Sadie
We found Galen den’ Mora parked at the edge of the city where a few tussocks poked up from the sand and the oxen grazed. How they knew not to wander too close to the edge, I had no idea. The jagged cliffside seemed to appear out of nowhere, the sand on the mountain blurring into the sand far below. My legs felt shaky as we neared the edge, as if the entire mountain might plummet at any moment.
Despite being at the outskirts of the criminal part of town, Galen den’ Mora looked as untouched as ever, not a single looter or ruffian nearby. I scrutinized the wagon with new eyes. The songs transcribed around the edges were branded into the wood like wards, no longer just merry tunes but actual protection from harm. All the paintings and symbols suddenly carried more weight. What I’d thought once to be fanciful decorations, now I could clearly see was the magic of this place.
A dozen new questions flooded into my mind. I wanted to know how it all worked. Was there more to Galen den’ Mora’s magic? What were the limits of it?
I heard the snoring before we even got to the door. I yanked my hands free of their binding and raced up the steps of the wagon, Navin at my back. When I peeled the curtain aside, I let out a giant sigh of relief.
Maez slept across one of the low couches, a bottle still dangling from her fingers and drool trailing down her cheek.
“Thank the Moon!”
I exclaimed, rushing over to her and pulling her limp body into a hug.
“Wh—”
Her hands shot out, holding me at arm’s reach for a second and blinking the sleep from her eyes until she got a good look at my face. “Ostekke fucking gut me! I thought you were dead.” She pulled me back into a crushing embrace. “What the fuck happened to you? You look like you went three rounds with a juvleck.”
“Missed you, too,”
I murmured into her shoulder.
“And you,”
Maez barked as she looked at Navin. “How did you survive that fall?”
“That is a long, long story,”
I said, pulling her up to a seat beside me.
“Gods,”
she said glancing between us. She paused, her gaze snagging on me as her mouth split into a self-satisfied grin. “You two fucked, didn’t you?”
I choked on nothing but air. “What?”
She guffawed, her words slurred with drink. “Oh, there is no point trying to deny it. I know you too well.”
She waved her hand in my face and grabbed my cheeks like I was a baby. “I know this face.”
I shoved her arm away. “It’s . . . uh, complicated,”
I hedged, cringing at Navin with an apologetic look. I’d told him he was effectively my mate, and now I called our relationship complicated? Great. Really smooth, . This is why I couldn’t be trusted with relationships.
“Complicated. Clearly.”
Maez let out a derisive snort. “I mean, I already assumed you were off being a little skin chaser with him.” I bared my teeth, and she held up her hands. “Don’t get your tail in a twist,” she said. “I meant it in a loving way.”
“Joke or no,”
Navin said more quietly, “a relationship such as ours needs to be kept quiet in these parts. We don’t want any Onyx Wolves catching on.”
The conversation was cut short when I spotted my pack shoved under one of the low shelves. I squeaked as I dashed over and flung open the flap.
“What the fuck is she doing?”
Maez asked from behind me.
“No clue,”
Navin replied.
Digging frantically, I threw all my clothes and belongings all over the floor until my hand landed on a hard leather bundle. I yanked it out and held it to my chest in the tightest hug. “My knives,”
I crooned, kissing each sheath one after the other. “My sweet, sweet knives.”
“Of course,”
Maez said. “Your best friend gets a hug, but you’re on the verge of tears for your knives. Thanks a lot, Stabby.”
“I lost the others in the sandstorm,”
I said. “But I packed some backups.” I rocked them back and forth, kissing them one more time, before whispering, “I’m never leaving you again.”
I stood and rejoined Maez on the couch, still wiggling like a gleeful child. “Stop it,”
she muttered, rubbing her eyes. “You’re already a blur.”
Navin rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve got to go find somewhere to stable the horse. Then I’ll get the oxen hitched up,”
he offered. “We should roll out of Sankai-ed as soon as possible.” He paused, halfway out the doorway. “We can fill her in on our journey.”
He got three steps out of the wagon before Maez turned to me and said, “So how big is he? Big, right? I’ve seen those hands—”
I cupped my palm over her lips. “I think we need to get you a very strong cup of tea before we have this conversation.”
She nodded and started to make her way to the kettle, but I remembered her attempts at the beverage.
“I’ll make it.”
