Inkmistress

by Audrey Coulthurst

  My heart raced. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t be in two places at once. I couldn’t stop Ina, and I didn’t have time to write our way out of trouble.

  Ina advanced on him, withholding her fire in favor of using brute strength. She rose onto her hind legs and slammed into his chest, knocking him to the ground.

  “Hal!” I yelled. I knew Nismae would want them to capture me alive, but I wasn’t sure Ina felt the same way about Hal.

  The circle of Nightswifts around me tightened.

  I dropped to my knees and clumsily pricked one of the fingers on my right hand with Hal’s knife. Blood began to drip and my magic surged. I opened myself fully to the Sight, barely able to hold back as my magic writhed in its eagerness to pour out and shape the future. I didn’t want to risk writing anything, but I had to somehow use the power of my blood to get us away.

  All around me the life of this remote place pulsed, from the gentle glow of the trees to the swirling depths of the lake. I wished it was a river and that we could jump in and be swept away. I wished the water god might put their arms around us both and carry us west to Corovja, but that was not the way water ran from here. I wished that I belonged to the water god, so that they might treat me as family.

  The cut on my hand throbbed. I was out of time. I stumbled to the edge of the lake and let my magic pour into the water along with my blood.

  I had never done magic this way before, directly from my body.

  Without the precision of ritual.

  Without control.

  I sketched the symbol of the water god beneath the lake’s surface, trying to still my panic and weave into the magic a sense of calm, of promise, of good things—even as the battle heated around me.

  An arrow splashed into the water beside me. The Nightswifts drew closer.

  My hold on the tendrils of magic streaming out of me broke, taking with them the power of wind and water and all my wishes for something—anything—that would get us out of here.

  “What the Hells is that?” one of Nismae’s warriors shouted.

  They backed away from me as the ground began to rumble.

  “Fly!” another said.

  The air filled with beating wings as the warriors took their manifests.

  Even Ina launched into the sky.

  “Asra!” Hal turned to me in surprise, his eyes widening as he caught a glimpse of something behind me. I followed his gaze. The surface of the lake rippled and rose, swelling into a wave. It rushed toward us, building into a wall that loomed high enough to block out the moon hanging full and round over the horizon.

  He ran toward me, and I barely had time to grab him with my uninjured arm before the wave crashed over us. We tumbled under the water in the dark until I had no idea which way led to the surface. A powerful current tugged us down until my lungs felt as though they might burst. How had this been the result of my cry for escape? Just as I began to choke, certain I would drown, we broke through the surface atop another wave, both of us gasping for breath.

  Water surged beneath us, mingling and reshaping until we sat astride a massive horse made of liquid and darkness, its mane bleeding shadows into the night. The magic of my blood held the constructed creature together, giving it form and strength. Hal held me from behind with one arm wrapped around my waist, grabbing a fistful of the horse’s mane in his other hand.

  Ina roared behind us, and a plume of flame scorched over our heads. My heart rose into my throat.

  The horse’s powerful hindquarters gathered, then launched us into the sky. Ina gave chase, spouting fire. Her wings carried her swiftly, and when I cast a fearful glance over my shoulder, it was just in time to see her snap at the water horse’s tail only to come away with a mouthful of empty shadows. We needed to go faster.

  I shut my eyes tightly. All I had to draw on was my own magic—or Ina’s.

  There was no time to be moral.

  I yanked power out of her, hard. With a yelp of surprise she faltered, tumbling several lengths down until she righted herself.

  I used the stolen power to feed the water horse more energy, and we ascended to a dizzying height. Behind us, Ina roared, but she couldn’t keep up. Just before she vanished from sight, she turned back toward Orzai while the horse galloped northwest with great beats of its shadowy wings. Relief washed through me, quickly followed by an ache that spread through my bones until all I could do was hang on.

