Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2)

by Intisar Khanani

  She laughs sweetly. “Oh no, miss, that’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t take anything anyway. Jabir would have my head.”

  I give her a questioning look.

  “At the gate,” she provides helpfully. “Our resident Guardian.”

  “Guardian?” I ask. “You mean the guard?”

  “Oh no, Jabir’s a Guardian. They’re old creatures. Some say they were around when the phoenix itself was first born. He’s been with the Mekteb for longer than anyone can remember.”

  I hesitate, my unease deepening. “What powers does a Guardian have?”

  Rehan grins. “He can tell a lie as clearly as if you wore a banner proclaiming it. He can tell if your intention is honest or corrupt. And if he ever has to defend the Mekteb, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Even the first mage of the High Council wouldn’t cross Jabir.”

  “I see,” I say faintly, wondering why Jabir let me through at all.

  With a wink she is off, disappearing with a soft patter down the stairwell.

  He must have sensed the half-truths behind what I was saying. Perhaps he knew I didn’t mean any harm. Regardless, he let me through and I have no intention of wasting time pondering it. I lift the iron knocker and let it fall. As the dull thud reverberates down the hall, the wooden door creaks open slightly.

  “Master Stonefall?” I call uncertainly, considering the cracked opening. Faintly, I hear a rustle from the room. I push the door open, calling out again. The room lies in silence. It is a study of sorts, a desk against the far wall by the window, papers and books piled on it, additional bookshelves against a wall, mostly empty, and an array of weapons hung upon the other wall — swords, daggers, a pair of small axes, a set of javelins, and a variety of crossbows.

  “Master Stonefall?” I call again, stepping in, and trip over something in the way. I catch myself before I come down on the — man.

  I scramble to kneel beside the fallen figure, gently turning him on his back. Stonefall’s face seems unnaturally pale beneath his desert-tan complexion, his features tightened with pain. Today he wears the long, plain thobe of the desert people, its soft brown marred with a few small streaks of deep red. Dark eyes flicker open to focus on me as I call his name again.

  “Master Stonefall? Where are you hurt?”

  His hand scrabbles at his stomach, where a splotch of dark blood slowly spreads. I use my knife to cut open the cloth, revealing a small puncture wound, its edges ragged. The skin around it is black already, the wound itself bubbling with dark blood. His hands jerk, the fingers tightening into claws, and something clatters to the floor: a long, black dart with a barbed tip.

  “Who do I call?” I ask, my voice shaking. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. In the time it would take me to run back to Jabir, explain what I have found, and return with help, Stonefall could easily die. I look around the study frantically. Surely there must be something here, some herbs, some charm for poison. I make a quick circuit of the room, shoving papers away, searching for anything, anything. But there’s nothing of any use — feathers, a mortar and pestle, herbs I don’t immediately recognize, a metal brooch, threads of varying hues, and the weapons.

  I jerk open my pack, then desperately pat down my pockets — and find the glowstone. I bite my lip, staring down at the dying man, then back at the charm. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have to try. Stonefall grips my hand as I kneel beside him, his breath wheezing.

  “I’m going to try something. I’m not sure how well it will work. Is that all right?”

  He nods once, his eyes so dilated I can hardly see any brown left. I place the glowstone beside the wound and lay my hands on either side of it, framing the discolored skin. I gather together all that I recall of the last months, drawing on the cool mountain air, the warmth of our goats and the clucking of our hens, the shaded trails and fleeting glimpses of mountain ibex, the company of squirrels and sparrows, and slowly I begin to feel the beat of the man’s heart, feel the poison sliding through his bloodstream.

  I call to it with the voice of living things, with the memory of Stormwind’s smile, the crunch of fresh apples, the rustle of leaves in the wind, and I feel the poison move toward me, turning back by what paths it can find. I call to it with the beat of my own heart, with the ebb and flow of blood through my veins, and it bubbles up from the wound, sickly yellow, trickling toward my hands. Life light, I think, remembering a crow from a tower room long ago, and the glowstone shines as brightly as a star. I channel the poison into it, watching as the fluid seeps into the stone, brightening as it burns away.

