Chapter 9
It was sunny outside.
Well, sunny-ish. Again.
A soft wash of yellow light overwhelmed the smoky skies, warming my face as I gazed up past the garden’s walls. It wasn’t only my face that was warm, though. The little bulb within me smoldered like embers, sending a comforting wash of heat through my shoulders and down to my belly.
I wasn’t sure why it was acting up today.
I also wasn’t sure why it had helped me during the fight, guiding me to use that vine to take down one of my attackers.
So bizarre. But so helpful, too. If it kept acting with so much personality and independence, I’d have to name it.
“Don’t take this as an insult, but guarding you has been so damn boring. Your hallway is depressing. This is much better,” Callen remarked. He leaned against the wall beside me, face tilted up to the sun, hands fiddling with a fallen stick.
He was my assigned guard today. It was strange, being out in the garden with him instead of Stefano. But I was glad to have him here. His loud personality distracted me from the anxiety crawling up my throat and the new tendency to flinch at every sound. A few days ago, I’d nearly died here.
No one was forcing me to be out in the garden.
I’d asked to come here, partly to face my fear before this beautiful place was ruined for me, and partly because I craved fresh air after being stuck in my bedroom for so long.
Not to mention, I needed to figure out where in First we were supposed to go.
When I’d looked at the map with Stefano in the infirmary yesterday, I’d felt nothing.
No sense of direction, no indication we should even be going to First Territory to begin with.
So back to the garden it was.
“With any luck, someone will try to kill me again while we’re out here and you’ll have some excitement in your day.”
“The excitement’s been nonstop ever since you came around, Fish Eyes.”
I released a heavy sigh. “Not by choice.” And it wouldn’t stop any time soon, because soon we’d be going to the land of the Horrads.
Fantastic.
“You make it sound like a bad thing.”
I gave him a flat look. “I’m sorry. Should I be thrilled that people keep trying to kill me, that I caused a massive battle between us and Koerlyn, and that the Citadel’s been infiltrated twice now?”
He raised a palm defensively. “Clearly this is a sore subject.”
“Anyone in my position would consider it a sore subject.”
“Not me,” he replied, twirling the stick in his fingers like a throwing dagger.
I dropped the map in my lap and clasped my hands. “Let me correct myself. Any sane, rational person in my position would consider it a sore subject.”
He pursed his lips, squinting at something in the distance. “You meant that as an insult, but I’m going to take it as a compliment.” He pointed the stick at me. “Sane, rational people are boring as shit and generally miserable. I’m not. Therefore, compliment.”
I shook my head in wonder, searching for something meaningful to say and coming up empty.
Callen wasn’t done. “The excitement is good. And I think I can put it into terms that boring-as-shit rational people like yourself,” he poked me with the branch, “can understand.”
My hand twitched with the urge to yank that branch right out of his hands. “You meant that as an insult, but I’m going to take it as a compliment,” I parroted, throwing his words back in his face. “Because boring-as-shit rational people tend to stay alive in this world.”
He ignored me. “Excitement means change is happening. That there is something important enough going on for a lot of people to care about it. And you, my dear fishy-eyed friend—” he poked me with the stick again “—are that important thing.”
I made a wild grab for the branch, but he swept it out of reach with a grin before I came close.
“Lucky me,” I grumbled.
“No, lucky us.”
I waited for the punchline, searching his face for a flash of sarcasm. When there was none, I said, “Other people would be better equipped to handle this duty. People like you. People who can defend themselves against attackers and are used to dealing with Princepes.”
“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions.”
“These are assumptions that sane, rational people would make.”
Callen shifted to face me. “You already know my opinion of sane, rational people, so I won’t bother to repeat that.
But I’ll tell you this. You’re tough. You’re resourceful.
You’re smart. You’ve somehow stopped yourself from dying several times now.
And as a villager, you bring a perspective that none of us have.
I don’t believe the magvis gave her knowledge to a random person. I believe she chose you.”
That…was an incredibly kind thing to say. From the honesty shining in his green eyes, he meant it. And while Callen often acted with the maturity of a toddler, I respected him, which made his opinion that much heavier.
“I—”
He cut me off with a bop on the nose with that damned stick.
