“Syd?” North called weakly.
“Right here,” I said. “Will you take this for me? Please, I promise it’ll help.”
He turned his head, pressing his lips together until they were a thin, white line.
“For me,” I whispered. “Please, take it for me….”
I brought the bottle to his mouth, my hand shaking. Finally, his lips parted, and he swallowed the elixir in slow, steady gulps.
I held him until his tremors ceased and his breathing became slow and heavy. Only then did I untangle myself from his grasp, sliding down to the floor in exhaustion. I leaned against the bedding and finally allowed myself to cry.
Almost as if he had sensed it in his deep slumber, North turned over to face me, our faces so close they were nearly touching.
“Sydelle…,” he breathed out, reaching for me.
I carefully mixed a large batch of the sleeping draft. When I was sure I had the right consistency, I set it aside and went to find the others.
“How is he?” Pascal was sitting outside the door, as if standing guard. Hearing his voice, Aphra appeared from her room and crossed the small hallway.
“Sleeping,” I said. “He didn’t want to take the elixir.”
“I should wring that boy’s neck,” Pascal said. “Of all the times to refuse it…”
I closed my eyes and exhaled deeply. I couldn’t banish North’s tortured face from my mind’s eye.
“I’m going to Provincia,” I told them.
“Out of the question,” Pascal said firmly. “It’s not safe for you to travel alone, especially now with all the men and wizards heading in and out of the capital. Prima Road is dangerous enough without the extra crowds.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “North isn’t in any condition to travel. If you’re concerned, then you can come with me—if we go by horseback, we should be there just in time.”
“Wayland said Owain’s gone ahead,” Pascal countered. “He can bring the information to the Sorceress Imperial.”
“Do you honestly believe they’ll take his word for it?” I asked. “North has proof; it’s in his notebook. If I can get that into the right person’s hands, it’ll be far more effective.”
“You can drop that mad idea right now,” he said. “I won’t leave Wayland’s side until he’s healed, and as for you going out, without any kind of protection—”
“Then give me a sword!”
I was shaking with anger now. To have come all of this way only to have North nearly die because of my own stupidity—I had to do something. All I could see in my mind was Cliffton burning, crumbling, North falling under Dorwan’s magic. Everything was coming down around me, and I was powerless.
“Pascal,” I begged. “Please.”
“Don’t ask me again,” he said in a rough voice. “You’ll go when Wayland is up to it.”
With that, he pushed past me and forced open the door. He didn’t say another word, but I heard the door shut behind me.
I stood, barely able to contain myself. How could he not understand that we didn’t have time to waste? Lady Aphra hadn’t said a word during the argument, but now she placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Are you willing to be brave?” she asked me in a low voice.
“Of course,” I said. “Anything.”
She smiled. “I was hoping that would be your answer.”
The next morning I was intently studying the little map of Palmarta inside the cover of Proper Instruction for Young Wizards when North let out a groan, his eyes blinking open. Pascal had gone out, sent by Lady Aphra to help the men of the village clear the remaining snow. The old man had gone out grumbling but finally gave up his position by North’s side.
“Syd,” North said. His voice was so weak I had to lean down to hear him. “Where…am I?”
“Arcadia,” I said. “Pascal and some of the boys carried you back up.”
He nodded and swallowed hard.
“Why did you go back?” I asked. “What were you thinking?”
“Wanted to kill him…too dangerous,” he said, rubbing his face. “He was gone by the time I got back, but I couldn’t twist all the way to Arcadia…. Pretty embarrassing, huh?”
I let out a weak laugh, and he tried to smile.
“Not at all,” I said. “Can I get you something?”
“Water?” he asked. I poured out a glass, and he drank it down greedily, wincing as he pulled his stitches.
“My head feels…like it’s going to split…in two,” he said, falling back against the bed. He shut his eyes.
“Why didn’t you want an elixir or a sleeping draft?” I asked, resting my hand lightly against his. “I had to force it on you.”
North shook his head. He looked so slight on the bed. The dark circles beneath his eyes stood out plainly on his ashen skin. “I’m so sick of it…. I can’t even stand the taste of honey. It’s been a while since the pain was this real.”
“North…,” I began. “You don’t have to keep this from me, not anymore.”
“It’s an ugly, dark part of me, and…” His voice was bitter. “You have no idea how disgusting it is…how shameful…”
“No part of you is dark or ugly,” I said sharply, squeezing his hand. “Not to me, not ever. Do you understand?”
North turned his head away from me, toward the faint light from the window. “I inherited the curse from my father, and he from his father before him,” he said. “Do you remember…what I told you about the hedges?”
I nodded. “But I thought they were at the outskirts of towns, in the wilderness?”
“My grandfather was a Wizard Guard.” He paused. “The king sent him to disband a hedge coven outside of Andover. Most of the wizard knights he brought with him were killed…”
“But not him,” I finished.
“No, not him. They held him hostage for over a fortnight, and when he finally escaped, it was with this…lovely gift.”
I ran my hand through his hair, waiting for him to continue.