  My hands tremble as the last of the poison surfaces, mixed with a dark black blood, thick and viscous. The stone absorbs this as well, the blood crusting on its surface. The puncture wound remains, for there is no magic that can mend flesh. But it’s clean now, and should heal well.

  Vaguely, I hear voices in the hall. Stonefall’s hand rises and catches my wrist. I look at him blearily. “Hide,” he whispers. “Now.”

  I look around, blinking to clear my vision. “Where?”

  “The next room … Stormwind’s pack is in the wardrobe. Use her charm.” The voices are nearly upon us, raised in alarm. “Hurry!”

  I jump up and stumble past him to the second room, my shoulder thumping into the doorframe. Lurching through, I shove the door shut and race across the room to the tall wardrobe, throwing its doors open. Stormwind’s pack is set carefully at the bottom. I pull it open with shaking fingers, shoving the closet doors shut with my hip. A charm, a charm, I tell myself, rifling through her clothes.

  In the first room, I can hear voices now, the soft, pain-ridden voice of Stonefall, and those of the men and women with him. My fingers close on the fabric of Stormwind’s charms pouch. I yank it out and drop down against the wall, in the shadow of the closet. From here, I’m shielded from immediate sight, but anyone who steps in will find me. With nothing but the bed, the wardrobe and a nightstand, there are precious few places to hide, and everyone will check under the bed. I need whatever charm Stonefall thought would hide me.

  I spill the contents of the pouch into my lap, shoving the ward stones to the side, and see something glinting beneath the seeker charm she had packed: a ring made of a twist of wire and dark thread, a single black bead gleaming at the top.

  Someone pushes the room door open, footsteps thudding through. I shove my finger through the ring and hold perfectly still.

  Silence.

  I wait, holding my breath, and listen to the tap of shoes moving slowly around the room. I watch in icy panic as a mage comes to the foot of the bed, then stoops to look beneath it. There’s nowhere to run, no way past the mages in the other room. Whatever this charm was supposed to do—

  The mage straightens and scans the room again, his eyes pausing on the wardrobe and then gliding right over me.

  I stare him straight in the face, unable to believe it as he looks around one last time and then turns to leave.

  “There’s no one here,” he says, closing the door behind him.

  I glance down at my hand, expecting to see the wire ring, but my eyes slide away. I find myself looking at the tiled floor. I try again, by my gaze slips sideways past a vague grayness to the wall. I blink once, then rest my pounding head against the wardrobe.

  Stormwind had promised to make a charm of shadows, something to keep herself safe.

  She kept her word.

  I gather up the charms on my lap and ease my pack around to slip them in, keeping my eyes averted so as not to strain the shadow charm. It’s strange to work by feel, but at last I think I’ve got them all in. Then I crawl over to the bed, taking my pack with me. If my charm uses shadows, then it will work best where they are deepest. Plus, I don’t want to get stepped on. Whether or not people can see me, they’ll know I’m there if they trip over me.

  Thankfully, whoever cleans Stonefall’s rooms swept under the bed recently. Once I’m sure I’ve pulled my bag and robes fully under the bed with me, I let
myself breathe and consider where I am.

  Which is to say, hiding under the bed of a rogue-hunter and high mage. After magically drawing poison from that same mage’s wound in the middle of a school of sorcery. That also happens to be the current home of the High Council of Mages.

  I stare sightlessly at the tightly strung rope underpinnings of the bed. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. How could I have used magic in the middle of the Mekteb? On a mage? One who met me before and now knows that I’ve been hiding a magical talent?

  Whatever he thinks, he offered me an escape. Unless I can find another way out from under the bed, I’ll have to face him in order to get away. At least I can be grateful for small things…. Embracing his desert heritage as he does, Stonefall will have his honor to think of. He owes me his life, and in return I intend to gain his help getting out alive.

