Chapter Fifteen
If we don’t get out of these mountains soon, King Jaydeth’s assassins will be the least of our worries. The next storm could
make our road impassable, so we make haste past the crossroads and toward the site of my burned inn. It’s on the way, after
all. Titus reluctantly concedes that we should stop to rest for a day. But no longer. He’s running out of time—whatever that
means.
Nothing but grief awaits me at home. My parents’ burned corpses. The beehives destroyed by bears. The mill wheel has likely
fallen and blocked the creek. If our cellar is intact, it’s knee-deep in water.
But I find myself urging Apple forward anyway. The pear orchard could be heavy with fruit. The chickens were let out to peck
in the garden the day of the raid; maybe some lived.
If there’s a chance, however slight, that a tiny bit of my previous life has survived, I have to know. Maybe there’s a trinket,
a memory, anything I could carry with me as a reminder of the home I loved.
“We have to talk,” Titus says, and I nearly fall off my horse.
“Of course,” I say, like it’s nothing. “What would you like to talk about?”
We’ve reached the leeward side of the Grimsvolder Mountains, and our path leads mercifully downhill.
Occasionally we catch a glimpse of the great desert plains of Suratia; they seem like a sea of golden haze on the horizon.
The gods have given us a beautiful day for traveling.
Storm clouds are low on the eastern horizon, but the high sun in our otherwise clear sky has turned them greenish gold.
It’s going to thunder fiercely somewhere in the Sunderland, but not on us for a change.
“My other Gift,” Titus says. “It’s—”
“Shape-shifting,” I interrupt. “One of the five royal Gifts, like healing.”
“It must stay a secret.”
“There hasn’t been a known shape-shifter in decades,” I point out. “It’s extremely rare.”
“You mustn’t tell—”
“And you have two! Two Gifts! I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I didn’t know it was possible. I
mean, I’ve read about it in stories, of course.”
“Bria.”
“Can you shift into other things too? Or just an ice cat?”
“Promise me.”
I pull Apple up short and turn my head to glare at him. “I’m your sworn shield maiden. Of course I would never tell. Even
though you don’t deserve my loyalty at this point.”
He flinches.
“When were you going to tell me?” I demand.
“Eventually. Maybe. I think.”
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
His lips press tight. Then he says, “Yes.”
I make an exasperated sound and spur Apple onward. If I look at Titus’s face right now, I might punch it.
“Bria! Wait!”
I give Apple a little kick.
Hoofbeats catch me, too quickly. He says, “I need to know—”
“You’re interrupting my daydream about punching you in the face.”
“And I would deserve it,” he concedes. “I accept that you will never tell anyone about my second Gift. Thank you.”
I don’t respond.
“But I truly need to know about the gauntlets. What made you use them like that? Gift-imbued items are dangerous if not used
exactly as intended. They’re supposed to work as a set, and we’re still missing a piece. But it seemed effortless, the way
you talked to the condors. Did using it hurt you at all? Was there any . . . What are you staring at?”
“That’s a lot of words. For you, I mean.”
“I’m a great conversationalist.”
Curse this boy all the way to Barathrum, because I can’t help smiling.
“Tell me about the gauntlets,” he says, “and I’ll tell you something about me I haven’t told you yet.”
I let him wait a moment, because I’m still a little miffed. Apple takes a quick detour to munch on a delicious clump of needle
grass. Getting him back on the trail requires a determined tug on the reins. Riding and directing him are a lot easier now
that I have a saddle.
“Do the gloves work on all living creatures?” I ask. “Or just monsters?”
“Just magical monsters. Objects imbued with Gift properties are not my area of expertise, but I’m sure a sway was used in the weaving.”
“Sways don’t exist,” I say. “The ghost Gifts are a myth. Invisibility, persuasion, necromancy . . . children’s stories.”
“The so-called ghost Gifts are real,” he insists.
I give him a sharp look.
“People think they’re a myth because no one shares them. Think about it. If you had the Gift of invisibility, would you tell
anyone?”
“I almost never share my Gift anyway,” I point out. “But I understand your point. Ma used to tell us that there are advantages
to keeping one’s Gift a secret.”
“Exactly. Ghost Gifts can be more powerful than royal Gifts, in my opinion, even though the college doesn’t rank them as highly.
I’ll tell you all about it, if you tell me about the gauntlets. If I’m going to use them properly, I need to know as much
as I can about them.”
“You know, most people who consider themselves friends don’t have a transactional nature to their conversations.”
“Then tell me.”
Part of me wants to withhold the information, just so he can see how it feels. But it turns out I want to tell someone about
it. I need to tell someone.
