CHAPTER 9 CALLYN #2
“Would it make Tycho stronger than the king?” I ask softly.
“Yes.” She pauses. “But Nakiis has shared his magic with a magesmith before. And once it is done, it cannot be undone until one of them dies. It is a trapping. An imprisonment.” She glances at the sleeping scraver in the shadows. “Just as his father was trapped and imprisoned by your king.”
“I remember that,” Alek says, speaking from the mouth of the small cave. He sets down a bucket that sloshes lightly over the sides. “The king’s scraver.”
I look at him in surprise. “You do?”
He nods. “He dragged him around on a chain.”
I frown a little, trying to imagine King Grey keeping a creature like this on a chain.
A year ago, I would’ve believed it, back when I hated the king and his magic.
But now that I’ve had a chance to know him, I struggle to reconcile this knowledge.
The king is stoic and commanding, but he’s also thoughtful. Reflective. Humane.
And even if I could imagine the king doing it, I really can’t imagine Queen Lia Mara putting up with it.
I tuck this knowledge away for later. “Will he heal now?” I say to Igaa.
Her mouth forms a line, her eyes glinting in the limited light. “Perhaps,” she says. “There was a time when I worried he would not survive at all.”
I swipe my hands on my trousers. “Well, we’ve been gone for hours, and if we’re going to make it back to the palace before nightfall, we’re going to have to start walking.”
“No,” says Alek. He folds his arms, straightening to block the narrow opening of the cave. “We helped you, now you need to help us.”
Beside me, Igaa hisses a breath through her teeth. “You’re lucky I don’t gut you.”
Alek doesn’t move. “Put away your fangs,” he says. His eyes shift to me. “Tell her, Callyn.”
I sometimes wonder if Alek would have half as much conflict if he didn’t treat every conversation like a transaction.
I look at Igaa. “You don’t have to help us at all,” I say quietly.
“But the king and Tycho have been gone for weeks. If scravers intend to attack the palace again, it would help the queen to know.” I wet my lips. “It would help me to know.”
Her fangs are still bared, but she studies me. After a moment, her expression softens, and she turns for the front of the cave. “Come,” she says. “Let us speak outside so Nakiis can rest.”
The sun is beating down through the trees, and after the coolness of the cave, the heat smacks me in the face. I cling to the shade and lean against the sheer rock wall as Igaa speaks.
“Nakiis would not like me saying these things to you,” she says. “But he is too injured to move, and if Xovaar finds us, he will kill him.”
“You keep mentioning Xovaar,” says Alek. “Who is he?”
Igaa hesitates, then frowns. “Before I explain who he is, perhaps I should start at the beginning so you can understand the why.”
“Go ahead,” I say to Igaa.
She glances at Alek. “When the scravers first struck the treaty with Syhl Shallow, they did not expect the magesmiths to follow. But they knew the power our steel offered, and we’d always been willing to share.
But sharing turned to stealing. Our allies were becoming our enemies, and we were left with no choice but to make the ice forests uninhabitable for humans.
But the magesmiths already had what they wanted: the secret of our steel.
They eventually forged across the Frozen River and attempted to settle in Syhl Shallow, where they could still access our magic through the steel, but without being subject to our cold.
” Her eyes return to mine, and I see the depths of anger there.
“But your queen feared our magic, and would not allow them to remain here. The magesmiths proceeded to Emberfall— where their king eventually ordered their destruction.”
“But he didn’t succeed,” says Alek. “Because magesmiths still exist.”
“Of course,” says Igaa, surprised. “As long as humans have access to our steel, magesmiths can never truly be eradicated.”
My heart skips hard. “The steel,” I whisper, resting my hand over my mother’s pendant. The whole reason I have the magic.
The queen had access to rings, too, I think. Rings that protected her just like Tycho. Just like my mother’s pendant protected me.
But I can’t say that. I don’t want Alek to know.
I let go of the pendant. “What does this have to do with Xovaar?”
“This part,” she says, “has more to do with Nakiis. As the years wore on, we began to tire of the treaty. Scravers did not want to be confined to the ice forests. Our friist— our king— sought to renegotiate with your queen. She refused.”
“Lia Mara?” says Alek.
“No. Her mother. Karis Luran.” Igaa glances into the shadows of the cave. “She threatened destruction of any scraver who dared to enter Syhl Shallow. But Nakiis didn’t believe she could capture him if he tried— and he was right.”
There’s a grave note in her voice that tells me there’s more to this story. “What happened to him?”
“As the friist ’s son, he wanted to prove that escape was possible.
He stayed hidden, passed through your country, and made it to Emberfall, where he found a surviving magesmith named Lilith.
When she offered to share their magic so they could protect each other, he agreed immediately.
” That grave note in her voice turns to despair.
