Home looked different after the things Ember had learned that day. Changed, somehow, though she knew, truly, that the change lay within herself.
Riding up to the gate, Ember spotted her seventeen-year-old stepbrothers galloping in the field east of the house. The twins had set at least a dozen magelights aflame over the field. They had also set up a shield similar to Ezeker’s so the ash was shucked away from the house, barn, and field.
Tiva stood on the bare back of one of Ember’s favorite mares, Diamond Girl, a spotted horse named for the half-diamond in the middle of her forehead. He braced himself with one foot on her shoulder and the other on her rump, his arms outstretched as Diamond Girl ran in large circles around the pasture.
“Giddy-up,” his voice reached Ember across the field. “Faster, girl, faster!”
“You’re gonna break your neck if you don’t watch it, Tiva,” Ren called, laughing. Ember saw him then, sitting astride another of the family favorites, Brownie, who was as sweet and obedient a mount as Ember had ever known. Typical of the boys—Tiva doing the outrageous thing and Ren sitting by, laughing.
For twins, they were about as similar as the sun and the moon. Tiva had blond hair, and lately he had taken to greasing it so it stood in spikes on his head. Ember couldn’t understand why he’d bother, as the grease stunk like old cheese, but he thought it made him look handsome. Ren, on the other hand, had dark hair that lay softly over his forehead, enhancing the earth-brown eyes that seemed to see into her soul, unlike Tiva’s crystal-blue eyes that were constantly laughing.
Aldarin and Ember trotted up to the gate and sat watching the twins for about ten seconds before Tiva noticed them.
“Em!” he yelled, waving wildly, still balanced on the back of the mare. He let Diamond Girl circle once more. When the horse got to the point closest to the gate, Tiva did a back flip off the mare, landing softly on his feet with outstretched arms and a cocky grin. He ran to the gate and opened it in time for Aldarin to dismount and lead Monster in, then shut the gate behind them while Ember slid off.
Ember turned around in time to be crushed in Tiva’s rather smelly embrace. He pounded her on the back, nearly winding her with his enthusiastic backslapping. Ren rescued her, thankfully, before she suffocated.
“Let her go, twin. Can’t you see you’re killing her with your love?” Ren’s eyes twinkled as he kicked his leg over Brownie’s neck and jumped down. Tiva let go of Ember only long enough for Ren to wrap his arms around her and do nearly as sound a job of crushing her as Tiva had. He squeezed until her back cracked and she laughed, begging him to let go. Ren just chuckled, gave one last eye-popping squeeze, and set her on her feet. She promptly smacked them both on the arm.
“When did you get back? I thought you were in school until harvest festival,” she asked while they stood rubbing their biceps and grinning.
“Yeah, we thought so too, but they let us out for the mage trials, seeing as how we have to help all the instructors and senior magi there,” Tiva said, rolling his eyes. “I thought being a mage would be pretty cool and glamorous, but mostly it’s just grunt work. We have learned a thing or two, but nothing really neat yet.”
Ren started laughing. Tiva scowled at him.
“Except we learned to levitate, and Marda caught Tiva literally scaring the crap out of the cow with his practicing,” Ren told her, dancing away from Tiva’s reach as his twin took a swing at him. “It was pretty hilarious, seeing old Moomoo trying to run in the air and bucking about, but definitely not nice. Marda must have agreed because she chased Tiva out of the barn with a switch. She didn’t catch him, though.”
Tiva reddened. “Well, they did tell us to practice, didn’t they?” he said, sulking and casting daggers with his eyes. Ember didn’t like that look. It always led to trouble, and since Ren looked to beb bursting with laughter, she decided to change the subject.
“I don’t think they meant for you to practice with the cows, Tiva,bbut trust you to find levitating the livestock appropriate. So, what did you bring me for my birthing day?”
“Birthing day? It’s your birthing day, Em? Gee, I’m sorry, I completely forgot,” Tiva answered with his usual lack of seriousness.
“What about you, Ren? Did you remember to get her something?”
“Of course I did. Don’t tease her like that, Tiva. It’s her special day, and sixteen is a pretty important one, don’t you think?” Ren answered, putting a protective arm around Ember’s shoulder. He didn’t wait for Tiva to answer. “Of course, it’s not like I have much money, being a poor apprentice mage and all, so I got you the best present I could afford. It was free. I found it in the rubbish heap and polished it up a bit. That should do just fine, eh?”
Ember answered by slugging him in the shoulder again, hard. But she grinned as she did it and raced him back to the house, the magelights following overhead.