  “It’s so beautiful, Asra,” Hal murmured, his breath warm on my cheek. I opened my eyes to a dark world painted by the moon. Our altitude was far too great to see any signs of life below, but a river glistened beneath us, a silver ribbon of reflected light. Soon the horse cut to the north and hills began to gently roll beneath us. But the farther away we traveled from the lake, the smaller the horse became. We sank in the sky until its watery hooves skimmed the treetops, and then finally, it set us on the ground and faded away into nothing. Its wings were all that remained, the shadows mingling and whirling around me until I could barely see Hal. They re-formed into a cloak that settled around my shoulders—a cloak made of darkness.

  I fell to the ground, trembling.

  “Asra!” Hal sank down beside me and put his hand on my forehead.

  “I’m fine.” My teeth chattered. Fever had already taken me, as it always did when my magic caused me to age. I’d hoped it wouldn’t happen since I hadn’t written anything, but apparently any use of my blood for powerful magic was going to shorten my life either way.

  “You don’t seem fine,” he said, concerned. “And this cloak . . . what is it?” He took his hand from my forehead and ran his fingers curiously over a corner of the black fabric. “My Sight isn’t anywhere near as strong as yours, but it looks a little like Nismae’s cuffs. I can’t really sense you while you’re wearing it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It somehow formed from the last of the water horse’s magic.”

  “No sense looking a Sight-blocking gift cloak in the mouth, I suppose!”

  I laughed weakly, which quickly devolved into a cough.

  Hal sat back on his heels and thought for a moment. “What can I do to help?”

  Somewhere beyond the shivering and the ache and the warm cloak of shadows closing around me, I was more grateful for him than I had ever been for anyone. He always asked. And listened. It was more than Ina had ever done. More than Miriel, either.

  “Find us somewhere safe to rest,” I said. “Then help me get there.”

  “I can do better than that. Put your arm around me.” He knelt beside me so I could hook my uninjured arm around his neck, then picked me up as though I weighed nothing.

  “I hope we aren’t going far,” I mumbled into his chest. But I couldn’t help closing my eyes and giving in to the security of being carried. I felt safe in his arms and warm in the cloak. If I could just stop shaking, I’d be able to rest.

  I slipped in and out of consciousness until he set me down. He settled me on the ground and tucked my cloak more carefully around me to keep out the wind, then lay down near me. Though the night wasn’t terribly cold, I continued to shiver as the fever tried to burn its way out of my body. I had felt better when Hal was carrying me, but now that comfort was gone.

  “Hal?” I whispered.

  “Hmm?” He reached over and laid a cool hand on my forehead.

  It felt so good. I took a shuddering breath. “Can you keep me warm?”

  “Of course.” He turned on his side and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close.

  I told myself I didn’t feel anything when he did.

  I lied.

  CHAPTER 23

  I WOKE UP TO BIRDS HERALDING THE DAWN WITH their songs. Hal lay pressed close beside me. My fever had broken, but my bones still ached. Even my hand throbbed dully when I finally sat up, though an examination of the wound in my wrist revealed no signs of infection. I thought the cloak of shadows might disappear as the horse had, but when the sun rose over the hills, it remained on my shoulders
. In the light of day it looked like ordinary fabric, if unusually fine for someone as bedraggled as me.

  “Your hair,” Hal said, touching the end of my long braid.

  “It’s a mess, I’m sure,” I said. Riding a flying water horse halfway across the kingdom had probably turned it into an impossible tangle. Hal looked a little windblown himself, but he seemed to have at least had the presence of mind to pull up his hood during our ride.

  “It’s not that. The color is changing.” Confusion was evident in his voice.

  I pulled my braid around to examine it, and sure enough, several new silver hairs wound through the brown. How many years had I lost? Was there even a way to know? As for Hal, the time for anything other than honesty between us was over. He already knew what I was and what I could do.

  “This is what happens when I use my blood magic,” I told him.

  “It gives you fevers and silver hair? I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than my headaches,” he said, looking worried. He didn’t fully understand.

