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“Well, human? We’re waiting.” The gargoyles snickered.
I ignored them, letting everything fall away. My fear didn’t matter, or the embarrassment I felt that it was taking so long. None of it did. The only thing that mattered was getting this right. I had no choice. I had to do it, and I had to do itright.
The familiar buzzing sensation crept up my fingers and the hair on my arms stood on end. Sparks crackled in the air at my fingertips. Blue light flashed in front of my vision when I opened my eyes. High above, thunder rumbled in the clear blue sky.
All three gargoyles took a half step back, giving the sky wary glances.
The one holding onto my knife lifted his hands. “Easy,” he said, before tossing the knife into the dirt in front of me. “My mistake.”
I reclaimed Nisang’s knife and tucked it away, but well within reach.
“I am Harif,” said the gargoyle who had tried to take Nisang’s knife. “And you look like you could use some assistance, Maelstrom. You and Uriden’s Claw.”
Uriden’s Claw. That was one of the titles Devonay had read out at Midsummer. I didn’t trust these gargoyles, but I was out of options. Cian and Hellion weren’t getting better, and I was lost beyond hope.
I eyed the gargoyles, giving them a warning look. “If you hurt them—either of them—you’ll wish I had gutted you with this knife.”
Harif inclined his head. “Our village is just over that rise.”
Thegargoylescarriedusthe short distance in half the time it would’ve taken me to cross it on foot. Harif was indeed telling the truth about his village being just over the rise.
I spotted it from the sky, a haphazard collection of yurts and goat pens. Octagonal pits housed groups of young boys and girls, already wrestling in the sand under the supervision of another gargoyle. The children seemed barely old enough to speak, and yet they were letting them punch each other bloody in the ring.
The trio of gargoyles swooped down, landing gently at the edge of the settlement. Harif put me down as soon as we hit the ground and bowed, one hand on his chest. The others carried Cian and Hellion toward a nearby bright red yurt. I moved to go after him, but Harif put a hand on my shoulder, holding me back.
I glared at him. “I go where they go.”
“Let him pass,” called the deep voice of another gargoyle from the doorway of the yurt.
Harif immediately bowed out of the way. “Yes, Warlord.”
The gargoyle warlord strode to the edge of the small wooden fence around her yurt, her face obscured by a shadowy veil. Only her steel-gray eyes peered out from beneath a purple hood. “Welcome, Maelstrom,” she said, bowing slightly to me. As she did, I noted her right hand was missing from the wrist down.
I glanced around. The activity in the village had halted. All the gargoyles turned to me, their heads low. “How do you know I’m called that? It’s only been days since—”
“We have met before in another time, another place. Another life perhaps. Come. Stay and you may see.” She gestured for me to follow her.
The yurt was as brightly colored inside as it was outside, the walls a decadent shade of crimson with coppery threads woven into animal shapes on every panel. I recognized snakes, wolves, and eagles among them. A small metal tin full of sweet-smelling incense hung from a rod in the center of the tent. Large fabric and feather fans hung on the walls in alternating yellows, blues, and whites.
The warlord went straight to a large wood-burning stove in the center of the yurt to feed a log into the fire while the other gargoyles carried Cian and Hellion to a soft bed of pillows. They bowed to the warlord and left without ever uttering a word.
I cleared my throat when they were gone. “You must be the Warlord Chinua. I’m—”
“You are Prince Nevahn, the Maelstrom Mage,” she said.
I hesitated. “You’re mistaken. I’m not a prince.”
“No? What do you think you are, then?”
I shrugged. “I’m just a blacksmith.”
“Some things that are have not yet come to pass. And some things that have gone before also did not come to pass. These are truths both. Denial of one’s possibilities does not make it less true. I am a corpse in the belly of the great serpent. I am alive and well. I am yet to be born. All true.” She turned around, a smile glinting in her eyes, a teacup in hand. “Tea?”
I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it is jasmine with a touch of honey. Afraid I’m all out of ridiculous tea.” She took my hand and made me hold the teacup. “Time is a construct, marked out in subjective chunks. How long is a lifetime? A day? A dream? What is the sound of a creeping cat? How long is the beard of a woman? How deep do the roots of a cliff go and how does one store the sinew of the bear, the spit of a bird, or the breath of a fish? Do you know these things?”
I shifted my weight, frowning at the strange list. “No.”