“It eats away at my magic,” he said in a hollow voice. “Rips through my blood and body. When I was younger, I could spend hours practicing magic and only feel the slightest discomfort—but now…”
“I know,” I said softly.
“The black skin is an indicator of how much of my body has been corrupted by the hedge’s curse. I don’t understand why it’s worse now than before…. It’s happening so quickly. I use less magic now than in the past, but it hardly matters.”
“And no one’s been able to figure out a cure in all these years?” I asked.
“Hedges are dangerous because they’re unrestricted.” He was hoarse again, but he refused more water. “They experiment with horrors you can’t begin to imagine—curses, killing spells. They’re fiercely protective of their knowledge, even from each other.”
“Is the hedge who did this still alive?” I said. “Couldn’t she reverse this?”
“Dead from all accounts I’ve heard. Even my father searched for her for a time. From the sound of it, the old hag didn’t have an apprentice to pass her secrets to.”
I pulled the gloves from his hands, studying his skin with new understanding and a heavy sense of dread. It was important for me to touch him.
“Your hands are so soft.” His voice sounded far away. I was losing him to sleep again.
“North, if it hurts you, if it’s going to eventually kill you—why do you still practice magic?”
“Because,” he said, his eyes drifting shut again, “who am I without it?”
Lady Aphra found me in the same position, perched beside North’s bed, hours later. She silently set a bundle of clothes down at the foot of the bed and went out of the room to allow me to change. I had no idea where the brown pants and white shirt had come from; they were certainly nothing Aphra would ever wear.
She was waiting for me in the hallway, hands on her hips.
“Is it enough?” I asked her.
“You n
eed a hat to hide that hair,” Aphra said, pulling a knit cap from the hook on the wall. She tucked my hair inside it and pulled it down low on my face. I turned to look in the mirror hanging behind me.
It was dangerous to travel as a woman, but not nearly as dangerous for a young man. As long as I kept to myself, I could make the journey in peace.
“I’ll distract Pascal,” she said. “You’ll need to move quickly. I can’t give you one of the horses without his catching on.”
I had never ridden a horse on my own before, and I didn’t think now was the time to try.
“It’s a five-, six-day walk to Provincia from here,” I said. “If I leave now, I can still make the two-month deadline, but it’ll be close.”
“Then you’d better go now,” she said, squeezing my arm. “Good luck.”
I waited until I heard the door close behind her. My bag and dismantled loom were resting at the foot of North’s bed, but what I needed was in his bag, not mine. I felt around the bottles for the small leather notebook and was just about to tuck it into my own when his quiet voice startled me.
“Syd?” I turned, expecting to be pinned in place by his dark eyes. But they were closed, and he whispered my name again as if in a dream. He couldn’t be awake. I had given him the strongest sleeping draft I had made in Arcadia.
“I’m right here,” I said, touching his arm. His face turned toward the sound of my voice, and it was nearly impossible to swallow the lump in my throat. “I won’t leave.”
I slipped the silver chain from around my neck, missing its comforting weight the moment it was gone. But North needed Astraea’s help far more than I did.
“Protect those who are weak in the world,” I whispered, the familiar prayer meaning so much more now than ever before. “Guide those who think themselves lost, for as long as you are above, all paths will be straight and all hearts will be strengthened….”
I pressed the braided circle into his open palm and closed his blackened fingers around it, then picked up my bag and loom.
The lights in the homes still shone out through their windows, but I slipped through the shadows unnoticed. I thought I heard Aphra’s voice somewhere behind me, but I didn’t turn around. My sights were fixed firmly on Provincia.
The road was dark, but I knew the way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I walked through the night, resting an hour at a time in the tall grass until I finally reached the base of a mountain. With the air suddenly much colder and the now recognizable scent of snow in the air, I realized what a mistake it had been to leave North’s blanket behind and how hard it was to carry my loom myself.
A hush had fallen over the countryside. I thought of Henry and his father, driving their rickety old cart up the same road I was walking on. I would need to find Owain first, to make sure that he had gotten through to the wizard leaders.
And then, would I find Henry? A week ago, the prospect would have thrilled me no end, but now the thought of seeing him only brought dread. I wasn’t sure what I would say to him, but I certainly couldn’t tell him about coming to Provincia alone. He wouldn’t understand why I had put myself in danger, and if I knew Henry, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight again. It would be back to Cliffton and the old way of life, and I wouldn’t be able to get in a word of protest.
Somehow, it had come down to a choice between the two, and I wasn’t ready to make that decision.
Over the next four days, more men and even a few families began to appear along the road, passing me in long wagon caravans. I tried vainly to keep up with some of the friendly-looking groups, but after nearly four days of walking, my body refused to let me. I had stopped for a moment, just to catch my breath, when someone shouted from behind me.
“Well, whadda we have here? A lad on his own, and with a bag full of food?” an older man asked, his head crowned with gray. Behind him were two stocky boys—his sons, most likely—and behind them was a cart loaded down with bags and weapons. The younger son seemed to be pulling it along single-handedly.
My stomach flipped in panic. I pulled my hat down farther over my head.
