22. Twenty-two
Chapter 22
I woke to bright sunlight and Kalcedon’s soft footsteps as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.
“So, you’re awake.”
“You went out?” I asked groggily, sitting up. He’d broken the ward, smudged the ash on the door and the walls to break the sigils.
“For the necessary,” Kalcedon told me, with a look that said you’re prying . “The hall’s empty. Anyways, I thought you might sleep all day.”
“I was up late,” I informed him. A pang in my stomach reminded me our meals had been scant the night before. The fireplace was nothing but ash.
“I know. You woke me up.”
My eyes widened at the memory of how his body had fit against mine. At the press of him.
“Anybody sane would have been glad to get up,” I said, trying not to think about it. “What self-respecting witch would rather sleep than hear—”
“Did you really figure it out?”
I took a sip of water from the bottle in my bag.
“Yes. I did.”
“So, tell me.” Kalcedon dropped onto the edge of the bed, hands on his knees. His eyes danced with laughter, but his shirt was still torn and bloody at the shoulder, which rather dampened my mood.
“Um.” I rolled off the mattress. Padding to the fireplace where I’d worked, I picked up a sheet of paper from the floor and squinted at my own handwriting. I could barely read it. “Well, I’d have to see the other stones’ enchantments to be certain, but… there was a key. A way to undo it. Maybe not on purpose, but every spell has its holes. It wasn’t brute force that broke the stone. I mean, brute force can’t. There’s no spell you could throw at it because it would just shred the magic and swallow it up. It’s just so ridiculously clever, the way—” I was coming wide awake again just looking at the beauty before me.
“Meda,” Kalcedon groaned, drawing me back. “A key. What key?”
“Right. So, this phrase here?” I got up and sat beside Kalcedon on the bed, leaning close to him. He leaned in, too, and our shoulders touched. I could feel the heat of his magic enveloping me, a welcome comfort after an exhausting late night of work. But he was running cooler than usual after his healing, transformations, and powering our room’s shield all night.
I pointed to my original transcription of the stone, the phrasings that Tarelay had carved. “I’m reading this as kinship, inheritance, place. And this one next to it, well, it’s sort of like order, protection, birth. And next to it, here, that’s binding it all to the stone itself. He uses a similar structure to the one Xandi of Koraica proposed for major workings, although—”
He groaned and leaned back away from me.
“Horns, I don’t want an analysis. Just tell me what it all means.”
“It was tied to the royal family,” I said breathlessly. “Not the royals in general. The Sable-Pall family specifically. Think about it. Seven stones, seven kingdoms. Well, six kingdoms now, without Doregall. Each stone is tied to each family. It’s how he connected it to the land. And you know blood workings are strong. The only way to break something like that, a spell that eats other spells and is built on blood…”
“So it was the Princess,” Kalcedon said. “That’s where the iron on the ground came from. Blood sacrifice.”
“Sorry. What Princess?”
He rubbed his face.
“A letter came from the Temple,” Kalcedon said. “For Eudoria. Sable-Pall was missing its princess. They wanted Eudoria to scry for her.”
“You never told me that,” I accused.
“It came just before everything happened,” he told me dryly. “Forgive me for having other things on my mind.”
I recalled, then, what the witch at the Temple had said; he’d mentioned someone was missing to me. Had hoped for a response. I frowned at Kalcedon. I might have put the spell together a little faster, had I known who.
But he didn’t notice my expression. Smoothing a hand over his gray face, he shook his head and winced.
“Blood… so someone killed her. And burned their surroundings to cover what they’d done. She was only seventeen.”
“It really was on purpose, then,” I said. I’d already come to the conclusion, but I didn’t want it to be true. How could anybody want the Ward brought down? And it wasn’t just for a burst of power, most likely, or they wouldn’t have done it again.
“How?” Kalcedon whispered “How did they know, whoever it was, to use her blood?”
It was a good question. A crucial question. The enchantment hadn’t been visible before the stone broke. Even if other fae knew, they’d be stuck in the outlands, unable to cast spells on our side of the Ward. Or murder princesses. Pure humans could go back and forth, but no human could possibly be insane enough to work with the fae. And no obeisance would survive the Ward’s shredding cannibal power. No, whoever had done this had done it of their own free will.
But I had just realized something, a fact more urgent. If each stone were keyed to the bloodline of its kingdom, whoever was attacking us was going through the royal families to do it.
“Oraik,” I told Kalcedon. “He’s Doregi. Maybe the last Doregall royal. If someone wants to bring down the Ward, they’ll need him to do it.”
“Horns,” Kalcedon muttered. He stood from the bed and began to pace in the small area between the bed and the hearth. It only allowed a few steps in each direction. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, then spun to look at me. “We have to tell the Chancellor. The Cachians can get the word out, quickly, quietly. And get more guards in all the royal households. Witches.”
