Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
On our way back to the practice fields, my head begins to clear. By the time we reach the snowdrops, my heart rate has settled and my thoughts are my own again.
“So, do you all have any idea what this weapon could be? Like, how big it is, or what it might be made of?” I’ve been picturing some sort of sword or dagger, but I know it can’t be either. Blades are for killing one person at a time, not causing a cataclysm.
Rime rubs his jaw. “It’s most likely a ring.”
I freeze mid-step. “I’m sorry, what?”
“What?” He stops and turns to me.
“A ring?”
I thought we were looking for Browne’s Hill, not Mount Doom.
“Yes. A ring.” He holds up his right hand and points to the silver band around his ring finger. “Our rings channel our weaving magic.”
I gape stupidly. “They do?”
Rime peers over each of his shoulders, then takes a quick scan of the river. “Watch,” he says, smiling as he pulls me forward, closer to the water.
He waves a hand over his face, and his human features fall away.
Pale-lashed eyelids blink over red irises, his pupils widening as they focus on the opposite bank.
I can guess what he’s doing—using his eagle-eye vision—but what is he looking for?
Bird-like, his head swivels while his body stays still.
After a long breath and a stretch of silence, he raises his right hand high, like he’s going to wave to someone a good distance away.
But he doesn’t wave. Not exactly. It’s more like a sweep, palm up, as if he’s gathering a ball of air and circling it over his head. He keeps his hand raised and his red eyes focused into the distance.
Waiting.
And I realize, as my chest aches with the breath I’m holding, that so am I.
One beat, two beats, three… A blur of gray and white appears on the opposite bank, growing larger as it sweeps across the river. Then, all at once, with a rattling screech and a rustle of feathers, it’s upon us.
I gasp and cover my head.
Raka-kak-kak-kak. Raka-kak-kak.
Rime chuckles and warns, “Here come two more.”
I keep my arms over my head until the beating of wings is so close I can feel the air stirring across my skin.
Raka-kak-kak.
“You’re alright,” Rime says. “They won’t hurt you.”
Slowly—because I’m sure making any sudden moves will get my eyes pecked out—I let my arms fall to my sides.
On Rime’s hand, perched like a trained falcon, is a beautiful blue-gray and white bird.
Another of the same kind struts on his shoulder, while a third makes wide circles above his head, its wings beating softly as it glides through the air.
Marveling, I whisper, “What are they?”
“Kingfishers.”
Kingfishers. I’ve heard the name, but I wouldn’t have known one if it came up and bit me. The bird on Rime’s hand tilts its head and studies me with its round, black eyes.
Rak-kak.
“Hi,” I breathe.
Wings folded, it’s about the size of a man’s outstretched hand.
It holds itself steady by wrapping its twiggy, black feet tightly around Rime’s finger.
Meanwhile, the one on his shoulder takes off into the air, flaunting a wingspan twice the length of its body.
I watch it swoop over the river, the tips of its striped wings slicing two parallel, frothing wakes in the water.
With a soft rattle, the remaining kingfisher calls for my attention. “He wants me to admire him, doesn’t he?”
“She,” Rime corrects with a smile. “And yes, she does.”
She fluffs her wings and fans out the dark gray crest on her head.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her.
“You can touch her,” says Rime.
“Where?”
“Her chest.”
The thought of petting a wild bird both scares and thrills me.
I reach out with tentative fingers, giggling nervously when she puffs out her chest. Her feathers are softer than they look, smooth and downy.
I stroke her from the neck to the red-brown ‘belt’ across her belly. She preens and ruffles her crest.
When she spreads her wings, I step back to give her space and watch as she soars up into the sky. Touching her was a lot like hugging that hemlock with Leo. All that incredible natural energy. Untamed, balanced, free.
I meet Rime’s hawk eyes. “That was amazing.”
He nods as he replaces his glamour.
“And your ring does that?”
“Yes.” Hands in his jacket pockets, he resumes walking. “It channels the weaving bond.”
I frown. He said that already. “But how? I mean, did you actually talk to them? Like, ‘Hey, kingfishers! Come on over here?’”
Rime laughs, a full-on, throw-back-the-head laugh. “Ah, little psychic, I love how curious you are.”
Unfortunately, my reaction to his compliment isn’t to thank him, but to think of Leo. About how amused he always was when I got too inquisitive, his eyes sparkling with a scholar’s delight. That is, until I asked something about him. Then the sparkle went black.
