Stone of Inheritance

by Melissa McShane

  “He is not my friend.”

  “Sienne’s acquaintance, then. The possibility that one of our enemies is behind this.”

  “But aside from the Giordas, we don’t have any enemies who would care enough to set up this convoluted plot,” Dianthe said. “At least as far as we’re aware. And those enemies would have had to know this job meant almost certain death. Nobody’s been out here for years to know the carvers were here.”

  “That we know of,” Perrin said. He stretched his feet out toward the fire. “But I admit it strains credulity that someone else might have come here and survived the encounter, let alone that it should be someone who wishes us ill. I cannot believe we have made that many enemies.”

  “Neither can I,” Alaric said. “The simplest explanation is that the story of the falcon stone is a family legend without a lick of truth to it, and Tonia Figlari was just wrong. But…” He stared into the fire. “My instincts tell me something else is going on. I don’t know if we were intended to die here, or if…” He stood and lifted one end of the stone, raising it to teeter on the rim. Upended, it revealed the back of the stone was, in fact, not flat. It looked like the tail and claws of a falcon. From that perspective, the stone resembled a falcon caught mid-flight through a slab of stone and petrified as a result.

  “Sienne, cast mud on this again,” Alaric said. His voice was distant, the voice of someone thinking hard about something.

  Sienne opened her spellbook and read off the transform, swallowing the nausea-inducing sweetness. A few more spells and she would be incapacitated again. She gripped the rim of the stone and watched the dark, wet stain spread across it. Mud oozed between her fingers. “We’re destroying our only chance of getting the knife,” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” Alaric said. The stain reached the falcon’s body and crept over its stomach and chest. More mud dripped down Sienne’s hand and wrist.

  Dianthe gasped. “What is that?”

  A green glint shone beneath the mud of the falcon’s breast. Mud slipped away from it, revealing a dirty green surface that shone like crystal. Dianthe stepped forward and swept mud off the thing. Great globs of mud dripped and fell on the grass, revealing more of whatever it was.

  “Help me with this,” Dianthe said, and Kalanath put his hands under it, supporting it as the mud fell away. It was clearly a bird, but smaller than the stone falcon, about three feet from wingtip to wingtip. Beneath the mud it was made of something hard and green. Sienne brushed away the last of the mud and released the spell.

  “Let’s rinse it off,” Dianthe said, and she and Kalanath took it to the river and dunked it. The remaining traces of mud went liquid and flowed away, revealing a carved figure of a falcon. They raised it, and the sunlight caught the facets of its clear green surface and blazed with light.

  “Kitane’s eyes, it’s solid emerald,” Dianthe said. Sienne didn’t bother asking how she knew. Dianthe always knew about gems. “I didn’t know they could be that big. Be careful with it, those wings are probably fragile.”

  “It won’t break,” Sienne said. To her wizard’s eye, the falcon shone with more than reflected light. “It’s an artifact. A powerful one. The stone sealed the magic in.”

  Dianthe and Kalanath set it on the grass. It was a deeper green than the grass and looked unspeakably gaudy next to the simple new growth. “What in Averran’s name have we lent ourselves to?” Perrin asked, sounding awed.

  “This is a tangle,” Alaric said. “It’s an artifact, but not the one we were sent after, unless Tonia Figlari was holding out on us. Sienne, any idea what it does?”

  “None. And it was useless so long as it was cased in stone, so the Figlari dukes couldn’t have used it as Tonia said they did. There’s no way it spoke to anyone.” Sienne paced to the river bank and back. “I don’t understand why someone would go to all that trouble, unless it was a dangerous artifact… but why display it to the world if it was dangerous?”

  “Pride,” Perrin said. “A desire to lord it over the neighbors. Though Figlari has no neighbors, so perhaps not that.”

  “Is there any way to figure out what it does?” Alaric said.

  “The avatars see everything that happens on earth,” Perrin said, “so it is likely Averran knows. Whether he will tell us is another matter. And I dare not pester him further today.”

