like untethered threads whipping and sparking in the wind.
I hoped they had the sense to go and the speed to outrun the death that awaited them if they didn’t.
CHAPTER 39
WE MET ZALLIE AND THE CHILDREN AT THE Switchback Inn and headed north for Havemont that same day. There was no time to waste. Hal’s Farhearing and my Sight had already faded to almost nothing before we even reached the outskirts of Corovja. I had my satchel and my herbs, but without my gifts I felt much less sure of my ability to protect our group. Hal’s worries were just as clearly written on his face, and almost everything startled him because he was so unused to being without his Farhearing. We had to get to Havemont, where the gods would still be in power—somewhere our gifts would work, the children would be safe, and I could rewrite the past.
As for the Fatestone, I kept it on a strip of leather tied around my neck, tucked under my clothing where no one would see it.
We were hardly the only travelers on the road. Many mortals chose to flee Zumorda, hoping they could escape before losing their manifests. Others chose to stay in spite of the risks. Word of the ancient blood rite Ina had used to take her manifest had spread, and some had successfully rebonded with their animal forms by using it.
Storms ravaged the kingdom as we traveled to Havemont, slowing the brutal pace we tried to keep in our haste to escape. Rivers eroded their banks and swept away homes. Farmers lost their final harvests of autumn. Trees seemed to be curling in on themselves, warping in strange ways that shouldn’t have been possible. In the few times I got a glimpse of the Sight, it was easy to see why. Magic was funneling away, just as the gods had threatened.
Five days after leaving Corovja, we crossed the Havemont border in the back of a farmer’s wagon with Iman and Nera both crying. Zallie and I tried to rock and soothe them, but the journey had been hard on us all. I had done my fair share of crying too—over the loss of my kingdom, the devastation I hadn’t been able to prevent, and the fears I had about what was yet to come.
The change on the opposite side of the Zir Canyon bridge was instant. Suddenly the grass was greener, the skies brighter, everything more peaceful. My Sight came back so quickly it was almost hard to use due to its strength.
The border town of Fairlough appeared before us in the afternoon as crickets began to hum in the grass. A stone keep sat high above the settlement. Farmland led right up to the heart of the town, but the main street was still sizable enough to boast a series of shops and a large inn. The buildings were far more permanent and well kept than some of the rickety markets I’d seen in smaller villages during my travels with Hal. Something about the town felt off to me, and then I realized it was the people. The Havemontians worshipped the same gods we did, but unlike Zumordans, they did not take manifests. The people appeared strangely empty in my Sight compared with those who carried a second soul inside their bodies.
In a way, the difference was comforting. The gods still watched over Havemont, which meant we would retain our powers, and because the mortals had no manifests, we could blend in as long as we kept our magic secret.
Before our first afternoon in town was spent, Hal earned a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables from a farmer whose cart he helped load at the market square. Iman and Nera turned out to be the key to finding a place to stay. The innkeeper’s wife, the last of whose three sons had moved out not so long ago, was instantly smitten with the babies and offered us two rooms in exchange for light work. After all of us being crammed into one room in Corovja, the two plainly furnished rooms still seemed luxurious by comparison. I felt guilty that we might not be there very long, but I needed enough time to recover from the battle to properly rewrite the past—to map out the way things should have gone. If I succeeded, everything would be different anyway.