Inkmistress (Of Fire and Stars 0.5)(7)

“Oh, thank you, Asra!” Ina rushed over and threw her arms around me.

I took a breath, catching a whiff of lavender that lingered in her hair—dried lavender I’d given her when she told me how much trouble she had falling asleep most nights. The painful familiarity of it deepened my confusion. Did she share any of my hopes for the future, or did she only want my help to forge her own way without me?

Once the sun had set and the winds grew biting and sharp, her loss felt colder to me than ever before. If I did nothing, she could be cast out for failing to manifest, but if I helped her, it might lead to her marrying someone else. I didn’t know what to do. At least if I tried to help, perhaps there would be more choices for her—and a chance for us. She belonged with me, didn’t she? She could become a village elder with me by her side. She didn’t need to marry Garen—not if I could find a better way to protect the village, not if we could find a better reason for Nobrosk to support Amalska. A common enemy should have been enough.

Either way, I had less than a week until the community meeting to figure out what I was able and willing to do for her.





CHAPTER 4


IN CONTRAST WITH MY TROUBLED MOOD, THE GOOD weather held for the next few days. Necessity demanded I trek to the lake. I preferred its water for my tinctures, as it was much easier to purify than melted snow or the muddy creeks just beginning to flow. Also, the lake carried history in its depths, memories of the mountain far deeper and more enduring than the streams that came and went with the seasons. I loved the lake. If I hadn’t known my father to be the wind god, I might have wondered if the parent who’d given me life was one of the genderfluid gods—water or spirit. Their fluid natures might have explained the magical gifts that made fate so malleable in my hands.

Only a few wispy clouds overhead hinted that winter might not yet be done. Life stirred all around as I traversed the mountain. Pine trees pondered the bursts of fresh green needles that would soon adorn their branches. Animals stirred in their nests and dens. Beneath the dirt and snow, bulbs released their first shoots, pulsing with life I could feel but not yet see. Still, spring felt more like a curse than a promise if the coming summer wouldn’t be like the last.

I checked the vista on my way out, hoping against reason that Ina would be waiting for me again. But I found it empty. All I saw was a fresh funeral pyre in the valley sending a thin coil of black smoke up into the sky. With a pang of sadness, I sketched the symbol of the shadow god and whispered a prayer. I still had important duties, and potion work seemed like the only thing I had control over now. My options for how to help Ina hung over me, each one feeling increasingly impossible. The deeper I dug in search of a reason she should be with me instead of Garen, the more empty my hands came up. I couldn’t give her normalcy. I couldn’t bear my own children—a fact that devastated me anytime I dwelled on it for more than a few heartbeats.

Nuts and dried berries in my belt pouch made for a lean breakfast as I crossed the mountainside toward the lake. Even as I ate, my stomach growled at the prospects spring would bring, like fresh hare roasted with salt and honey and spices, or fiddlehead ferns sautéed in butter brought to me from the village. On the north face of the mountain, snow still obscured deep gullies that cut through the land, but I knew the ridges and ravines of the mountain like I knew the contours of my own hands.

As I crested the last part of the summit, the expanse of the frozen lake glittered below. I picked my way down to the shore and knelt beside the lake. Water gently lapped at the lacy gray ice falling apart near the edge. Beneath the frigid surface I drew a variation on the water god’s symbol to clear the mud and ice from a patch of water. I dipped jars in to capture some and stopped them with corks. Once my satchel was repacked, I had everything I needed to brew my next batch of potions—just in time to see ominous clouds gathering over the western peaks.

I raced back to my cave, arriving as the first wet flakes of snow began to fall. The wind whooshed wordlessly outside, souring my mood. If this was my father’s answer to the vespers I’d sung to him, I wasn’t impressed. Ina was down in the valley with Garen. I was on the mountain, alone. The thought of things remaining that way for the foreseeable future made me ill all over again. I hadn’t known true loneliness until I met Ina—until I knew what it was to want someone beside me always.

I put on a kettle filled with the lake water I’d gathered, and laid out my supplies close to the fire: empty vials, the blue fire flowers, small sachets of dried peppermint and black elderflowers I’d picked last summer, and finally the thin silver knife I used for all my magic work. Candles completed my preparations, arranged in a semicircle, as much for light as to invite the blessing of the fire god. I settled on the worn fabric of my wool-stuffed cushion, crossing my legs beneath me before closing my eyes and letting the outside world disappear.

I reached inside myself to the deep, dark place where magic swirled like a black river winding through my soul, peaceful and boundless as a night sky filled with glimmering stars. Warmth blossomed in my chest and swept through my veins, suffusing my body with magic, accompanied by the sudden, fierce longing to pick up the knife to set my blood free and put quill to paper. The magic begged me to write something, to shape the future into something better, though I knew every word would cause me pain. As always, I could not give in to the temptation. Only the gift of healing was mine to give.