Chapter 15
Blaze
The next few hours pass in terse silence.
Of course I’m not relaxed. How could I be?
I just woke up from a fever dream after being bitten by a giant snake.
I lost my brother and, seemingly, my mind, because somehow I agreed to travel through this strange, overgrown maze of a kingdom with the very same boy who broke the empire in half.
I can feel him leaning away from me, sitting as far back in the saddle as he can.
Maybe he’s regretting his offer to escort me to the Lagoon, or maybe it’s that I could really do with a wash.
Either way, as pairings go, the two of us are exceedingly ill-matched.
It’s not just the way he speaks to me, his every word infused with that mocking pleasantness, or worse, that maddening softness.
It’s that … well, he saved me. And of all the things he’s ever done, it’s this I find hardest to forgive.
We reach a slight incline, and I’m forced to grab a handful of Cedar’s mane to avoid tipping backwards into Fox’s chest.
Perhaps I’m being ungrateful. Perhaps I should be thanking him. I imagine that’s generally the response one gives in such circumstances. But doing so will only affirm out loud what we both already know – that I owe him, now.
I’m beginning to wish he’d just left me there in the forest. Getting eaten by wild dogs or slowly decomposing into the undergrowth seem like vastly preferable alternatives to being in the Earth Cleaver’s debt.
Oblivious to the whirlpool of self-loathing swirling inside my head, Fox clears his throat and asks, ‘How’re you feeling?’
His voice is neutral, almost bored. Gone is any trace of that lingering smirk. Is he intent on making another gibe, or does the question indicate a temporary ceasefire?
‘Better,’ I concede.
We lapse back into silence, but this time it’s not as heavy. Maybe it’s my turn to break it? I rack my brains for a question of my own. As usual, I have plenty. But there’s one in particular I’ve been burning to know the answer to ever since that night in the dungeons:
‘Tell me how you found the Eye of the Past.’
More of a demand than a question, I admit, but it’s a start.
‘Only if you ask nicely,’ Fox replies.
I toss my hair over my shoulder, hitting him in the face with it. ‘Fine. Tell me how you found the Eye of the Past, please.’
‘That’s better.’ He spits out a stray curl. ‘Now then, let’s see. Four years ago, I was sailing around the Eastern Isles.’
A sharp gasp escapes my lips as he brushes my fingers with his own, and just as they had before, my surroundings fade and transform.
Suddenly I am no longer riding on horseback through the dense wilderness of the Wildlands but clinging to the rigging of a ship, Fox at my side.
I can feel the coarse bristles of the thick rope in my hands, the wind in my hair, the sun on my face.
I hear gulls cawing, wood creaking. The ocean stretches out before me like swathes of cerulean silk, glittering, endless, foaming waves curling up to slap the helm of the boat.
The salt air tastes like freedom and I savour it, breathing deeply as a lump forms in my throat.
How long have I dreamed of sailing the Second Sea?
I start in surprise as a second boy climbs up beside us, telescope in hand.
Fifteen-year-old Fox stares right through me at a fixed point in the distance.
His green eyes are just as piercing, his dark hair even more untidy, yet there’s a boyishness to him.
Gone is the ghost of the stubble on his jaw, the corded muscle of his forearms, the hard contours of his chest. He’s slighter, softer.
His threadbare shirt billows in the breeze as he leans backwards, one hand holding the rigging while the other raises the telescope.
Letting out a sudden hoot, he begins climbing down the rope, but before he can jump the last few feet to the deck of the ship, the vision changes.
I’m standing in what appears to be a busy shipping port.
All around, people dressed in brightly coloured robes are calling out to one another in a language I don’t understand, selling from stalls groaning under the weight of jewellery, armour and weapons.
Fat silver fish are packed in barrels spilling over with flakes of salt, and the smell of ripened fruit and cooking meat fills the air, which is uncomfortably hot and heavy with smoke and incense.
‘Zafar – one of the Eastern Isles,’ Fox murmurs in my ear.
His younger self stands a little to the right of us, flanked by his crew, whom he sends off in pursuit of various goods – food, fresh water, soap.
He possesses the easy authority of someone twice his age despite appearing at least a decade younger than the most junior of the men.
Yet they clearly respect him – seem fond of him, even.
Young Fox watches them lumber off into the throng, then begins to peruse the stalls, keeping one hand on the hilt of his gold dagger.
