But what if it does?
North is cornered by a brace of fallen trees and underbrush. He searches for a way out, fear on his face. Threads of loose magic roll across his palm, pooling into each of his fingers. He coaxes them into brightened knots, but the golem rears, its tallow-claws curled into meaty fists that glow gold where the knuckles strain beneath the shadow of its skin. It swipes at North and he throws an arm out just in time, sparing his face, singeing the sleeve of his coat. I dart in between them, settling my weight with a wave of terror. I’m close enough I feel the heat of the golem, can smell the charred stink of its skin.
North grabs the back of my coat, trying to wrench me out of the way as the golem raises its arm for another blow. The skin on my face starts to stretch from the heat as my fingers shake, spilling matches to the ground. The rain extinguishes the first one I light and I toss it aside with a curse, striking several more. Throwing them all, I twist into North and flatten him to the ground as a flash of heat and light washes over us, hot enough to turn the rain into steam above our heads; bright enough the world becomes a monotonous field of white before darkness bleeds in from the edges, until finally, the forest returns.
The ground smolders around us, turning raindrops golden, like falling stars that melt when they land. We clutch each other and North stares at me, his breathing hard and irregular. “Miss Locke,” he says, “you are terrifying.”
And pious North smiles when he says it.
I grin in return from behind the damp hair plastered across my face. There’s no reason to hold on to him and yet, I don’t let go.
Neither does he.
“Are you all right?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“Yes. You?” I look back, unable to meet his eyes, staring instead at his chin, the divot beneath his mouth, his lips.
Don’t do that, I tell myself. His lips are not part of my plan.
“Yes,” says North. His forehead creases. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Previous life,” I say with a low burr of warning. This is too close again. Only a foot higher and he could touch my face and devour my secrets.
A foot higher and I could uncover his secrets too. For half a heartbeat, I regret my self-restraint, because that skin is all I want in this leftover moment of adrenaline and triumph.
North smiles again, a disarmingly sweet rise of his mouth. “So you’ve been a farmer, a royal servant, and a golem hunter,” he says. “That doesn’t sound like a tragedy, Miss Locke, that sounds like an adventure.” Ash settles in his hair and he softens his grip, fingers sliding down my sleeve, skating past my wrist before settling light on my waist.
“Adventure suits you,” he says quietly.
My smile fades, guilty. Lying suits me even better, because North has no idea that that golem came from Brindaigel—that there are probably more on their way. He could have died tonight, and I didn’t even warn him.
I’m no better than Bryn, manipulating North to get what I want.
I sit up so he’s forced to shift out of the way. The cold creeps in and I hug myself, shivering as fog eddies around us. The smell of burnt meat lingers. “We should go before any more come,” I say.
“Wait.” North rocks onto his knees, grabbing a stick and poking through the ashes. My stomach sinks when he drags something out, a glass vial like the ones Alistair uses, full of shimmering threads. He rolls it across the ground to cool it before hefting it in one hand. The spell that gave the golem life.
“Don’t want to waste it,” he says with a forced smile, pocketing the vial and standing.
“Will Tobek try to trace the spell to its caster?” I force the question light, but inside, I’m terrified. If Tobek traces the spell back to Perrote, not only will Bryn know her father’s nearby, but North can use it to find our kingdom without needing either of us. Why would Corbin sign a treaty if he can simply invade?
But North shakes his head, staring through the trees. “No need. Baedan’s the only one with the luxury of golems anymore.”
The hellborne woman who found me in the forest outside Cortheana—the one who told Kellig to kill me. “Baedan?” I repeat, surprised. “You think it was her?”
He frowns at me. “And you don’t?”
“Our king uses golems as spies,” I say slowly, watching him for any reaction. “Rats and birds, mostly, but never men like this. Maybe it was him.”
“That’s impossible,” he says, scanning the trees again. “You need water for a scrying spell, and golems are made of smoke. They’re brutes, Miss Locke, built to obey simple commands. Corthen used them in the war as a frontline of attack, to force Merlock’s men into wasting magic dismantling them.”
“But—” I frown. Shadow crows are the king’s eyes in the dark places his guards can’t go. “Then why call them spies? Magic soldiers would be more effective.”
“Too effective,” North says with a quirk of his mouth. “No one goes to war against a spy, but they will rise up against an army. Sounds like he’s worried a good transferent would take down his golems and steal his spells.”
“There are no transferents in Brindaigel.”
“Your mother.”
“Was executed for stealing magic,” I say drily. “But not from a golem, from the king’s treasury.”
He looks over, surprised. “Your king stores his magic in a treasury?”
“You store yours in rocks.”
“I’m not a king,” he says. “Storing magic in any exterior vessel is the easiest way to have it stolen. Merlock made that mistake. Your king should have learned from it.”
“Who’s going to steal it? You’ve never even heard of us before and Perrote kills anyone who might be a threat.”
He gives me a strange look as rain slides down his nose and drips from his chin. “If your king is looking for you, he wouldn’t have sent a golem. This—”
Pain ignites around my wrist, bright enough to make me gasp. The binding spell tightens, nearly a solid bridge of black across my skin that hums all the way into my shoulder.
North reaches for me, his hand wavering in the space between us. “Miss Locke?”
Shouted voices rise above the wind, along with the thickening smell of sulfur. Clutching my wrist to my chest, I straighten with a sense of dread. “It’s Bryn,” I say, turning for camp. “Something’s wrong.”
He nods, expression grim. “As I was saying,” he says, “golems are usually the first line of an attack.”
Seventeen