21. Twenty-one
Chapter 21
“No!” Kalcedon grunted, and lurched into me, knocking me off course. The spell hit just beside the window, pulverizing a hole the size of my fist in the thick earthen wall instead of hitting Kalcedon’s attacker. Dust puffed into the air. The whole room shuddered, but held.
I flopped back against the mattress, my head hitting the pillow as Kalcedon’s arm gave out and crushed his weight down on top of me. All I could think was that the window was still open; they were still out there. And now he was fully exposed, shielding me, stopping me from protecting him. With a strangled sound I wormed out from beneath him. I didn’t know a spell to close the shutters, but I ran to them doubled over and grabbed the wooden slats.
“Don’t attack them,” Kalcedon managed, his voice tight with pain. “They don’t know better.”
I got the shutters closed, though there was nothing to do about the hole in the wall; at least it was a smaller target to aim through.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, standing with my back to the closed window and taking assessment of the situation. My mind felt empty now, in a way that didn’t make sense; but I suppose panic could do that. My heart still lurched so hard I could feel each punch of it in my chest.
The arrow still stuck out of Kalcedon’s shoulder. His whole body hunched in pain. Bright blood bloomed on his sleeve, and I could smell the stench of the iron arrowhead burning his flesh. I had to get the arrow out of him, and heal or bind the wound to keep it from bleeding. I ought to burn or take anything he got blood on. There were spells, powerful spells, that could be done with blood, though no telling if anyone in Sable-Pall was strong enough to cast them.
No telling, either, whether our attackers waited downstairs or only outside. No telling how many. No telling how skilled. I gritted my teeth and jabbed my knuckles to my jaw for a moment, trying to think.
Kalcedon hissed in pain and grabbed at his arm, just below the arrow. Right. That came first. I hurried forward and tore a cloth casing off one of the bed’s pillows.
“Don’t hate me,” I begged him. “It’s going to hurt.”
He hadn’t yelled when it punched into him. But he yelled when I tore it from his skin. Roared, really. As his blood sprayed.
“Tell me you know a spell,” I begged as I pressed the pillow cloth against the hole in his shoulder. Kalcedon had done healing before; I’d picked up a few spells with the same interest I showed all enchantment but had made no special study of the subject. The half-fae’s breath came in harried gulps. Pain glazed his eyes.
“Fifth of Harrow ,” he mumbled. “And… Elezan , for the backing.”
I started to draw the spell as he spoke it. My hands shook. I hissed and dropped the spell, then started over, stilling the tremble of my fingers as sigil work dragged messily through the air.
Blood. Blood stained my fingers. Kalcedon’s. I drew arcs and spindles in shimmering lines. The power strung from Kalcedon to me; then back to him, stitching closed his wound.
No arrow had come through the hole in the wall by the time I was done. Kalcedon’s eyes were wet, his face slack with the exhaustion of pain. And I? I felt too much. My body tingled from the spell, from the flood of heat I’d channeled. My tongue was heavy with fear, my mind sour. This was no place to rest. Necessity demanded we move.
“We have to leave.” I shoved the pillow cloth and the arrow into my bag, and reached out for Kalcedon. He took my hand and came slowly off the bed.
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
I shook my head, having no energy to respond. “We need to go. Where?”
Kalcedon didn’t answer. He was looking down, his lips pressed tight. I didn’t think he was even listening to me.
I was going to have to solve this one for us both, then. We could take a ship, except he’d be seen on a ship. We could try to buy a fish-craft, the type that could be manned by a single sailor, except it was growing dark and the port and coast were unfamiliar. Never mind that I was in no condition to haggle. What we needed was shelter, somewhere safe, where nobody would see Kalcedon. Somewhere to lick our wounds and rest.
“Could you transform?”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“You have to,” I told him. “We must get out of here. Get ready to move. You transform, nobody will realize. I’ll find a room somewhere else, and I’ll open the window, and you’ll come in. Give me your money.”
Still wordless, he handed over a coin purse. I tucked it into my bag and squeezed the strap hanging over my shoulder with shaking hands that were sweat-damp and flecked with blood.
I half expected attackers to line the hall outside the door, but it was empty. A room across from ours had an open door, a dark blue square of evening visible through its wide window. Kalcedon padded towards it.
“Find me,” I commanded. “Don’t go off on your own.” When he didn’t answer, I lunged after him and grabbed his wrist, forcing him to look down at me as his power thrummed into my veins. “Kalcedon.”
“I heard you.” He broke free of me, strung together Odson ’ s spell, then fell towards the window as a giant sea hawk. Pinning his wings to fit through the opening, Kalcedon tumbled out into the evening.
With a whispered prayer, I clattered down the steps. If I were attacked, I wouldn’t have power to draw on. I’d just have to hope they treated me as a human, and—sickening to consider—a victim.
