TWENTY
Gideon
Hara clutched Gideon’s arm in a vice. It was difficult to tell where the mock-Seith was looking, for its painted eyes had the unsettling quality of following them no matter where they stood. Hara trembled against him.
“It’s not real,”
he breathed to her, hardly moving his lips.
“It’s like the two-headed monster. It’s just a conjuring.”
“It’s real enough,”
she said, unable to tear her eyes from the thing.
They now knew that deep fears could manifest as physical beasts within the stone, but the mock-Seith did not seem to represent Desidiera’s fear; she clung to it almost desperately.
Hara remained silent beside him. Perhaps she realized that it was of no use to try and convince her mother that the thing was a conjuring of her own mind. Gideon was unsure if it was dangerous or benign, and so they had to tread carefully. He did not want to upset her mother and in turn upset the thing at her side.
“Desideria, are there any other people in here besides Seith?”
he asked her in a carefully neutral tone.
“Yes, of course,”
said Desideria.
“But we must go to them. They cannot come here on their own.”
“Why is that?”
asked Gideon.
“No one’s Sight is as strong as hers,”
said Hara.
“For her, it’s as easy as walking into a room to enter someone’s present. But for others, it might be dangerous or difficult.”
Gideon turned her so their backs were facing Desideria and the mock-Seith.
“I don’t want that thing to hear us,”
he whispered.
“Is there anyone else’s mind we can go to to plan our escape?”
Secretly, he thought he would also like to talk to someone who was more sound of mind than Desideria.
Hara nodded in agreement, and then her eyes lit up.
“Alcmene. My old tutor.”
She turned and said.
“Mother, is Alcmene in here?”
“Let us see,”
said Desideria. She stepped out of the mock-Seith’s arms and toward an empty room.
“She will be so happy to see you all grown up.”
Gideon and Hara each took one of her hands, and Gideon stole a glance behind him. The mock-Seith stood there with its hands at its sides, staring and silent. It seemed harmless enough, but Gideon still felt uncomfortable turning his back. They stepped through the doorway together.
Blinding light cut across Gideon’s eyes, and he blinked several times to adjust them. The sky above was a brilliant blue, and he squinted as he looked up. Something wasn’t right, but he could not grasp it. As he craned his neck, he realized that no matter where he looked, he could not find the source of the light, for there was no sun.
Then Gideon started at the crowd of figures surrounding them. He turned, alarmed, but his heart slowed when he realized they were their own reflections.
They were standing in a courtyard with several long mirrored halls branching off in every direction. Orange dunes peeked over the towering walls. Light blared from the empty blue sky, giving no indication of the direction that they faced. The only distinct feature was the dark doorway that they had just walked through, leading back into Desideria’s realm.
“How can we find our way through the mirrors without becoming lost?”
muttered Gideon.
“She should be close,”
said Hara.
And then Gideon saw a face peering out from behind a mirror. Hara stepped forward. “Alcmene?”
“Desideria?”
the woman said, looking from Hara to her mother.
“What is this?”
“Angharad has come to find a way out,”
said Desideria, moving to the woman’s side to pull her forward.
“Angharad?”
said Alcmene in confusion. She studied Hara’s face in wonder. Then her smile faded.
“How long have we been trapped in here?”
Hara began to explain. Alcmene was a stout older woman with cropped brown hair and a plain, weather-beaten face, decidedly more stoic and less dreamy than Desideria.
While Hara talked, Gideon glanced around nervously. At any moment, he expected another monster to materialize out of the mirrors, but there was only a restless wind that echoed eerily through the halls. Sometimes he thought he saw a wisp of white flashing across the reflections around them, like a figure in a shift, but when he looked, it would whip out of sight.
He lingered on his reflection in the closest mirror, and as he watched, his mouth began to widen at the corners ever so slightly, though he had not moved a muscle. His pupils grew large, overtaking the whites of his eyes.
With great effort, he tore his gaze from the mirrors and concentrated on Hara’s back. He would go mad if he had to be trapped in this place.
“I’ve shifted tons of sand, I’ve practically dug a mine with how deep I’ve gone, but there is nothing,”
Alcmene said.
“It just goes on and on, the same sand no matter how deep you go.”
“Is there anything here besides the mirrors and the dunes?”
asked Hara.