  The voices from the connecting room grow louder, and then bodies fill the doorway. Four sets of leather slippers enter, two of them crowded around the third, and the other hurrying ahead to the bed. I’m not surprised that third set is the plainest of them all. Stonefall did not strike me as the type to want metallic embroidery and tassels all over his shoes.

  The ropes holding up the mattress creak as Stonefall eases himself down. I lie perfectly still, listening to the muted conversation. No, he doesn’t require anything. A guard outside the door is fine, but he does not wish to be disturbed. No, for the final time, he didn’t recognize the mage who’d helped him. Nor did he recognize his attacker.

  “At all?” presses one of the mages. Her voice is the calmest of the lot, steady and cool.

  “I have an idea of who sent him,” Stonefall tells her. “But without proof, I would hardly speak of it.”

  “I understand.”

  “A healer should be here within a few moments,” one of the other mages says.

  “I am fine,” Stonefall assures them. “Go back to your work. With the door guarded, I doubt my attacker will return.”

  After a little additional urging, the mages depart. The cool-voiced mage offers one last time to remain in the outer room, but Stonefall refuses. They shut first one door, then the other, their voices growing fainter as they proceed down the hall.

  The room lies quiet. It seems wisest to let Stonefall decide when it’s safe to speak. I use the time to figure out what I will say to him when the time comes. I run through various explanations, but the best ones are the closest to the truth. I need Stonefall to tell me what really happened to Stormwind, and where she is now. There is even the smallest possibility that, as her friend, he will help me reach her. Because, unless she confessed to murder, I will not sit by and let her be sent to Gereza Saliti.

  “You’re under the bed,” Stonefall says.

  I frown. “How did you know?” It’s a little strange to have this conversation around the mattress.

  “I have no trouble focusing on any part of the room, and you wouldn’t have been so foolish as to hide in the wardrobe.”

  The idea never occurred to me, though if it had, I probably would have dismissed it at once. The space is too tight, and a bunch of clothes pressed around an unseen shadow would have made a mage stop and think, no doubt.

  “How did you know about the charm?” I ask.

  “Stormwind made it before we traveled through the portal. I knew it was still in her charm pouch.”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “A look-away charm. It cloaks the wearer in shadows and turns away the eyes of those around them.”

  I run my fingers over the thin wire, the single bead. Look-away. An apt name.

  Faintly, someone knocks.

  “That will be the healer,” Stonefall says. “Stay where you are.”

  I raise my eyes to the mattress and grin. I didn’t really plan to introduce myself, even to a peaceable healer.

  Stonefall calls for the healer to enter. She comes through at once, walking swiftly. Her shoes are a dark blue with pale blue embroidered flowers and leaves curving over the top. She is efficient, quietly and quickly assessing her patient to ensure he is past the point of danger.

  “This is the dart,” Stonefall tells her when she finishes examining him.

  “I’ll have to test it,” she says. I can’t quite place the musical lilt of her accent. “Perhaps we can learn something from the type of poison used. Now, tell me about the spell that saved you.”

  “The, ah, mage called up memories of her life to draw the poison away.”

  “Memories?” the woman echoes, her tone astonished. “She could not have been a healer then.”

  “No,” he agrees. “She then channeled the poison into this.”

  There’s a short silence. The healer, I imagine, is studying the glowstone I used.

  “Unconventional,” she says with a hint of approval, “but it clearly worked.”

  “For which I am grateful.”

  Did he say that for me or her? Or both of us?

  The healer prescribes Stonefall an herbal tisane and a day’s rest and leaves as quietly as she came.

  Stonefall waits until the outer room’s door clicks shut, and then murmurs, “Come out. There’s no one here but me.”

  I slip the look-away off my finger to preserve its magic as long as possible and work my way out. It is exceptionally embarrassing to have to wiggle out from under someone’s bed while they’re peering over the edge at you. I sit up, run one hand through my rumpled hair, and attempt to look dignified as I finish sliding out my legs and clamber to my feet. Master Stonefall rests on his bed, propped against a pile of pillows, his face slightly sallow beneath his natural tan. His features are smooth, the faint hint of crow’s feet by his eyes the only sign that he feels any strain now.