The room where we’d sat to eat, bustling half an hour before, was now empty and dead. The fires were banked; half-empty cups and plates scattered on the table. The hair at the back of my neck prickled. I froze at the bottom of the stairs as a feeling of unease gripped me. They had left in a hurry. Did they fear him that much?
I raced outside.
“Mistress,” someone called.
I ignored the man’s voice, and barreled forward, taking one side street and then another, feet pounding on the city’s dirt and stone lanes, unfamiliar winding alleys and corridors, a set of tight stairs, a broad avenue and a headlong flight down another dark path with tall, tight buildings that emptied me back to the sea wall where Kalcedon and I had once sat to eat.
I ran straight into the wall and bent over it, hands braced on top as I gasped. My stomach felt cold and hard and sick; sweat-dampened from the race.
I gulped air like a fish out of water. I didn’t have it in me to keep running. Turning slowly, I let myself lean against the ledge of the wall. If anybody had followed me, they were too far behind for me to tell.
Except for the sea hawk. Kalcedon glided to the top of the building opposite me. I could tell it was him only from the size. The bird’s predator eyes stared down at me, unblinking. I took another deep breath and stared back.
We weren’t too far from the terrible inn we’d stayed on our first night in Sable-Pall. That was easier than trying to find somewhere new. I rinsed my bloody hands in a fountain around the corner, drained the water from the bottle in my bag, and refilled it.
Then, sweaty, exhausted, and still shaking from the fright of the attack, I trudged towards the inn. When I passed a vendor on the street, I paused long enough to buy skewers of spiced pigeon wrapped in soft flatbread, conscious we might not want to leave our shelter once we reached it.
Inside, I put a coin in the innkeep’s hand and asked to borrow a needle and thread. Shouldering through the crowd, I fought the urge to cover my ears, and shuddered at the crushing nearness of so many strangers when my body felt so sick and overwhelmed.
The room was as tiny as I remembered it. I opened the window wide and stuck my head out. The bird across the way dove; I quickly stepped back and made space for Kalcedon to plunge inside. He unfolded, sheeting feathers.
I was in his arms before I could stop myself. I drew a shaky breath and clung to him. He still smelled like iron and blood. A feather tickled my cheek, then puffed apart. Something of the outdoors clung to him; an indescribably crisp smell that made my heart yearn for wind and open skies. Kalcedon’s magic fitted close around me, but his arms were even tighter.
What if the arrow had hit somewhere else? What if they’d pierced his heart, instead of his shoulder?
“It’s alright,” Kalcedon whispered in my ear, as his arms stayed tight around me.
“It’s not.”
“It is. It’s fine,” he insisted.
“What if they…?”
“They don’t know I’m here. It was a good plan,” he admitted. “You’re smart. Sometimes.”
“Are you alright?” I asked, and looked up at him.
He shrugged and didn’t meet my eyes. Kalcedon let go of me and sank onto the bed. Remembering that I’d bought us food, I offered him one of the wraps.
“Perhaps later,” he said tiredly.
“You should eat,” I insisted. “For your strength.”
“I will.” He shot a wary look to the window, then to the door. “Maybe… we ought to ward it. To be safe?”
I hated the slight pinch of fear in his words, but nowhere near as much as I hated those who’d put it there.
Not a week past I would have jumped at the chance to cast a spell. Now I only nodded with grim solemnity. A written spell was the best choice for a shield that would last the night. I couldn’t bring myself to care that we’d be sullying the walls and the door of the room.
It was lucky the room was not well-cleaned, its fireplace still full of ash. Kalcedon helped me mix the gray powder with water in the offering bowl to make a thick paste.
I did not have to ask Kalcedon for help with a spell. I’d spent enough time looking at shields, wondering how Tarelay’s Ward was constructed. Now I settled cross-legged in front of the wooden door, a bowl of wet ash in my lap, a twig from the fire-basket in hand. Slowly I drew three long lines of phrasings from the left of the door across to the right. Grabbing the bowl one handed and rising to my knees, I shuffled in a circle around the room to place anchor marks every few feet along the wall, and an extra one on the closed window shutter. When the circle was complete it hummed awake, biting like a hungry wolf at Kalcedon’s banked heat.
So long as the door stayed closed, completing the ring of sigils, nobody would be able to get in. Not even if they realized we were here. Not so long as the spell stood. And each spell had its weakness, but this shield was rooted in fire; it would not fall unless they thought to burn the building down or someone with better spell craft attacked us. I tossed the stick I’d used into the fireplace, built up a flame using a striker instead of any more of Kalcedon’s heat, and burned the arrow shaft and the pillow cloth until no evidence of blood remained.
“Can we leave? Tomorrow?” Kalcedon asked quietly, as we both settled in the small space between the foot of the bed and the hearth to eat our meal. I crossed my legs and nodded.
“Yes,” I agreed, and didn’t have it in me to ask whether he meant for the Temple or Nis. I hadn’t unlocked the tangle of Tarelay’s Great Ward, in any case. Perhaps it would be best to go home. At least nobody in Missaniech had tried to kill him.