  “It ages me. It steals years from my life. I don’t know how many.” I didn’t bother trying to hide my bitterness. I had no regrets about using my blood when it was the only thing I had in my arsenal, but this had only confirmed what I already knew—I needed to find Atheon and get the Fatestone before I ended up like Veric, or worse.

  Hal stared at me. “Wait . . . you’re telling me that every time you use your gift, it kills you?”

  “That’s about the shape of it.” I looked away and wound my fingers through a tuft of grass, trying to hide my vulnerability from him. If he asked more questions, it might force me to examine a part of myself I couldn’t make peace with, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t want Hal’s pity.

  “But—” he started.

  “Come on.” I cut him off. “Let’s move before the sun is too high and it gets harder to tell which way is north.” Thanks to the water horse, we had a lead on Nismae and Ina that we couldn’t afford to waste. Judging by the lengthening days, summer solstice couldn’t be far away, which meant we had no more than three or four moons before the birth of Ina’s baby. Dragons healed quickly—it might take her even less time to recover from childbirth than most mortals.

  I hurried to clear our meager camp in an attempt to avoid further conversation, but once we were trekking over the hills, Hal couldn’t help himself.

  “Asra . . . shouldn’t we talk about this? Your gift making you age like that? What I wouldn’t give for an antidote to my headaches . . . or even something to make them less incapacitating . . . gods. But the price of your gift—it’s not reasonable.”

  I pulled my cloak more tightly around my shoulders. I didn’t know how to have a conversation about my gift and the relationship it had with my mortality. Most demigods lived for centuries. I wouldn’t—unless I found the Fatestone. I sighed, resigned. He might as well know that there was more to finding Atheon than unearthing family secrets.

  “There is a way to stop it from happening,” I said.

  “How?” he asked. “If there’s something you can do, you have to do it!”

  “The Fatestone,” I said with finality.

  Hal stared at me wide-eyed, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me to a stop. “What?”

  Without further explanation, I pulled Veric’s letter out of my shirt and handed it to him.

  When he looked up after reading, his eyes were filled with shock.

  “This is why you want to try and speak to the shadow god. This is why you asked me about Veric, isn’t it?” he asked.

  I nodded. “He’s the only half sibling of mine that I know of.”

  “‘The blood of Sir Veric can make you a king,’” Hal recited. “That stupid song was true—mortals sought his blood for the same reasons Nismae took yours.” He cursed a few times under his breath.

  “I may not be able to do anything about my blood that’s already been stolen. But if I get the Fatestone, I can use my power without worrying about how many years it takes off my life. I have to find Atheon.” It was the only way to rewrite the past without sacrificing my life. The only way to stop Ina from killing the king. Most important, the only way to bring back the people of the village I had sworn to protect.

  “I should have done a better job defending us at the lake. Maybe I could have called on one of the other children of the wind. Or even my father. If I’d known what it would cost you to get us out of there . . .” He trailed off, anguish in his expression.

  “Ina had you cornered. You did everything you could,” I said. “And compared to what I’ve done, that escape of ours was relatively without consequences. My gift isn’t a thing that happened to me—it’s part of me and always has been. Nothing will change that.”

  Hal handed Veric’s letter back to me with a furrowed brow. I met his gaze with a challenge in my eyes, daring him to feel sorry for me.

  “Thank you for getting us out of there. You were amazing and I’m grateful,” he said.

  An unexpected smile bloomed on my face, and for a moment I forgot the way my bones ached with every step.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. The pain would fade—at least this time. A few strands of silver hair wouldn’t kill me. Not yet. And he knew that too.

  “So, onward to Corovja?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said resolutely.