“Nope. No denials allowed. Just bask in the wisdom of Callen and stop doubting yourself. It’s getting really annoying.” He leaned back against the wall, scanning the garden. “In all honesty, though, I’m wildly impressed you fought off those mercenaries. I must be one incredible teacher.”
I shook my head in exasperation. I didn’t think he’d bring up my near-death experience while we were sitting exactly where it happened. As if he gave a damn about propriety.
Not really in the mood to dig up those events any further, I turned back to the First Territory map in my hands. Scanning from top to bottom, nothing stood out. Every red circle was as haunting as the next.
I was examining the jagged peninsula when I felt a slight shift in the paper. A crinkling as something pressed ever so slightly on the corner.
The slightest gasp escaped me.
Perched on the corner of the map, six spindly legs were carefully braced, balancing two wide, impossibly-thin wings splashed with iridescent blues.
Black veins framed a mosaic of sapphire, cobalt, and a shade so light it was nearly white.
Like a masterpiece of stained glass, but far more delicate.
The kind that sucked you in, holding you in a trance as you determined whether the thing before you was too beautiful to be real.
I’d seen plenty of gray moths in my days. They’d ruined a cloak or two. But never once had I seen a butterfly. I only knew what they were because of Merelda, who’d described them as colorful moths. It was an incredibly lacking description because this was…ethereal.
“Hey—”
“Shut up and don’t move,” I hissed, cutting him off. Sudden movements and loud noises could scare the creature away, and I wanted to stare at it forever.
Its wings slowly fanned up and down, every movement quiet and graceful, the colors softly illuminated by the sunlight.
It was pure, simple, natural beauty. A relic of the past world.
Or maybe not. The fact that it was here, before me, was a sign that such beauty could still exist in this world, withered as it was.
The gentle heat within me expanded out to my fingertips and hips as I watched, utterly enchanted, marking each of its elegant movements.
It was a wonder those delicate wings didn’t crumble beneath the force of the sky above—that something so small and fragile, so breakable, could withstand all this world had against it.
Its legs shifted and it jumped, wings fluttering gracefully. It danced in the air, drawing lazy swirls, drifting further and further away, dragging my attention with it.
A sad smile touched my lips. I wanted to tell Merelda about the creature, describe its colors. Maybe one day, I would.
One day, you will.
So long as she was still alive. I knew Harthon had people looking for her, but even he hadn’t heard a whisper of her whereabouts.
When the butterfly became too small of a speck to see, Callen said, “That’s good luck. Well, it’d be better luck if it landed on you, but I think we can count the map.”
“I hope so. Domus knows I could use some.”
Those colors still dancing behind my eyes, I refocused on the map.
It happened immediately. An empty space between two clusters of red circles jumped from the paper—close to the Domus and just inside that mountain range. I couldn’t look anywhere else. I kept staring at that spot, as if it were as riveting as that butterfly.
Oh my…
“I got it,” I breathed.
“It, as in where the path into the Domus is, or it as in the long-awaited realization that I’m your favorite person?”
I rolled my eyes. “Take a guess.”
“Based on the way your eyes are almost glowing, I’ll assume it’s the former. Though the latter will come soon enough.”
I still hadn’t seen my own eyes when their color was in this state.
I’d only been told of it twice before—once when Harthon had taken me to the hills south of the Citadel to search for the path, and once with Stefano after the recent cabinet meeting.
I wasn’t surprised my strange eyes were capable of being stranger.
“You’re sure you know the spot?” Callen asked.
Without a doubt, “Yes.”
I pointed to the area on the map for Callen to see, surprised I was able to share that knowledge with him. Granted, it was still a large area of land, but at least the magvis’ oath allowed me to get this specific.
The more I was able to share, the more Harthon could plan and prepare appropriately. And we needed all the planning and preparation possible.
The sound of the kitchen door opening had me leaping to my feet, an automatic response born from the attack. But there were no armored men walking through the doorway. Only a kitchen worker.
“That probably didn’t feel great,” Callen commented as I slid back down the wall.
It hadn’t. Five days out from receiving my injuries, I definitely wasn’t ready to be moving like that. If I tore a stitch, Felda would skewer me.
“Anyway, Harthon will be pleased you know where to go. You’ll probably be leaving by the end of the week, assuming you’re healed.”