  “If we know what it does, that might tell us who’d want it, and why,” Alaric said. “It might also give us an idea of why someone might have involved us in retrieving it.” He squatted to look at the falcon closely. “We’ll pack up and put as much distance between ourselves and this place as possible, camp for the night, and in the morning—”

  “The late morning,” Perrin said.

  “In the late morning, we’ll see if Averran is willing to give us a hint.”

  Dianthe walked over to Button and pulled out a heavy sheet of canvas. “This was meant to wrap the stone, but it will do just as well for the artifact.” She wrapped the emerald falcon securely and stowed it with the gear on the second donkey. “I wish it wasn’t an artifact. Do you have any idea how much we could get for an emerald that size? Carved with that kind of craftsmanship?”

  “We have to focus on retrieving the knife,” Alaric pointed out. “And until we know what role Tonia played in this deception, we have to pretend we’ve done what we were sent to do.”

  Sienne washed her hands off in the cold river. Her trousers were filthy with mud and might never be the same. She swiped the mud off them as best she could, then doused the fire and took up her position behind Alaric. He still didn’t seem disturbed by having killed the carver wizard with his bare hands. It worried her enough that she resolved to find a way to ask him about it later. A way that didn’t imply he’d turned soulless or evil.

  13

  Spellcasting had left Sienne dizzy and sick, but she didn’t want to delay their journey; she wanted to get as far away from the Figlari dukedom as they could. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, staring at the ground and then staring at Alaric’s back. It felt like their first job, when she’d been a raw beginner and a day’s march had exhausted her. Her mind numb, she kept walking until Alaric stopped and she almost ran into him. He turned to say something, took her chin in his hand, and tilted her head to look into her eyes. She managed not to jerk away from him, fighting her terrible memories.

  “You cast too many spells,” he said. “Damn it, Sienne—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, though in truth his outline was doubled and she wanted to throw up. “I didn’t want—”

  “Sit over here and put your head between your knees,” he said, steering her off to one side and gently pushing on her shoulder. She sank gratefully to the ground and took a long drink from her waterskin. Bowing her head, she listened to the sounds of people making camp, smelled wood smoke from the fire, and despite her illness she felt at peace.

  She heard crows sweep past overhead, and their shrill cries reminded her of another evening, sitting in Rance’s room at school in Stravanus while the raucous birds cawed outside his window. For the first time, she thought of Rance without anger or embarrassment. If he’d told his parents he wanted to marry her instead of her sister, if he had been the man she thought he was, she wouldn’t now be in this place, with these people she cared about. And Alaric…she wasn’t sure what would grow between them, if anything, but she already felt safer and more cherished with him than she ever had with Rance.

  Dianthe shook her arm. “Dinner,” she said. Sienne hadn’t realized she’d nodded off, but if dinner was ready, she’d slept a while. Kalanath had brought down a small deer, enough for two meals, and she ate happily, ignoring the shivering outlines of the flames that told her she wasn’t fully recovered.

  “Regular watch rotation,” Alaric said. “Sienne, you’ll sleep through the night.”

  “I’m well enough,” she protested. “It’s not like I’m an invalid.”

  Alaric scowled. “Fine. B
ut if I think you aren’t capable when I wake you—”

  “Yes, sir,” Sienne said, grinning at him. He smiled, and there was a light in his eyes that made Sienne tingle all over. She wondered if anyone else had noticed. They would have to be careful if they wanted to keep this a secret.

  She went to bed when the sun set, wriggling into her bedroll and stretching lazily. She never felt so alive as when they’d successfully completed a job, and though she knew this one wasn’t over, she couldn’t help feeling they’d earned their success over the carvers.

  Dianthe crawled into the tent after her and sat on her bedroll, taking off her boots. “I’m so tired I can’t think about anything but sleep,” she said. “Even though I know this is just the beginning of a new trouble.”

  “Me too.”