Rime slows his pace when he notices I have to take three steps for his every two. “The birds and I are bonded,” he explains. “We have a connection that doesn’t need words.”
“So it’s more intuitive, then?”
“Yeah, it might be a little different for everyone, but for me, I just envision what I’d like the birds to do.”
“And they do it?”
“If they’re willing.”
“And they can talk back to you?”
“Yes, in the same sort of way. I see what they see or feel what they feel.”
“That’s incredible,” I murmur, imagining what sort of messages the birds might send him. “So, why birds?”
Or trees?
Or snakes? Ugh.
Rime shrugs and smiles, his gaze far away.
“Because since I was a child, I felt connected to them. It’s what happens to most of us.
We spend as much of our childhood as we can just roaming around out in nature, and usually by the time we’re about ten or so, we start to feel drawn to a particular species. ”
We slow to a mosey as he squints up at the crows circling in the sky.
“Birds would visit me all the time,” he says. “Especially birds of prey. They’d fly close or sit on the fence beside me while I worked. Other times they’d just land on my shoulder and look at me.”
I laugh. “It sounds like they got in your way.”
He chuckles and shrugs. “Not really. Having them around made my work more fun.”
“And that’s how you knew they were the species you were supposed to weave with?”
“It was a strong indication, yes, but it was just the first step. See, when a species wants to weave with you, it gives you a piece of itself as a token to seal the bond.” He sighs and peers up into the trees. “For years, I waited, hoping every day was the day that would happen.”
“When did it finally happen?”
“When I was fifteen. One random summer morning when my brother and I were fishing in the creek.”
I picture two golden-haired, pointy-eared teen boys wading up to their skinny ankles in the sun-dappled water. “What happened?”
“Nothing extraordinary at first. Birds were singing in the trees like they usually do, but it wasn’t until I realized I was the only one who could hear them that I thought, this could be it.
” He smiles, gaze distant and wistful. “I followed the sound to a half-dead yew tree, climbed it, and found a pair of goshawks and their nest.”
“Oh! Were there eggs in there?”
“Three,” he says with a nod. “I probably sat up there for an hour, just waiting, afraid to move or breathe. And then finally, the male plucked a feather off his chest, hopped to the edge of the nest, and placed it right on my shoulder.”
I glance at his nearest shoulder as though the feather might still be there. It’s nearly impossible to imagine a wild bird getting that close, or being that deliberate. If I hadn’t seen Rime with the kingfishers, I wouldn’t be able to fathom it.
I ask, “Do you still have the feather?”
He grins and holds up his right hand, pointing to his third finger.
“Seriously?” I stop short and snatch his hand. “It’s in your ring?”
“Yeah.” He laughs as I twist his hand this way and that, trying to get a good view of the silver band. “Not the whole feather, obviously, but a piece of it.”
“So that means—” I work this out embarrassingly slowly in my head, “Leo has, what? A hawthorn berry, or a leaf or something in his?”
“Berry.”
“And Topaz?”
“A black adder scale.”
“And these tokens give the rings their power?”
“Partly. There’s also a weaving ritual that imbues it and seals the bond. It’s the most important moment in a Nàdarian’s life.”
I drop his hand, seized by the conviction that I shouldn’t be touching his ring.
“It’s all right,” he says. “You can’t hurt it.”
Wanna bet? I’m human. We harm nature even while we’re sleeping.
We walk on in silence, thinking, but when we reach the retaining wall, I stop and sigh.
I still have so many questions—questions upon questions upon questions.
Questions I won’t even know exist until I ask more questions.
I pause and prop a hip against the cold concrete wall while I piece together all that Rime told me.
Patiently, he waits.
Finally, I formulate something semi-coherent. “This weapon—you said its magic is unnatural, right? So would that mean that if it’s a ring, it somehow distorts the weaving bond?”
“You are clever, aren’t you?” One corner of his mouth curls up.
“That’s exactly what we think it does. See, during the weaving rite, we vow to never abuse the power given to us.
I’m sworn to protect the birds and to only use my hawk’s vision for good.
” He looks back across the river, in the direction from which the kingfishers flew.
“I called the birds, I didn’t command them.
We never try to force our will on nature. ”
“But whoever made the macguffiin did?”
Rime smirks. “Macguffin?”
“Google it.”
“I know what google means now,” he says, grinning proudly. How can a man be so cute and so formidable at the same time? “But, yes, we think the macguffin,” wink, “was designed to control nature, not bond with it.”