City of Keys, page 10
She suppressed a shudder. She didn’t want to look like them. Only to have their power. But one did not come without the other.
“That is what it means to be laoch,” Heshima continued. “A warrior-witch, dedicated to preserving our land against external threats. Your namestone, the serpent’s eye, is the symbol of a guardian. It is a grave responsibility.”
Nikola avoided her gaze by bending to pick up a smooth seastone. They held power, too, though only a tiny spark.
“Why do you hate the nihilim?” she asked.
She’d never mentioned Malach, afraid it would put the witch on her guard, but the question ate away at her.
“The aingeals are our age-old enemies,” Heshima replied. “The Isles of the Blessed were founded to get away from them.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They betrayed Valmitra.” Her lips tightened. “And that will never be forgiven.”
She refused to say more. Nikola put it out of her mind. What did it matter? Old stories meant nothing to her. What she wanted was to hurl someone across a room.
But acolytes didn’t get to learn that.
So she bided her time, taking only the baby steps Heshima permitted and dreaming of the day when she would be given a pouch of her own. At one year, acolytes were granted more liberties. Nikola hoped to earn them sooner. When Jenifry and Bethen asked her to join them in walks, she declined, sitting on her bed to practice the visualizations over and over. Never the things she truly wanted. Just the mundane tasks she’d been assigned.
In her spare time, she studied the serpent’s eye. It had both receptive and projective qualities. The red heart simmered with heat and pulsing blood. It stirred a restlessness in her when her mind touched it. The blue layer was different. Touching that part was like drifting on a twilight sea. Serene and eternal, with the cold stars overhead. But the outer ring of violet puzzled her. Its power was thin and ethereal. Spirit? Certainly not anything to do with the tangible elements.
She couldn’t learn more without tapping the power it held. As Nikola had no wish to die, she kept her explorations superficial. But she wore the stone at all times, hanging from a gold chain just tight enough to nestle in the notch between her collarbones. Every witch did the same. She thought often of what she might do with Heshima’s, if the sister ever took it off.
They practiced day and night, inside the caverns and outside on the beach. Certain stones behaved differently in moonlight, sunlight, starlight or firelight. They were too far south to see the Aurora, but Heshima told her that it, too, changed the resonance of the ley. The setting of a stone affected its energy, as did the type of jewelry. The more Nikola learned about lithomancy, the more she realized how fantastically complex it was. One could study for years and still not grasp half its potential.
That only fueled her hunger. She’d always accepted what the Curia said about sociopaths. Their short attention span and low threshold for frustration. But Nikola found that she could, in fact, apply herself to something with single-minded discipline. It was a revelation. Her progress was swift. Heshima seemed pleased. She gave Nikola her first bracelet. No stone, but still she wore it with pride.
“All magic must be in harmony with nature,” Heshima said to her, for the thousandth time, as Nikola wove the illusion of a warship floating just beyond the breakers.
It was a complex illusion and she felt rather pleased with it.
“That is not natural,” she pointed out, frowning as Heshima dissipated it with a wave of her right hand.
The witch was right-side dominant and it held all her projective power. The only weakness Nikola had discovered thus far.
“Illusions are simply lightwaves, woven and bent to reflect in a certain way to the eye. Nothing more.”
“Divination?” Nikola persisted.
They’d hadn’t even gotten to that yet.
“Changes nothing tangible,” Heshima replied. “It is a simply of reading of what might be. Not always what will be.”
“So what kind of magic is in disharmony with nature?”
The witch blew out a breath. “There is a thing called forcing. Making something happen that should be impossible, under any circumstance. Few can do it.” A sharp look. “But you might be one such. So consider your actions carefully. Even if a thing is very unlikely—” Light flared from Heshima’s closed fist. Nikola bellowed in outrage as a sudden gale tore her dress over her head and sent it flying down the beach “—it must always be possible.”
Nikola chased after her dress. She yanked the sandy garment back on a scowl.
“You are too fond of object lessons, Heshima,” she said.
“But you will not forget this particular one, I think. Now, make me a swan. A black swan with a golden beak.”
Nikola took the proffered stones with ill humor. She made the swan, and then its mate, giving them both sapphires for eyes.
“Pretty,” Heshima remarked. “Now make them fly.”
Nikola learned to judge how much ley a stone held. Then to practice drawing only a specific amount. A very few stones, Heshima said, could be recharged, though it required a witch’s own energy and immersion in fresh running water.
Slowly, her determination to punish them all faded into the background and the thirst to learn took center stage. The sisters treated her the same as any other acolyte. They allowed her to take walks down the beach when she wished to be alone, but if it was company she sought, there was always someone to sit with and share a cup of tea, as she used to do with the other chars. For the first time, Nikola felt a sense of belonging.
That all changed the day she overheard Paarjini talking about Malach.
Chapter Ten
Nikola had just finished scrubbing the pots in the kitchen and was making her way back to her room when she heard voices. The caverns carried sound in strange ways. Sometimes one could hear what was spoken in a distant chamber quite clearly. But these voices were faint. If it hadn’t been so late, and so quiet, she would not have heard them at all.