Alcmene shook her head.
“My Sight is weak. The only thing here for me is earth. The mirrors are unbreakable.”
“But this is your realm, which means your memories and your past are here, even if you cannot access others’,”
said Hara. She turned to Gideon.
“Turnswallow does not have strong Sight either, but he was able to get out. I was thinking about the fae’s advice, and I wonder if it means we should go back to where the enchantment began.”
“Your beach?”
he asked blankly.
“No. The pit,”
said Hara.
“When I looked into Turnswallow’s past, I kept Seeing him jumping into the pit over and over again. It kept coming up, and I did not understand what I was Seeing at the time. We all have memories of jumping into it. That is where the enchantment begins. What if we need to go back there and jump again?”
Gideon considered this. It sounded like it would lead them deeper into the stone, but he was quickly learning that his instincts were useless in this place. In a backwards way, Hara’s idea made sense. It explained why none of the other sorcerers had ever managed to escape. Even if they discovered they could make their memories real in this place, he doubted any would wish to go back to the moment they leapt into the pit. No one would want to relive that experience.
“Maybe that would close the loop.”
Hara nodded fervently.
“Retrace and do the hard thing. Complete the circle. We need to go into the past and do it again.”
“Let’s say that it works,”
said Gideon.
“Are we planning to come back here to get the others? How would we find them all?”
Alcmene and Desideria had been listening to their conversation. At this, Desideria spoke up.
“Through my realm. I can find everyone who is in the stone.”
“How many are there?”
asked Hara.
“I’ve felt fewer than a hundred,”
said Desideria.
Hara nodded, thinking hard.
“We should test it first. Mother, you would need to stay behind so that we can access every witch’s realm when we return.”
“I’ll test it,”
said Alcmene resolutely.
“Anything is better than being stuck here for all eternity.”
“Then I will go with you,”
said Hara.
“In case you get stuck, I can use my Sight to bring us back to my mother’s realm. Whose memory should we use?”
“Mine,”
said Alcmene.
“Let’s see if this is how Turnswallow did it.”
Hara nodded, and they all fell silent.
Alcmene closed her eyes, and it seemed to Gideon that the light dimmed slightly. The sky changed from blue to pearl gray, and the air became damp and chill. Then Gideon looked down, and realized that he was standing at the edge of a gaping, icy pit. The sand and the mirrors had disappeared, and they stood on the surface of the glacier. He looked up at Hara with disbelieving eyes. They were standing in Alcmene’s past.
With a start, Gideon realized that a Recruiter stood nearby, empty chains in his gloved hands. Gideon took a step towards him, but the man did not move a muscle. This must be the Recruiter who brought Alcmene to the glacier.
Alcmene opened her eyes, and they widened as she saw the pit yawning before her. Hara reached for her hand. “Ready?”
Alcmene nodded, and Gideon took hold of Hara’s other hand. Hara looked at him in surprise.
“Don’t think I’m letting you go anywhere without me,” he said.
She gave him an exasperated look, but the edges of her lips curved up slightly.
“Good luck,”
said Desideria, her hands clasped nervously under her chin.
They turned to the pit, and Gideon experienced the familiar sense of gut-clenching fear. Do the hard thing, indeed. Even though he had done this before, his heart still galloped in his chest at the sight of the yawning black void. What if it did not work, and they were trapped down there, or worse, taken to some new limbo?
Trust Hara, he said firmly to himself. Her Sight will pull us out.
It was not any easier to lift his foot and take that step into nothingness for the second time. He clenched Hara’s hand in his fist and felt the swoop of his stomach, the cool wind and the sound of water roaring all around them. It was too late now.
The slab of stone loomed up out of the darkness, and Gideon felt his heart pound in terror as he braced himself.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing back at the edge of the pit. It was as though they had not jumped at all. Hara stood beside him looking equally confused, and Alcmene was there too. The only ones who were missing were Desideria and the Recruiter from Alcmene’s memory. They looked all around, but there was no sign of Hara’s mother or of the doorway they had used to enter Alcmene’s mind.
“Did it work?”
asked Gideon.
“I can’t tell,”
said Hara.
“It’s possible we’ve just created a new loop instead of closing the other. Maybe we’re destined to jump into the pit over and over again. Unless I pull us into my mother’s present.”