Tea turned into a lean dinner, which turned into after-dinner drinks. I was a bit surprised Maez would want more, but she just said, “Hair of the Wolf,”
and I couldn’t help but nod—I’d been there.
Even long after the sun set, Maez still peppered me with questions. When the oxen started on the rope bridge to the next island up, Eshik, Navin came inside to join us. Maez hadn’t kept the kitchen stocked and the provisions were sparse, but with a little ingenuity—and a lot of pickled vegetables—I managed to pull together a lentil stew that tasted good enough.
“So how come you’re not just covered in song tattoos?”
Maez asked, cocking her head at Navin.
I’d told her as much as I could about the Songkeepers. I could practically see her mind spinning in the exact same way I’d felt for days.
Navin pushed his empty bowl into the table and blotted his lips with a napkin. “Our magic must be sung or played—”
“But Galen den’ Mora—”
Maez countered.
“Is made of a dying wish. The songs protect the wagon, yes, but they are also there as a reminder for us to sing them. There’s a lot of songs to remember.”
“And not everyone has this song magic?”
Navin shook his head. “Only some possess the power to wield the song. It passes from one generation to the next. But many of those were lost to time. There might be some families out there that possess the magic and don’t know it, like me and my brother.”
“So what magic can you do specifically?”
“You ask better questions than me,”
I said, dipping the last of the stale bread into my stew. “It took me ages to get these answers.”
Maez cut me a look. “That’s because you were too busy playing prisoner . . . and getting fucked,”
she added under her breath. I stomped on her foot under the table. “What! Am I wrong?”
“You spoke of lesser and greater magics,”
I said, turning from Maez and ignoring her smug expression. “Can your magic unlock any door like you did in the cell?”
“Ooh, that’s a good question.”
Maez went to prop her elbows on the table but missed one and nearly smacked herself in the face. I moved her glass away from her.
“Only doors locked by our magic can be unlocked by them,”
Navin said. “But we can sing people to sleep and then nick the keys off of them, if that helps?”
Memories of Ora and Navin singing as we fell asleep in the wagon played over in my mind. I’d never slept as soundly nor fallen asleep as quickly as I had on Galen den’ Mora. I’d thought maybe it was the rocking motion, but now it was clear it was their songs.
“And what if there’s ten armed guards and not one?” I asked.
He stared at the ceiling, weighing the question before answering, “I don’t know about ten. The greater the number of people, the harder it is.”
“How many of you are strong enough to conjure monsters?”
Maez asked.
Navin shook his head again. “The greater magics are forb—”
“I know, I know, conjuring monsters comes at a great cost,”
she said in a mocking tone. “But it could be powerful for us, too.”
“Sawyn wasn’t powerful for us. She was powerful against us,”
Navin said darkly.
“But what if the songs that control your monsters could control sorcerers, too?”
Maez countered. “Has anyone ever tried?”
“It’s not exactly something they could experiment on, Maez,”
I said. “It’s an interesting theory though—controlling sorcerers, now maybe that could win a war.”
“These ideas could get a lot of people hurt,”
Navin cut in.
“Or it could save them,”
I replied. “If King Nero discovers that Ora is more than just a meaningful person to Calla,” I said. “If he learns that Ora possesses this knowledge, there’d be mountains of bodies . . .”
The three of us collectively shuddered.
Maez grabbed all the bowls and stacked them. “So why are we still going to Rikesh?”
“Because we are pretending to offer me to Tadei to steal the Onyx Wolves’ treasure,” I said.
Maez’s tongue licked her back molar, confused. “Because . . .”
Her eyes narrowed at me as she took a sip of the water I’d swapped for her drink.
I looked at Navin. “Because Navin promised his husband.”
Water flew across the table, a giant spray of it coating the wood. “His husband?”
Maez shouted and Navin pinched the bridge of his nose.
Maez moved to stand, and I grabbed her by the shoulder and roughly shoved her back into her chair. “Defend my honor another day,”
I snarled.
“You lying piece of shit,”
Maez snapped. “Was nothing you told us real?”
“Maez!”
I shouted. She glared at me. “Do you think I didn’t already go over all this?”
“But I didn’t,”
she snapped.
“Three things I’ve told you were true,”
Navin said, answering her questions. “I am a musician. I travel the continent in Galen den’ Mora.” His warm eyes landed on me. “And I’m in love with your best friend.”