  We eye each other for a long moment.

  “She said you were her servant.” His voice is quiet, measured, like the gentle tread of a hunter approaching his prey. My mind flashes to his wall of weapons, to the array of blades he’d worn when he’d come to fetch Stormwind. He’s a rogue hunter, and I must look a lot like a rogue right now.

  I shrug. “I do help out around the house.”

  A slight line appears between his eyes. Apparently humor will not do me any favors right now.

  “Indeed. That was an impressive casting you made. One of the mages who came sits on the Council. He said he felt it halfway through the building.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. “The High Council?”

  His eyes glint as he dips his chin. “He could tell as well as I that it wasn’t any of our students. Or mages.”

  It doesn’t even occur to me to lie, to try to deny his words. I know enough of magic and the safeguards Stormwind kept in place for me to realize he must be telling the truth. “How?” I ask instead. His answer might at least help me disguise my magic in future.

  “The casting itself was very unusual. To use memories as a basis for a spell is … uncommon.”

  “You saw the memories?” I ask, interrupting him.

  “I believe so,” he says, and continues unperturbed. “Then you channeled the poison, as if it needed to be contained.” He turns over a smooth gray object in his palm. With a start, I recognize my glowstone, its light diminished.

  “I was calling to the poison, and it was coming to me. I needed somewhere to put it. The glowstone was all I had.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Most mages would have burned the poison away.”

  “I don’t know about most mages, but I didn’t want to accidentally burn you.” There is a very, very small possibility that he’ll mistake me for— what? A journeyman? Certainly not a full mage. Which raises the question of why Stormwind was harboring a student in secret. I have no doubt he’ll get to it.

  “Ah.” He studies me for a moment, then continues, “Every apprentice also learns to add just a faint touch, their own signature, to their work. It builds accountability and becomes so habitual that a journeyman of your skill would have included it without realizing it.” He meets my gaze, his
voice disturbingly calm. “Unlike ‘most mages,’ you have no signature.”

  I watch him silently, focusing on keeping my breath even, my expression neutral. I can think of no lie, no half-truth, that would explain all he knows of me. But there’s no one else here, and he offered me refuge, so I have some reason to believe he will not turn me over to the High Council. At least not immediately.

  He sighs. “Come and sit,” he says, gesturing to a chair beside his bed. “For Stormwind’s sake, I would hear what you would tell me, including why you came to my rooms when you did.”

  To take the chair will mean being within easy reach of him, and much farther from the door. But he is a master mage. The distance that remains between us now would hardly make a difference. I walk stiffly to the chair and perch on its edge.

  “Water?” Stonefall gestures to a pitcher and three small ceramic cups on the bedside table.

  I shake my head.

  “You don’t trust me,” he says, eyes crinkling.

  I shrug, glance at the water again. “If you wished to hold me here, you wouldn’t need to drug me. No doubt you have a spell that could bind me to this chair until you released me, or something of the sort.”

  The faint trace of humor leaves his face, and he is a rogue hunter once more, shrewd, dangerous. “Yes.”

  I think of Huda, refusing to share the food of her enemies, and find myself reaching for the pitcher. I pour out two cups, handing one to Stonefall. He takes it, sipping once as if to show me the water is harmless. I don’t need to see it. I take a sip, study the movement of the water in the cup. This conversation, these moments — I will need to navigate them carefully. And I don’t yet understand Stonefall well enough to gauge how to approach him.

  “Why did you seek me out?” he asks, breaking the silence between us.

  I consider my cup, the simple white inside, the turquoise and cobalt flowers flowing around the sides, then look back up at him, echoing his own words. “For Stormwind’s sake.”

  His brow furrows. He’s clearly taken aback. “You came here to learn what happened to her.”