A burst of laughter. Then more soft talk. She recognized Heshima’s husky baritone and Paarjini’s clipped lilt. Nikola hoped they might speak of her and when she would be permitted to practice on her own. After a quick glance around, she crept closer. None of the chambers had doors. She paused outside one of the comfortable nooks where the sisters often gathered.
“Do you think it’s wise to get involved with the other minder?” Heshima asked.
“It’s just a bit o’ fun.” A soft chuckle. “If ye saw him, you’d understand. Finlo’s easy on the eyes. And discreet. What more could a woman ask?”
Nikola grinned. So the witches weren’t above a dalliance. But Heshima’s next words trapped the breath in her throat.
“What of the aingeal?”
“I told ye he was cunning.” Paarjini sounded satisfied. “He figured those kids out right quick.”
A snort of disbelief from Heshima. “From what I saw, the man was spectacularly ill-suited for a creche. Violent and short-tempered.”
“Yer not wrong. But that’s the thing about him. He’ll do whatever he has to. If it’s breaking rocks, he’ll do that. If it’s wiping a snotty nose, he’ll do that, too. He doesn’t care. Just give him a scrap o’ hope and he won’t quit.”
“But it was the aingeals’ pride that—”
“Was, sister. He might be descended from their line, but it’s been nigh on a thousand years now. I’m not saying they don’t all carry the traits. The man does have pride. And arrogance. But his neck is not so stiff as Gavriel and the rest. He will bend it if he must.”
Nikola shook her head. It couldn’t be. They’d caught another nihilim. Though by all the Saints and Martyrs, the description did fit Malach to a T.
“In truth, I think it’s doing him good. Just as the Mahadeva predicted. He did not seem half as angry when I saw him yesterday.” A laugh. “I suspect he is too tired to be angry.”
Heshima grunted. “Are you sure you did not divine this outcome?”
“Pah. You know how poor I am at scrying. No, I merely see Malach for what he is. A survivor—above all else. And that’s why I’m about to win our little wager.”
The women continued to talk, but Nikola heard little after Paarjini spoke his name.
Malach was alive.
And . . . minding children?
Her head spun. The sweven still haunted her dreams. It was so vividly real. But the Mahadeva had tricked her. Let her mourn a man who was not dead at all.
Bitch!
Or was it bitches?
The reason was obvious. She did not want Nikola looking for him. Had they told Malach the same about her?
Nikola forced herself to listen again, hoping they’d let something useful slip. But if anyone mentioned the name of a village or city, she’d missed it. The talk had turned to larger matters.
“. . . and now the remnants of the aingeals tear each other apart,” Paarjini said. “We must be ready for them.”
“It was inevitable.”
“Yes, but it is worse than we imagined. The Black Sun rises again, stronger than ever. Of course I respect the Mahadeva’s decision. Yet we cannot sit here doin’ nothing forever—”
The voices drew closer. The women were walking toward the door! Nikola sprinted down the tunnel, rounding the curve just in time. Yet she couldn’t help pausing to catch the end of the conversation.
“—must do as the stones command,” Heshima said. “They are the will of Valmitra.”
“I know. Yet I worry, sister. Can’t you feel it? A storm gathers on the continent. In time, it will spill over—”
The voices faded away in the opposite direction. Nikola returned to her chamber and sat on the bed. All her plans crumbled to ash. Heshima had not, in fact, killed him. Malach was here, somewhere on this island. But did they have any future together? She wasn’t the same person she had been. She had purpose now. Her own purpose.
During her captivity at the Arx, Nikola had imagined him dangling in chains from the wall of a witchy dungeon, or flinching under the lash as a galley slave. But for some unfathomable reason, the Mahadeva had made Malach a babysitter.
Nikola almost wished she had not eavesdropped, but there was no going back now. The only question was what she would do with the knowledge.
If she could just see him, once, that would help her decide.
But how?
Nikola greeted Heshima with a smile the next day. “When will I learn divination?” she asked.
The witch studied her. “Not all are suited for it. That is why you were given to me instead of Cairness. It requires a very sensitive inner eye. That is not your strength, Nikola.”
“What is my strength?”
Heshima laughed. “You don’t know yet? Projective power, of course. Your illusions are passable. But you have the fire for conjuration.”
“Still,” she said stubbornly. “I wish to learn the theory of divination, at least. To round out my knowledge.”
Heshima arched a brow. “All right. There are several kinds. The tossing of stones in a pattern. The Mahadeva has a strong talent for this. Then the choosing of stones at random from a pouch. Lastly, scrying.”
“What’s that?”
“Staring into a reflective surface. If you have the talent, you might see images. But we will not bother with that one. I cannot do it at all and could teach you nothing.”
“What of the first two?”
“The key element is chance. You let the magic guide the stones. If it wishes to tell you something, it will.” She smiled. “That’s the brief version. The witches who have mastered it fully could lecture you for days.”
“Do any stones work?”
“Again, very briefly, yes. The properties matter less than the choice.”
“Can I try?”
“If you wish. There is not much danger in it. We will start with something simple.” Heshima eyed the sky. It was overcast, with high, drifting clouds. Some were tinged gray at the edges. “Tell me if it will rain in the next hour.”
