Despite the evidence right in front of me, I can’t quite believe what just happened. My dagger is in the dirt, and I want to slice open my palm to see if I can heal it again.
Then Mercy noses at my hair again, and I realize I don’t need to.
I kneel beside her injured leg, then run a palm down the swollen tendon. At first, nothing happens, but I remember Grey’s early lessons with Iisak—and later, Grey’s lessons with me, how magic can’t be rushed, can’t be forced. Slowly, I feel the magic in my fingertips, the sparks that felt so familiar when I had my rings, yet somehow feels foreign and new now. Mercy flinches when the magic begins to work, but I murmur to her and she settles.
In less than a minute, the swelling is gone. When I let go of her leg, she bears weight fully, then noses at my shoulder as if to thank me.
I let out a long breath, then look back across the fire. Nakiis hasn’t moved.
“How?” I say to him. “I’m not a magesmith. Truly.”
His eyes flick disdainfully to the king. “Did he give you the rings?”
“Yes.”
“Then he knew. He knew what it would do to you.”
I frown. “I don’t think so.” I pause. “The king wasn’t raised as a magesmith. There’s no magic here. There are a few books in the palace, but magesmiths were driven out of Syhl Shallow long ago. The scravers are on the other side of the Frozen River.”
“I know where the scravers are.”
I suppose he does. “Well, he’s been on his own since your father died. It took a long time to bind magic into the rings as it was.”
A cold wind blows through the clearing, making the fire flicker and sparks fly. “So your king kept my father as a resource.”
“No,” I say evenly. “I’ve told you before. Iisak was a friend.” He stares back at me impassively, and I add, “If the king needed a scraver on a chain, I could have left you in that cage in Gaulter, ridden back to the Crystal Palace, and told him where you were. Then he could have come to fetch you himself.”
The scraver still says nothing, so I make a disgusted sound and return Mercy to the tree where I kept her tethered. I’m thinking like a soldier again, making plans. If we have a sound horse, at least one of us can ride ahead to meet whoever Rhen sent.
If I can get the king to wake up.
I kneel by his side. His breathing is still shallow. I don’t even know where the injury is. His head? His heart? I put a hand to his forehead and try to summon the magic again.
“If you send magic through your body,” Nakiis says, “a small bit will always linger. But if you bind it with Iishellasan steel, the magic will be more potent.” He pauses. “This is elementary magic. When the magesmiths lived in Iishellasa, their children used magic-charged steel to practice before coming into their power fully. But rarely a human.” His eyes shine in the darkness. “For obvious reasons.”
I wonder what this means to the others who have rings. Jake and Noah. Lia Mara. Harper.
I put the thought aside. None of it matters now. The queen and the princess are at risk. If they are being held prisoner in Briarlock, then Jax, too, is likely at risk. A time will come when I need to make decisions on how to proceed.
I would have followed orders, Tycho.
As usual, there’s no one with me to give them.
And despite the magic at my fingertips, Grey has not woken. I press my palm to his chest instead. “Come on,” I whisper. “Wake up.”
“You cannot heal him,” Nakiis says. “He is not truly injured. As I said, he burned out his spark.”
Wind whips across my cheeks again, and I shiver.
“There’s so much magic in the air,” the scraver says. He stretches like a cat, his wings flaring. “Can you not feel it?”
“How do I get it back to him?” I demand. “Why hasn’t this happened before?”
“Magic calls to magic,” he says easily. “It may eventually find its way back to his blood.”
I want to punch the ground. “How long?”
“Days? Weeks? It’s possible he may not survive it. I have never seen a magesmith so effectively ground himself. What possessed him?”
His wife. His daughter. Days. Weeks. Lia Mara and Sinna don’t have that kind of time. The note demanded the king’s presence, not mine. Even if I have magic, I’m still one person—and I have no idea what kind of weapons the Truthbringers will have amassed. I have no idea what kind of force we’ll encounter.
Again, I need a plan. I don’t have one.
Or … maybe I do. I look at Nakiis again. “The magic is in the air,” I say. “You could help him.”
Without hesitation, he says, “I could.”
“So do it!” I exclaim. “Tell me what to do! Do you need to touch him? Do you need—”
“I need some assurance.”