“Wait,”
said Alcmene, and she let go of Hara’s hand to take a few steps back from the edge.
“I think this is real.”
She turned, gazing all around.
“I’m thinking of my time before, in the palace. I’m remembering my room. Are you able to see anything?”
Gideon and Hara exchanged a glance. Nothing had changed. The mountains were still snow capped and imposing all around them, the groans and creaks from the glacier and the roar of the pit still echoed.
“I think we are out of the stone,”
said Alcmene, a hesitant smile lighting her face.
Hara closed her eyes and her breaths became long and slow. And then she gasped.
“I can see my mother. She is back in her realm, in her corridor.”
She opened her eyes and looked around her.
“But I am still here.”
There was a beat of silence as they all accepted that they were back in the physical world.
“It worked!”
Gideon said, and Hara’s worried face finally broke into a beaming smile. He couldn’t help but gather her in a crushing embrace and lift her from the ground. His mouth found hers, and he poured all the relief and joy that was coursing through his veins into her lips. When they broke the kiss, they reached for Alcmene and they all held each other, rocking backward and forward and letting loose tears.
When they had collected themselves, Gideon quickly sobered when he realized what must come next. His eyes met Hara’s.
“Take her to the fae cottage,”
said Hara.
“I will go back and get the others.”
“Not alone,”
said Gideon.
“I must. One of us needs to stay behind to watch for the others. We do not know how much time has gone by since we went into the stone ourselves. For all we know, it could be months or years since we snuck out of the palace.”
She broke off, and the unspoken worry floated between them. How long would it be before they would see each other again?
“I’ll be quick,”
she said, a smile tugging at her lips and not quite making it.
“I know what to do now. And the more people we set free, the more help I will have. Hopefully, some will be willing to go back inside to help visit the other realms.”
Gideon took her hand. The awe he felt for her was surely palpable in his touch. If it took a week, six months, or one hundred years, he would wait for her until he turned to dust.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him again. The weight of her in his arms, the scent of her hair, the way she snuffled against his shoulder, all of these details were seared in his mind. They would be his comfort while she was gone.
They held each other for an untold amount of time, and then Gideon found the strength in himself to release her.
“Go. As soon as Alcmene is safe and well, I’ll come back and set up camp. I’ll watch for the others. I’ll wait for you.”
Angharad
Hara emerged gasping from the water, and she crawled up onto the dry surface of her mother’s realm. As she coughed and sputtered, she felt gentle hands grip her arms to pull her to her feet. Hara looked up, glad to see her mother again, when she realized that the hands belonged to the tall and slender mock-Seith.
Its painted face was very close to hers, and she smelled something sickly sweet on his courtly robes, like stale incense.
She yanked herself out of its grasp and heard her mother say.
“Did it work?”
Hara took a few steps away from the uncanny monster, and she turned to her mother with a smile.
“Yes, it worked. Gideon is taking Alcmene to a safe place nearby. We are going to get you out of here.”
“Out of where? There is nowhere else to go,”
said the mock-Seith. Her mother turned to him.
“Don’t listen to him, Mother,”
said Hara.
“He doesn’t know anything but here.”
A look of confusion crossed her mother’s face.
“Seith was the most educated sorcerer at court; he knows everything.”
“No, he doesn’t,”
said Hara, and even though she knew that her mother was ill, she could not hold back her anger.
“He could have tried to find a way to set you free, but he never tried because he is a coward—”
“Don’t speak of him that way!”
said her mother, cutting her off and grasping her hands. She sounded fearful, almost panicked, stealing a glance at the mock-Seith.
Hara stared at her.
After a moment, her mother trained her features into a reassuring smile.
“When we get out of here, he will take back the throne from Corvus, and everything will be as it was. We can make a fresh start.”
She was not listening.
“Mother, look into the future. You know that will never happen.”
At Hara’s words, a look of horror transformed her mother’s features. She began to shake her head violently and sank to the floor.
“No. I don’t do that anymore. I won’t.”
“What?”
“Seeing the future is unnatural. It makes me hurt. It is bad for the mind,”
said Desideria as though she were reciting something from memory.
“He helped me to stop.”
