Speaker and Calligrapher | Vida Cruz-Borja #3
“Brothers,” Lin said, looking up at her now with a pain that he clearly had to build a smile around. A pain that, for some reason, was mirrored in Verda’s heart. “All older. But I daresay that your relationship with yours is a lot better than my relationship with any of them.”
“Not all of them,” Verda hastened to add without exactly knowing why. “I have older brothers too. And sisters. They mostly ignore me.”
“Lucky,” Lin muttered. Verda pretended not to hear. Louder, he said, “Still, to build the kind of burning ambition you have around your brother – that’s wildly admirable, Verda.”
Verda felt struck by lightning. “You said my name,” she breathed.
Lin pinned her with that stare, which now contained a wicked twinkle. “Should I say it again?”
Verda flung her notebook at him in disgust and stomped away.
That said, Lin had the spell ready for her in two weeks. It was a thing of beauty and precision: four overlapping logomantic circles and graceful and symmetric script inscribing the exact temporal and spatial bounds of the spell.
And best of all, it made the scroll’s writing glow through the carbon, allowing the text to be seen by human eyes for the first time in two thousand years.
* * *
Verda’s thoughts slammed back into her body, in the present, as Lin released her hand.
To her shock, his good hand brushed away a lock that had sprung free of the neat, thin plait Agreha had twined around her head that morning in an attempt to tame the wavy locks beneath it.
She’d always noticed how long and slender his fingers were whenever she watched him write a spell.
And now, here they were: so close, she was unsure if the warmth she felt emanated from his fingertips or her cheek.
If she had no self-control, she would have nuzzled those fingers by now.
Lin lowered his gaze to hers, that pain-laced smile playing on his lips. “So, how do you propose we disable the golem, Snowflake?”
That nickname again. In the past, it had always put her in a bad mood, largely because Lin could have any number of infuriating reasons for choosing it. Chief among them being the implication that she thought herself special.
Verda drew her knees up to her chin again, suddenly sullen. “Why do you call me that?”
“What?”
“Snowflake. I never asked. Why?”
Lin’s silence stretched for so long that Verda braced herself for impact.
“Your hair,” he said at last. He picked up the tail-end of her braid, which cascaded down her back atop a waterfall of unbound wavy hair.
“It’s so pale, almost like snow. Of all the things I miss about my homeland, it’s winters I miss the most. I loved getting up early and walking in the snow, watching the sun rise over the mountain peaks.
Never thought I’d meet someone who is both sunrise and snow. ”
She watched, heart thudding in her throat, as Lin lifted the tip of the braid to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers. He left a kiss on the end of her braid, one that she felt all the way to her scalp and down to her toes.
Wait. Winter.
“That’s it!” Verda cried, foraging for Lin’s drenched notebook, reed pen, and bottle of black ink in his spell pouch. “This is how we disable the golem!”
“By kissing it?”
“Shut up.”
* * *
The second spell in Verda’s proposal enabled the caster to hear the thoughts of a text’s writer, provided that it was written with very specific ink mixtures, all containing charcoal that had once lain between the lava or ash of Mount Elhas’ empire-ending eruption.
Apart from that, the other ingredients depended on Verda’s preferred bounds of the spell – some thing that Lin made abundantly clear when he sent a message with a long list of choices via bespelled paper crane to her quarters one sweltering night.
“Goodness, exchanging love letters in the dead of night now?” Agreha cooed, fanning herself while splayed out on the corner chaise.
Seated at her writing desk, Verda unfolded the paper crane and shook it out, feeling its magic dissipate as a layer of cool sand grains atop her skin. As her eyes roved over it, she remarked, “If it is, it’s the driest love letter known to man.”
“Does he know you’re the one who saved him from a watery death yet?”
“Of course not.”
Agreha sighed in frustration, which Verda ignored on account of her own. The potential ingredient list took up two columns of black ink, and what she wanted wasn’t even there. How ridiculous. This conversation was easier had in person.
Somehow, the mere act of standing up scandalized Agreha. “You’re going to him? Maybe the love letter wasn’t that dry after all! But even so, a man shouldn’t be the one to summon his lover to his room!”
“It’s not a love letter,” Verda said as she headed for the door. “And we’re not lovers.”
“My lady, it’s not very proper for—”
“This is business, not pleasure.”
