MIA WOKE TO THE noonday sun. She covered her eyes, blinded by the harsh light. Where was she? The memory of the prior night came rushing back to her, reds and blacks and a pale-yellow boat. She sat up with a jolt.
Gwyrach. She was a Gwyrach.
The word was like an infection crawling through her body. She had read plenty about infection: microscopic animalcules that attacked blood and bone and tissue, killing a person from the inside out. Didn’t magic do the same? There were Gwyrach who killed their victims in showy ways, of course—her father had told her about boils and blisters, rotted flesh, asphyxiated limbs—but they seemed to prefer the invisible kinds of murder, frozen breath and clotted, bloodless hearts.
A ray of hope glimmered in Mia’s mind. She’d always had a hunch that Fojo Kara??o played a key role in her mother’s secret past. Now the map had filled in with more ink, nudging her east. The path will reveal itself to she who seeks it. All you seek will be revealed.
She would find her mother’s murderer in Fojo.
Mia wasn’t running away from something, not anymore. She was running toward it.
“Good morning!” said the prince, startling her. She had forgotten he was there.
Quin sat tall in the stern, looking hale and rested, his shirt gaping at the chest. When they’d swum out to the boat, the water had rinsed him off nicely; there was no longer any dried blood spoiling his smooth, golden skin. His curls were wind-raked, ruffled by the breeze and really quite charming.
She rubbed her eyes. “How long was I sleeping?”
“A good while now. You sleep like the dead.”
She squinted into the forest, keen to get her bearings. The chalky birch and silver plum trees stood in prim, sensible lines, a forest of neatly scrubbed bones. Behind them were the lofty spruce and elms, their luscious needle-gowns growing sparser as the peaks climbed and the air thinned. On the mountaintops, the trees stripped off their garments completely, standing brown and bare in the alpine wind.
They were in Ilwysion, the woods she grew up in. Mia couldn’t help but smile. As a child she had greedily climbed every tree, dug up every rock. It was the perfect place for a girl who wanted to be an explorer, full of natural wonders and opportunities for adventure.
Mia sipped the air. She loved how fresh and clean it was, so different from the cold, stale air inside the Kaer or the foul odors of Killian Village. Ilwysion was a cornucopia of green: rain-worn stones slung with moss and lichen, young saplings sprouting from tree trunks, and ground shrubs laced into a thick, soft carpet, more comfortable than any shoe Mia had ever worn. Woodland creatures scampered into holes—her first friends—and giant white rocks were stacked on top of one another, some in tilting towers, others arranged in mysterious rings. Whimsical seven-year-old Mia liked to imagine the ancient gods playing a parlor game where the forest was the parlor and the boulders were the dice.
Practical seventeen-year-old Mia felt a stab of dread, thinking about the gods. Was she really the demon descendant of a deity? It struck her as increasingly ridiculous, even laughable. But then, if her father had told her a few days ago that she was a Gwyrach, she would have laughed at that, too. The knowledge of who she was—what she was—kept seizing her anew, shock and horror spilling over her like a vat of scalding oil.
Mia plucked at the crusty, sun-dried fabric of her smock, forcing her thoughts down a brighter path. She leaned over the edge of the Sunbeam and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the river. It was even worse than she’d expected. Her auburn curls were frizzed and matted like the nest of a wild bird; the skin greases Angie had so carefully applied were now smudged ruins beneath her eyes. She had slept too long—she was grumpy and disoriented. She splashed water on her face.
“You look lovely,” Quin said. “Really. Stained smock is your color.”
She rolled her eyes. His smile was downright roguish.
“Are you hungry? I caught us some fish.”
“You did what?”
He gestured toward the neat white cubes of meat lined up on one of the Sunbeam’s laths.
“Skalt,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”
She was astonished. “You caught, cleaned, and cut skalt while I was asleep?”
He shrugged. “I have many gifts.”
She was suddenly famished. She reached for a piece of fish, then paused, her hand poised in midair.
“Shouldn’t we boil it first?”
“Absolutely. Skalt is best when broiled, salted, and brushed with melted butter. Since you’re a Gwyrach, I presume you can make air spontaneously combust?”
The prince was certainly in high spirits.
“Microscopic animalcule can be more lethal than poison,” she said. “And there’s a good chance you contaminated the meat when you cut it.”
“I checked for skin lesions. And I cleaned the fish quite well. It may surprise you, but I’ve had some practice.” He patted his stomach, which was lean and surprisingly toned; she caught a peek through the gap in his shirt. “I’ve eaten at least six skalt, and I feel superb.”
He did look quite well: his cheeks were rosy, his green eyes reflecting motes of blue from the river. The brisk mountain air had rejuvenated him. His long body had uncoiled itself, and she thought he looked taller than he had in the castle, sitting comfortably on the transom, his face and hair as gold as the sun.
She ate a chunk of fish, then another. It was salty and wet, slimy raw hunks sliding down her throat, but after several bites, she felt her body gaining vigor.
“Have another,” he said, pleased.
She wondered for a moment if she’d awoken in an alternate world, where Quin was not a pampered prince but a seasoned survivalist.
“Who taught you to fish?”
“I spent hours in the kitchens at Kaer Killian. It was the one place I knew my father would never go.” He cleared his throat. “You slept through all the river towns. At least, I think that was all of them. I don’t really know how many river towns there are.”
“If I had a map, I could show you.” The river towns of Ilwysion were the small villages clustered along the banks of the Natha. Mia knew them well. “There used to be at least twenty, depending on what you consider to be a town. There are far fewer now that the markets have all but disappeared.”
“The river markets,” Quin said wistfully. “I heard the castle cooks speak of them many times. They were apparently quite popular when my aunt was queen.”
She nodded. “They were part market, part social gathering. The sort of thing people looked forward to every week. Or so I’ve heard.”
Her mother had told her all about the markets, lively with traders, musicians playing lutes and psalteries, and mirthful dancers drinking and making merry. Merchants and apothecaries hawked their wares on the shores of the river: fur pelts; earthenware jugs and tankards; sumptuous indigo silks; dolls, combs, and dice carved from bone; glass curios; and all manner of ointments, elixirs, and essences with purported magical properties.
As Mia’s mother explained it, before the steady stream of traders and visitors from the other three kingdoms dried up, they had brought with them many different opinions on magic. Glasddirans were a suspicious lot, but they were also curious. What if magic, in small doses, could smooth the lines out of their skin or add a touch of spice to their bedchambers? Mia herself had been curious about magic before her mother died: that was when her feelings on the subject abruptly changed course.
Mia forced herself back to the present. “My mother said it was her favorite part of the week. The air was rich with bouquets from all four kingdoms—melted cheese burbling and sizzling in terra-cotta pots, chopped cabbage pickled in brine, lime-mango chicken dipped in spicy ginger sauce and served on long silver spears.”