Chapter 9 #3
And somehow that frightened him, even more than the memory of his monster.
“Our stories are similar. But...I don’t have visions. I certainly don’t have magic,” Kinlear whispered. “I never Settled.”
Magus shrugged. “Maybe not in the way other Sacred do. But neither did Marin. The visions came when she grew older, as I imagine they might for you. Most Sacred, Little Prince, are not born in the shadow of someone else. Perhaps...like Marin...your magic is different, too.”
Different.
It was all Kinlear had ever been.
He chewed on that thought for a moment, considering.
Because what if Magus was right?
What if...
“Magus?” he asked. “What if she had killed her monster? What if she faced it...and won?”
Would she still be alive today?
Would he?
Because now he couldn’t help but wonder if that was what it would take to save himself.
What if his illness was only a side-effect of not having conquered the monster in his mind?
Maybe he’d picked it up, long ago, in the dark place.
That spear that struck him. That moment of choosing that he hadn’t been able to take.
Maybe...
All he had to do was fight back, as Arawn had told him ages ago.
He felt hope blossom in his chest.
But of course, it would be no use without a weapon.
His hope shriveled up instantly and died.
Magus only shrugged. “That, Little Prince, is a question I have long carried, with no answer upon which to lay it down. I suppose...where Marin failed, maybe you, of all people, could succeed.” He stood, groaning as his old body cracked in far too many places.
“Perhaps the monster isn’t a monster after all.
Perhaps it is a test. A challenge you must win, before you can move on to the next level.
Perhaps, like Marin...there is more waiting for you beyond your woods. ”
Magus turned to leave, still carrying the little birds with him.
“Where are you going?” Kinlear asked.
Magus smiled. “To the future, Little Prince.”
“But...you can’t just end our lesson with that!” Kinlear called after him. “How am I supposed to win?”
The birds tweeted in response.
“You’ll figure it out,” Magus said, chuckling as he hobbled away. “After all...you’re the clever twin.”
Kinlear woke early the next day and made his way quickly to the library.
His mother had a section of it reserved all for his studies, a little alcove where the open air could dance in.
Where sunlight could sparkle off the gilded spines of the ancient books.
It was one of the few places in Touvre he admittedly adored.
He paused when he rounded the corner. There was no Magus seated on the straight-backed chair beside the window, where the birds could easily reach him.
There was, instead...a small wooden box, and a piece of parchment. With his name on it.
Kinlear’s cane clacked on the marble floor as he approached and lifted the lid. His brows raised.
Magus’ blade.
It was a small Scribe’s dagger, made of bone, that Magus had used in countless lessons as he’d pricked his finger and drew his own blood with which to inscribe a rune.
Something crinkled as Kinlear lifted the blade from the box.
It was a piece of paper, yellowing and tattered at its left edge, as if – Kinlear winced inwardly – Magus had ripped it from the pages of an old book. He’d never seen it before, but it looked ancient. Magus had underlined, in blackest ink, a sentence that turned his blood to ice:
A Veilborne’s blade, rare in formation, is to be crafted by the bones of another who has gone before. So long as it is gifted to its new master, not taken, the Veilblade can travel Beyond.
His hands shook as he dropped the page back into the box.
This was wild, this was dangerous, this was....
“Impossible,” Kinlear breathed.
He stared at the page as if it were a poisonous snake.
And then, before he thought better of it.
..he crumpled it up and shoved it into his pocket to destroy later.
Because it had to be from a forbidden book.
One of those on old magic: the thousands that his father had rounded up and destroyed when Kinlear was just a baby, replaced only by books that spoke of the Five and their laws.
Magus had carried this blade for as long as Kinlear had known him.
And now...
The bones of another who has gone before.
His stomach twisted as he looked at the hilt. He suspected exactly whose bones the blade was fashioned from.
“Marin,” he whispered, as if he were calling out to the twin Magus had lost, years ago.
A Veilblade...for a Veilborne.
It felt heavier now. Not in weight but in purpose.
Kinlear removed his own Scribe’s blade from the sheath at his hip and set it into the empty box. He slid Marin’s blade away in its place, allowing his cloak to settle carefully around it. Keeping it hidden, and safe.
You don’t believe it, he told himself, because he felt a bit sick. A bit lightheaded, as he carried the bone blade. You’re just accepting the gift of a wise master, who will most certainly slam his cane upon your toes if you don’t take it.
Footsteps sounded, and relief flooded Kinlear as he turned. “Magus, why in the —”
His words trailed off.
Because it wasn’t Magus who entered.
It was a different woman. A Scribe, he could tell, by the color of her cloak and the dagger on her own hip.
“Where is Magus?” Kinlear asked.
But he knew what her answer would be before she even said it. “He left.”
A spike of disappointment stabbed him anyways. “To go where?”
“Didn’t say,” the tutor said, turning her back to him as she went to sort through stacks of books by the fire. “He left instructions approving you to begin learning about more combative runes. From now on, I’ll be attending to your studies. Now, flip to page...”
Kinlear turned and left the room like it was on fire.
Magus couldn’t just leave him. Not like this, not with so many questions, and so little answers, and now his dead sister’s godsdamned bone blade on his hip.
“Prince!”
The tutor’s voice called after him, but he didn’t stop.
If he did, his own panic would catch up to him.
He did his best to run, because walking wasn’t fast enough. Walking wouldn’t get him far enough away from the butterflies and the godsdamned birds and the sunlight and that stupid box with his name.
He left me, Kinlear thought. Magus left.
His tutor was the only person in Touvre that had ever understood him. The only person that had ever really known Kinlear, all the way down to the madness in his dreams. And just like that...he had abandoned him.
It felt like a sickening trick.
“Kinlear?”
He hobbled past the servant girl he’d kissed.
He couldn’t bear to have her see him now, because his eyes were limned in silver, because his breathing was going ragged, because—
His leg buckled.
He cried out as he collapsed to the stones. His palms were bleeding, and his cane rolled out of reach, but he didn’t go after it, because the eyes of the servants were too many, the gasps were too loud, and the darkness was closing in.
On hands and knees, Kinlear wept. He wept so hard, he began to cough.
He couldn’t stop, like always, until someone shouted for a Healer, and Kinlear found himself collapsing in full, blood on his lips, a cold stone against his cheek.
They carried him to his room soon after, where they tucked him into his bed, his cloak and his dagger still on, and marked him into a runic sleep.
He woke in the land of dreams once more, to find himself barefoot and frozen on the edge of his dying forest.
It was the same as always.
And yet...as he took his first step towards the woods, something shifted on his hip.
He looked down.
...and felt his heart give a little leap.
“Gods be damned,” Kinlear said to himself, as the wind sighed and the skeletal trees rattled in its wake, as if they were dry bones, finally awakened after a long slumber.
Just like the Veilblade sheathed on his hip.