She’d said that, but somehow, after a heated discussion over inks was out of the way, Verda found herself sitting across from Lin in his receiving room long past midnight.
His quarters were smaller than hers, but his furnishing choices bespoke a refined taste, from the low table of lacquered walnut with the marbled edges to the silk brocade seat cushions.
She was giggly, somewhat tipsy, and entirely too honest due to the especially good red wine they were sharing.
She downed a big mouthful and smacked her lips with satisfaction. “I just don’t understand you.”
Lin was reclining against an armrest, his head pillowed against his knuckles and swirling his own glass.
He watched her with amusement. His robe was untied, giving Verda a revealing glimpse of well-defined pectorals and wavy chest hair that she would rather he didn’t catch her appraising.
But his flushed skin told her that he was also a little bit inebriated, at least. “What’s messing with your pretty little head, Snowflake? ”
“You. Being here.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, this is my room and you barged in here.”
“N-No, nooooo…” Verda waved her free arm around. “The Library. What. Are you. Doing. Here. You’re talented enough to be a king’s mage—” Verda broke off in a fit of giggles before continuing. “I-It’s so stupid. You don’t even need calligraphy class like… like I do. Your work belongs in… m-museums!”
Even this tipsy, she didn’t expect Lin to be forthright. But at that moment, his face was a storm of conflict.
“You must be a minor noble’s son at the very least, back where you’re from,” Verda continued. She gestured at the walnut and marble table. “How do you even afford this kind of furniture on your salary? You’re wasted here, Lin…”
Whatever he’d been debating himself about, he decided to keep the conversation as light as possible. “How drunk are you that you’re calling me by my name?”
“Me? Psh, this isn’t even drunk yet.”
“If that’s true, then it’s very worrying.” He left his seat and knelt before her, peering intently into her face. He lightly plucked her glass from her hand and set it on the table behind him. “As enjoyable as this was, I think it’s time I walked you back to your room. People will talk.”
“Oh, like you care what people say about you!”
“I don’t mean me. I care what they’ll say about you.”
Verda did not hear him, so focused was she on his face, from his heavy set of brows to his lips.
Those lips, constantly ribbing her for one thing or another, had always looked so soft.
Enticing. What would it be like to kiss them?
She’d never kissed anyone before. She was swaying slightly now.
Her joints felt loose, her head unwieldy.
One hand curled around his nape while the other traced his jaw, her thumb tingling over the feel of his stubble. “I like your face.”
Lin must’ve been the stillest thing in the room. “What?”
“And your hair,” Verda added, her thumb now tangling itself in one of the wavy locks hanging by his collarbone. “Your lashes are really long,” she said, watching them half-lid his eyes – but it was a toss-up on whether it was in consternation or desire. “You’re such a distraction.”
“A distraction?” A small smile played on his lips, akin to a ray of light breaking across his stormy expression.
“Yes, and I don’t have time for those.” Verda frowned. She could feel every word tumble out of her mouth but was disinclined to stop them. “Stupid Lin. Why’d you have to be so handsome?”
“You find me handsome, do you?”
“For once in your life, shut up.”
Verda’s mouth fell upon his. His lips were even softer than she’d imagined, which made her kiss him with a fervor bordering on greed.
Lin broke the kiss, seemingly with great difficulty, and to Verda’s confusion. His eyes roamed her face, searching – for what, she was unsure.
“Maybe I’m drunker than I thought,” he murmured.
Then he pulled her flush against him, hand fisting her hair, as his mouth crashed against hers. He drank more deeply of her than he ever had of the wine.
* * *
The plan was simple. With some coaching from Lin, Verda would draw the spell on the floor of their hideout. Then she would lure the golem into the room and right over the freezing spell, which would activate once one of its feet touched the central symbol. Then she would take its tongue.
Verda was no slouch when it came to running – her daily exercise consisted of jogging along the beach – but Lin did that as well, and he was much faster due to the sheer length of his legs. He also, despite his injury, refused to stay put.
Even if she had still felt just a little of the animosity she’d felt toward him before, Verda would have protested anyway.
She couldn’t let an injured person take further risks.
Not to mention, she hadn’t yet calculated the possibility of diplomatic fallout raining on the Library if anything happened to Lin.
And it would tear her heart in two if he were hurt any more.
“But you’re injured!” Verda said, slapping the table they had commandeered for strategizing. The ink in the bottle leapt up with the force of the gesture.