Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(23)

“But you have your sister. You have family,” I said. I wondered how he could feel homeless with people who loved him in his life. I had never been close to anyone except Ina and Miriel, and both of them were lost to me now.

“Yes . . . but it isn’t that simple.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but instead we walked on in silence. I didn’t want to drive him away by prying, so I pushed my questions down. He didn’t owe me any explanations—not when we had only just met. We avoided the north road where guards might be patrolling, instead sneaking through a few yards and out into a farmer’s orchard, grateful for the thin camouflage provided by the rows of naked trees. Word of our escape might not yet have reached the guards in this part of the city, but we’d already used up our luck for the day.

“Will that be a safe place to rest for the night?” I asked, pointing at a forest that appeared as little more than a jagged shadow on the east horizon beyond the orchard. I was eager to be back in a place that felt even half familiar. I wanted branches to shelter me.

Hal’s expression was inscrutable in the dark, but his voice sounded uncertain. “The Tamers’ territory begins where the farmland ends. They don’t like trespassers, but if we stay near the edge, it will probably be all right. At least there’s no way anyone from the city would take the risk of following us there.”

“We don’t have any better options, so let’s go,” I replied. There was no sense waiting until the middle of the night to find a place to settle. Exhaustion had caught up with me after our day on the run. I knew very little of the Tamers—only that they took Tamed animal companions instead of manifests and were dedicated to the preservation of nature. Their role in Zumorda was to protect the natural beauty and wildness of the kingdom, preventing cities from encroaching on their lands or upsetting the natural order.

We skirted the edge of the farm fields, heading toward the forest. The wind picked up and the night cooled, making the bare branches of the orchard trees click and the grass hiss. The time for my vespers had passed, but I began to hum a tune anyway, letting the melody drawn from everything around me help the place feel more familiar and safe.

“That tune,” Hal whispered, his voice filled with wonder.

I stopped humming and mumbled an apology.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. His fingers brushed my arm, and that spark of magic jumped between us again. “Are you the one I’ve heard singing?”

I froze, and Hal came to a stop beside me.

“Vespers,” he continued. “For half a moon, every day at sundown I’ve heard the saddest, most beautiful songs.”

“But how?” A strange feeling welled up, a muddle of fear and comfort. The gods might not have heard my prayers, but Hal had. It didn’t make sense. I hadn’t reached Valenko until today, and hadn’t spent a night there when I would have sung my vespers.

“The gift of Farhearing is from my father, the wind god. It’s the one thing his children all have in common,” he explained. “Like your Sight, I have to open myself to it, but it’s always there in the background. And someone as powerful as you? I could hear you from leagues away.”

I stared at him numbly, trying to make sense of his words.

His father, the wind god.

My father.

“But . . . I can’t hear things far away,” I said, confused. If all Hal’s siblings shared his gift, and I didn’t have it . . . My thoughts raced like animals trying to take shelter before a storm. The wind god had left me with Miriel. He had to be my father, didn’t he? I knew nothing of my mother, but I’d always had the wind to cling to as the place from which I’d come.

“Why would you be able to?” Hal asked. “It’s a gift unique to children of the wind. I’ve been able to hear most of my siblings since I was small. Pretty confusing when you’re a kid surrounded by mortals and they’re convinced you have a lot of imaginary friends—never mind that your ‘friends’ always seem to know when a storm is about to blow in and helpfully give you a warning about it.”

“That must have been hard,” I said, still not quite able to process what he was telling me.

“Sometimes. But other times my siblings were there for me when no one else could be. I’m grateful for that. The wind’s children have their families with them wherever they go.”

“You’re so lucky,” I said, afraid my voice might crack. Everything around me was unraveling, even the last thing I thought was true.

“Except when I wish they’d shut up. One time, my sister Thendra spent a fortnight yelling at anyone with half an ear to the west because she was goosed off that the king of Mynaria had taken down some buildings with rooftops she relied on to get around his crown city. Never mind that there were twenty other ways to go—she just didn’t like them. Bitter old cow. Learned some of my best insults from her,” he said fondly.

“What about the wind god—your father—has he ever spoken to you?” I asked.

Hal looked at me like I was daft. “Of course not. The gods only speak to the king when he visits the Grand Temple, or to clerics who’ve sworn to a lifetime of service to them. You really must not get any information up in that mountain village of yours.”

I frowned, remembering when the gods had spoken to me through Miriel and asked me to use my gift. Apparently that had been out of the ordinary, which made me think I’d best not tell him about it. Silence drew out between us as our boots padded over the spring-soft mulch beneath them.