Rising Scorn: A Nature Wizard Adventure (Magic of Nasci Book 6)

by DM Fike

  “That’s where the lesion was,” I said.

  Sipho motioned for us to stand aside. We complied, and she got down on her hands and knees, grinding them into the earth. She closed her eyes in a kind of meditation, taking deep breaths.

  “What’s she doing?” Callum asked me in a hard whisper.

  Sipho and I shushed him at the same time.

  Sipho’s face remained serene for a long breath, but then her lips twitched. Her frown intensified, teeth grinding, as if she fought back against something before flinching away from the spot.

  “Nasci’s lifeblood leaks through here.” She pointed toward gouges in the dirt, eerily similar in shape to the wound on the deer. “Something pierced the ground looking for more.”

  I crouched down and stuck a finger in the dirt up to my knuckle, but all I felt was gritty soil. “I got nothing.”

  Sipho turned sharply to Callum. “But you sense it, don’t you?”

  He nodded meekly, clutching the walking stick to his chest.

  “And you just happened to stumble upon this place?”

  “No, ma’am. The purple owl led me here.”

  “Sova,” I clarified for Sipho. “I ran into her while banishing the mulruka.”

  Sipho kept her focus on Callum. “Do you feel anything else?”

  He gulped. “Traces of that calm power intermingling with the bad mojo. Hovering over all the dead deer and heading out that way.” He pointed to the east.

  Sipho stood up, pondering that direction for some time. Then she turned to me. “He is extremely sensitive to Nasci’s lifeblood, more than I would expect given his lack of training.”

  “Is that good?” Callum asked nervously.

  Sipho didn’t answer his question. “I want to examine the other lesion. Let’s go.”

  As Sipho skirted back into the woods, I placed a hand on Callum’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I rarely get a straight answer on the first try either.”

  He grumbled in response.

  We made the short trek to Noti and found another disturbed lesion with a handful of dirt holes. Sipho noted that this site leaked a lot less than the first one, but the corruption was still there. Callum pointed to where vaettur energy intertwined with Nasci’s lifeblood, leading off into the pines.

  As we stood there under the twilight sky, a light breeze ruffling through the clearing, I asked a grave-looking Sipho, “What’s going through your mind?”

  “Nothing good. We thought we had sealed the lesions, but clearly, trace amounts have been emitting from them this entire time. Enough that it attracted Tabitha’s old kidama and vaetturs.”

  “So, we just seal them up better, right?” I asked.

  “We did everything we could the last time.” She rubbed the patch of earth as if in thought. “I’m not sure what we could do different to heal this egregious wound.”

  Sipho did not easily succumb to fear. I wanted to lift her spirits. “I can at least banish the vaettur killing the black-tailed deer. If Callum can sense it, he can help me track it down.”

  Callum winced at the sound of his name.

  Sipho’s brow furrowed. “If only it were so simple. But we know the vaettur has already absorbed some of Nasci’s lifeblood. And after the mishipeshu and the vitae clefts, you should know what that means.”

  A chill went through me. “It’s probably amped up on Nasci juice.”

  Sipho nodded. “This is well beyond what a forger and any ordinary shepherd can handle. No offense to your unique capabilities, Ina, but we need additional help to ensure no one else gets hurt. Do you know where Guntram is?”

  I failed to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “He’s off doing his own thing, but he promised to meet me at the homestead.” And time was running out before I had to meet up with the Oracle again.

  “Then we best return and wait for him.” She stared blankly out into the forest. “Because I fear that whatever hunted the black-tailed deer could inflict substantial damage if left unchecked for long.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “WHO IN THE name of Nasci are you?”

  The words drifted into my subconscious, melding with my dream. I’d been running through the forest, chasing a red-furred dryant. The fox, I hoped. The figure darted out of the trees into a wide-open field with wild goldenrods and purple asters. As I stepped out into the glaring sunshine, though, more human words reached my ears.

  “You do not belong here!”