“He erased your memories. He nearly drove you mad!”
said Hara, clutching at her mother’s shoulders. A horrible thought crept into Hara’s mind at her mother’s words. She turned slowly to look at the mock-Seith, who was standing unnaturally still, watching them.
“Did you hurt my mother?”
she said.
“Did you hurt her when she had visions of the future so that she would be afraid of using her power?”
The mock-Seith was silent for a moment. Then it spoke in that strange approximation of Seith’s voice.
“I would never hurt my love.”
Pain and disgust settled like molten lead in her stomach.
“Come with me, Mother. We will find a way to free the others later, but we need to get you out of here. Away from him,”
she said, her eyes burning with hatred. She knew he was only a false copy of Seith created by her mother’s mind to placate her with lies, but she could not stand to have her trapped in here with what he represented.
Hara knelt beside her mother and closed her eyes to summon the memory of the pit, but before she could retrieve the image, she heard her mother moan in fear.
Hara’s eyes flew open to see the mock-Seith had grown, stretching so tall that its head nearly brushed the ceiling.
Hara staggered back, clutching her mother in fear. Desideria’s fingers were twisting and clutching at her scalp, while she cried.
“No, no, no, please, no,”
over and over.
It began to untie the mask, and underneath was something that made every instinct in Hara scream to run.
It was Seith’s face, but only just.
Long brows furrowed over a cluster of three eyes on either side of its head, each eye blinking independently of the others, darting over them and missing nothing.
When it opened its mouth, there was nothing but a black hole, as though the insides were coated with ink.
It was a face of such cold, brutal hatred that it made Hara recoil.
Her hand brushed against one of the bone blades against her hip, and she frantically grasped at the handle, unsheathing it.
The creature saw it, and its impossibly wide, dark mouth stretched.
A deep clicking sounded from its throat, echoing up through the empty corridors.
“None of this is real,”
Hara whispered.
“It’s not real.”
Her chest was rising and falling so fast that she felt lightheaded. She could not think.
In a movement so fast that Hara barely saw it, the mock-Seith stomped on her mother’s leg.
A sickening crunch echoed through the empty halls, and Desideria let out a keening cry.
Driven by instinct more than conscious thought, Hara plunged the knife into the closest part of the monster that she could reach.
She felt the blade sink into its foot and stop against the hard floor.
The thing let out an inhuman screech, reaching down to grasp at the handle.
Then she ran, clasping her mother’s hand and shouldering her weight.
She dragged her down a long dark hallway, hobbling towards a dimly lit room at the end.
She thought of escaping to her beach, but then she remembered the two-headed beast.
It would not be safe there.
She knew no one else who might be trapped within the stone, so there were no other realms to step into.
Panic began to make her heart pound, but as they reached the dim room at the end of the hall, Hara saw that it contained more hallways and shadowed alcoves.
She took one at random.
As they traveled through a new hallway into another set of rooms, it became clear that they served no other purpose than to have a place to run.
There were few distinguishing features other than the odd column or recess, and the farther they ran, the more featureless the rooms became.
Soon they contained nothing but blank walls and diffused yellow light.
They struggled down a long dimly lit corridor without doors, and Hara felt as though she were on the verge of weeping, hoping to find a place to hide where they could rest for a few moments.
They could not continue running forever with her mother injured like this.
She nearly cried out in relief when the next room contained a closet set into the wall.
Hara pulled her mother into the dark recess, trying to catch her breath.
Her mother whimpered in pain and clutched at her shin, blackened with bruising.
Hara tried to ignore the guilt at making her run as she quickly performed a pain relieving spell, whispering softly, her hands shaking through the motions.
She had to get the pain under control, otherwise the monster would hear them.
When she was finished, she tried to summon the memory of the glacier pit, but then the guttural croaking, clicking sound came faintly from the hall they had just left.
Desperately, Hara unsheathed her second knife.
It was a creature of magic, and so it would not like iron.
She did not know what might happen if she used her alchemy in this place, but they needed something that would buy them time so that she could properly concentrate on the glacier pit.
The bone was warm in her clammy hands, and she gripped it firmly, covering every inch of it with her skin.
She began to feel the material growing weighty in her hands, the familiar pins-and-needles sensation of transformation flowing through her touch, and then the deep clicking grew louder.
