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“You told me a lot of things in Inkwell, Solise.” I returned the smile and looked back out on the fields. “A lot of things I should have listened to.”
“I’m thinking of one thing in particular. That a stone can be put to the fire and end up burned…”
“But it will not crumble,” I finished in a whisper, my eyes falling closed.
“That it can be thrown around by the ocean and smoothed by the waves…”
I took a deep breath. “But it will not crumble.”
“And you have not crumbled.”
My eyes found hers, kind and empathetic and so familiar. “No, I haven’t.”
“That’s right.” She gave a knowing nod. “Now maybe the fire in question is different,” she continued, pointing to my hands that hung at my sides, “and maybe the ocean in question is different, too.” I narrowed my eyes but realized what she was saying as I followed her gaze to the fields before us — an ocean of leechthorn. “But the sentiment is the same, Petra. You’re a warrior. You’ve always been a warrior, fire burned and ocean tumbled.”
I let myself smile as a deep breath escaped my lungs. “Fire burned and ocean tumbled.”
My fire flared as my hands flew forward and the field of leechthorn began to burn. It caught instantly, the fire spreading quickly, but not quickly enough. I sent a gust of wind pulsing forward, pushing the fire further into the field, watching as the smoke began to climb into the air. The firestorm swallowed the last of the unburned leechthorn, and the crowd of people behind me erupted into cheers, growing louder as the flames grew higher toward the night sky.
I turned from the fire and walked back toward the city. Without looking back, I found that furious calm and raised a hand. The clouds rolled in quickly, dousing the field with a sheet of rain. It snapped and fizzled as the last ember was extinguished.
I couldn’t promise the people who believed in me that they’d never be victims again, but I could promise that now, one less threat lay in waiting.
Chapter 40
The Myrin brothers rode ahead of me, side by side on their horses, their voices so low I only made out bits of their conversation as we trekked out of Taitha, headed for the border between Cabillia and Widoras.
“…killed Aunt Berna…”
“…never met Kauvras…”
“…known you were alive…”
Every so often one would turn to the other, the look of surprise evident in their profiles as they sorted through the years they’d spent as different people.
My horse brayed, and I leaned forward to give him a scratch on the neck. “I know you have emotions too,” I whispered to him, “but I bet they aren’t this complicated.”
I wondered if Miles and Belin had broached the subject of Kauvras’ words — that Miles’ father was the reason for their mother’s death. That fact sat heavy in my gut along with everything else I’d yet to consider.
But it meant that Belin had told the truth about the murder of his mother. I supposed he’d told the truth about a lot of things. It didn’t do anything to calm my anger though, and my frustration with Belin still raged within me. His voice planted a deep, conflicting ache in my chest.
He was Belin. Not Calomyr. I wanted Calomyr to be real, and I wanted him to come back to me.
Could Calomyr be somewhere within Belin? The dark cloud loomed above me, darkening every thought about him. I fought to keep myself from dwelling on it, but it was hard to ignore the shadow it left. It was even harder to focus on the task in front of me, the reason we were riding for Blindbarrow — to extinguish Castemont’s control of two powerful men.
I burrowed within myself, checking on my power, making sure I could still harness it from nothing. There were the flames, waiting patiently for me to summon them. There was the wind, whipping within my ribcage. There was the storm, somehow foreign and familiar all at once.
“Petra,” Miles called back to me, snapping me out of my trance. “I need you to tell me how you got involved with Castemont.”
? ? ?
Miles listened intently as I recounted the way Castemont creeped his way into my life. He asked questions of Belin as he pieced together what had happened with his Aunt Berna, finding a dizzying amount of parallels between the stories. I was a bystander as Belin told Miles what Castemont had done to their Aunt Berna, to the woman who died thinking she was going to see Tobyas once again.
All the while, I made a pointnotto look at Belin, to not talk directly to him. I could feel his eyes on me constantly, and it was a fight to keep from turning to him. I knew I could find comfort in those eyes, maybe even strength, but I resisted. I had to resist.
The horses grazed as we set up camp in the middle of the plains that spanned the border of Cabillia and Widoras, the sky a deep indigo, stars speckling the expanse. But it was the moon that was most spectacular — so brilliant that it almost looked like the plains were cast in daylight. I stared, unblinking, my eyes going blurry as I pretended I lay by the waterfront in Eserene, pretended none of this ever happened. It was just me and Larka, no kings complicating our lives, no powers hanging overhead. No Castemont.
I turned on my side away from where Belin and Miles lounged beside the fire, curling in on myself as a strong sense of homesickness rushed in. I’d gone from the lowest of the lowborn, stealing to get by, to an Initiate of the Royal Court getting the shit beaten out of me, to the rightful Queen of all of Astran, maybe even beyond. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and stomp my feet and fall in a heap and justwallowin it.