“Right,” I said. But Oraik was somewhere in Montay, or bobbing around on the Etegen, and nobody but me knew which way he’d gone. He’d asked me not to tell. I supposed circumstances changed things. But if I did tell, who was to say I wouldn’t be handing information to the wrong person? I wetted my lips.
“We’ll have to scry. Find someone at the Temple and use a speaking spell. It’ll waste time to go in person,” Kalcedon said, nodding to himself as he spoke.
I nodded too. At least we knew how to look for the Temple; that would make an easy start of things. But we’d have to find someone there, and get them to listen to a voice on the wind. And would they even believe that I’d managed the translation? If I talked to the same witch I’d met at the gate to the Temple, might he remember me?
“...So? Meda?” Kalcedon waved a hand in front of my face, interrupting my thoughts. I blinked at him.
“What?”
“The spell? Do you want to hold the base or search?”
As much as I’d made fun of Kalcedon’s unsteady hands, he’d been holding Eudoria’s spells for years. Decades. He knew how to do it. And I had always admired the delicacy of Eudoria’s searching; the way she parted earth and air.
“I’ll search,” I told him.
The bowl I’d used to mix the ash, even scrubbed clean, made a poor scrying bowl after the luxury of the large, beaten vessel in the workroom at home. Kalcedon stood, his fingers hooked into the familiar spell, while I sat cross-legged on the bed, hunched over the tiny wooden bowl as I followed a bird gusting through the Temple. The creature—I thought it was a songbird—tilted away, back towards the iron gate. I dropped into the eye of a Nameless guard moving through the street, my view pale and muted through the gauze of the guard’s veil; hopped over to the eyes of a servant carrying a bucket of water into an open, tiled room.
A woman in Cachian councilor's robes swept in through an arched doorway opposite the servant, thunder on her face. An Order witch followed on her heels, arguing something—I only caught a few words.
“Excuse me?” I said. They kept walking. “I’m talking to you. Yes, you, hello?”
The servant flinched and turned, scattering my view away from the pair and back out to the street.
“Not you—the officials,” I clarified. The servant’s gaze snapped back to the two Cachians, who stared in our direction. I slipped into the witch-man’s eye, a jolting flip of perspective. The servant set down the bucket and hurriedly left.
“Where are you?” the female councilor asked. Our host looked at her as she spoke. She was full lipped and regal in age.
“Sable-Pall. I’ve deciphered the Ward.”
“Wha—” she began.
“Impossible,” our Order witch interrupted. “Who…”
“Not all of it,” I admitted. “But enough to understand. It was broken by a blood sacrifice. The missing princess.”
The man’s eye shut, turning the picture in the bowl dark for a moment. Then he looked back at the councilor. I watched her chest swell with a deep breath.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Meda. I studied—we studied—with Mistress Eudoria.”
“And you claim you can understand—”
“She understands it,” Kalcedon snapped. “You have to get word out. To all the royal houses.”
“Who is that?” the woman asked.
“We already have,” the Order witch interrupted. His voice was grim; I couldn’t see his expression.
“You knew?” I blurted, unable to help myself. My head spun, wondering if someone at the Temple had already known about the workings of the Ward. If somehow…
“We guessed,” he corrected. “The princess went missing—then the King of Nis. Both stones… and now nobody can find the second prince of Buis…”
“Buis,” Kalcedon whispered. “Buis. They’ll take down Buis…”
“Is it that fae with you? That… one Eudoria raised?” the Order witch asked.
“He’s here,” I said. “But I’m the one who translated it.”
“Go to Buis. Stop them. Figure out who’s doing this,” the councilor commanded.
“We will,” I agreed. “But you need to find Oraik. He was headed—”
Kalcedon abruptly dropped the spell. I stared into the empty bowl a moment longer, where the tiny vision had given way to slightly ashy water. How could he be lazy enough to drop it at a moment like this?
“Truly?” I complained. “Cast it again.”
“I don’t think you should tell them where he is. We don’t know who’s doing this.”
“But it’s the Temple.” I looked up at Kalcedon. His brow was furrowed. He stared at the empty bowl, thinking, then shook his head.
“Still. If you’re the only one who knows where he is, I don’t think you should tell.”
“But somebody has to find him.”
“We can look for him after I get back from Buis.”
I didn’t like it, but for a moment I ceded to his logic: if we could find who was behind this at Buis before they made the next sacrifice, we could put an end to it for good, which would keep Oraik even safer than a bodyguard would. But then his words sunk in.
“After you get back?”
“You aren’t going to Buis,” Kalcedon said sharply.