It seemed the creature was using it to sense them somehow, for it soon entered the room.
Its steps were uneven, as though the knife in its foot had hindered its gait.
Hara pulled back into the shadows of the alcove, making sure they were well concealed.
Her mother sobbed silently, biting her hand.
The knife was almost ready, a dagger of pure cold iron.
A curious white glow began to shine between her numb fingers, growing stronger as the transformation became complete.
The very air seemed to shimmer where it touched the iron.
Then the creature was there, invading the small space with its hulking form.
The pitch black mouth opened wide as it grinned in triumph, and the sickly scent of incense was overpowering.
It smelled like poison, and it made her nose burn and her heart stutter in fear.
Her mother screamed as its spindly fingers clenched around Hara’s arm and lifted her into the air, giving her one hard shake like a rag doll.
“You don’t run from me,”
said the creature, its voice distorted and hollow, more like a roar of wind than a voice. Dark liquid leaked from the corners of its mouth.
“You don’t fight back.”
It squeezed with inhuman strength, and Hara gasped and cried out, feeling as though her arm threatened to splinter. Her shoulder seared with pain as her entire weight was borne on the joint, and he shook her again.
With a grotesque pop, Hara felt the joint separate. Shattering pain radiated down her arm, and her eyes watered. She took gulping sips of air, trying to stave off the agony.
Then the creature let out a piercing screech, and Hara looked down to see that her mother was clinging to the creature’s arm. Despite her broken leg, she’d managed to hoist herself up and grip the arm that held Hara suspended. The creature howled, and Hara’s stomach turned when she saw the flesh bubbling beneath her mother’s grip, dripping in long, smoking globs like hot wax.
“Not our child,”
her mother seethed, her eyes glassy with rage.
“Never Hara, you said.”
Hara swallowed past the horror and shock as she gripped the dagger in her good hand.
With a scream, Hara took up the iron blade and plunged it into a cluster of eyes.
A blinding white hole ripped through its head where the blade’s point struck.
The monster’s grip slackened, and Hara fell to the ground. She scrabbled back, huddling against the wall of the small space with her mother.
The hole grew larger, much larger than any dagger could have created. It seemed to have ripped the very fabric of the air, widening and spreading out so that it was nearly the circumference of a shield before Hara realized there was something inside of it.
Cautiously, she moved so that she stood directly in front of the inert monster, its long arms resting on the floor as the hole spread where its head once was.
Layer upon layer of different realities stretched before her, punctured as though a gigantic awl had torn through them. They revealed glimpses of different realms: glowing hot lakes of fire, powdery blue skies bright with sunshine and swirling clouds, a room filled with perfectly straight trees, a muddy wasteland struck repeatedly with lightning, and on and on they went until they ended at the shining white light at the end of the tunnel.
“What did you do?”
her mother breathed in awe, coming to stand beside her. The hole was still widening, stretching resolutely outward. It was now nearly touching the floor of the room they stood in.
“I transformed my dagger into iron. I thought it would injure the creature and give us enough time to escape,”
said Hara.
“It tore through the magic,”
said her mother, stepping back as the edge of the hole spread towards her feet. It was now wider and taller than a doorway. With time, Hara wondered if it would disintegrate the entire stone.
Pain seared through her shoulder, and her arm felt limp and numb.
“We have to get out of here,”
Hara said, taking several steps back.
“We’ll use my memory—”
“Hara, look!”
said her mother, peering into the center of the rift. Hara took a step closer. The hole had grown so wide that the bright light that appeared at the end of the realms came into focus. In the distance, Hara could make out rocks and water trickling in a shaft of sunlight. It looked like a cave. It couldn’t be . . .
“It’s the outside world,”
said her mother, grabbing at her uninjured arm.
“Hara, we can escape through the tear!”
Before Hara could stop her, Desideria sat down on the edge of the void so that her feet dangled off. Her shin was crooked and dark with bruising from the broken bone. Hara made a strangled sound, but her mother only looked over her shoulder and smiled.
“Come on, little mouse.”
Then she slipped off the edge.
Hara cried out and crouched over the hole. Her mother was already a fast disappearing dot as she fell towards the cave. Hara deliberated for a few moments, and then she swung her feet over the edge. Even if she escaped to the top of the glacier by using her memory, she had no way of knowing where her mother had surfaced. The hole was expanding, and already, Hara felt her thighs beginning to slip. Before she let her nerves get the better of her, she pushed off.
