Chapter Eleven The Sword from Hell
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SWORD FROM HELL
Lightning flashed across the night sky, illuminating the patches of white mushrooms cascading down the trees.
Thunder rumbled seconds later, shaking the earth beneath her boots.
Reya wrapped her cloak tighter around herself, wondering what else the All-Gods could possibly throw at her, and immediately cursed herself for challenging them to get more creative.
Four days on the road, and they’d hardly stopped moving.
Though they were covering a lot of ground, she was nearing ninety-six hours with little more than a few hours of sleep.
Not to mention, she’d kept hardly any food down since they’d left Edris, and she was no good to anyone dead or catatonic.
They’d only stopped tonight thanks to the storm, which had turned the road into a mire, but was at the very least confusing the Dread Wolves.
With any luck, the storm was churning the seas as well as the forest, slowing down the Balfour.
They’d taken shelter at the base of a giant boulder bearing its own ecosystem of moss, lichen, and fungi.
It wasn’t perfect, but the rock protected them from the wind, and the trees provided good coverage.
Ash and Ciz were keeping dry underneath an evergreen and taking a well-deserved rest, and Caelan had left an hour earlier to walk the perimeter.
Reya cupped her hands over her mouth and expelled hot air into the vacuum, impulsively fingering the scar across the back of her hand. The skin had been crudely stitched, making what could have been a straight line curve like a crescent. The memory of it clawed at her.
“Wipe your tears.”
Reya scrubbed at her cheeks with her forearm. “It hurts.”
“I intended it to.” Lennox said it so casually, like her pain was no more important than what they were going to make for dinner. “Only a fool swings a sword expecting not to get cut, and you are no fool.”
Lennox always left her to tend to her own wounds, even though he gave her most of them.
Her hands shook as she pinched the slice closed and poked the needle through both halves of the torn skin.
“I don’t have to steal,” Reya told him, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. “I have skills.”
“Do tell.”
The next puncture had her crying in earnest, tears trailing dirt tracks down her cheeks, but she forced the words out. “I can forge.”
He hummed a laugh, and an angry flush crawled up her neck. “If you want to spend the rest of your life scraping by on a laborer’s salary, making axes and hammers, be my guest. But leave the sword behind to pay me what you owe.”
It wouldn’t matter if she trained under him for a hundred years—it would never be worth as much as an Etellinian steel sword, and she wouldn’t offer it as payment for anything.
“I won’t stop you. But if you’re going to stay, kiddo, you’re not going to make swords. You’re going to be one. And swords don’t weep.”
Reya startled when Caelan sat down next to her. Had she closed her eyes?
“The storm is throwing the Dread Wolves off our scent. We’re safe for now. Here—dinner.” He emptied a linen sack full of mushrooms at her feet. “Dig in.”
Reya made a face. “I’d rather eat dirt.”
He popped one into his mouth. “No, you wouldn’t. Trust me.”
Thunder boomed overhead, and the horses shifted restlessly. She didn’t lie to herself about why she inched toward Caelan’s side. He was a walking furnace with more than enough heat to spare.
“You said you hadn’t seen a Dread Wolf in over a century. So why are they following us now?”
He swallowed before replying, but it took longer than necessary. “The Ashlands are desolate. It’s possible their food sources are running low. More likely, they like the way you smell, thief.”
He said it like he was afraid he might like it, too.
Though she felt the truth, she sensed there was more to it. Like Lennox, Caelan was good at choosing his words. A little too good.
Reya couldn’t help but think of Stellene.
What if the Dread Wolves had left the Ashlands to hunt her?
They would have lost her in the Sirene when the water washed away her scent.
And could have caught Reya’s scent tangled with hers in the sewers and followed it.
She might have been spared all of this if she’d never unlocked that damned carriage door.
Reya made a mental note never to help anyone with anything ever again.
Leaning forward, she sorted through the various fungi. She knew most of them: knob tops, snowbells, coal caps, baby browns. Her fingers brushed over a white and purple spotted mushroom, and she glared at Caelan.
“Are you trying to poison me, fire fingers?” She held the chubby toadstool in front of his face. “These are spotted plums. They’re poisonous.”
“Only the caps will kill you.”
“You didn’t know I knew that! What if I’d eaten one?”