“Don’t forget to wash up, boys!” Marda’s voice called from just inside the door. She poked her face around the corner and smiled as she saw Ember. “Happy birthing day, dear. I’m glad you made it back. I was afraid you’d miss your special dinner.” Marda leaned out the door and tossed a rag toward her daughter. Ember snatched it out of the air. “Clean up and come sit down. Supper’s about on the table.”
Marda withdrew her head, and Ember heard the clank of a few pot lids being set aside and the flow of water into the sink.
“I wonder what she’d do if we didn’t wash up. Do you think she’d throw us out?” Tiva asked as he stuck his hands into the cold running water Ren had turned on for him.
“Nah,” answered Ren. “If she’ll put up with that stink in your hair for as long as she has, I imagine about the worst she’d do is make you go without your supper for a night or two. Might be good for you,” he said, giving his twin a solid thump on the stomach that showed no sign of a bulge. Tiva nudged Ren with his hip, throwing him off balance. They both collided with Ember, nearly knocking her backward into the horse’s water trough. Ember glared at them, but it was all in play.
Ember let the boys go into the house ahead of her before she washed. Once her hands were toweled dry, she pulled down her sleeves to cover all but her fingertips. She was grateful the twins hadn’t seen the tattoos that stained her hands and wrists, and especially hoped her mother wouldn’t notice. If she had gloves, she would happily put them on, but her mother would be sure to notice so blatant an attempt to hide something. There was nothing else she could do without drawing attention, so she followed her brothers, and within a few short moments they were all seated around the large table. Even Paeder had come from his sickbed to join them. He looked weak and feeble, but his eyes shone when he saw Ember and beckoned to her.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and another around her shoulder and pulled her to him. “Happy birthing day, stepdaughter,” his hoarse voice whispered in her ear. He gave her a dry peck on the cheek. Ember patted his back and pulled away, thinking he was done, but Paeder took her wrist and slipped an envelope into her hand. She was afraid for a moment he’d seen the tattoo in her palm, but he didn’t give it a second look. Surprised, she paused, questioning him with her eyes.
He waved a frail hand at her. “Later,” he said, winking. “When you’re alone.”
She nodded and smiled at him, putting a hand on his shoulder before she sat down.
Dinner smelled delicious. Marda had made Ember’s favorite meal—a spicy egg and green bean soup with onions to be eaten with flatbread and a dollop of sour cream, with apple pudding for dessert.
Ember ate slowly, trying to make everything last. She knew better than to ask for seconds.
Marda’s idea of femininity included small portions and no seconds. It never seemed fair, the way Marda held Ember down. Ember worked as hard as the boys did—it was only right that she get the same kinds of rewards.
“Is it gifting time yet?” Tiva asked Paeder, who looked to Marda for an answer. She gave a slight nod. The twins looked at each other and grinned, both
of them squirming in their seats like five-yearolds.“Can we go first?” Tiva asked his father. Paeder answered nonverbally with his usual shrug.
“This is from both of us, Ember,” Tiva said. “We made it ourselves, though I did most of the work.” Ren slugged him. “Don’t listen to him, Ember. We split the work up half and half.” He handed her a paper-wrapped package—very sloppily wrapped, she noticed, but wrapped nonetheless. The twins waited expectantly while she opened it.
The object was heavy and round, and Ember couldn’t figure out what it might be, as it felt like nothing more than a stone. She untied the strings and pulled the paper away to find . . . a very unassuming piece of plain granite, about the size and shape of a large duck egg.
“Oh. A rock.” She hadn’t really believed Ren when he’d said he dug her gift out of the garbage. The disappointment hit her hard.
“Pull it apart,” Tiva said, rolling his eyes.
Ember pulled slightly. The rock slid apart, two halves of a whole. She gasped, absolutely
incredulous. The flat side was a rainbow of color in an inward spiraling pattern. It was not paint, but real crystal embedded in the rock, symbols etched over the surface.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, then paused.“But what is it?”
“We were hoping you’d ask,” Ren answered. Tiva reached across the table and snagged the two pieces of paper the stone had been wrapped in. He unfolded them and set one half of the stone, spiral down, on top of a blank piece of paper in front of Ember, then placed the other page in front of himself. He pulled a blackstick from behind his ear and grinned as he wrote something down. Tiva then placed the second stone on his paper and whispered to it, as though it were a living thing. It lit up with rainbow light for a brief second and seemed to suck the writing from the paper itself. It gathered the black scribbles like a sponge taking in water, and then the stone in front of Ember lit up, and the words that Tiva had written spread themselves across her page. She gasped, and it was with a trembling hand that she moved the rock sitting before her to read the message:
"Pretty neat, huh? Thought you would like these sending stones so we can keep in touch better. Hate to be an evahn giver, but we’ve got to take one back to school with us for it to work. Happy birthing day, Emmie. Welove you."