“Anything,” I say immediately. “Tell me what you want me to swear. He won’t harm you. He won’t imprison you. He won’t—”
“You cannot make a vow for him,” Nakiis says, and ice coats the rocks at his feet. “I want a vow from you.”
My gaze narrows. “What kind of vow?”
“There will come a time that I will need a magesmith to fight at my side. To obey my will. When I call, you will answer.”
“Who are you fighting—”
“That is my offer,” he says. His eyes gleam in the darkness. “Accept or not.”
It’s too open-ended. There are too many unknowns.
Just like everything else right now.
“For one day,” I say. “I’ll fight at your side for one day.”
“A year.”
“Never.”
He regards me coolly. I regard him right back.
“Six months,” he says.
He has something at stake here. I’m not sure what it is, but he needs something, too, if he’s willing to negotiate.
“Two days,” I say. “And I’ll fight in your defense when you ask, but I’m not a mercenary. I won’t kill for you.”
“A month. And I can help you get to Syhl Shallow much faster than horseback.”
My eyebrows go up. “How?”
“Make the deal and see.”
I chew on my lip for a moment. “A week.”
“Done.” Wind, cold and sudden, blasts through the tiny clearing, bringing rocks and dirt to sting my eyes and spook my horse. I can feel the magic now, burning at my skin, tugging at my armor, simultaneously so cold and so hot that I can’t tell if my blood is freezing in my veins or boiling under my skin. I have to close my eyes from the force of it. My eyes are full of white light anyway, like a thousand suns all at once. The sound of the wind becomes so loud that I can’t hear anything else, but somehow, underneath the force of it all, I hear Nakiis’s voice, softer than before.
“I’ve brought the magic to you,” he says. “Now give it to him.”
For an instant, I don’t know how. The magic is everywhere, a million stars filling me up and tearing me apart, wonderful and terrible all at once. It’s addictive, this power. Unstoppable. A terrifying part of me wants to hang on to it, to keep this magic to myself. But my hand is still on Grey’s chest, and that one tiny point of contact is a reminder of every moment we’ve endured together, from the very first instant I discovered his magic.
I swore my life to him once. I told Jax I would do it again, without hesitation.
I would do it now.
The wind builds, roaring so loudly that I think my ears will burst, until I lose all track of up or down. With a final wrenching pull, the magic blazes through my hands. I hear Grey gasp, a terrible breath that sounds like the end of a life—or the beginning of one. For one moment, I see his eyes. I hear his voice.
“Tycho.”
And then I lose all sense of myself and know nothing more.
I awaken to the king crouching over me, his worried eyes staring down into mine. The sky above is still thick with stars, but a faint pink haze has appeared on the horizon. When I blink up at him, Grey lets out a breath and sits back, running a hand over his face.
I expect to feel sore and achy, but I don’t. “What happened?” I say, and my voice is rough, like I’ve slept longer than I intended. I shove myself to sitting.
“I was hoping you would be able to tell me.” He pauses. “You were out for a long time.” Another pause, this one heavier. “I couldn’t wake you.”
I put a hand to my head. I feel disoriented and dazed. He burned out his spark. Did I do the same? “I don’t know.”
My eyes search the ground, the trees, the sky. Mercy is tethered not far off. But with a start, I realize there’s no trace of the fire I set last night. These aren’t the same trees.
I snap my gaze back to the mountains. We’re on the Syhl Shallow side.
I can help you get to Syhl Shallow.
“Where is Nakiis?” I say.
Grey frowns. “The scraver?”
There’s a note in his voice that I don’t fully understand, as if he could wrap up worry and anger and fear and surprise all in one word.
“Yes.” I hesitate. “He’s not our enemy. He helped me. He helped you.” I look around again. “He got us into Syhl Shallow.” I have more questions than I started with. I don’t know how he did it. The king’s magic has never allowed him to travel a far distance in the blink of an eye.
But then I realize what Grey said. You were out for a long time.
I blink at him. “I’m surprised you didn’t take Mercy to go after Lia Mara and Sinna.”
He stares back at me. His eyes are so dark and shadowed. “You thought I would leave you unconscious and alone in the middle of the woods?”
Yes, I think. But I don’t have the courage to say it.