We follow him, and I marvel at all manner of exotic curiosities – necklaces made from human teeth, talking birds, unbreakable chains.
He buys what looks like an orange from a cart, except this orange is purple, and proceeds to peel it slowly.
Soon we reach the outskirts of the city.
‘Where are you going?’ I whisper.
‘I’d heard a rumour about a woman,’ Fox replies. ‘A Mage. One believed to have retained her magic after the war.’
‘But how? That’s impossible.’ Yet the words have barely left my mouth before a memory tugs at me – a boy bound in crystal shackles, hidden deep in the palace dungeons.
I jump as a gaggle of children runs by, the eldest of them no older than eight or nine.
They’re dressed in rags and pitifully thin, their faces streaked with grease and dirt.
Young Fox catches hold of the boy at the rear of the group and says something to him in Zafarian.
I find myself wondering just how many languages he can speak.
As many as me? More, I’d wager. He’s travelled extensively.
I envy the opportunities he’s had to put his skills to use.
There’s something about the way the little boy nods that reminds me of Renly.
He glances around nervously, mumbles something, pointing left, then right, then left again.
Young Fox smiles and tosses him the fruit.
The boy’s face lights up. He holds it in both hands, carefully, as though it were an object of great value, then scampers off after his friends.
‘What did he say to you?’ I ask Fox. I’m not sure exactly why I’m speaking so quietly. To those in this memory, we seem to be mute as well as invisible.
‘He told me where I could find the mahala. That’s Zafarian for witch.’
As we round the next corner, I know instantly this must be the place.
A small hovel at the end of a row of abandoned buildings – a part of the city left to decay.
The doorframe gapes and the window glass has long since shattered.
The empty spaces are hung with scraps of thin fabric that ripple gently despite the lack of a breeze.
Young Fox hesitates, adjusting his dagger before stepping inside. We follow him, my heart rattling in my chest.
At first, the hovel appears empty. There’s no furniture, no flooring of any kind. The ground beneath my feet is littered with silt and discarded food – chicken legs, apple rinds. I wrinkle my nose as I pick my way across, reminded of the waste chute at Fire Mountain.
Then, as my eyes adjust to the gloom, I see her, propped in a corner on a pile of blankets, unmoving. For a moment I think she might be dead, but then she lifts a wizened hand and makes a shooing gesture, baring a set of cracked, blackened teeth.
‘As you can see, she wasn’t the most welcoming,’ Fox observes.
‘Well, you did just walk into her house,’ I mutter.
In front of us, young Fox bows his head respectfully, then begins to speak in Zafarian.
‘What are you saying?’ I ask.
‘That I mean her no harm. I merely wish to ask some questions.’
The old woman burbles an angry response, shaking her fist. She’s a sorry-looking creature, frail and sallow, her tattered hood pulled over her head like a shroud.
‘If she’s a Mage, then that means she’s from the Otherlands,’ I point out.
‘A most astute observation, Storm Weaver.’
I resist thrusting my elbow into his ribs. ‘Then wouldn’t it help to speak to her in her own language? Which of the seven isles is she from?’
‘Thresk.’
Thresk. An isle carpeted in grassy plains and green, moss-draped forests.
I can speak Threskan. It’s a tricky language, full of vowels and double meanings. It took years to learn, but I persisted. I had nothing better to do, after all.
Eventually young Fox holds up his hands in surrender, half turning to leave. Only, his parting words are not in Zafarian.
‘Al ici daan cera solina?’
Not even for a bag of silver?
The old woman’s head snaps up. Her beady eyes narrow, flicking to the leather pouch at his belt.
Young Fox smiles triumphantly. Slowly, he sits down opposite her.
We watch as he reaches into the pouch and pulls out a slender coin stamped with a three-pronged crown – the Thavenian royal seal. The old woman licks her lips.
‘Is it true?’ he asks in Threskan. ‘Are you a Mage?’
The old woman remains expressionless. Then she smiles.
Young Fox rolls the coin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Prove it.’
There’s a long, precarious pause, during which the only sound is that of bells ringing far off in the distance, accompanied by the wheezing rasp of the old woman’s breath.
Then, all of a sudden, they’re gone, replaced by dead silence.
I turn my head this way and that, snapping my fingers beside my ear, yet I hear nothing.
Young Fox remains perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the old woman. She grins, and then she’s gone too. Everything’s gone. I can’t see anything. I can’t see.