When he just shrugged, she dropped the spotted plum into his pile with a dramatic flourish and massaged her still aching shoulder. “I thought you said you healed me. Why does it still hurt?”
“I can only speed up the body’s natural healing process.
That injury might have taken a year to fully heal on its own, but you would still have scar tissue.
Besides, if I encourage too much regeneration inside the body, I can do more harm than good.
It’s better to let the body do some of the work on its own. ”
Interesting. Could he heal himself, then?
“Here,” Caelan said, taking her waterskin.
He pulled several umbels from the linen and began crushing the yellow blooms and feathery stems into her drink.
Fennel. “I found this by the road.” He screwed the leather cap back on and shook the skin.
His eyes blazed as he held it by the base, and she listened as the water inside began to hum.
He handed it to her. “It will settle your stomach so you can sleep.”
Grateful for the tea, if a bit suspicious why he was at all concerned for her well-being, Reya opened the cap, letting it steep and cool.
Steam rose, the anise scent rising into the humid air.
Meanwhile, she picked up a relatively safe-looking fluffy beige mushroom and held it out into the rain, letting the water wash away the dirt.
“That’s a golden horn,” he said. “They taste just like beef.”
“They better,” Reya muttered, knowing she needed to keep up her strength. Her stomach was starting to make some frightening sounds.
The texture was strange, but it did taste like beef. Her brows rose in pleasant surprise, until she felt Caelan watching her and smoothed her features into indifference, shrugging. He shook his head and went back to his food. Meanwhile she munched on two more.
Right on cue, her stomach surged, rejecting the meal, and Reya gripped the log beneath them so hard it splintered under her nails as she retched over the side. Red-faced and mortified, she wiped her mouth on a nearby leaf and pushed her sweat-damp hair back from her brow.
“How long were you wearing that Kellstone necklace?” Caelan demanded as she kicked dirt over the bile.
She debated lying, but something told her not to. “Since I was eleven.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw, and his eyes sparked like twin flames.
“No wonder you can barely function,” he spat.
“You were a child, and only just coming into your power. Gifts grow with time, maturing to full strength over the course of years so your body has time to adjust. But your body never got that chance.”
Her stomach turned over. Wonderful.
“Had you ever used your power before three days ago?”
“Once or twice.”
“Once or twice?”
Reya rubbed her temples. “I have no interest in using it.”
“That’s like saying you prefer to breathe with one lung.”
“It’s better today,” she lied.
He shook his head. “What exactly is your plan? You and your magic are inextricably combined. Why do you think Kellstone is so effective on us? You cannot play at being human without harming yourself. Did your apothecary tell you that taking blood tonics increases your risk of bleeding out?”
Spilling blood was commonplace in her profession, so hers needed to look human.
She’d been taking blood tonics every month for the last ten years, and knew they were not without risk.
Using Kellstone hadn’t been without its complications, either.
Reya massaged the angry rash the pendant had left on her skin.
The migraines had been the worst. For the first few weeks after she’d put on the necklace, she’d even had trouble balancing until her brain had learned to compensate.
Reya could feel her rising flush. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Stop judging me for what I’ve done with my own body.” Her hands trembled on her waterskin. “I did what was necessary to survive.”
No emotion flickered across his face as he said, “I didn’t peg you as weak.”
Bastard. Smug, self-righteous bastard.
“I am not weak,” Reya snarled in his face.
“Then prove it,” he snarled back. “Let me teach you how to control it.”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea what you could do with what you’ve been given? How many of our people you could save? Instead, you’re tearing yourself apart and hiding as a glorified errand runner for that piece of human filth.”
She scoffed. “Says the male who ‘solves problems’ for a living, which is just a fancy way to say you put people in the ground. How many of your people could you save? How many magic-born are suffering in Bladestone Prison while you’re here with me?”
That got a reaction. “Do not speak of things you don’t understand.”
Reya knew she should heed the warning in his expression, but she couldn’t stop. “We both do what we need to survive, and yet I’m condemned for it.”
“When was the last time you did anything for someone other than yourself?” he said, voice dripping with condemnation.
She swallowed the urge to scream in his face that this was the reason she was in this situation to begin with.
“You spill blood to save your own life,” he continued. “I do it for those that will come after me. That is the difference.”