“Walk with us fer a bit,” one of the sons said. “I’m thinking we’re gonna be fast ol’ friends.”
The father laughed heartily, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Came up from Mariton fer the war; gotta help build trenches and the like. You gonna go, too?”
I nodded again, wondering how long I could go without having to say a single word.
“Then we’re gonna get there together,” the first son said. “Fast friends, it’s like I was saying.”
We walked in uncomfortable silence, the father never once removing his arm from around my shoulder. He knows, I thought, and the fear shredded my insides. He knows.
But if that was the truth, he didn’t show any other indication of it, and his hands didn’t wander anyplace they didn’t belong. If anything, he was more interested in sneaking glances into my bag, and it was with a horrible start that I realized the numerous bags weighing down their cart had probably not belonged to them.
I focused my eyes firmly on the wild grass along the road. Think, I told myself, think. I could run—I was fast when I needed to be—but the father’s grip on my shoulder was unyielding, and a small knife had appeared in the younger son’s hand. He gave a nod to his brother, who circled back around me. We were slowly moving off the road, onto the grass fields. Another hand touched my bag, began to untie the knots that held it closed—they could have the bag, they just couldn’t have North’s notebook.
I twisted down and out of the father’s grip, but one of the sons still had a tight grip on my bag and wrenched me to my feet. The small knife was back, this time digging into my side.
“Seems like our boy doesn’t want to be friends,” the father said. He placed a hand on my head, pulling it back to get a better look at my face. “Didn’t take you fer a fighter. So what’s hiding in that bag?”
I watched the sons out of the corner of my eye as they tossed the books and yarn out of my bag. North’s notebook was thrown down carelessly into the dirt, spilling out letters and loose papers. Their hands stilled only when they touched the cool glass of my bottles.
“Drafts?” one asked. “All you gonna give us is drafts?”
“Not just any draft,” I said, my mind working fast. “Special drafts—a delivery for the Wizard Guard.”
The father’s hand relaxed slightly on my hat. If he had pulled it any harder, my hair would have come tumbling out.
“Special draft?”
“I’m a wizard’s assistant,” I said. “He was hired to create a strengthening potion for the wizards to use in the war.”
“Do you take us fer fools?” a son spat. “Only four bottles fer hundreds of wizards?”
“It’s so potent you need only a drop or two,” I said. “I’m not supposed to even say what I was carrying, it’s so powerful!”
A grin flitted across the father’s face, and I knew I had him.
“It’ll make you unstoppable—invincible—strong enough to lift a horse,” I continued. I wasn’t scared any longer, but it was easy to feign the same panic I had felt only moments before. “Please—oh, please, don’t take it! I’ll never be able to show my face at home again! My wizard will beat me black and blue if I don’t get the draft to the capital!”
“We’ll be taking what we want!” the father said, jerking my arm. “Those wizards won’t be keeping it for themselves this time. With something like this we could take all the wagons and gold pieces we want.”
“And we’re gunna want a lot,” one of the sons added. “Imagine what would happen if we each took a bottle.”
“No!” I yelled. “Don’t! Please, please!”
I almost laughed when they toasted each other in triumph, tilting the bottles back at the same moment.
“This tastes like—” the younger son mumbled. I held my breath as his knees buckled beneath him and he tumbled to the ground. The other two men collapsed
into heavy sleep a moment later, their bodies disappearing into the tall grass. With the amount they drank, they would be dead to the world for at least a day.
I searched through their things, hoping to find something that would be of use. They had bent forks, several knives, an apple core, but only one musty and stained blanket among them. I wasn’t about to take anything that smelled of urine and ale.
“Idiots,” I mumbled, gathering up everything they had tossed from my bag. I flipped North’s notebook open to the front, tucking the loose sheets of paper back inside. He had written his name on the first sheet—the writing was practically illegible and looked as though a child had scribbled out the letters. He probably was a child, I realized as I scanned the first few pages. They were filled with notes on spells and simple elixirs—I laughed at Pascal’s angry face, sketched between blocks of messy scrawl and numerous lists of ingredients.
The next few pages were void of even a stray mark of ink. When his writing appeared again, it was small and cramped.
The hedge settlements of Mariton and Andover were cleared. The Guard burned all of their huts and books—lit the women’s hair on fire and left them to die. The boy that I spoke to seemed to believe the curse began as a kind of poison and would need the hedge’s blood to make any kind of antidote. He agreed to come with me to see if we can’t find her together. He knows more about them than I do, than even Father did.
The man at my feet stirred slightly, but it was enough to wake me from my trance and make me close the book. I would have to finish reading later—for now, I had to keep walking.
The road was empty for miles ahead, which was fine with me. I didn’t stop until the sky had begun to darken, and I found a small clearing in the grass. The remnants of a fire were encased in a circle of stones, but there was no wood left—no trees or branches or even bushes for miles around me.
I sat down heavily, drawing my knees to my chest. Once I was down for the evening, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back up again. What little bread I had was almost gone after five days of walking. I wasn’t even sure of when I had last stopped. Two days ago? Three?
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