I don’t think I need to. Grey runs a hand over his jaw again. As usual, I can’t read much from his expression, but after a while, he rises to standing. In control, no doubt or hesitation.
“Can you walk?” he says.
I have to think about it for a second. “Yes.”
“If we’re inside the border, I don’t want to waste time. You can explain what happened while we walk.”
Good. We’ll stick to the matter at hand. No need to venture into the conflict between us.
But I think I liked it better when he was unconscious.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” I don’t say it flippantly, but he gives me a look anyway. I ignore it and head for Mercy’s side. I partly expect him to call after me, but instead, he begins buckling his armor into place.
There’s a part of me that feels like the last few hours were a dream. Like maybe Nakiis wasn’t here at all, and Grey just happened to wake before me.
But … we’re in Syhl Shallow. I couldn’t dream that.
I drop to a crouch and run a hand along the back of Mercy’s foreleg anyway. No swelling, no injury.
I stand, then draw my dagger and press it against my fingertip until blood wells.
I hold my breath and search for the magic.
The wound closes. Effortless, as if I never lost my rings at all.
It wasn’t a dream.
From behind me, the king says, “Maybe you should start with that.”
I explain about Alek’s comment during the card game, how I think the Truthbringers have been securing Iishellasan steel that may be used against him, and that’s why I followed. I tell him how Nakiis proved to me that wearing the rings for so long would allow the magic to seep into my blood until I would no longer need the rings at all.
“Iisak used to tell me that any tools fashioned from that steel would be closely guarded,” Grey says. “I thought he meant because of how much power it would grant the bearer. But maybe it was more.”
“You’re not upset.”
He frowns. “No. Relieved, actually, to think Lia Mara might have some protection if they’re holding her. I’m sure they would have taken her rings first.”
“Lia Mara is no fool,” I say. “How would they get close enough to take her?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Sinna.”
I swallow. “Nakiis said there were many traitors at the palace. That he was trying to lure Sinna away from danger.”
“And you believed him?”
Grey doesn’t sound skeptical. He sounds like he wants a genuine answer. So I nod. “If he truly held a grudge against you, he could have killed us both right then and there. He’d have no reason to lie.”
“Does he know who’s holding them in Briarlock? Does he know what weapons they have?”
My chest constricts. I should have asked—but I didn’t. “I don’t know.” I pause. “We should wait for Rhen’s forces.”
“They have my wife and daughter. I’m not waiting.” He looks at me. “If Nakiis is so innocent, why did he leave?”
“I don’t know that either.” I glance at him. “He’s very wary of your power.”
Our power.
The instant I have the thought, a jolt goes through me. From the instant I met Grey, the magic has always been his. Any bit of power that I could use came from him, was granted by him.
Now … it’s not. I flex my fingers by my side, feeling stars in my blood, ready and waiting.
Magic of my own.
I expect him to come up with a plan, now that he knows what we might be facing, but the king says nothing more. There’s a part of me that wants to leap aboard Mercy and finish racing toward danger—but a bigger part of me knows it would be the worst kind of reckless.
And if anyone goes racing off on my horse, it’s going to be him. My heart beats hard with every step, waiting for him to make the demand, because this time I’d have no way to stop him—or help him.
But he doesn’t. “Why did Nakiis help us, if he was so wary?” he says.
“I bartered for his help.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Why?”
“Why?” I round on him so quickly that Mercy throws her head up and snorts. “You ask why? Because you were unconscious! And Mercy was lame! The queen and your daughter are in danger! Do I need more reasons? My only other option was to carry you twenty miles while leading an injured horse. Forgive me if you feel that would’ve been more prudent, but you went tearing out of Ironrose without a plan, so—”
“Enough.”
I clamp my mouth shut. My fingers are tight on Mercy’s reins, my shoulders tense as we walk.
“What did you barter?” he asks.
The words stop on my tongue. I can’t say it. My vow to the scraver could ultimately mean nothing, or it could mean everything. I don’t even know when or how Nakiis will claim his time. Or who his enemy will be.
It could be Grey.
The thought hits me with a start, and a tiny lance of fear pierces my heart.
I set my jaw. “I would rather not say, Your Majesty.”
“Tycho, if you call me that again, I am going to punch you in the face.”