  We crossed many hills and valleys, ignoring the rumbling in our stomachs, both of us glancing over our shoulders as though we expected Ina or Nismae to swoop in at any second, but the skies stayed clear and the sun grew warmer until we reached a town. It was little more than a few weathered houses alongside a narrow dirt track, far enough off the main trade route that it felt like a safe place to stop for a couple of days to regain our strength before pressing on to Corovja. The people greeted us with trepidation until we clarified that we were just travelers, not bandits or tax collectors—apparently their village had experienced problems with both. The more of the kingdom I saw, the less certain I was of the king’s objectives. Was he as negligent as Ina seemed to think based on his treatment of Amalska’s plea for help? Or was his answer to banditry taxing his people so that there was nothing left for the bandits to steal? And why did he want an amulet that would grant him eternal life?

  Hal traded two days’ work in the fields for the things we needed—some soap, packs, and a few warm meals. The villagers thought the two of us were married, and though it made me blush scarlet the first time someone made the assumption, I found that I didn’t mind. I liked that it meant we shared a bed, chaste but close, his familiarity keeping me grounded. He was there to soothe me when I woke one night from a nightmare, murmuring gentle words to me and brushing the sticky hair out of my eyes. I clung to him like he was the only person who mattered, then tried to forget the intimacy of it in the morning, when daylight reminded me that we were only temporary allies.

  With each day, the aches in my body slowly faded back into something more normal. While Hal spent a few days planting spring crops alongside the villagers, I occupied myself by teaching the children where to find herbs and what could be made with them, replenishing my supplies of the most basic poultices and tinctures that might be useful. The children’s incessant questions kept my mood from souring with the knowledge that Nismae had my satchel, journal, and silver knife—the only three material things that mattered to me. Dread raked its claws down my back every time I thought about what she’d do with them.

  By the time we moved on from the little village, I was glad to be alone with Hal. We fell easily back into a rhythm of chores and routines as we traveled; he hunted dinner while I gathered herbs for seasoning and built our fires or shelter. He fixed breakfast and I cleaned up our campsites to erase all evidence of our passage. Knowing that Nismae had spies everywhere, we stayed clear of the main road even once we found it, exchanging the quicker pace of road travel for the shelter of the ever-taller trees so that it was harder to see us from the sky.

  Deep in the mountains with Corovja
only a day’s walk away, we made camp in a meadow full of swaying grass and bright wildflowers. After our night there, silver light had barely kissed the horizon when I woke to Hal stirring the coals back to life for our breakfast. Waking to the rush of the river brought a certain kind of bliss, the music of water singing me into the day.

  I rolled onto my side and watched Hal from beneath lashes still heavy with sleep, admiring the strength of his arms as he nestled two large stones into the embers of last night’s fire. He readied a rabbit with confident hands, slicing and adding spices to the meat while the rocks warmed. As the rabbit cooked, he tossed horseroot with other greens and herbs. Finally, he arranged the meal on a leaf as large and round as a plate. Our food may have been scavenged from what we had at hand, but his care with it turned it into something truly special. The knowledge that he’d done it for me made a warm feeling spread through me, enough to counteract the morning chill.

  The intoxicating smell of the rabbit had me half sitting up, but before I could call to him, Hal turned away from the fire and strode over to a patch of yellow clover blossoms just opening to greet the sun. He murmured something inaudible over the flowers and then severed a single stem. I lay back down and closed my eyes, turning my face into my cloak to hide the smile threatening to give my wakefulness away. His footfalls hissed through the dewy grass to where I lay, and then he crouched down beside me with the leaf plate in his hands.

  I opened my eyes as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Good morning!” The words were the same as every other time he’d spoken them, but when I looked at the plate he’d brought me, with the single yellow flower alongside my food, I knew that this time it was different.

  Until this moment I hadn’t let myself see the way he had begun to look at me—as though my dirty face on the other side of our campfire in the morning was dawn breaking over the edge of his world.

  I held his gaze. His eyes were so warm, so soft, so dark—as comforting as a starry summer night on the mountain. They were now as familiar as the place I had grown up and thought I would always call home.