Chapter 13 #2
“Why?” Thia managed to rasp. She dug her fingernails into her palms. “How?”
Archer pursed his lips. “Rumors of her sister’s death have spread. I presume she seeks vengeance against you.”
“Me?” The word was a squeak.
“Witches are vindictive creatures. When Callista defeated her, she must have decided you were the easier target for her wrath and bided her time, waiting for you to leave Black Forest.”
Thia felt sick. If the king could find her within these walls, and the witch was waiting beyond, there was nowhere—nowhere—she could go that was safe. Panic she had only just managed to beat back wrapped around her throat again, and Archer’s grip tightened on her arm.
“Breathe,” he commanded, albeit gently.
“I don’t want to die.” All Thia had done was fall through the sky at the wrong moment. She hadn’t meant to kill anyone, even a witch. She hadn’t meant to come here.
Archer grimaced, opening his lips to respond, then shutting them again, and she got the impression he was trying to decide how much to tell her. Finally he sighed. “She is more likely to Unflesh you, if vengeance is truly her game.”
Thia frowned, the unfamiliarity of the word cutting through her fear a bit. “Unflesh?”
“Witches do not have to kill their prey. They can enslave more sentient creatures by draining them of blood. The venom they inject spares their victim from death at the last moment and brings them back as a mere shadow. An Unfleshed, bound to the witch’s will, lost to themselves and those they once loved. ”
A chill crawled up Thia’s arms.
“So you see why we must take care of these wards,” Archer said. When he was confident she wasn’t about to hyperventilate or combust into a puddle of tears, he released her arm and set off again.
He was extraordinarily tall, and it was an effort to keep up with his long strides. Thia scrambled after him, nearly crashing into him a second time when he halted abruptly.
“Here we are,” he said, but Thia could see nothing. He wiggled his fingers up and down in the air, muttering words under his breath too softly to decipher.
“Where are the wards?”
“As they are created by me, I am the only one who can see them,” he said.
That surprised her. She would have thought the Magician would have done it.
She didn’t realize she’d surmised as much out loud until Archer said, “Yes, well, I am a sorcerer.”
“But you’re the apprentice,” she said, trying to recall what Dess had told her of the difference. She searched the sky, but the speck that was Xercae had disappeared around the other side of the castle, circling like the vulture she was.
Archer nodded, hands still tracing the air. “Yes. And he has much knowledge from vast years of study. But he does not have the Affinity.”
“The Affinity?”
He paused his movements. “For Wordlung. The language of magic.” He paused. “Did…your mother never teach you this?”
“My mother?”
“She was a mage, was she not?”
Thia felt the world dim around her. Archer’s words spiraled around and around in her head until she felt the weight of the young man’s gaze, and she ground out, “You knew my mother?”
Archer shook his head. “I’ve seen her portrait. I never knew she had a daughter, but you look just like her. She was the Magician’s favorite apprentice.”
Thia stared. The Magician’s favorite apprentice. “She died when I was a baby,” she said, in answer to his previous question, trying to appear unbothered. “I never knew her.”
Archer bowed regretfully. “I apologize. I knew she passed, but I was not sure of the timing. Wordlung is indwelling,” he explained, mistaking her pained expression for confusion.
“Sorcerers are born with it. Magicians are not, but they may recite Wordlung and, with great learning and practice, perform simple spells.” He paused.
“Mages are above us all. They do not need Wordlung. Magic lives in their very bones. In their very wills. They need only feel, and their desire is made manifest.” He gave her a pointed look.
“Aside from your mother, the king is one of only three to exist in recorded time. And the only one that still lives today.”
“Where is my mother’s portrait?” Thia asked, suddenly desperate to see it. To see her mother as she was known here, to see if it was true. Mage.
Archer frowned. “Didn’t Lord Sagan tell you? I would have thought he’d want to show you himself.”
Thia scuffed her foot along the grass. “He told me nothing except that I am not welcome here.”
At that, Archer paused. “What do you mean?”
Thia thought about lying, but she had already given herself away. “He said if I stayed, I would end up dead like my mother. The king was here.”
Archer paled visibly. “The king….” She watched him put the pieces together: the dead mage and her mysterious child, the king’s interest in them both. His blue eyes widened. “Sothis. You’re the Storm Crow, aren’t you?”
“Lord Sagan certainly thinks so,” Thia spat, though it wasn’t Archer she was angry at. Anger was good, though. It kept the terror at bay.
He stepped away from her. His face was a strange blend of wary and awed. “He’s right. It’s not safe for you here.”
Thia stepped closer to him again. “How did my mother die?”
Archer removed his hat and began nervously smoothing the feather.
“I pledged my loyalty to Lord Sagan. I can’t help you.
” He turned on his heel and began the march uphill.
She was about to scream at his back, when he paused.
Facing away from her, his voice was almost lost in the wind.
“In the east wing of the library, there is a carved desk. Second drawer from the bottom. If I were interested in the past, that’s where I’d start. ”
She fingered the hem of her sleeve. “Is this because I’m the Storm Crow?”
He put the cap back on his head. “I never knew my father. Lord Sagan has been that to me, in a way. But nothing can replace true knowledge of one’s origins.”
Then he was gone, leaving Thia to climb the hill alone.