Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(40)
“Now that I know my father isn’t the wind god, I’m wondering if her research might contain any clues to which of the gods I might be descended from,” I said. Also, she was the only person besides the king who knew anything about Atheon or the Fatestone, but I didn’t know if I could trust Hal with my true motives.
“She’s in Orzai,” he said. “I had been planning to go there anyway, but it’s quite a bit north of here . . . and it’s not the safest place.”
I mustered what little energy I had left and looked Hal right in the eyes. “Take me with you.”
I had nothing left to lose.
CHAPTER 16
THE TAMERS STILL REGARDED ME WARILY AFTER I healed Kaja, but now with respect instead of distrust. Those who ventured to the Sanctum made me the most uncomfortable, treating me with reverence upon their return. Mukira asked them to supply us for our trip to Orzai, and they complied with enthusiasm. One of the Tamers stuffed my satchel with dried meat, and another offered me some string and a set of carved fishhooks. Kaja’s lifemate turned out to be an extraordinary tailor, and the two of them gave me a knee-length tunic made of honey-colored doeskin so soft I never wanted to take it off. Mukira even gave Hal a new pair of boots and a set of fine hunting knives.
We rested until Mukira’s hunters returned the next day with word that the dragon hadn’t been sighted anywhere in the forest. In spite of their gratitude for Kaja’s salvation, they still seemed as eager to see us go as they had been to kill us when we first arrived. I was more than happy to obey their wishes.
A band of Mukira’s hunters guided us to the edge of their lands, no doubt to ensure we didn’t trespass again. At least any city guards who might have searched for the two of us in the days since our escape had probably given up by now.
Eventually the trees began to thin, and the hunters left us when the cover could no longer hide them. Then they were gone, as invisible as ever, leaving the two of us at the edge of a plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. I breathed a deep sigh. While I feared what lay ahead of us, I had become too accustomed to my life on the mountain alone to enjoy much time in communities where solitude was so hard to come by.
Our boots crunched over rocks hidden in the grass—we’d left the farmlands far behind. This ground was too rocky to till, and too remote to make getting to markets in larger towns easy. Clouds scudded overhead, a mixture of white and gray that blocked the sun like a heavy blanket, breezes endlessly teasing them into new shapes that threatened rain in every leaden shadow. The farther we got from the forest as the afternoon wore on, the more the wind picked up, slowing our progress as we leaned into it. Birds flew overhead in small brown clusters, like seeds scattered against the gray sky.
Hal didn’t talk much—at least not to me. A few times I caught him with a far-off smile on his face and an ear to the wind. I always looked away. It felt like eavesdropping, even though I couldn’t hear a thing, and every time I witnessed his gift, it reminded me I wasn’t who I’d thought. The ache of it grew bigger each time. I forced myself to turn my thoughts to the Fatestone, to fuel my determination. If I found it, I could have my people back. My life. Everything.
Still, my mood grew darker and more anxious the farther we walked. Conversations replayed over and over in my mind. Could I have said something different to talk Ina out of killing the king? Why hadn’t she told me about her pregnancy, and how could she be willing to die trying to murder the king knowing she carried another life inside her? When those unanswerable questions weren’t consuming me, intrusive thoughts of burned bodies and blood-spattered slush rose up unbidden, forcing me to relive the carnage I wanted desperately to erase from my past.
Now, more than ever, I felt lost and alone out in the world. I thought about saying a prayer for comfort, but which god was I even supposed to ask now that I didn’t know who I belonged to?
“What’s wrong?” Hal finally asked.
“Nothing,” I said. Talking about it wasn’t going to change anything.
“Tamer breakfast not sitting well with you? Cloudy weather bringing you down?” he guessed, even though he had to know it was more than that.
I didn’t know how to communicate the mess of memories and emotions tearing me apart. He couldn’t understand what it was like to be responsible for the deaths of countless souls. He had useful gifts, things that helped him get by in the world, not magic that left a trail of death and destruction in its wake.
“Talk to me, Asra. It’s no good holding all of it in. The things that brought you here can’t have been easy.” His voice was gentle.
“I wish I could do something to get us to Orzai faster. I’m useless. Worse than mortal. I’m not even who I thought I was. All I have is the ability to mix herbs. What good is that?” The anger in my own voice surprised me. I’d never had such ugly thoughts about myself before, but in my other life, I’d known my place. I’d known who I was and how to help people. All that had been taken away.
“But you can mix herbs with magic,” he said, as though that made any difference at all. “And you healed someone who would have died without your intervention.”
“I was only able to heal Kaja because I’d drawn so much magic out of that dying demigod in the Sanctum. And anyone can learn to mix herbs and magic. Even mortals, if they study as clerics of earth like my mentor did. Your heritage gave you gifts—the Farhearing, the wind manipulation, the compulsion—some of which barely have a cost to you. I wish I were mortal. At least then I could take a manifest. Be like everyone else. At least have another form to use to flee or to defend myself.”