The air stank from the iron arrowhead. I dug around in the fire with a stick and managed to usher it out of the heat and against the side of the hearth. It felt odd to be so close to open flames; as if I’d reached an uneasy truce with fire.
“...This isn’t bad,” Kalcedon said, after we’d been eating in silence for a moment.
“It’s alright,” I agreed. “You’re the better cook.”
“Am I?” He sounded pleased.
“Don’t pretend you’re surprised.”
When we were finished, he stripped his shirt off and began to sew the hole closed. I found myself staring at the look of him, sleek muscles shifting in the firelight.
Kalcedon glanced up, saw me looking, and stared back. My cheeks burned. I turned to face the fire instead.
“I’m done,” he told me after a few minutes, breaking off the thread.
“Good,” I said weakly.
“Are we sharing the bed again?”
“It’s sensible.”
“Then are you coming?”
My eyes widened. I glanced his way. Kalcedon was still shirtless, the mended fabric bunched in one hand. He leaned back against the foot of the bed, one knee bent, and watched me closely with his dark eyes.
Doubtlessly my mind had gone where his had not. He was in mourning, and had just been shot. It was only the firelight that made me think such thoughts.
“I’m not tired,” I whispered.
“Suit yourself.”
I pulled out my journal as he stood and stripped out of his trousers, down to his drawers. Tarelay’s Ward was the only distraction strong enough to keep me from staring. Though I cannot truthfully claim I did not glance, a little, out of the corner of my eye.
When Kalcedon climbed into the bed I exhaled hard, lay across the floor, and forced myself to study the shapes of the enchantment once more. Somewhere in here were the seeds to the Ward’s destruction, whether it had been pulled apart by time or calculated malice.
It only took a few minutes before I was lost in the spell again.
I could not say how many hours passed as I ran my eyes over and over the spell, copying phrases and attempting isolated translations to pick apart the meaning of the whole. I had to add sticks to the fire twice, though I did not like it to grow too big.
It was a far larger spell than the one I’d written into the room, and yet, at its heart, any shield was the same. It provided protection; created a barrier. The spell on this room would stop anyone entering, but the Ward didn’t stop people from crossing. It just drained any heat that touched it.
It cannibalized spells, I realized with twin horror and delight. It didn’t just eat the raw power that grew in our veins if we touched it—it tore spells apart the moment they came into contact with the ward, shredded them, and fed on the power. That was how it had survived for so long. Self-sustaining: not quite. Self- feeding .
I stared into the flickering, dying fire of the hearth, where I had burned the gory cloth and arrow to keep Kalcedon safe from blood magic, and wondered if I could learn to do the same; to build a shield that would be strengthened by any attack.
The flames were red. Devouring. I thought again of the arrow that had pierced Kalcedon; thought of the way the women of Nis-Illous washed their blood-rags in the sea or burned them, even now, when there were so few witches around.
There was power in blood. Power in life; power in death. I blinked at the bright burn of the fire, and slowly bent my head back down to the journal in front of me. And there it was, the key. Swimming up into my vision like it had peeled itself out of Tarelay Sorrowsworn’s tangles, clear as day, unmistakable and obvious in its truth.
Tied to life.
Seven stones, for seven kingdoms. Well, six now, after Doregall’s fall. But the same way I had written fire into my spell… I scrambled up and threw myself onto the bed, clambering to Kalcedon.
“Kalcedon!”
He didn’t answer. I prodded him, crawling half-over him with my arms braced on either side of his face.
“Wake up. I figured it out.”
“Who’s what?” he mumbled.
“Bloodlines! It’s bloodlines! I, the spell, it came to me…”
“...Sleeping,” he protested, as I began to explain.
“But I know how, mysteries , it seems so simple, all this time…”
“Meda,” he murmured, and reached up to wrap his arms around my waist. My breath caught as Kalcedon dragged me down, pulling my body flush to the burn of his. “Stop talking.”
“But…” I wriggled up on my elbows. “Listen, the spell’s a cannibal, it’s beautiful. But it’s not anchored in anything to do with magic, it’s…”
“No,” Kalcedon said.
He rolled over, until I was pinned beneath him, until my lungs could barely draw a full breath beneath his weight. I could feel him, every contour illuminated by gravity. And I was on fire, divinely, and I didn’t think anything could compare to the feeling of cracking Tarelay’s spell apart, I didn’t think anything in my life would top that achievement, could surpass the knowledge that ran wild in my head.
But for a moment I forgot about the spell. For a moment I just wanted… him. On me; in me. Surrounding me. Not only the flood of his power but the warmth of his skin. His lips.
“Kalcedon,” I whispered, and dragged a hand along his arm—down his back—gripped at the meat of his thigh, where it nestled between mine.
“Tell me how smart you are tomorrow, Meda,” he whispered to my cheek, as his body tangled in with mine. “But now? Let me go the fuck back to sleep.”