This fall was not as terrifying as the leap into the glacier pit. She fell too quickly to study the torn realms flying past, and sooner than she would have expected, she was landing sprawled on black sand.
“Hara, Hara, are you all right?”
asked her mother, crawling to her side.
A whimper escaped her as she tried to use her injured arm to sit up.
“My shoulder is hurt. But your leg—”
“It’s broken,”
said her mother, and there was something off in her voice, as though she had merely torn her skirt.
The purple and black bruising on her mother’s leg looked even worse in the light. Hara winced as she imagined the pain she had been in while they dashed through the endless halls and rooms. Hara wished that she had her full apothecary kit at her disposal, but she could still do something.
She circled her hands around her mother’s leg and imparted another numbing spell deep into the flesh. Then she applied pressure and willed the bone to knit together. After several moments, she felt her strength waning, and she took a deep fortifying breath. It was not close to being healed, but it could bear some weight without pain. Temporarily, at least.
Hara looked up at her mother and found that she wore a warm smile.
“Merowyn taught you well. I never taught you how to do that.”
Hara bit back tears. She never would have learned this ability if her mother hadn’t been captured.
“What can I do for you?”
said Desideria, her fingertips hovering over Hara’s arm.
If Hara tried to use magic on herself, she feared she would collapse unconscious the way she did in the woods when she showed Gideon her memory.
Unfortunately, this would have to be done by hand.
She showed her mother how to grip her wrist, and she braced herself on a stone nearby as her mother pulled with all her strength.
It took a couple of tries, leaving Hara panting and her eyes streaming from pain, but then she felt some relief as the ball of the joint was tucked back into its cradle.
Swelling had already begun, and she could barely lift her arm, but at least the worst of the pain was gone.
Hara looked up and found that they were at the bottom of the glacier pit.
The sky above was swirling gray, and Hara gave a start when she realized what lay before her.
A giant slab of sorbite rested in a steep angle against the wall.
It looked like a doorway to another world.
Glacier water trickled over the face of the enormous deposit, obscuring the view of Hara’s beach within.
The only thing that shattered the illusion was the hole that marred the center.
It bubbled and crackled, ugly as a festering wound.
As she watched, the sizzling edges continued to spread.
She felt her mother’s gentle touch on her arm, and Hara turned around.
A small group of people were clustered on the sand.
Many were wearing the long dark robes of court sorcerers, some more bedraggled than others.
There was a sound behind her, and two more people landed sprawling on the sand.
Hara’s mother and another sorcerer went to help them.
Here and there, small white sticks stuck out of the sand at odd angles.
Only when Hara noticed a skull with empty eye sockets did she realize they were skeletons.
She swallowed, remembering the fae woman telling them that the fae used the stone as a way to dispose of their dead.
“Something has corrupted the stone,”
said a middle-aged man with a shadow of scruff around his strong jaw. He was tall, with blunt, handsome features.
“I think it was that,”
said a younger woman, who pointed at the iron dagger half submerged in the sand.
“ I can feel it from here.”
Hara went to it and picked it up. It seemed undamaged, and she brushed the sand from its blade before sheathing it at her waist. There was a light gasp from the woman.
“You can touch it?”
“I have earth magic,”
said Hara evasively.
“You are the one who tore the stone,”
said the man. Hara nodded, and the faces around the cave turned to her with wonder.
Hara needed to plan.
Now that the stone was slowly disintegrating, more and more people would be emerging from it, either by taking the leap or having no choice as the gaping hole consumed their world.
The haunting roar they had heard at the lip of the crater was the rush of water.
Hara squinted into the darkness and saw a black river flowing past under a shelf of ice.
The water coursing down the face of the stone flowed into it, and from there it would be carried down the mountain and into the city.
But when the stone was gone and every sorcerer trapped within was set free, the magic would disappear.
Hara did not want to imagine the consequences this would have.
She thought she would have time to think of a way to avoid Corvus and Falk’s wrath as they slowly freed the sorcerers one by one.
That would have taken months, if not years.
She had not counted on destroying the stone outright and freeing them all in one fell swoop.