Ember looked up and met her brothers’ eyes with mist in her own. “I don’t know what to say, guys. This is amazing. Thank you very much.”
Tiva shrugged, embarrassed now that their gift was so well-received. “It’s nothing, Sis. We’ve sort of been missing you, and this way we can talk even if we’re not together.”
Ember scooted back her chair, went over behind the twins and wrapped an arm around each of them. Then, avoiding Tiva’s smelly hair, she gave them both a sound kiss on the cheek. “I miss you too, and thanks. It’s an incredible gift, and I’ll keep it with me no matter where I go.”
Ember’s thoughts flashed to her planned departure for the trials. She meant what she said, on multiple levels. The stones would ease her conscience a bit.
“Well, I don’t know if I can top that,” Aldarin said, reaching for his saddle bag, “but I saw this and thought you might like it, with winter coming on.”
He pulled a bulky package from his bag and handed it to her. She unwrapped it and found several items of clothing—a new sable brown cloak with a hood, soft and light as silk with fur lining the hood and edges. There was also a pair of gloves, and socks made from the same light material. “Those are all warm-spelled, Sis. You’ll never get cold when you’re wearing them,” Aldarin said.
Ember threw her arms around him. He knew her better than anyone. Her biggest complaint of working in the winter had always been the cold. It was the most wonderful, practical gift he could have given her, and she told him so. Feminine, but not too much so. He grinned at the praise.
Marda spoke then, her deep brown eyes gleaming. “I left your gift on your bed. Go see it and come show us all, dear,” she purred. Ember knew that tone. It said, “Don’t fight me, sweetheart.” Ember already had a pretty good idea she was going to hate her mother’s gift, but she pushed herself away from the table and made her way up the stairs to her room.
Sure enough, laid out on the bed was the frilliest, most annoyingly gaudy pink dress Ember had ever seen. Did her mother not know her at all? Her brothers, who didn’t share her blood, gave her gifts she could use and love, and her mother, the woman who birthed her, gave her this? She could hardly stand to look at the dress, let alone put it on. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were blue instead of pink. She caressed the silky material, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine it blue—the deep, dark blue of her midnight pool, a silvery moon shining on its surface. The ache for acceptance, for love of herself as an individual, and especially as a daughter, tore through her heart, and Ember felt something begin to build.
It was a hum, a slight vibration that started in the pit of her stomach and spread outward like Ezeker’s cough medicine. She clung to the feeling and hugged the dress to her as if it represented everything lacking in her life.
Something itched in her hands—and then it burned. Ember cried out and dropped the dress to examine her hand for the blister she was sure to find . . . but there was nothing. Her hand looked perfectly normal, but for the faint glow winking at her from the wolf ’s eye. It faded quickly, and Ember looked down at the dress to see if there was a pin, or nettle, or firebug. Something had to cause the pain.
She gasped at what she saw.
The frilly pink dress that had existed only a few seconds before was gone, and in its place was the dress she had seen and wished for in her head, all the frills and lace missing. She reached down and picked it up, sure she was imagining things. But no—the dress before her was as real as the gift from her mother had been.
Ember’s head started to swim, and she had to sit down. Blue silk in her hands, she collapsed in the middle of the floor and stared at the fabric, unbelieving.
“Ember, are you all right? I heard you cry out . . .” Marda’s voice came from the doorway. Ember heard the hesitation in her step. She could nearly hear the beat of her heart as her mother caught sight of the dress. Marda’s voice was cold and fearful when she spoke again. “That is not the dress I left on your bed. Where did it come from?”
“From my head, Mum. It came from my head,” Ember responded, a little panicked and overwhelmed by the understanding of what had happened. “I saw it in my head, and then it was there,” she continued, gesturing wildly.
Marda didn’t move for several long seconds from the spot that seemed to have rooted her to the floor. She stepped forward slowly and took Ember’s hand from the folds of the dress that lay in her lap.
She paused, utterly still, staring for a long moment at the tattoos on Ember’s wrists and hands before she pulled back the sleeve and examined the recently acquired wolves. Ember was suddenly very grateful for the high-collared shirt that hid the embedded pendant. Marda prodded at the dark chains on Ember’s hands when the wolf ’s eye suddenly winked at her with a flash of emerald light. Marda jerked, but did not let go. She took Ember’s chin in her other hand and pulled it up so that her daughter would meet her eyes as she crouched down beside her.