  My mushy brain woke up to the filtered dawn that penetrated the room, my limbs heavy and stiff. It took me a second to register that I was sleeping on a scratchy straw mattress in the lodge, and that the voices were coming from the common area down the hall.

  A muffled male said something indecipherable.

  “Of course, Ina brought you here,” Darby’s shrill voice enunciated every word clearly. “But she’s barely a shepherd herself. She has no right to bring strangers into our world.”

  I groaned as I dragged my butt out of bed. In the aftermath of yesterday’s discoveries, I’d completely forgotten about Darby staying at the homestead. Sipho, Callum, and I had returned well after dark. Sipho had sent Kam out to look for Guntram while the rest of us decided to go directly to bed. It had been a thoroughly exhausting day.

  And it looked like I was in for another.

  I heard the front door of the lodge slam open before I left my bedroom. The ground rumbled beneath my feet, clearing the last cobwebs from my brain as I raced down the hall. Darby had already shoved Callum outside and had activated her twitchy earth pith to scare the poor kid as she attempted to herd him offsite. I found her surrounded by dust particles as she cracked the ground beneath his feet, sending him scurrying sideways.

  “Darby!” I yelled at her from the front steps. “Stop it!”

  She spared me only the tiniest glance over her shoulder. “You caused this mess. You stay out of it!”

  I could say I would have preferred to explain the situation, but that would be a lie. I gathered all my pent-up frustration over the last week as I pulled air pith into my palms. At this point, I’d take any excuse to knock some sense into this jackass.

  “ENOUGH!”

  The shout, louder than both of us combined, froze both of us at the spot. Sipho marched toward us, eyes bloodshot. Her normally neat braids flew about her head in a mass like Medusa’s hair.

  She focused her attention on a startled Darby, no longer emitting tiny tremors. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Darby collected herself by straightening her spine. “I found this intruder in the lodge.”

  “Callum is not an intruder,” Sipho said. “He has ken. I’ve allowed him onto the property.”

  Darby grimaced. “Lots of people have ken. We don’t invite them into our world on a whim.”

  “He’s got enough talent to make an excellent forge apprentice. I’m assessing him for that purpose.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t know Sipho had made that decision.

  Neither had Callum apparently. “I’m being evaluated for what now?”

  Darby ignored him. “You don’t have the authority to do that. Only Elif can do that in the Talol Wilds.”

  Elif’s name caused Sipho’s whole body to hunch forward in a predatory way, like her mountain lions before a pounce. “I have every right as master of this forge.”

  Darby’s mouth shot off faster than her sense. “That’s only if…” She abruptly clamped her lips shut.

  “That’s only if what?” Sipho demanded.

  Oh, I was going to love this. “Go ahead, Darbs. Tell her how hard you’ve been working to have this homestead shut down in favor of consolidating all the shepherds to the north.”

  Sipho’s eyes bulged. “What is this?”

  I leaned casually against the lodge doorframe. “Your girl Darby here has been very busy. She’s actively trying to get me bound by exploiting a technicality.”

  Darby whirled on me. “Because you should never have been granted full she
pherd status in the first place.”

  I continued on without acknowledging her. “And Guntram’s pretty sure she’s working with Sertalis to declare the southern homestead unsustainable.”

  I’m pretty sure if Sipho had been a pith-flinging shepherd at that moment, Darby would have burst into flames, there was so much rage in her quiet eyes. “Is this true?” she demanded of the traitor in our midst.

  Darby raised her hands, for once unsure of herself. “It’s not that simple.”

  Sipho took a step toward her, causing Darby to flinch. “How could you do this while aiding me with the harvest yesterday?”

  That didn’t make sense. I thought Darby didn’t give a flip about Sipho’s homestead. She even said so much to me. Why would she help Sipho out on one hand, but try to destroy everything she’d built with the other?

  Darby’s gaze fell so that we could only see her long eyelashes. “I’m not trying to betray anyone,” she whispered. “I just want justice.”