  Dianthe lay down and yawned. Firelight flickered on the tent flap, interrupted by Perrin, who had first watch, walking past. The night wasn’t as cold as the previous one, but it was still chilly enough that Sienne appreciated the extra warmth of her blanket. She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh.

  Dianthe said, “Whatever you said to Alaric, it worked. Thank you.”

  Sienne was glad Dianthe couldn’t see her blush. “I just… told him the truth.”

  “He killed that carver wizard. Did you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope it gave him peace. I’ve never seen him kill someone with just his hands before.”

  “You don’t think it was, I don’t know, a dark thing to do?”

  Dianthe sighed. “I’m not going to tell him how to slay his demons. But yes, I did. I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Me neither.”

  There was silence for a time. “I’m sure kissing would resolve the problem,” Dianthe said.

  Sienne rolled over to face the darkness where Dianthe lay. “Dianthe! Were you spying on us?”

  “No. But you just confirmed my suspicions. You should keep your secrets closer to your chest.”

  Sienne groaned. “We didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything. Kidding aside, I don’t want to intrude on your privacy. Alaric’s like my brother, and I want him to be happy. You’re my friend, and I want you to be happy too. If you’re happy together, well, that’s doubly good.”

  Sienne rolled onto her back again. “I am happy. I never would have guessed this could happen, not after the way we clashed when we first met.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think Alaric’s problem was that you were a cute girl and a wizard, and his instincts were at odds with themselves. He’s been pining after you for months. It was sort of pathetic, in a sweet way.”

  Sienne blushed again. “I wasn’t indifferent to him, either. I just didn’t know what to say.”

  “Sounds like speaking wasn’t the important thing.”

  The arch tone of Dianthe’s voice made Sienne blush harder. She’d never used to be someone who blushed at every little thing, and now…

  “Seriously, though, if you can talk to him about killing the wizard, I wish you would,” Dianthe said. “He listens to me, but he doesn’t always take me seriously because he thinks of me as a younger sister. Even though I’m three months older. You, though, have a chance of getting him to face up to it.”

  “Why is that? Not because he’s attracted to me?”

  “That, and the two of you are alike enough that he feels you understand and aren’t just telling him what he wants to hear. That’s my theory, anyway.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” It made her uncomfortable, having that kind of influence over someone, particularly someone as strong-willed as Alaric. It was a responsibility she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

  Dianthe began to snore. Sienne grinned into the darkness. She’d never met anyone who could fall asleep so readily, or under any circumstances, as Dianthe. The snoring soothed her, and eventually she, too, fell asleep.

  She woke to someone shaking her foot. “How do you feel?” Alaric said.

  Sienne sat up and looked past Alaric at the fire. No shivering outlines, just the low-burning flames. “Fine,” she said, pulling on her boots.

  “You’d better not be exaggerating.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yes, you would, if you thought it would get you what you wanted.”

  Sienne crawled out of the tent and stood. The chilly night breezes carried the scent of the fire and early morning dew to her nose. “And what do you think that is?”

  Alaric put his arms around her waist. “I hope it’s this,” he said, kissing her.

  She pulled his head down to return his kiss. He was more than a foot taller than she, a difference she’d never fully internalized until now. His lips were warm and tasted of wood smoke, and she kissed him again, reveling in the feel of his arms around her.

  He released her, and she felt a pang of regret until he took her hand and guided her to the fire. “We can watch from here,” he said.

  “Don’t you want sleep?”

  He touched her face lightly. “I spent my whole watch waiting for the time I could wake you and have you join me. Sleep is nothing next to that.”

  “We can’t spend the whole time kissing. We might as well not be on watch if we did.”

  “Much as I’d love that, you’re right. I had in mind talking instead. I want to know more about you.”

  “And I—”

  “What?”

  She hesitated, then said, “I wanted to ask you about killing the wizard.”

  His hand in hers went rigid. “What about it?” he said, the teasing note in his voice vanishing.

  “Never mind. It’s not important.”

  “It must be important for you to bring it up now. You think I did the wrong thing.”