“Where,” she asked in almost a whisper, fear and anger fighting in her voice, “did you get that?” She pointed with a sharp jab at the wolf on the back of Ember’s hand.
Ember met her gaze without backing down. There was nothing to be done about it now. “From my da,” she responded, and watched her mother nearly faint at the words.
Marda let go of Ember’s chin as she sat down heavily on the floor. “What?” she whispered, gray as the ash that fell outside.
“I got it from Da . . . through Ezeker.”
Ember proceeded to tell her mother the whole story. She could gauge her mother’s emotions by the color of her skin, the set of her lips—and the more Ember spoke, the angrier Marda became. When she was finally done, Marda was furious.
“Th
at meddling old man. I told him to mind his own affairs, and he just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he? He’ll be hearing from me, you can be sure of that, and if I have anything to do with it, he’ll be out of this town for good. He had no right—”
“He had every right, Mother,” Ember interrupted. “He was following instructions left for him before you even came here. He was only doing what you didn’t have the courage to do.” She regretted the words before they left her mouth, but she couldn’t bite them back.
“I beg your pardon?” Marda demanded, whispering in her anger.
“Who do you think you are, child, to judge me so? You have no idea why I do the things I do—”
“Yes, I do, Mother,” Ember interrupted again. “I know more than you think. I know why you don’t want me to draw attention to myself, and I know why you want me to stay away from magic. I know my father was a mage, and I know he was killed by C’Tan because she was trying to get to me! Isn’t that enough?”
Marda’s grief crushed her a little more with each revelation, but instead of speaking, she drew herself up and became angrier. “Get it off, Ember. Take that chain off and throw it away. You have no understanding of the trouble to which this leads. Get rid of it. Now!” Her voice rose.
Ember stood and faced her mother, outwardly calm, but inwardly angry and very determined.
“No,“ she responded, her arms folded over the midnight dress.
“What?” Marda hissed. Her eyes narrowed in anger.
“I said no, Mother. I can’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. You’ve given me nothing of my father’s. Nothing! No memories, no stories, no old treasures or tokens. Nothing. This, this,” she said, thrusting her hands out before her, “is the one and only thing I have had in my entire life that was mine from him alone. This, and a pendant that seems more like a slave chain than jewelry. You use it to control me by never allowing it to leave my skin. Enough, Mother. No more. Ezeker has done nothing to harm me, and much more to help me than you have.” Ember paused, then decided to reveal the last of it. “I am going to the mage trials.”
“No!” Marda whispered, terror on her face. Ember was untouched by it. She knew what she had to do.
“Yes. If I am ever to survive this evil mage, C’Tan, I must do it with knowledge and training under my belt. Maybe I’m destined to die by her hand . . .” Marda choked at that phrase, but Ember continued relentlessly. “But maybe, just maybe, I can survive, if I know what I’m doing. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”
“You don’t even know if what Ezeker says is true! How can you base a life-changing decision on the words of some old man?” Marda demanded, her eyes desperate.
“Ezeker didn’t tell me, Mum.”
Marda looked lost for a moment, as if the thought of anyone else knowing the truth boggled her.
Ember almost took it back, almost told her the truth about Ezeker’s hidden cove where Aldarin had listened in. Her heart ached, knowing how much she was hurting her mother, but it was something she had to do.
Marda didn’t answer.
Ember sighed. “Mum, it’s too late for me to turn back now.” She laid the dress in her mother’s hands as a reminder of the magic that was already manifesting itself in her daughter.
Marda took it with a sob and turned her back. Ember stood still, watching her for a long moment, unsure what to do next. It seemed the best thing was to give Marda some time. She’d get used to the idea eventually, whether she liked it or not.
Ember moved past, debating whether to rest her hand on her mother’s back as she left, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she paused long enough to say, “I love you, Mum. I’m sorry,” before she walked down the staircase.
Her brothers and stepfather stared at her as she headed toward the front door. Obviously the argument had carried down the stairs. There was no point in waiting for Ezeker to pick her up in the morning. She’d go to him tonight.
The boys stood in silence, only Paeder smiling at her. They seemed to be in awe more than anything, amazed that she’d actually had the audacity to stand up to Marda.
“Good for you, sweetheart,” Paeder whispered as she opened the door. She turned and gave him a half-smile. He winked at her, and she almost cried. Instead, she blinked hard and held it in, nodded once, and went through the front door, unsure if her mother would ever speak to her again.
The Sapphire Flute: Book 1 of The Wolfchild Saga Page 12