“But you heard her. They’ll be there. Whoever’s doing this.”
“I know.” Kalcedon leaned forward to grab my shoulders. “I can go faster without you. And it might be dangerous.”
“You shouldn’t be alone. You’re not that good a caster. And if people see you…” A thousand protests sprung into my head. Kalcedon was too cold; he’d been casting too much. He’d just been injured; what if the healing wasn’t good enough? And somebody ought to be watching his back. That somebody was me.
“Enough, Meda. You aren’t safe with me near you. Go to Nis, alright?”
“I’m not going back there,” I informed him.
“You’re not coming with me.” He saw me open my mouth to answer, and quickly shook his head. “Don’t. I’m going to Buis, to put a stop to this. You’re taking the fastest boat you can find in the harbor back to Missaniech. With luck you’ll be out of the way of any conflict there.”
“Kalcedon…”
“Enough. This is happening. I’ve decided. Pack your things.”
I knuckled my jaw for a moment, screwing my face up in a frown. He was right; there wasn’t much I could do to stop him if he was about to fly off.
But Oraik. Oraik was out there, unprotected, unaware.
“Fine,” I agreed. “But I’m not going Nis-Illous. I’m going to find Oraik.”
“Meda,” Kalcedon straightened from where he was cleaning up my journal and reed pen with a groan. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He slipped them carefully into my bag.
“I’m not. What if you don’t find them at Buis, or what if it’s more than one person and you can’t put a stop to all of it? They might keep killing.”
“That was not my objection. At least go back to Rovileis. Whether or not the Temple’s involved it ought to be safe there.”
“I’m going after Oraik.”
“You are far too important to go off into the wild, at a time like this…”
“If he’s the only heir to the Doregall stone, keeping him alive means the Ward can’t be brought down. Not for good, anyways. And he’s alone. Unprotected.”
“If they’re going after him, then it could be dangerous to be alone with him,” Kalcedon said. My bag dangled from his hand. “You’re too weak to do any good.”
“I have to try. I owe it to him.”
“You owe it to me to stay safe.” With each word Kalcedon’s voice grew louder, harsher.
“No, I don’t.”
“Meda, enough. Anyways, I bet that warship already found him. He’s probably halfway home to his palace by now and surrounded by soldiers.” He was practically yelling. I stared at him, biting my lip.
But Oraik was the key to the Ward. What was the point of having dreams if the only thing protecting us from the outlands came crashing down? And the idea of someone capturing Oraik, murdering him…
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m going after him, whether you think it’s a good idea or not.”
We stood in silence for a long moment as Kalcedon stared at me.
“You know, Eudoria would want…” he started to say. I felt my temper flare.
“Don’t. Don’t do that. I’m going after Oraik. You can come find me when you’re done.”
“Sometimes I really hate you,” he muttered. But despite his words, he drew out his coin purse and shoved it into my bag.
“Kalcedon.”
“You’ll need money,” Kalcedon muttered. “And… buy a knife. A big one.”
“But what about you?”
He twiddled a finger, indicating magic. “I’ll manage better than you would, weakling. But if you get robbed again, I’m putting a curse on you.”
“Like you could.”
I expected Kalcedon to glare at me like usual, but instead his shoulders slipped. A faint smile stole onto his face, beneath his weary eyes.
“Stubborn ‘till your last breath,” he whispered. He reached out and gently took a curl of my hair into his fingers. My breath caught. I found myself searching his face, but his eyes wouldn’t meet mine. Kalcedon reached for his belt with his other hand.
And then he drew a knife. I jerked back with a yelp.
“Hold still.” Kalcedon said. Now he was scowling. “I’m not a good enough seer to find you otherwise, not when you could be anywhere in the whole damned Protectorate.” He sawed off a coil of my hair a little longer than his finger. Holding his knife in his mouth, he knotted it in the middle and tucked it into his pocket. Then he cut off a lock of his own hair, tied it, and handed it to me.
“Disgusting,” I told him, and reluctantly took it.
“Don’t risk your life over some Colynes prick. If you find him, hide somewhere nobody will see you.”
The more eyes were on us, the easier we’d be to scry—if whoever was responsible for this was hunting for Oraik. As I nodded, Kalcedon kept talking.
“And if that warship already found him, don’t you dare get involved. They have real witches.”
“So what? I’m a real witch,” I muttered.
“Just don’t die, idiot,” Kalcedon growled. “Promise me that.”
He reached out and slowly rested his fingers against my cheek. Kalcedon's touch blistered through me. My eyes fluttered closed. He withdrew.
When I looked again, Kalcedon was midway in transformation, shifting to a form I could not follow. He slipped through the window, and spread his wings wide on the wild Etegen breeze.