“What do I do?”
The witch shrugged. “Choose five stones from my pouch. Then ask the ley and tell me if you see anything.”
Nikola shook out five stones at random. Agate, smoky quartz, red jasper, topaz and citrine. They were a mix of colors and textures. Nikola laid them out on the sand, then sat cross-legged, forming the question in her mind. She had practiced visualization techniques so many times, the quiet focus came instantly.
Will it rain today?
She felt the push and pull of the opposing energies. The reservoirs of ley. Many other qualities, overlapping in a symphony of meaning. The smoky quartz made her think of thunderclouds, but the citrine and amber were warm and dry. She tamped down impatience.
Will it rain today?
There was no sudden vision. She tried stirring the ley, but it only made her nauseous. Nikola opened her eyes. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Keep trying,” Heshima said. “Do not seek the answer. Let it come to you.”
Nikola nodded. She unclenched her jaw and cleared her mind. Tried to drift without actually doing anything. Long minutes passed. She tried focusing on each of the stones in turn. The citrine drew her the most.
“No,” Nikola said decisively. “It will not—” She cut off as a drop of rain struck her face.
Heshima laughed. She didn’t seem surprised. “It is a gift of intuition that requires surrender. You are too strong-willed.”
Nikola frowned.
“That is not a bad thing.” Her tone turned wry. “You must accept that while you have great talent, it isn’t limitless. Focus on what you can do.”
Nikola nodded, but she meant to practice in her spare time. If she didn’t use the ley, they couldn’t catch her at it. And she could use any old stones—even ones cast up by the sea.
“Let us practice summoning,” Heshima said, setting two black pebbles in the sand ten meters away. “Draw the stones to your hand.”
Nikola used her right to grasp a piece of lapis and weave a thin current of air. The pebbles trembled and jumped, then rocketed into her right palm.
“Give them to me,” Heshima said.
She walked away and set them down again at double the distance. Nikola still had a little power left in the lapis. She couldn’t see the pebbles, but she sensed their unique qualities like tiny beacons in the sand.
“Can it be done at any distance?” she called out.
“In theory,” Heshima replied. “Though the farthest I have ever seen is two leagues.”
Summoning fell under conjuration, which she had no trouble with. Nikola thought she probably could throw someone across a room if she wanted to. But that required one of the greater stones—diamond, ruby, sapphire or emerald—and it would be months before Heshima gave her any of those.
After supper, Nikola set off on a long walk down the beach, gathering smooth stones at random. When the cavern had fallen far behind, she sat down next to a boulder and let the stones tumble into the lap of her dress. She laid her hands on them, feeling the slight resonance of ley within.
Where is he? Show me a picture.
The wind sighed. The waves curled and smashed against the rocks. She tried to relax and let the answer come.
Nothing.
She swept up the stones and hurled them down the beach. The answer was right there, if she could only grasp it. Heshima said divination required surrender, but clearly that didn’t work. Perhaps the witch had lied. Of course she had! Heshima wouldn’t want Nikola learning the truth. In a blind fury, she focused her will to a white-hot pinprick, fueling it with single-minded, all-consuming need.
Where is Malach? Where?! SHOW ME.
The ground lurched. A sickening sensation of vertigo. A clap of bone-rattling thunder. Her ears popped. Then she was tumbling through the air. Nikola landed on her back in a shower of sand. The afterimage of a jagged bolt shimmered in the air above her.
“Saints,” she muttered, raising a trembling hand to her eyes.
Her body felt bruised but not burnt. Had she called down lightning? If so, she should be dead.
Rain pattered against her face. Insects chirped in the undergrowth. There was no sound of waves. Where was the sea?
She’d felt a surge of lithomantic power. The sudden weaving together of opposing forces. But how? She didn’t have any stones—
Nikola’s eyes went wide. A hand shot to the serpent’s eye at her throat.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, shit.”
The gemstone felt warm against her skin. It still brimmed with ley. Nikola gripped it tight, fingers trembling. Perhaps she’d only used a little bit. But for what?
She brushed sand from her face and sat up. The afterimage had faded, but sparkling motes still danced in the corners of her vision. She was in a small wood. Several bucketloads of beach had come along with her. Some of it was fused into branching tubes that resembled coral. Or bolts of lightning. She picked up one. It was brittle, flaking apart in her hand.
“What did I do?” she whispered in a panic.
A round house peeked through the trees. Lights shone in the windows. Nikola’s breath caught as the door opened. She heard voices, a child crying, and then Malach stepped outside. His hair had grown long enough to tuck behind his ears. He strode to the middle of the yard, scanning the dirt. Then he smiled and jogged over to the swings. He picked something up—a stuffed snake?—and strode back to the door. A sniffling child stood there. He hoisted her to one hip and gave her the snake. The child clutched the toy with one hand, throwing the other arm around his neck. The door closed.
Nikola pressed a hand to her mouth, covering a burst of shocked laughter. Tears stood in her eyes.
Just walk up to the door and knock.
Yet she couldn’t move.
He’d ask where his own child was. And how she found him.
Nikola tore her eyes from the house. She gripped her namestone. Focused her will to a single urgent command.
