Chapter 6 Quinn #2
We returned to the same stableyard as yesterday. The smell of straw and a sickly sweet aroma—apples gone soft with rot—tickled my nose. Mav stopped in the shadow of the overhang and tipped his head toward the wall.
“Wait here.”
He crossed to the far stall without looking back, his boots soft over the packed dirt.
The stablehand, a wiry man with hay in his hair and a limp in one leg, looked up from the bridle he was oiling.
They spoke in low tones too hushed for my ears.
Mav leaned one shoulder against the wall as if he had all the time in the world.
After a moment, I caught the faint jingle of coin changing hands.
The stablehand’s brows raised. He disappeared into the dim aisle, his limp more noticeable now with the hastened effort. He returned with two saddled horses—a mottled bay mare and a gray stallion I was pleased to recognize. The stablehand handed the leads to Mav with a dip of his chin.
“You and Clove have already met,” Mav said, passing the reins to me.
“Indeed, we have,” I acknowledged, smiling up at the horse as I stroked his broad neck.
Mav glanced between Clove and me with the beginnings of a smirk. “Ever ridden before?”
“Of course.”
He lifted a brow, unbothered. “Recently?”
My lips pursed. “As with everything else, it has been several…decades. But one does not forget how to ride horseback.”
“Mm.” He stepped nearer, a hand set ready to the saddle. “I can give you a leg up—”
“No need.” I swung up in one motion, skirts settling with minor adjustment. When I looked down, Mav was observing me with amusement and approval.
“Not bad.”
“Not bad?”
“Didn’t even make Clove nervous,” he said, and then turned to mount his own.
He swung into the bay’s saddle with a smoothness betraying his unassuming demeanor. His posture instantly settled into an easy, balanced seat with a sense of uncanny belonging.
It took me by surprise.
Outlined by the rising sun, he did not appear to be a man who slept on floorboards and dodged questions.
Mav looked every bit the knight he must have once been.
His hold on the reins was confident—not the grasp of a man unsure of his footing, but one who had learned the rhythm of hooves and wind long ago.
I settled Clove beside Mav’s horse, letting the reins rest loosely in my fingers.
A smile did not reach his lips as he looked ahead, but there was a softening in him.
The saddle beneath him, the trail ahead, and the whisper of leaves all seemed to remind him of something he wasn’t sure he missed.
I stole another glance at him. Though I yearned to understand what path had led him here, to a life outside oath and office, I could not demand such a history be shared at my interest.
Some truths must wait for the right moment to be spoken aloud.
We rode side by side. The trail wound through fields left wild, tall grass brushing the stirrups.
Yellow wildflowers sprang up in joyous bursts.
Farther in, the trees stretched above us, branches entwining like steepled fingers.
Silence settled between us as the sun climbed.
The wind carried what we left unsaid well enough.
I shifted in my saddle, drawing my skirts clear of the bothersome snags despite the knowledge that the fabric was years beyond its best.
“We’ll reach Maelth soon,” Mav said at length, breaking the quiet that had grown long enough to feel deliberate. “Tiny village. Forgotten by most. Except for Thistle.”
I glanced at him sidelong. “Do you speak of a plant or a person?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “A bit of both, truthfully. She’s a Hedge.”
There were two orders of magic—higher and lower—each divided into five gifts.
The lower order included Hedge, the command of plants; Hearth, the generation of heat and flame; Hands, the art of healing; Hum, the weaving of influence through sound; and Hindsight, the gift of perfect memory, recalling all one had ever read or seen.
The higher order comprised Tempest, command of weather; Tremor, mastery of earth and stone; Time, the manipulation of time itself; Tether, the binding of souls; and Twilight, the most feared and misunderstood—manipulation of dreams, minds, and sleep.
All magically gifted were capable of common magics: crafting wards of protection or misdirection, temporary enchantments of movement or light, minor glamours to smooth skin or brighten eyes.
It had been ages since I had encountered any of the lower gifts.
Before the curse, I had lived my life in Aurillion, the capital of Avandria, where magic was as stratified as society itself.
The royals, ever obsessed with purity, deemed the higher order superior and forbade unions and offspring between the higher and lower magics.
They claimed it would dilute divine bloodlines and weaken their rule.
Excluded from the court’s favor, many of the lower-gifted abandoned the capital and built quiet lives in the surrounding provinces.