“After swimming into the Fedor mine, I found the glove and I didn’t want to risk dropping it, so I put it on. Then the mistwraiths
came.”
He sucks in air.
“I was so cold. Gift-starved. Creating those ice floes seemed like a good idea at the time, but it made me vulnerable.”
Titus is nodding. “A mistwraith is a type of sway,” he says. “The way they compel you . . .” He shudders.
“One wraith looked like Grandda, so I started talking about how he taught me to swim . . . and I think it actually was Grandda. He said my name.”
“It talked to you?”
“He said, ‘Bria, run,’ so I did. He turned on the other mistwraiths and gave me time to escape.” My voice wobbles. “All the
miners became mistwraiths.”
How long was he trapped there in the icy dark before he turned? He was probably starving, lonely, missing his family.
Titus is silent a long moment. We ride side by side now, so close that when Blackwind swishes his tail at a fly, it whips
my leg.
Finally he says, “I’ve never heard of a mistwraith retaining memories of its previous life.”
I shiver. “When I saw those griffin condors, I figured two gloves would be better than one, right?”
“That was quick thinking. You saved us. Again.”
“Your ice cat saved us.”
“I am the ice cat. The ice cat is me.”
I nod. “That’s how you were able to suss out that den and get rid of its resident.”
“You may have noticed that I turn into an exceptionally big one.” He wrinkles his nose as though this is strange or maybe
distasteful to him. “I was able to intimidate her into leaving. Things would have gone differently if she’d had cubs to protect.”
“That cat nose must make you a good hunter.”
Titus nods. “I track as the cat, then shift back and shoot with the bow and arrow. Saves the hide. What was it like to use the gauntlets? Did you call on your magic?”
“It was as easy as talking to you. I didn’t feel anything different.”
“Huh.”
Our road aims straight through a grove of white-barked aspen trees with leaves the fiery yellow of fall. Leaves carpet the
forest floor too, and it seems as though we travel through a tunnel of golden light.
“Your turn,” I say. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“You are my friend, Bria. And our conversations shouldn’t be transactional.”
“In that case—”
“I was born in a cottage made of dragon bones, in the middle of a forest a lot like this one.”
Dragon bones! “Oh. Well, that is definitely something I didn’t know.”
He surprises me by pressing on. “My mothers were dragon slayers. They loved animals, the woods, each other, and mostly me.
My birth mother has a trivial Gift, which she freely shares. She can make things—well, not weightless, but certainly lighter.
She can lift rocks off the ground and hover them in the air for a few seconds. Something simple, like a potato, she can float
for an hour. Maybe if you meet her someday, she’ll show you herself.”
“I would like that.” I wonder how his mothers feel about Titus being away on a dangerous quest. My own mother would birth
puppies if she knew the turn my life had taken.
He says, “My heart mother is an augment.”
“One of the auxiliary Gifts.”
“Indeed. She can make someone else’s Gift more powerful. A lot more powerful. My mothers figured out how to work together. Mama would lift a small stone, Mum would augment . . . and the
stone turned into a weapon, faster and harder than an arrow. Their own tiny, deadly weave. They became monster hunters, specializing
in dragons. It was lucrative.”
“I can imagine. All those bounties. We once paid a monster hunter to get rid of a banshee that was terrorizing the sheep.
It cost nearly half a year’s income.”
Titus is nodding. “Exactly. That’s how we lived. I may have grown up in a cottage in the woods, but I never lacked for anything.
I had tutors, books, toys . . . everything a little boy needs. It was a happy time.”
We clear the grove of aspens and descend into a mountain meadow, the grass brown with autumn. You’d never know it to hear
the birds, though. They’re screaming their little heads off like it’s the best day of their lives. The birdsong, the lay of
the land, the gentler slopes, the thicker forest—it’s all reminding me of home. Not far now. We might reach the inn by nightfall.
“So what happened?” I prompt. “Why leave such a perfect life?”
“In the way of all foolish, fatherless boys, I got it stuck in my head that I wanted to know about him. To meet him.”
“I see,” I say, though I’m not sure I do.
“So my mothers told me the truth; when I turned eleven, they said I was old enough to know. Turns out, my heart mother is
Princess Serith of Iola.”
“You’re a prince twice over!”
He shrugs. “Mum had been betrothed to my father, King Jaydeth of Corth. They were on their way to Corth for the official wedding
when they stopped at an inn for the night.”
This sounds familiar. Something about a runaway princess and a jilted king. I probably heard a version of the story from one
of our inn’s many customers or traveling minstrels.