Now was my turn to nearly spit my drink all over the table. I shoved my teacup away and rocked back in my chair, staring at him wide-eyed. “When did you tell her this?”
“In Taigos,”
Maez answered for him. “When you were sleeping.”
My mouth fell open as I twisted back and forth between the two of them. “Maez knew before I did?”
Without looking, I shifted my drink farther away as Maez grabbed for my cup.
She rolled her eyes, making her whole drunken body wobble, before she twirled an accusatory finger a little too close to my face. “Can we please circle back to how your human is married?”
I slapped her hand away. “Can we please circle back to how you didn’t tell me he told you he loved me?”
Navin placed two placating hands on the table between us. “Let’s put this to the side for one second, okay? The real reason we need to go to Rikesh is not for the bounty.”
Maez cocked her head at him like a confused pup. “It’s not?”
“We need to go to Rikesh for a vase.”
Maez’s frown deepened. “And what is on this Rikeshi vase?”
“A song. The song,” I said.
Navin grimaced, his words sputtering out as he grasped for an explanation. “Hidden amongst the carvings of the vase is the eternal song.”
“And what exactly can this song do?”
He took a beat before finally replying, “It can conjure new monsters into the world.”
He glanced at me. “Our ancient predecessors gave the vase to the Wolves to keep us from using it. There was fear that using the song would destroy the world. My ancestors didn’t expect the Wolves to treat us so badly. They never imagined we’d need it again.”
Maez let out a groaning sigh. “Well, we sure could’ve used that power during Sawyn’s reign.”
“Sawyn’s reign was because of that magic,”
Navin said. “Rasil’s grandfather found the vase when he was performing at the palace and used the song to create his samsavat.” Navin mimed the scuttling hands of the monster across the table. “That creation produced the dark magic that claimed Sawyn.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if anyone uses that song again, it will bring even more dark magic into the world.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. No matter how many times I heard him explain it, the thought still made my stomach clench. “I don’t want Rasil to have that vase, but I want the Onyx Wolves to possess it even less. If they know what it is they have . . .” He blew out a long concerned breath. “Every time the song is sung, a new sorcerer will be created.”
“Fuck,”
Maez said, stringing out the word as she dropped her cheek into her hand. It was a relief she was handling this knowledge just as poorly as I had. “So using this power could create another Sawyn?” Navin nodded. “Curse all the fucking Gods. Why can’t we just have one good thing?”
“This is why we wanted it protected,”
he said. “Somewhere where the Songkeepers would never be tempted to use it.”
“And the Valtan King never learned of what he possesses?”
Navin shook his head. “He thinks it an ancient relic if he thinks about it at all. The Songkeepers never told him of what lies in his trove.”
“And how do we get access to this trove?”
Maez asked.
Navin held my gaze, and I already knew the answer.
“By pretending to be the King’s new sister-in-law,” I said.
“Oh, Gods no,”
she snapped. “You’re seriously going through with this?”
I eyed her. “Damrienn has Ora. Valta has the vase. If either of them learn of the power of the Songkeepers, they’d be able to use it to crush the Golden Court,” I said.
“This is far from a diplomatic mission now,”
Maez groaned. “I could handle enchanting a few Wolves to support the Golden Court, but this . . . this is a power that could destroy us all. And Wolf Kings are the least trustworthy with such power. They’re the most hot-tempered, foolhardy of us all. They’d definitely try and use it.”
“Exactly.”
I said. “Gods, I hope my father and uncles aren’t in the palace. That will only complicate things further.”
“They’re not,”
Maez said matter-of-factly.
“How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Drunks talk,”
she said. “Word spread of three Silver Wolves cutting across the desert and crossing the Stoneater back to Damrienn. Maybe they thought you died in that sandstorm. Guess they’re going back to Nero with their tails between their legs.”
I hoped Nero punished them in all the ways I imagined he would.
“Well, at least that’s one less thing to worry about,”
I said. “Although it would’ve felt pretty good to see Navin take that bounty out from under them.”
Maez rapped the table with her knuckles in front of Navin. When he lifted his gaze to hers, she pointed a finger at him. “Don’t think I forgot about the husband thing,”
she said elbowing me. “You and I are going to have a little chat about that later.”
“No fur. No fangs,”
I muttered to her.
“No fun,”
she replied.