The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

Lia smiled at her then turned around to face the squire. “You need a new bandage then. Now sit on the stool near the fire. I will get some warm water.”


He obeyed and sat on the stool while she fetched the kettle and some linen cloths to clean the wound. Standing over him, she untied the knot of the bandage and gently peeled it away from the crusty skin. He winced once, but remained still, though his jaw muscles clenched.

“You seemed surprised that it was only a ring. Why?” Lia asked.

“Not surprised really. Perhaps the ring was left with you when you were abandoned here.”

“Then why did you wish to see it?”

“You are too curious, girl.”

“Life is curious, is it not? I like to ask questions. Now give me an answer. Why should it alarm you that I can use the Medium? Not because it is difficult. You were frightened that I could do it.”

“Because there are only two ways to affect the Medium. One way is through inheritance and learning about your potential and letting it work through you. The other way…forces it – controls it. I wanted to be sure you were not doing the latter. Those who were not born into the power wear a medallion to force it to obey.”

“What does the medallion look like? The one you fear?”

“I do not fear it. I am wary of it as I have trained to be. Any way I could describe it to you would not be suitable, but I have seen its likeness. It resembles a braided rope – flat though, like leaves or the sashes on a maypole woven together into a circle.”

“I see – so it does not look like a wedding band. Since you do not fear them, what if I had been wearing one?”

“I would have ripped it from your neck instantly.” He looked up at her, his eyes deadly earnest. “With it, you may have sought to control me.”

She pinched the ring between her fingers and looked at it again. “Then we are both grateful it is only a plain ring. You would not have enjoyed me scratching your face and leaving more scars.”

Sowe coughed over at the table and dropped the mortar with a thud.

Lia pretended she did not care and continued to clean his wound. “You said most second or third year learners cannot summon fire,” she said, dabbing his eyebrow with a soaked piece of linen. “When did you first do it?”

“By my first year,” he answered.

“Why are you so surprised that I can? As I told you, I saw the Aldermaston do it.”

“I could do it because my father had taught me for years before I even went to the abbey in my Hundred to learn. My Family is strong in the Medium. That is important. As with his father and his father before him, he started teaching me as a small boy. I have used the Medium before I became an armiger.”

“What is an armiger?”

He closed his eyes, his mouth twisting into a snarl. “I bear the arms of the knight-maston I serve.”

She sensed his discomfort and wondered at it. “I see. Since I cannot study the tomes, I like using Leering stones when no one is around to practice. They do so many different things.” The scab was softened by the moist linen, but it did not start to bleed again. She sponged his forehead and cleaned away dried blood.

“I have always hated that your kind calls them that. It is not the proper name.”

“It is a very proper name.”

“I doubt you know what the word ‘leering’ means.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “It means a sly or cunning look.” Bending closer, she squinted at the wound and patted it dry with a clean linen. She took the dirty ones and tossed them into the fire and watched them shrivel. “There is a learner here who tells me what words mean. Leering stones are faces carved in rock. Some are carved into suns. Some into the moon at different degrees of fullness. Some seem to be carved out of stars. But they each have faces. And they always stare at us.”

“Then why not name them Staring stones then? The word leering has other meanings.”

“Such as?”

“I do not want to discuss it.”

“Why? Are you too proud to tell me?”

“The connotation – what it represents – is not modest.”

“What do you mean?”

He was getting even more impatient. His eyes blazed with anger. “Words have specific meanings, yet they can have multiple meanings. The word ‘leer’ is to stare at. But it also means to stare at someone in a certain way.”

She looked at him pointedly, raising her eyebrows to ask the question.

His expression clouded over, as if he were nearly frantic with discomfort. His hands clenched in his lap. “I should not be discussing this with you like this.”

She folded another linen into a padded square and pressed it against his wound. With a long length of linen, she secured it to his head and then tied off the knot.

“What a riddle you are,” she said with contempt. “Most learners are. You study the true meaning of words and how to engrave them. How to use them. How to understand them. Yet you keep that knowledge to yourselves and then get proud when someone like me gets it wrong. Do you think that because I am a wretched, I cannot understand difficult things?”