But those troubles could wait.
First, they needed to find a way out of the glacier.
Gideon was up there somewhere, waiting for her to emerge.
She glanced around at all the sorcerers.
Most were probably too shaken by their ordeal to be of any help.
“Mother, Gideon is nearby. Perhaps with the help of the fae he could get us out with ropes.”
She said. Hara grimaced as she tried to imagine making the climb up the icy walls of the pit with her injured arm.
“Ropes?”
said the man with the strong jaw.
“Are we not sorcerers?”
Hara turned to him.
“What is your name?”
“Roger Brightbellow,”
he said, rolling up his sleeves.
“I can melt this. Can anyone help mitigate the collapse?”
“Yes,”
said the small woman who had sensed the iron dagger.
“I’ll catch anything that falls.”
“Good. Come with me,”
he said, striding to the solid ice wall where the river disappeared underneath. He rubbed his palms together and then his fingertips, and sparks flew from them. Then he stood back several paces from the wall and threw his hands out.
A stream of liquid fire blasted from his hands, and the glacier began to creak as the heat lashed against the icy surface.
Hara’s breath stilled. She had never seen such magic.
Water flowed freely as the ice wall began to melt, and a couple other witches with fire magic went to help him.
When the wall finally could not support itself, a loud crack sounded, and the fire mages halted their assault.
The cracks spread and crackled for what seemed like several minutes, and then the first chunks of ice began to fall from the top.
The other sorcerers let out panicked screams, scrambling to take cover as the wall began to collapse.
The small woman stepped forward.
Before the first boulder of ice hit the ground, she brought up her arms and slowed its progress, gently directing it to the side.
Each piece that fell slowed, hovered, and was set aside gracefully.
When it was obvious that the woman’s weightless power was well up to catching any debris that would rain down, Roger stepped forward and resumed his blast of molten fire.
In no time, they had begun to blaze a tunnel through the ice, and Hara glanced behind her.
The sorbite was only a smoking ring of delicate stone now, and at any moment, it would collapse.
Her mother came to stand by her side.
“There is no one left inside,”
she said.
“They are all accounted for.”
It was as her mother had said. Some eighty or ninety sorcerers were clustered in the small space. Some had joined Roger and the woman in their efforts to forge a path through the ice, while others sat huddled in the sand with their knees drawn up and their eyes clamped closed. But as she looked around at all the faces, young and old, she saw relief. Sometimes even joy. Curious glances were thrown her way, but there would be time to explain everything to them later.
An unfamiliar voice spoke beside her.
“I saw you were injured when you came out of the stone. Would you allow me?”
Hara turned to see a round-faced woman in scarlet robes. The robes of a court healer.
Hara nodded, and the woman began to move her hands in odd flicking motions over her arm. It was an unfamiliar spell, but Hara sighed in relief as the pain melted away. A strange sensation, like cold liquid running down her arm, loosened the stiffness and the swelling, allowing her to flex her fingers and move her arm without strain. It was as though the injury had never existed.
“Thank you,”
she said in wonder. She was so used to mending others’ hurts that it felt peculiar to be on the other side.
“What is your name?”
“Margaret Oberfor. What is yours?”
“Angharad.”
Margaret bowed her head deeply.
“I shall remember it. We shall all remember it.”
Tenderness filled her heart as she watched the woman move to another witch nearby, whose lip bled freely.
Hara rubbed absently at her chest.
Her heartbeat was only now beginning to slow.
It felt surreal that only a few moments ago, she had been running for her life in a never ending maze, hiding from the manifestation of her father that hunted them.
She remembered what Gideon said at the ball: he is just a man.
Now that she had confronted her worst fears, she realized that it was true about them all.
Corvus, Falk, Turnswallow, Seith.
These men who had overturned a country and caused countless lives to be lost were still only that—men.
Mortal, aging, and weak.
They could not make gold or See the future, could not heal the sick or relieve pain.
They would be gone, with nothing but a legacy of manipulation and cruelty to mark their time on earth.
There were more worthy things to be frightened of.
Hara watched as the prison that had held the sorcerers for decades finally crumbled and collapsed, its still-smoking pieces continuing to disintegrate on the sand.
Reality, cold and wet as it was, had never been so beautiful.