“Good.” I let go of Mercy’s reins and shove him square in the chest. “Do it.”
He falls back a step. “Don’t do this.”
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. It’s not the time or the place, and we have bigger issues. But I’m exhausted and discouraged and my emotions won’t settle.
I go to shove him again, and he deflects, catching my arm. I expect him to attack, but he doesn’t. He grabs hold of the breastplate of my armor and holds me back.
“Stop,” he says, his voice low.
“I know you want to hit me,” I growl. “Just do it.”
“I don’t, actually.” He lets me go. “But you clearly want to hit me. So go ahead.”
I’m swinging a fist before he’s done speaking. I truly don’t think he expected me to do it, because he takes the hit fully. He stumbles back and ends up in the dirt.
He swears and spits blood at the ground, then looks at me, rubbing his jaw. “Silver hell. You really meant that.”
“I did.”
“Do you feel better?”
“No.” I feel worse. I turn away and take hold of Mercy’s reins. “I shouldn’t have delayed us.” I don’t wait for him. I start walking.
He falls into step with me very quickly, but I don’t look at him. We walk in silence again. The tension between us is unchanged.
Grey does not yield, Rhen said.
Obviously.
“What did you barter?” Grey says after a while, as if the last ten minutes never happened.
Fine. I can play this game. “I’d rather not say, Your Majesty.”
“Tycho.”
“I’m very good at keeping secrets. Perhaps you remember.”
“I never forgot.”
If he said it arrogantly, I’d punch him again. But I can’t read his voice, and despite myself, I glance over. He doesn’t look angry. Or defensive. He looks … remorseful.
I don’t want remorse. I want … something else.
“I’m surprised that you followed me,” he says. “If you’re this angry at me.”
“You needed to know what you were heading into,” I say tightly. “And I didn’t want you to kill Jax. I don’t care what you think of me, but he’s not behind this.”
“So you didn’t seek to help me. You sought to stop me.”
There’s no judgment in his tone, but I bristle anyway. “Can it not be both?” I demand.
He says nothing. It’s a good thing, because I’m not done.
“I love them, too,” I snap. “You rode heedless out of Ironrose. You have no idea who took Lia Mara. There could be hundreds of them. I may not be an officer anymore, but I still know you don’t send one man off to battle without a plan. You may just see me as a messenger now, but I’m not a liability or a hindrance. I’m not a child. Stop speaking to me as if I am.”
“I don’t just see you as a messenger, Tycho.”
I don’t want to be having this conversation. And honestly, we’re walking right into a trap. We’ll probably both end up dead and none of this will matter. “There are already rumors of rebellion and violence against you after what happened in the Uprising,” I say. “It’s one thing to protect the royal family from a palace invasion. If you level a town, there will be no quelling the rumors. No matter what they’ve done to the queen.”
“If they’ve hurt them …” He breaks off, and there’s no disguising the promise of violence in his voice. “I once had a conversation with Iisak about what he was willing to risk to find Nakiis,” Grey says. “I didn’t fully understand then.” He pauses. “I do now.”
I stop on the trail and look at him. “Iisak died.”
“He died trying to save his son.”
“No. He didn’t. He died because he crashed through a window to attack an enchantress. He died because he was blind with anger or fury or vengeance. He died because he didn’t take a moment to figure out what was happening in that room, Grey.” I glare at him. “Just like you did, when you got on your horse without waiting.”
I’ve never spoken to him like this. He stares back at me in the shadowed darkness.
I make an aggravated sound, then turn to start walking again. But I stop short.
We’ve reached a crossroads. The road that leads to Briarlock. I let out a long breath.
I can almost see a dark light spark in Grey’s eyes. I grab hold of his arm before he can leap aboard my horse and martyr himself or stab Jax or set all of Briarlock on fire—or all three.
“I know my way through the woods,” I say. “Let’s get off the road. We can approach from the rear, where we won’t be spotted. They won’t be expecting you this quickly—and likely not alone. We don’t have much darkness left, but we’ll have the high ground, and we can assess the size of their force, if they have one.”
He glances at my hand on his arm, then back at my face. If he’s surprised now, it doesn’t show.
“Well advised,” says the king. “We’ll do as you say.”