I stumble forward into something solid and slide to the ground. I’m screaming, or at least I think I am. Sound and sight evade me. I am deaf and blind and terrified.
Then, quite suddenly, my hearing returns, followed by my vision.
The old woman is cackling softly. I flinch as she leans towards young Fox, extending her hand. He presses the coin into her palm. If he’s shaken, he doesn’t show it.
‘What was that?’ I hiss, as his older self pulls me to my feet.
‘She’s a Mage with the power to manipulate the senses,’ he murmurs.
‘Proof enough for you, boy?’ The old woman slips the coin into the folds of her filthy robes. Her accent is thick, native. It takes me a moment to translate.
‘How?’ Young Fox asks bluntly. ‘How did you retain your magic after the war?’
The old woman picks up a discarded animal bone. It’s picked clean, but she nibbles on it anyway, sucking out the marrow. ‘It is the past you seek, not me.’
‘And where do I find the past?’
‘The past does not wish to be found. That is why she hid it.’
Young Fox spins a coin on the dusty ground. ‘Who is she?’
The old woman waits until the coin begins to slow, teetering jerkily from side to side. Snatching it up before it can fall, she breathes, ‘The first sister.’
The vision fades out.
‘What’re you doing?’ I demand, turning round in the saddle to face Fox. ‘Make it come back. I want to hear what she said.’
‘Her story is one you’ve heard before, Storm Weaver,’ he says, taking a swig from his waterskin.
‘The story of the three sisters and their enchanted Eyes. Except the Mage knew something my grandfather did not. That nobody knew, bar a handful, and most of that handful were dead. A small detail, but a crucial one. A secret whispered among friends.’
Anticipation drums into me. ‘What secret?’
‘She told me that Sifa was in love with a Threskan boy.’
I frown. ‘So?’
Fox brushes my arm, and suddenly I see a girl, only a few years older than me, her dark eyes alight with eagerness as she hurries along a moonlit path.
‘Sifa,’ I whisper, as the vision fades.
‘The very same.’
My breath hitches as Fox’s fingers encircle my wrist. In the time it takes to blink, we’re standing waist-deep in a sea of long grass swaying gently in the warm breeze. This must be Thresk.
Fifteen-year-old Fox is already wading through the stems, his gaze fixed on something up ahead where the ground begins to slope upward.
‘Under an oak tree on top of a hill – that’s where Sifa used to meet her lover.’
We follow young Fox until we reach the summit, where a large tree stretches high into the sky, its gnarled branches casting long shadows.
‘Pretty little spot, don’t you think?’ Fox’s voice is tinged with amusement.
We watch as his younger self drops to his knees at the base of the tree, closing his eyes in concentration.
A moment later the carpet of grass trembles then splits, and soil begins to bubble up like water.
Young Fox reaches his hand into the earth, a triumphant grin blooming across his face as he pulls out something small and gold.
That’s when the pieces start to fall into place. ‘You’re not telling me …’ The Wildlands flood back in once more, and I swivel to stare at Fox. ‘But … but … I thought she was supposed to have hidden her Eye where she believed it would never be found?’
Fox shifts slightly in the saddle and cracks his neck. ‘You see, Storm Weaver, people are predictable. They have a compulsion to attach meaning. And that was Sifa’s mistake.’
I exhale. ‘So what you’re saying is that you now possess one of the most powerful enchanted talismans in the world all because its previous owner was a romantic fool?’
Fox smirks as he runs the tip of his finger along his chain. ‘Essentially, yes.’
We’re silent for a time as Cedar continues to pick his way among the trees.
My mind spins, thoughts tripping over themselves. ‘And what about Seera?’ I ask. ‘Assuming she didn’t also have some secret lover, how do you suppose your grandfather found the Eye of the Future?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Fox grudgingly.
I swallow my disappointment. ‘Then what about the Mage in Zafar? Did you ever discover why she was able to retain her magic?’
The pause before Fox responds lasts a fraction of a second too long. ‘I’ve searched for answers, but there’s nothing concrete. Nothing easy to prove.’
‘But you have a theory?’
‘I never said that.’
‘You once told me that you always have a theory,’ I point out.
‘And you once told me that you wanted nothing to do with the very talisman you’re risking your life to search for.’
I grit my teeth, irritated. Why must he close off after being so open?
‘People change,’ I reply with a shrug.
I hear the smirk in his voice as he leans in close to my ear. ‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘That’s one thing people never do.’