Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(32)

The memory twisted like a knife, even now.

“But how?” Her blue eyes were wide. “And why you?”

“After the boar king tried and failed to end it with his magic, he made a bargain with the gods. They spoke to me through Miriel, telling me I was the only one of my kind. The last like me had died hundreds of years ago. So I did what they asked. One simple sentence. One kingdom saved.” I fought to keep my voice steady.

Her eyes widened. “But the gods never speak to anyone but their clerics or the king. They don’t interfere in human lives.”

“You’re right, they don’t,” I said. “That’s why they demanded I do it when the king’s magic wasn’t enough. Afterward, I aged at least a year in the span of an hour. I’m not sure exactly how much. For weeks I stumbled around, not feeling at home in my body.” I tried to make her understand the agony. My knee still bore a jagged scar from one of the falls I’d taken, where I’d managed to split myself open enough to bleed buckets onto the forest floor. In that same spot, a cluster of red flowers still bloomed every autumn.

Ina put her hand gently on my arm.

“Eventually, news made its way to Amalska that the drought had indeed ended,” I said bitterly. “A flood had destroyed every village along the river bordering Zumorda and Sonnenborne, killing at least a thousand people on both sides. I begged Miriel to let me rewrite the past, to make things unfold differently. She told me if I tried to change the past, it would kill me. The past is not so malleable as the future.” My voice came out hollow, dark and distant as the painful memory. Miriel had assured me that the death of all those people wasn’t my fault since I had been faithfully serving the gods, but I had still cried myself to sleep every night for moons, especially when I overheard the village elders telling Miriel how little the crown had done to help the survivors. I had been only nine years old.

“So then you never used your power again?” Ina asked, her voice doubtful.

“I refused to. I didn’t trust myself to write something that wouldn’t have dire unforeseen consequences. But then . . . I missed you so much all winter,” I said, my voice careful and soft. “You were always in my mind. Always in my heart. So when you returned and told me about Garen . . . it hurt. I couldn’t bear to watch you marry him, especially if you didn’t feel certain about it. So the night before the bandits raided, I used my blood to write that you would find your manifest the next day. I wanted you to have the chance to choose your own path . . . and I wanted to give you a better chance of choosing me.”

She withdrew her hand. The absence of it felt like a blow, but it was too late to turn back.

“While all I wrote was that you would find your manifest, everything came true, even the intention behind my words. As I wrote, I wished more than anything that you would choose me, not him. Now you never will marry Garen, because he’s gone with all the others. I wasn’t specific—I never meant to hurt anyone—but it was my fault for pushing the future in that direction. I should have known people might die as a result. I’m sorry, Ina. So sorry.” My voice rose in pitch until tears stung the corners of my eyes.

“You have no idea what you’ve done.” Ina’s hands shook as she pulled her cloak tightly around herself and stepped away.

“Yes, I do,” I insisted. “Everything that happened was my fault. I’m the one you should punish. The king is not owed your revenge. I am.” Every word took effort to push past the tightness of my throat. Now that she knew what had happened, even if she couldn’t forgive me, she’d stop her plans of regicide. She had to. I couldn’t lose her when she was all I had left of home.

“He still could have sent help,” she spat. “His negligence started it. You just made it worse.”

The crushing weight of my guilt grew heavier.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me right away.” Her voice trembled, the pain on her face raw as an open wound. “I can’t believe you didn’t ask me before you acted!”

“I know. I should have. I’m so sorry,” I said, and then a sob tore from my throat. My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

Ina made no move to comfort me. Her fists clenched and unclenched, her left hand finally coming to rest on her stomach.

“This baby has been robbed of a family and a community because of what you did. My child will never know love—because of you.” Her eyes shone hard as gemstones.

“What?” I blinked at her in confusion.

The pieces of our history snapped into a new position.

Garen. Ina. The betrothal . . .

Ina’s desperation to find her manifest had never been only about the village. It had been about the child she was already carrying before she came up to beg me for help. She would have married Garen, if for no other reason than to give the child a family and a community, because that was what was expected of mothers in Amalska.

She was pregnant, and I had killed her baby’s father.

This was what she meant when she told me I had no idea what I’d done.

I stood, frozen, barely able to keep breathing. All this time I thought I was the one who owed her an apology for something she might never be able to forgive, but her knife had been buried in my back long before I made my mistakes.

She didn’t even seem sorry.