  I snorted. Yeah, right. Justice.

  But Sipho shot me a glare that told me to stay out of it. She then returned her attention to Darby. “I understand grief, child,” she said softly, “but you cannot use it as an excuse to destroy the things that trigger your emotions.”

  Darby pointed a sharp finger at me. “She killed Tabitha.”

  I held my breath.

  Sipho shook her head. “Rafe killed Tabitha. Nasci chose Ina as a shepherd. You know the difference because Tabitha taught you better than that.”

  Darby’s submissiveness vanished. She slid into a sigil stance, legs shoulder length apart and hands ready to draw. “All I know is that Tabitha died and Ina lived. That cannot be right.”

  “It isn’t right,” Sipho agreed. “Good does not always overcome evil. There is a give-and-take to this world, and there are some grievances that we must accept, no matter how difficult they are to bear.”

  The ground rolled beneath our feet as Darby’s eyes narrowed. “This is one thing I can’t just accept.” She pointed at me, causing me to grab my charm necklace reflexively. “She needs to go.”

  I glared at her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Darby’s eyes shone with self-righteous indignation. “We’ll see about that. You’ve got two more days.”

  And on that sour note, she stalked off.

  CHAPTER 18

  POOR CALLUM HAD no idea what he’d just witnessed. I could see a million questions written on his face, but he didn’t dare ask a single one. I decided to throw the kid a bone and got him set up with breakfast at the lodge. It wasn’t much, just bread with jam and tea, but he wolfed it down almost as fast as I could make it. When he asked for more, I showed him how he could do it himself. He marveled only briefly at the self-cooling jam jars in the pantry before digging into a new loaf.

  I stepped outside to talk to a brooding Sipho, who had not moved from the spot where we’d confronted Darby.

  Sipho stared blankly off into the sky as I approached. “Why didn’t you tell me what Darby was doing before?”

  “I didn’t want to disillusion you.”

  “Disillusion me now.”

  I got her up to date on the whole impossible fox dryant task and what Guntram had told me about Sertalis. I had to explain less about the northern augur, since Sipho obviously knew a lot more about him than I did.

  “So, Sertalis is manipulating Darby,” Sipho concluded.

  “Only because Darby wants to be manipulated.”

  “She is young and vulnerable. I cannot blame her for her actions, even if that might affect me adversely.”

  I looked down at my hands. “Then you’re a better person than me. I hate Darby right now.”

  Sipho finally glanced in my direction, her eyes once again gentle. “That is not true, or you would have slandered her earlier.”

  I shrugged.

  Sipho popped her shoulders, twisting her torso as if limbering up for exercise. “I suppose we have a lot of work to do.”

  I pretended to cough. “Maybe you do, but I’m staring down at my last days as a shepherd. No hope to find the fox dryant. No clue what’s running around killing deer in the forest. I have no idea where to go from here.”

  “Then pick a place and start,” Sipho advised.

  “Where?”

  “Wherever feels the most important. Whatever Darby may say about you, I believe that Nasci chose you, like she does all of us. I have faith that things will turn out as they are meant to.”

  A heavy knot formed in my stomach. “Even if that means getting kicked out of the shepherd’s club?”

  “If it comes to that, yes. There are worse things. Tabitha gave her life for this calling, as you know. But I pray it will not be so drastic for you.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “You and me both.”

  * * *

  Sipho took Callum out into the fields after his meal. “If you are going to stay here, you must earn your keep,” she told him.

  “What about teaching me magic?”

  “That will come with time. If you are worthy.”

  When Callum looked to me for advice, I waved him off. “My augur pulled the ol’ training montage on me, too. Good luck!”

  The teen grumbled but set off with a hoe alongside the forger.

  That left me to make my own uncomfortable decision. I walked to a secluded edge of the homestead, away from where the others were working, to an open meadow. Sitting cross-legged in the grass, I discovered my phone received a few bars of signal. I called Vincent.