Only the ungifted fared worse in the king’s esteem—those born without manifesting magic by their twelfth year.
He feared they would one day unmake magic itself and exiled them to a barren colony beyond the kingdom’s borders.
I had always found the practice barbaric.
None of us chooses to whom we are born. None of us chooses the blood or magic which flows in our veins.
“Plants, correct?” I confirmed.
“Mmhmm.” He squinted from beneath his brow. “Don’t let the lack of sparkle fool you, though. She’s clever and wise. Might be able to help us understand the spell.”
Us.
It startled me that he had phrased it so. Realization struck me. I had been considering it solely my spell, and though his participation was limited to a fortnight, it ruled us both.
“Do you often seek magical aid?”
A smirk curved his lips. “Only when the problem sleeps in my bed and threatens my ability to stay detached.”
I tipped my gaze to the sky. “You are impossible.”
“I think you meant charming,” he said. “Thank you for noticing.”
Despite myself, I smiled. A hairline crack in the porcelain of propriety I carried. Beneath it, the quiet presence of hope dared lift its chin.
Could the spell be undone?
Did I wish it to be?
Two weeks had always been a sentence. A timepiece ticking toward another century of sleep. Yet now I wondered if severing the connection would release me, or simply return me to restless solitude.
Mav rode slightly ahead, one hand on the reins, the other resting across his thigh. He looked over his shoulder. “You’re gifted, I assume?”
The inquiry was nonchalant. The underlying interest was anything but.
“Yes.”
“Thought so.” He nodded, confirming the unspoken presumption. “Which gift?”
Cold panic flooded my limbs as I hesitated. Even here, even with him, a man whose fate was temporarily entwined with mine, the truth was dangerous. “If I tell you, would you keep it in confidence?”
He pulled his horse to a stop, furrowing his brows as I halted beside him. “Yes, of course—”
“Swear it, Mav. You must not tell a soul,” I said, reaching for his hand, hoping the touch would convey my earnestness. “Neither friend nor foe.”
He closed his warm fingers around mine absentmindedly. “Quinn, I swear, I won’t breathe a word, but…what gift could make you so afraid?” He huffed a laugh. “I mean, it’s not like you’re a mind-manipulating Twilight that could control my every thought and dream.”
My mouth fell open unbidden as I froze, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Three centuries of secrecy, and with one careless jest, the truth hung naked between us.
Only weeks after my eleventh birthday, King Edric Leonard Renaudin III issued his decree: all Twilights were to be deemed enemies of the realm and executed upon capture.
My gift had only begun to stir then—whispers in my sleep, glimpses of others’ dreams—but my parents were terrified.
The king’s fear of our kind had infected the kingdom, and nowhere was safe for a child touched by Twilight.
It was then that my father, a Tremor, began the tower.
He claimed it was meant as a retreat, a place of study and reflection.
In truth, it was a refuge, a place hidden deep within our lands where his daughter could grow without being seen.
My father used his power over earth and stone to build my salvation, never knowing he was also constructing my future prison and tomb.
“I…”
“Oh…” he said as his eyes widened. “Shit. Really? I…I didn’t think there were any left.”
I forced a hard swallow around the lump in my throat. “To my knowledge, there is only one.” I managed as I pulled my hand free from his.
After several tense heartbeats, he spoke in a solemn tone. “The prince, the one who cast the spell, did he know?”
“Yes.” The word was bitter on my tongue. “He intended to weaponize my gift.”
“For what?”
“I know not.” My shoulders lifted in a brittle shrug.
“Although it is safe to assume they were, at best, grasps for power and at worst, things far more nefarious than I could allow myself to consider.” I shook my head.
“When he discovered I was a Twilight, he held my very life ransom for the acceptance of his proposal.”
“What an asshole,” Mav said. He winced before amending his statement. “…respectfully, I mean.”
“I am inclined to agree.” I breathed a halfhearted laugh.
“I had no desire to spend my life in servitude or as an armament of war.” My voice hardened, but the ache beneath it remained.
“Ironic, is it not? The spell he crafted caused me a similar fate? Bound me, not to him—but to this.” I gestured to the open space between Mav and myself, to the invisible bond linking us.
He did not argue the point.
I drew a soothing inhale. “Twilights were hunted after the fall of Kilstrand.”
Mav remained still, an encouragement for me to continue as he ignored the restless horses.