Chapter 26
The next morning was cold and grey, a thick frost on the grass that crunched underfoot as they walked.
Artair had consulted the map that Mother Maura had given him before they left, and they were perhaps a handful of days away—enough time to get there before the mage made good on her threat and killed his friends, but it would be very tight, and as he glanced at the yellowing clouds overhead, he found himself thinking of the blood stains on the monastery stones, the look on Reah’s face as she was pulled back into the portal.
Sunay Tiskertalia was wearing so many clothes she looked almost comical; her thick knitted scarf came up to her nose, but he could still tell she was smiling when he glanced at her.
‘I feel the cold,’ she said. ‘Too used to staying in my cosy little cottage.’
Elver paused to crouch by the cub, removing a crunchy brown leaf from his ear feathers. ‘I told you already,’ she said to him. ‘We’re going on an adventure to fool a mage. A bad one.’ She paused. ‘If you get close enough, you can definitely bite her. I might bite her too.’
She and the cub didn’t seem to feel the cold at all.
Elver had accepted one of the woollen hats Sunay had offered and was wearing a cloak over her sea green doublet, but otherwise she seemed unconcerned, her hands and face and neck bare to the icy morning air.
The pair of them walked on ahead while Sunay and Artair came along behind.
He found that his eyes settled frequently on her slender figure, and each time they did he felt something catch at his heart.
Since the Temple of Threshold, they had said very little to each other.
Luckily, Sunay appeared to disagree with silence on a fundamental level and had dedicated herself to keeping up a running commentary.
‘I prefer to travel in the spring and summer, and often I will so do for months at a time, so that I can offer my services to the little towns along the coast. I’m fond of the seaside.
They do these little potatoes sliced and roasted with fish cooked in this crispy batter, have you ever had it?
There’s something about the coast that appeals to my lord, I think, because it’s difficult to know where it begins or where it ends, because of the tides, and that’s his cup of tea entirely—the uncertain, the tricksy, the shifting. Do you see?’
‘Mmm?’ Artair dragged his eyes away from Elver. ‘I have never been to the seaside.’
‘What?’ She slapped him lightly on the arm. ‘What? You have to try these roasted potatoes. Delicious little devils, believe me.’
‘I believe you.’
It was an interesting thought, with many sharp edges.
Yes, he would like to see the sea up close, to walk along the edge of it and eat the things sold there by the vendors of colourful little stalls.
But supposedly he was on his way to rescue the other novices, and would ultimately be returning to his cell high in the mountains, to be locked away from the world again.
No sea, no freedom, no delicious little potatoes.
No walks through a glade turned white with an early touch of winter, and no monster girls.
The lands they were currently travelling through were beyond what he’d been able to see from the monastery windows, a completely unknown place where the landscape itself seemed to have a different character.
It was a rocky place, not barren exactly, but littered with stones and boulders, some as big as houses, and through many of them ran seams of quartz that glimmered like ice despite the lack of sunshine.
He had the impression it was a land that had been violently upturned at some point in the distant past: frequently, they would come across ravines, or great cracks in the earth.
By the late afternoon, the frost was long gone, although the air remained icy, and ahead of them Artair was shocked to see a range of mountains that were not his own. They glowered under the clouds like purple bruises.
‘Let’s have a rest,’ Sunay said, although she did not look tired to Artair; certainly she had not grown weary enough to stop talking. ‘Make a campfire or whatever it is you ruffians do when you’re out in the wilds. I prefer an inn. A hostelry. Hot breakfasts and fluffy towels. That sort of thing.’
Without speaking, Elver began gathering wood for a fire, the cub circling around her constantly, and when they found a suitable spot out of the wind—nestled under one of the vast boulders that littered the place—Sunay began brewing tea in a little tin pot she had retrieved from her bags.
The cub settled himself down by the fire, rolling over onto his back to bear his blue scales to the warm flames, but Elver hovered at the edge, not sitting down.
‘Will you have a cup of tea?’ said Sunay. ‘I’ve got a little honey somewhere if you prefer it sweet…’
‘I’m just going to go for a walk,’ said Elver, not looking at Artair as she spoke. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’
With that she was gone, disappearing behind a row of pine trees. Sunay sighed.
‘Are you going after her then?’
‘Why would I do that? She’s angry with me.’ He leaned closer to the fire, holding out his hands to warm them. ‘The last thing she wants is me trailing after her.’
‘Lord Tisk, give me strength. She’s not angry, Artair, she’s guilty .’ The mage took a sip of her tea. ‘Ooh, that’s too hot. And, anyway, I thought it was you who was angry with her?’
‘I… yes.’ This was true. She had let Lucian roam free when he was incredibly dangerous, and she had lied to him about it.
Yet this morning, under a grey sky with the silence of the wide-open world around them, Artair found that he didn’t really know how he felt.
He only knew that he did not like the prickling silence between them.
‘Your fate is tied up with hers, my friend, and there’s no escaping that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen things.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m a mage after all.’
‘A mage dedicated to the god of lies.’
She laughed at that, delighted. ‘That is true enough, I’ll give you that one. But if I told lies all the time I’d hardly get anywhere, would I? Get after her, lad. Trust me on this one.’