“Lilith tricked him, trapping him into her service. She used his power against him, and nearly succeeded in destroying their kingdom.”
“I remember this,” Alek says, and now it’s his voice that’s gone heavy. “She created the monster that started the war.”
The same war that killed his mother and his sister.
The same war that killed my mother.
“Yes,” says Igaa.
“How did Nakiis escape her?” I say, and my voice is a little rough.
“He didn’t,” says Alek. “The king had his own scraver, and they killed her.”
“Yes,” Igaa says. “Nakiis’s father. He was our friist. He was killed in the conflict, and Nakiis fled.” She lets out a long breath. “But he was injured, and humans found him. He was trapped again.” A heavy pause. “For years, until Tycho found him and freed him.”
Tycho. I swallow, hearing the emotion in her voice.
“In return,” she says, “Nakiis has attempted to protect him— but he is wary of having his magic taken.” She pauses. “As you can see, this has put him at a disadvantage.”
Those words land like a rock thrown into a pond, spreading ripples of awareness. I feel as though I’m connecting points I never realized were related. No wonder the scravers arrived to help in Briarlock. I thought they were helping the king and queen.
But they were helping because of Tycho.
I think again of the day he healed Jax’s hand, the gentleness in his voice as he uncurled my friend’s burned fingers. I think of his kindness with Nora, or the way his skittish cat wound between his ankles after hiding from everyone else.
Of course he freed a vicious scraver. Of course he did.
Alek’s voice cuts through my reverie. “None of this explains Xovaar.”
Igaa’s eyes shift back to him. “Our friist was gone, human. His son was gone. In the absence of leadership, others will rise to claim power. In Iishellasa, that was Xovaar. When Nakiis returned to Iishellasa and said Queen Lia Mara and her magesmith king were not enforcing the treaty, he thought the other scravers would welcome the opportunity to leave the ice forests. He thought he was bringing news that we could finally be free.” She pauses, then frowns.
“He did not realize that Xovaar and his followers had developed a deep resentment for the magesmiths who’d taken their magic and left them trapped there so long ago. ”
“So they’re angry,” I say softly. “And that’s why they’re coming after the king.”
“That’s why they’re coming after any magesmith at all.”
Alek’s eyes have gone a bit cold again, like he’s had a new thought, and he looks back at Igaa. “Will Xovaar come after Callyn?”
Igaa nods. “He could.”
“The king and Tycho are in Emberfall,” Alek says. “How do we ensure that Xovaar goes after them ?”
Ice forms on the rock wall beside us, and the bare edge of her fangs appears again. “You would commit your problems to Emberfall as well?”
He looks like she’s just asked if grass is green. “Absolutely.”
Quicker than thought, the scraver reaches out and clamps her clawed hand around Alek’s neck. A gasping, choking sound breaks free of his throat, and a trickle of blood appears below her fingers.
“You humans are so shortsighted,” she growls. “Do you not think Xovaar would turn his powers on you next, with no magesmith to keep him in check?” She leans closer, and more blood flows. “Why do you think the scravers were treaty bound to remain in Iishellasa at all?”
Alek is prying at her fingers. His face has gone a shade of white I don’t want to see again.
But then he snatches a weapon from the belt at his waist, and I realize he’s going to thrust it right into Igaa. I don’t know which one of
them I should be defending— but I know they’re about to kill each other.
Without thinking about it, I tackle the scraver.
She’s much lighter than I expect, and it’s bizarrely like tackling little Sinna instead of a vicious creature.
Her wings flare wide as if to catch her balance, snapping hard to catch the air, but I’m too close, and I slam into her side full force.
For an instant, I realize that she might launch us both into the air just to drop me from above.
But then we crash into the ground, rolling.
I end up on top of her, panting. I don’t mean to pin her wings, but one is trapped under my knee. Just as I realize it, she swipes at me with her claws.
Before she makes contact, Alek hooks me under the arms, jerking me off her.
Then he shoves me to the side, and before I can blink, he has weapons in hand.
“Stop!” I cry— but the scraver has already leapt into the air. She takes light on a branch high above. From here, I can hear her panting.
— I gave you your information, she says. — Now you must help me.
“She just helped you!” Alek snaps incredulously.
“Shut up,” I hiss at him. I jerk free of his grip. “What do you need me to do?” I call up to her. “I can’t kill Xovaar. If the king couldn’t stop him, I sure can’t.”
She hisses back at me. “Nakiis can. With the help of a magesmith.”
“He didn’t even want me to heal him! He’s not going to let me tether my magic or whatever—”
“I don’t want your magic.” Igaa’s claws wrap around that branch, and she leans down, her balance proving just how inhuman she is. “I want you to find Tycho, Callyn. And I want you to bring him to us.”