“You obviously feed yourself,” I point out.
She stirs more vigorously, making her long black shawl swish and bob around her ankles. “Only if there’s no one to do it for me.”
Well, I guess that settles the question about visitors. Not only do they come, they cook.
Good Gods, I hope she’s not expecting me to produce something edible. The only time I was ever truly alone in my life, I nearly starved.
Damn it! Maybe we should have brought Bellanca after all.
Scratch that. There’s no way an ex-princess can cook any better than I can, even with all that fire.
“You’re not a very hermity hermit, are you?” I ask.
The crone, who’s apparently redefining the word hermit here in Frostfire, ignores that and pulls two wooden bowls from a nook in the wall. She ladles healthy portions of her stew into them both and then plunks them down on the table along with spoons, earthenware cups, and a jug of water. “Sit. Eat.”
I look at Griffin. He shrugs and then sits down and tries a bite. He doesn’t gag or turn into a Satyr or anything, so I do the same.
I groan. It’s hearty and good, and the meat is so tender, it must have been cooking for days.
The witch nods, seeming satisfied. “Tell me about your magic.” She doesn’t sit with us or eat any of the stew herself but rather takes down a small pot from one of the pegs on the kitchen wall. She sets it on the table and then pours a measure of water into it from the deep bucket by the hearth.
I shift a little nervously in my seat, toying with my meal. The extent of my magic isn’t the kind of thing I tell just anybody—or really anyone at all. But we came all this way for a reason. I don’t particularly like the old hag, but she hasn’t threatened us, she can cook, and it would be pretty stupid to back out now.
Reluctance still nearly blocks the words in my throat. “I have ichor in my veins.”
She straightens. A bit. There’s not much she can do about her hunchback state. It’s more that she lifts her head, and her wrinkled lips purse in my direction.
“A child of the Gods. There aren’t many left in Thalyria.” Her eyes pierce me again, and I don’t like it. I’m not sure why. If I could figure out what’s bothering me about her, I could probably move past it. As it is, she makes my knife hand twitch.
I nod. “A few millennia removed, but yes, that’s the basic idea.”
“Whose line?” she asks, her already creased brow furrowing into even deeper grooves.
“Zeus,” I answer.
Without looking away from me, she dips her hand into her pocket and then throws a handful of something leafy and brown into the small pot. She stirs, and an overly sweet, cloying scent mixes with the other kitchen smells, quickly overpowering even the strong aroma of the stew. It takes a concentrated effort not to recoil and wrinkle my nose.
“And?” she presses.
How does she know there’s an and? Grudgingly, I cough up the rest. “Titan. I don’t know her name.”
“Then you are descended from the Origin.” It’s not a question. It’s also the only option for anyone who knows their history, which she clearly does.
I nod. Flowing through my veins, I hold the legacy of the old Gods and the new. The trouble is, I’m broken.
“Ichor makes you strong. Stronger than most. Stronger than even the most powerful Fisan Magoi.” The witch takes a short, thick, dark-brown stick from a cupboard along with a small metal grater and then scrapes some wood shavings into her potion. The ingredient could be anything from willow bark to callitris. I’m good at recognizing magic-based potions. Organic—not so much.
“And your power stems not just from any God, but from the king of Gods himself.”
I look up from the now-bubbling potion, puzzled. Why would that matter? Ichor is ichor. Right?
Whatever the hermit is concocting pops loudly, startling me. Something rises up from the bottom of her potion, foaming, and then the whole thing turns a disgusting yellowish-brown color. Creeping veins of black appear, marbling the surface like growing spider legs. They spread out, oozing toward the edges of the pot.
Repulsed, I nearly shudder. The visual is as awful as the smell.
She picks through some jars on her shelves, pulls out a new ingredient, and then drops a fuzzy white flower onto the surface of the brew. I wish I’d paid more attention to my organics and herbalist tutors. Asteraceae?
The black streaks pounce on it, smothering the flower. The poor bloom shrivels and then sinks, sucked under. The black goes down, too, curling in on itself and then dropping to chase the flower.
I swallow the increasing need to gag. That was unpleasant.
The ever-thickening potion starts to froth and hiss.
“You should have no trouble using all sorts of magic with your heritage,” the witch says. “Endless possibilities race beneath your skin.”
“Endless possibilities?” I ask. “Aren’t we limited to our birthrights? And to oracular gifts?”
“Most are.” She looks at me like I need an intelligence-creating potion rather than a magic-unlocking one. “Are you like most?”
I shrug. Well, when you put it that way…
“What can the Gods do?” she asks.
Warily, I answer, “Pretty much anything.”
She stares at me, partly disgusted, partly expectant. Definitely like I just answered my own question. It’s the kind of look Mother used to give me, and I don’t like it any more now than I did then.
“I’m not a God. Far from it.” If I could do anything I wanted, I would have definitely avoided a few key moments in my past, like near-death by Hydra, for one.
“Shortsighted,” the hermit mutters, going back to her potion. “No vision.”
“Excuse me?” I say, stiffening. What does she know about me? About anything?
She shakes her head, stirring.
“Look. All I really want is the thunderbolt. It comes and goes. I can’t seem to control it, which means I can’t count on it when I need to. That’s what the potion is for, right? To make the magic flow?”
She turns back to me, her power-lit, light-green eyes disturbing. I’m suddenly glad I don’t see myself in a mirror very often. I don’t know how Griffin can stand it.
Looking down, I push a chunk of meat to the back of my bowl. It gets caught in a tangle of orange and white root vegetables. I’m not hungry anymore, and as I meet the witch’s piercing gaze again, the nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach grows.
“Born with the thunderbolt. Only the Origin was gifted so.” She scoffs, and her bitter tone strikes me as excessive. Honestly, I’m not just uncomfortable anymore. I’m confused.
Wariness and true unease unfurl where there was only caution before. “I wasn’t born with it,” I say slowly, definitely not adding that I’m the new Origin of Thalyria. “It’s only manifested recently.”
Her gnarled and spotted hand is steady as she reaches into the deep pocket of her shawl and then pulls out another powder, this time contained in a small vial. She uncorks it and sprinkles the entire contents into her potion pot. The mixture foams again, stinking so much that I grimace.