He stood up a little reluctantly. ‘Will you keep an eye on him?’ He pointed at the cub.
‘I feel that me and this little creature bonded permanently when he chose to eat three pairs of my favourite socks,’ said Sunay. ‘We’ll be fine.’
Artair set off towards the pine trees. It was not hard to follow Elver.
Although the frost was gone, water droplets still clung to every leaf and blade of grass, and he could see her footprints as darker shapes amongst the green.
Eventually, he came to a thicker row of pine and cedar trees, their scent like the ghost of winter, and beyond that he saw a wide lake covered in pale green ice.
Elver was crouched by the edge of it, her arms around herself and her head down, and he wondered if she were cold after all.
She looked very small and alone, framed against the ice of the lake.
This is a mistake , he thought. Sunay is wrong. Elver wants her time alone, and I should give her that. If we never share a smile again, so what? At the end of all this, she goes back to her forest, and I go back to the monastery, and that’s that.
He half turned to go, and then a sound rose from the lake that made him pause.
It was a strange, high-pitched hum, followed by several ear-splitting cracks that made him jump.
The ice on the lake broke and then shattered apart as a huge serpent’s head rose out of it.
The creature was a searing golden yellow, the colour of the laburnum blossoms in the monastery garden—they were poisonous, he remembered—and it had rows of spikes and thorns that trailed down its back.
Horns a little like deer antlers sprouted from its narrow head, and its eyes were black from lid to lid and dusted with tiny points of light, like stars.
Elver had scrambled to her feet and snatched the woollen hat from her head.
She was not afraid, but she was respectful. He felt frozen in place.
This was the Queen of Serpents.
Poison child. The god’s voice was a scratch against a drowned stone, a claw drawn slowly over a piece of slate. You have been long missing from my forest. Do you have what was stolen?
‘I have the cub,’ said Elver. ‘He’s safe.’
Then you are returning to us?
Elver hesitated. ‘No, not yet. There are other jih creatures in need of my help. The woman who threw me into the sea has them, and she’ll kill them if I don’t do something.’
The serpent rose up, its long body flexing to raise the head so that it hung over Elver.
Jaws lined with sharp golden fangs fell open, revealing a split purple tongue.
The sight filled Artair with terror. It would take less than a second for this creature to swallow her whole, but Elver seemed undaunted.
Child, let me taste your blood so that I would know the truth of it.
Artair tensed. He didn’t know what he would do if the god attacked Elver, but he knew it would be unthinkable to stand by while it happened.
Elver took her dagger from her belt and did something that he couldn’t see from where he was standing.
She raised her hand above her head, palm facing the serpent, and the long purple tongue flickered out and back again.
The Queen of Serpents moved serenely backwards, sinking her golden coils back into the water.
Poison child, there is much you haven’t told me , said the serpent. Artair thought he detected a new, dangerous tone to her words, like thin glass ready to splinter into lethal shards. There is this human boy. This Sleepless.
‘He’s not human,’ Elver said quickly. ‘He is jih, one of your own, my queen. Artair—and Lucian—they need my help. I want to help them. You said… you said something about tasting a destiny in my blood. Maybe this is it.’
They are not jih enough , said the serpent. They smell human, taste human, only their minds are jih. You will treat them as you would any human, poison child.
‘What do you mean?’
You will kill them.
Artair watched Elver’s shoulders go rigid. He couldn’t see her face from where he stood, but he saw when she shook her head.
‘My poison doesn’t work on them.’
Then you will take that dagger in your hand and draw it across their throat. Impatience had crept into the Queen of Serpent’s voice. He is full of human stench, and not worth your notice. Kill the boy and return, with the cub, to the forest.
‘No,’ said Elver.
The movement was so fast that Artair almost missed it.
A tail as thin as a whip lashed out of the water, briefly churning it from green to white, and abruptly Elver was on the ground, curled up with her arms wrapped around her waist. Artair broke cover, no thoughts in his head save for the terrible idea he might be about to watch Elver get eaten.
But the Queen of Serpents was already drawing away, sinking back beneath the water.
You have become too accustomed to human touch, poison child. Remember who made you. Remember who saved your life.
The serpent sank beneath the water and was gone. Artair reached Elver and helped her into a sitting position. She gave him a brief, surprised look that was half lost in a wince.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘How long have you been there?’ she said, not answering him. ‘I don’t— Ow .’
She tugged at the bottom of her shirt and Artair had a brief glimpse of her stomach; there was a livid red mark across it, already bruising. Quickly, she covered it back up again.
‘You are hurt. Let me help you back to the fire.’
He thought she would pull away from him, but instead she nodded, and carefully he got her standing upright. Her hand was in his briefly, and she squeezed it once before letting it go.
‘This is the god you’re so devoted to?’ Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized how harsh they sounded. Elver blinked. Her eyes, he realized, were the same searing gold as the Queen of Serpent’s scales.
‘She saved me. She pulled me out of death and gave me a different kind of life. I owe her everything.’
‘You don’t owe her your pain, Elver.’
‘And you don’t owe the world your freedom, Artair, but you still gave it up, didn’t you?’
He found he had nothing to say to that. They walked slowly back through the pines together.