  “No! I—Alaric, I can imagine killing her will help you recover. I just thought… I didn’t know if you’d ever killed anyone that way before, and if you thought it was different. I am in no position to judge you, and I wouldn’t even if I were. But I worry.”

  His hand relaxed, then closed more tightly on hers. “It felt good,” he said in a low voice. “It felt like I had power over her instead of the other way around. And I’m ashamed of how much I liked it. It was necessary, I don’t regret it, but I don’t want to be someone who takes joy in killing. You’re not wrong. It’s not the same as killing with a sword. And the carvers look like people even though they aren’t. I’ve thought about it—wondered if I would feel different if I’d used my sword instead of going for her throat. But in the end, I’m just glad she’s dead. I can’t imagine how many people she tortured and killed, or made kill their friends.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever killed anyone, not even monsters,” Sienne said. “I don’t know any of the spells that kill outright. I’ve wondered if that’s a mistake.”

  “Don’t,” Alaric said. “You disable your enemies just fine without killing them. I don’t think you should have any regrets about the contents of your spellbook.”

  “But you and Dianthe and Kalanath kill. It doesn’t make you evil.”

  “No, but it’s changed us. And I’m not sure you want that kind of change.” Alaric sighed. “You’ll probably have the opportunity to gain those spells someday, and if you decide to take it, I’ll support you. I just don’t want you feeling inadequate because you’re not a killer.”

  Sienne scooted over and tucked herself under his arm. “You’re not a killer either, not really. You don’t want humans to be afraid of you, and I’m certain you wouldn’t turn on another person unless it was to protect someone else.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “You have such faith in me. I fear it’s unwarranted.”

  “Not at all,” she said, and kissed him.

  When the dark sky lightened, Sienne disentangled herself from Alaric’s embrace and summoned water, then built up the fire to boil it for porridge. As she set the coffeepot to heat, Alaric stood, saying, “I’ll fetch more wood. It’s funny, I don’t fe
el tired at all.”

  “Neither do I.” They’d alternated sitting by the fire with walking hand in hand around the camp, talking of everything and nothing, and Sienne had never felt so energized. This feeling of something new beginning, her growing attraction to him and the awareness that he was attracted to her, was better than sleep.

  Alaric stooped to kiss her, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “When we get back to Fioretti—” He laughed. “Sorry. I don’t think we should make plans until this job is over.”

  “That’s smart.” She regretted it, though, regretted that this mysterious artifact and Tonia Figlari’s hold over them interfered with their growing relationship. She wished the night watches were twice as long.

  She stood by the fire until Alaric came back with more fuel, then stoked it to a nice low blaze and began pouring grain into the pot, a little at a time to keep the porridge smooth. “Convey will be an expensive spell,” she warned him.

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “Alaric the wizard-hater, paying for a spell? You’ll be the talk of the market.”

  “I don’t hate all wizards, just the one. The rest I’m suspicious of. And there’s one I’m enjoying getting to know better.” He put an arm around her waist and hugged her briefly, releasing her when the men’s tent flap rustled and Kalanath emerged. Sienne felt her face grow hotter than the fire warranted and hoped Kalanath wouldn’t notice her blush.

  Kalanath saluted them both with his staff. “I cannot sleep longer,” he said. “I dreamed about the emerald falcon. In my dream it grew larger than a tree and devoured people. It was not a nice dream.”

  “You don’t think it had meaning, do you?” Sienne asked.

  “No. I do not have prophetic dreams.” Kalanath’s voice was flat and hard, and his narrow eyes were closed almost to slits. He turned and walked away toward the nearby grove of trees, and shortly they heard the sound of his staff striking wood.

  “That was strange,” Alaric said. “Why would that suggestion make him angry?”

  “I don’t know. He never talks about himself or his past, you know. I wonder if—no, I can’t think of anything that might provoke that reaction.” Sienne added coffee to the pot of boiling water and gave it a stir. “It’s funny that we’re all hiding secrets, or were. You all know my secrets now. And we know yours. Unless you’re secretly a unicorn prince.”