To keep his promise.
Tugging his sleeve back down, North says, “I didn’t save Sava and I went to the marketplace that day only intending to buy that spell from Miss Dossel. I will not apologize for being selfish, Miss Locke. That was the decision I made four years ago and nothing—no one—will change my course. Merlock is all that matters, and I can’t risk saving anyone else while I still have the chance to save Avinea. That doesn’t mean—” He falters, features contorted as he looks at me, full of grief. His palm presses against his chest. “These spells only hide it,” he says “They don’t actually make me heartless.”
“North—”
“Nobody will fight for the half-blood prince of a half-dead kingdom,” he says. “There’s nobody left. Avinea has no money, no military, no defense, no magic, and no hope. I am running out of time and I am running out of options.”
Grabbing his bag by the strap, he yanks it to his hip and removes a half-crushed flower from inside. He drops it to the table without looking at me, and my stomach caves in with a sickening twist.
Abbis. From my mother’s book.
He lowers his voice to a growl. “I spoke to three different men who fought in the war today, and not a single one of them has ever heard of Brindaigel, or King Perrote, or any other kingdom with the kind of magic that produces spells like that. Like ours. Somebody’s lying to you or you’re lying to me. Either way, I need that binding spell and I have never hidden that from you.” Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he straightens. “I told you that you were safe here and I told you that I would help you, but I never told you that I would save you.” His voice softens, turns weak. “I can’t.”
Turning, he slams outside, barking orders for Tobek to hitch the second horse to the wagon. Delayed adrenaline spikes through me and I begin to sway, knees buckling before I hit the floor. Magic presses against my skin, eager for some outlet, some movement. A fight, maybe; dust in the air and blood in my mouth and the fervor of a ring of voices cheering me on.
But there’s no one to spar with, no one to hit or hurt but myself. Frustrated, I will myself to be still but my body refuses. It wants action. Movement. Freedom. More.
It wants North. Every poisoned inch of him.
A shadow fills the doorway and I lift my head, hopeful, but it’s Bryn who approaches, skirts hissing at her heels. She crouches, cradling my face between her hands. No doubt she heard every word between North and I—and all the words—the weakness—that fill my silence now.
But my hands are not on the floor, and I am not defeated yet. There’s a still a chance to win this game, but it requires playing by her rules for just a little longer.
I lower my head in deference. “I’m committed to this,” I whisper.
“Good,” she says, and hugs me tight as a viper.
Nineteen
EVEN WITH THE REASSURANCE OF the magic he bought in Revnik—Tobek looked ill when North told him the cost—North presses the horses as far as possible that night, stopping only when we reach an abandoned trading post on the outskirts of the city. Half a dozen empty storefronts and houses surround a cobblestone square, while a watchtower rises above it all. Scavengers have gutted everything, dismantling all the glass and wood, leaving a majority of the buildings without roofs, windows, or walls.
North casts his ward in the cobblestones themselves as Tobek trails him with a litany of apologies. The spell shimmers like silver cobweb in a frosted sunrise before darkening again, and while North must have excised the infection that broke past his protection spells, his hands are still swollen and cramped. He moves slower than usual.
“Tobek!” he snaps at last. “Please,” he says, much kinder, spiking his hair with one hand. “You’re distracting me.”
Tobek backs away like a wounded dog. North sighs, head bowed for a moment before he resumes his work.
I watch them from the roof of the wagon, the only privacy I could steal from Bryn. She’s inside now, and Tobek glances toward the doorway with a familiar look of longing. A restlessness permeates the camp; we’re all looking for a distraction.
Rocking my head back, I frame the sky between my hands. A single star emerges through the gray ocher haze of the Burn that rages on the other side of the Kettich Mountains. It sparkles in and out of view, taunting me. There’s your wish.
Despite lying flat on my back, I feel imbalanced, dizzy, as though I might fall. The edges of the courtyard tilt in, and for a moment, I feel the familiar claustrophobia of home.
I lower my hands. “Tobek,” I call, and he jerks back, startled, searching the ground before North finally tells him to look up.
“What?” he asks, surprise giving way to a scowl. I am not forgiven for this afternoon.
“Why doesn’t the Burn spread through the mountains? I thought stone was a conductor.”
“It would still have to be transferred.” It’s North who speaks, though he doesn’t look at me. He hasn’t looked at me all afternoon. “And anyone who tries to pull a thread of poisoned magic through a mountain is going to die long before the mountain will.”
So it’s not magic that keeps Brindaigel safe from the plague, it’s the mountains themselves. But how can a man move an entire mountain and not leave a mark for an intuit to find? A spell that size would draw every hellborne in Avinea to our borders, yet according to Bryn, Perrote is not a talented spellcaster.
So who cast the spell that removed Brindaigel from the map?
I prop myself up on my elbows. “North, what’s the biggest spell that’s ever been cast?”
Fingers knot at the back his neck, and at first, I don’t think he’s going to answer. But then he stands, his ward complete. “Thirty years ago, Merlock took an army to defend our Wintirland allies from invasion. Before leaving, he placed a protective spell around Prevast to keep the city safe from outside attack until he returned. Corthen bribed the provosts into unraveling the spell one thread at a time. It took months to dismantle the whole thing.”
“Like the touchstones,” I say.
He stiffens; I’ve hit a nerve. “Yes. The provosts who guarded Merlock’s magic were mostly addicts and thieves. They are the very souls Merlock meant to punish with the Burn and yet, they were on the first ship that fled Avinea.”
“What did Corthen do with it all?” Is it possible that he removed us from the map in exchange for our alliance? Everlasting protection and a possible place to hide from his brother?
“There was a war,” Tobek says pointedly.
“Most of it was lost,” North agrees, not nearly as sarcastic. “What little he didn’t use has been hunted and reclaimed over the last twenty years.”
“Was he a spellcaster?”