  He picked up on the second ring. “Is everything okay?” he asked in a rush.

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s eight in the morning. You never call this early.”

  He had me there. “Darby set an early alarm, so I’m up now. I was hoping you could check those weather databases you have access to.” Please find a storm, I added silently.

  “Hold on.” He rustled about for a minute, then came back online. “Nothing today. Rain in a few spots, but no thunderstorms. There might be something past the mountains tomorrow though.”

  I was so screwed, but at least I could make the most of my remaining time. “I guess that decides it then.”

  “Decides what?”

  I explained to him what Sipho, Callum, and I had discovered in the forest. “We need to figure out what kind of vaettur this thing is and fast.”

  Vincent’s voice kicked back up with adrenaline. “You’re not going into the forest alone, are you?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted. “But maybe, if we can’t find Guntram soon.”

  “Ina, you’re killing me here. Please don’t do anything rash.”

  I felt like punching something. “Then what do you want me to do? Just idle away my last few hours as a shepherd?”

  “You still have that thing Sipho extracted from the doe, right? That piece of the monster?”

  I patted my kangaroo pouch, the bit’s sharp edge poking underneath the fabric. “Yeah, so?”

  “Go with what you know. You have a vaettur who stabs things to death and possibly leaves behind sharp fragments of itself. Maybe your magic library can help.”

  I groaned. “Researching is going to be torture with so little to go on.”

  “But it’s possible, right?”

  I slumped backward into the grass, sprawled out so I could see the sky. “Why are you pushing for this?”

  “Because I care about you, Ina,” he said, his tone sending a strange sizzle up my spine. “Just promise me that if you do decide to go looking for this thing in the woods, you’ll take someone else. Anyone. Text me if you have to.”

  I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “Fat lot of good that will do since you can’t see vaetturs.”

  “Just promise me, Ina. You owe me after abandoning me yesterday.”

  I relented, given how worried he sounded. “Fine. I’ll do it only if you promise the same thing. I don’t think anyo
ne, even a forest ranger, should be out near the lesions alone right now. Vaetturs don’t usually attack people, but then again, they don’t usually kill off herds of deer. Who knows what absorbing Nasci’s lifeblood has done to this thing?”

  “Deal. We probably won’t get out there to haul the carcasses off for another few days anyway. We’ve got too much other stuff going on.”

  Something about the way the grass tickled my legs and the blue sky spread out before me made me feel small and vulnerable. The next thought escaped my lips before I could stop it. “Do you think these are my last days as a shepherd?” I hated how pathetic I sounded.

  Vincent’s voice softened. “I don’t know, but no matter what happens, I have your back. Don’t forget that.”

  I wouldn’t. It was one of the few things getting me through this whole ordeal. “Thanks.”

  “No prob. I’ll keep in touch if the weather changes. I’m really hoping a thunderstorm forms soon.”

  “Me too.” Then we hung up.

  I lay out in the field for a while longer, pith flowing through me: the air over my face, the earth underneath my skin, the moisture in the air. I swirled that around to create a small fire in my heart.

  “I can’t have that taken away,” I whispered. Then I brushed the pity party aside.

  I had a job to do.

  CHAPTER 19

  I HAD THE most boring, tedious job in the world.

  I stifled the urge to throw the aging text across the library. If I broke it, I wouldn’t just be able to order another handwritten guide about vaetturs online to replace it. So I gently placed it on the oak table, then slapped my palm across the hard surface.

  And I got a splinter for my troubles.

  I stalked out of the library, heading to the forge for a pair of tweezers. It had been a long afternoon with little to show for it. The library had shelves of books on vaetturs. At least while researching the fox dryant I could narrow down my search, but the little chunk of vaettur didn’t tell me anything. Was it bone? A horn? Shell? Flipping through pages hoping something would match what I had was a little like shifting through clovers trying to find a four-leafed one. You might find one, or you might just want to uproot the whole field with your earth magic.