“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You remember the drought when we were children? The one that had started to take over the southern part of the kingdom? I ended it,” I said. Sonnenborne’s curse had begun to spread north into our kingdom, creating a terrible drought of both water and magic. My blood had been the only way to stop it.
The memory twisted like a knife, even now.
“But how?” Her blue eyes were wide. “And why you?”
“After the boar king tried and failed to end it with his magic, he made a bargain with the gods. They spoke to me through Miriel, telling me I was the only one of my kind. The last like me had died hundreds of years ago. So I did what they asked. One simple sentence. One kingdom saved.” I fought to keep my voice steady.
Her eyes widened. “But the gods never speak to anyone but their clerics or the king. They don’t interfere in human lives.”
“You’re right, they don’t,” I said. “That’s why they demanded I do it when the king’s magic wasn’t enough. Afterward, I aged at least a year in the span of an hour. I’m not sure exactly how much. For weeks I stumbled around, not feeling at home in my body.” I tried to make her understand the agony. My knee still bore a jagged scar from one of the falls I’d taken, where I’d managed to split myself open enough to bleed buckets onto the forest floor. In that same spot, a cluster of red flowers still bloomed every autumn.
Ina put her hand gently on my arm.
“Eventually, news made its way to Amalska that the drought had indeed ended,” I said bitterly. “A flood had destroyed every village along the river bordering Zumorda and Sonnenborne, killing at least a thousand people on both sides. I begged Miriel to let me rewrite the past, to make things unfold differently. She told me if I tried to change the past, it would kill me. The past is not so malleable as the future.” My voice came out hollow, dark and distant as the painful memory. Miriel had assured me that the death of all those people wasn’t my fault since I had been faithfully serving the gods, but I had still cried myself to sleep every night for moons, especially when I overheard the village elders telling Miriel how little the crown had done to help the survivors. I had been only nine years old.
“So then you never used your power again?” Ina asked, her voice doubtful.
“I refused to. I didn’t trust myself to write something that wouldn’t have dire unforeseen consequences. But then . . . I missed you so much all winter,” I said, my voice careful and soft. “You were always in my mind. Always in my heart. So when you returned and told me about Garen . . . it hurt. I couldn’t bear to watch you marry him, especially if you didn’t feel certain about it. So the night before the bandits raided, I used my blood to write that you would find your manifest the next day. I wanted you to have the chance to choose your own path . . . and I wanted to give you a better chance of choosing me.”
She withdrew her hand. The absence of it felt like a blow, but it was too late to turn back.
“While all I wrote was that you would find your manifest, everything came true, even the intention behind my words. As I wrote, I wished more than anything that you would choose me, not him. Now you never will marry Garen, because he’s gone with all the others. I wasn’t specific—I never meant to hurt anyone—but it was my fault for pushing the future in that direction. I should have known people might die as a result. I’m sorry, Ina. So sorry.” My voice rose in pitch until tears stung the corners of my eyes.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.” Ina’s hands shook as she pulled her cloak tightly around herself and stepped away.
“Yes, I do,” I insisted. “Everything that happened was my fault. I’m the one you should punish. The king is not owed your revenge. I am.” Every word took effort to push past the tightness of my throat. Now that she knew what had happened, even if she couldn’t forgive me, she’d stop her plans of regicide. She had to. I couldn’t lose her when she was all I had left of home.
“He still could have sent help,” she spat. “His negligence started it. You just made it worse.”
The crushing weight of my guilt grew heavier.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me right away.” Her voice trembled, the pain on her face raw as an open wound. “I can’t believe you didn’t ask me before you acted!”
“I know. I should have. I’m so sorry,” I said, and then a sob tore from my throat. My chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.
Ina made no move to comfort me. Her fists clenched and unclenched, her left hand finally coming to rest on her stomach.
“This baby has been robbed of a family and a community because of what you did. My child will never know love—because of you.” Her eyes shone hard as gemstones.
“What?” I blinked at her in confusion.
The pieces of our history snapped into a new position.
Garen. Ina. The betrothal . . .
Ina’s desperation to find her manifest had never been only about the village. It had been about the child she was already carrying before she came up to beg me for help. She would have married Garen, if for no other reason than to give the child a family and a community, because that was what was expected of mothers in Amalska.
She was pregnant, and I had killed her baby’s father.
This was what she meant when she told me I had no idea what I’d done.
I stood, frozen, barely able to keep breathing. All this time I thought I was the one who owed her an apology for something she might never be able to forgive, but her knife had been buried in my back long before I made my mistakes.
She didn’t even seem sorry.
“You loved Garen?” I asked, my voice weak. “You were intimate with him?
“Only once, the night of the midwinter festival. But you know what the truth is, Asra? I never loved either of you.” Never once had her voice sounded so cold or cruel. “You were both supposed to help me become an elder, and instead both of you ruined that for me. If I live a thousand years I will never, ever forgive you.” She turned and ran, then leaped into the air, her transformation almost instant. The white dragon screamed, something between a keen and a roar, then a burst of flame erupted from her jaws, blindingly bright even against the afternoon sky.
I cowered behind the boulders, waiting for the flames to hit, sure she was about to destroy me, but nothing came. I opened my eyes a few breaths later as she vanished into the clouds, carrying the shredded remains of my heart.
CHAPTER 14
I STARED AFTER INA, CHOKING ON MY OWN TEARS AND a rising tide of anger. Never had I thought she could betray me this deeply. It would have broken my heart if she had told me the truth when she first came up from the village, but not like this—not the kind of heartbreak my body couldn’t contain. She had seduced me already knowing Garen’s baby was growing inside her. She had played with me like a toy, like it didn’t matter that she knew she was already destined to have a family with someone else. She had left my cave after that first visit this spring and walked right back into his arms.
The thought made my stomach heave.
She was still going after the king, and now I had nothing left: no way to stop her, no home, no love, no idea who my parents were.
I had no purpose at all.
In the wake of Ina’s flight, the wind picked up again. It was even stronger this time, blinding me with dirt swept from the ground and splattering me with droplets lifted from the stream. I needed to find somewhere to take shelter until I was collected enough to return to Hal and the Tamers. After that, I could figure out what to do next.