“And if I turned my taurvi and my akvan southward, to cross the rolling plains of Odalia to enter the kingdom of Kion, would the asha of Ankyo regret what they did to the man I loved?”
The akvan shook the sand and water from its hide and bayed at the rising moon. Its black heart shone, suspended in the breeze, until the girl reached out and plucked it from the air.
“Do they not understand,” the girl asked, her voice so very soft, “that they are nothing more than playthings in the eyes of daeva?”
22
Lady Mykaela was finally allowed out of bed a month after my khahar-de, though restricted to the immediate vicinity of the Willows. Mistress Parmina had banned her from taking up any new requests outside of Ankyo and dismissed all her protests to the contrary.
“You are more important than anything they might ask of you,” she informed her firmly. “The next daeva to require raising will not be for another year. You will stay here and attend to your younger sister until I have deemed you fit enough to work, and that is all there is to say about the matter.”
My sister still tired easily and always excused herself early in the evening, much to my worry. “She will get better,” Polaire told me often, though occasionally I would detect minute changes in her heartsglass as she spoke—a brief spatter of blue, too quick for anyone else to notice.
Lady Mykaela asked me one day to accompany her out into the fields outside of Ankyo, the same ones asha used for training practice. She had also asked Fox to join us. My brother still limped, and his face looked more drawn than I was accustomed to, but he was otherwise unchanged. I felt guilty. My free time had been gradually taken up by the lessons my new sisters had begun to teach me, and I had been seeing less and less of him, taking for granted the bond we shared as an excuse that he was doing well, that the army took his time from me as much as my lessons took me from him.
“I told you once that death would make the better of us, and that holds true for your brother, at least.” Mykaela looked especially lovely today, some of the color returned to her cheeks. Instead of her hua, she wore a flowing dress that was pleated at the knees and tightened around the waist by a long belt made of shiny blue silk. Her hair was unadorned. “Hold out your finger. This may sting a little.”
I had barely held it out when Lady Mykaela moved, and a sliver of a blade sliced through my skin. Small drops of blood trickled down the wound, but I stood stock-still, not moving despite that tiny blush of pain. I had seen the asha do this when she had raised that taurvi nearly two years ago—how long ago that was to me!
“Now, draw the Heartsrune for me again.”
I stared at her, finger dripping red, confusion unmistakable. To draw the Heartsrune was the last thing I expected her to make me do.
She laughed and laid a hand on Fox’s shoulder. Only then did I see the new heartsglass case that hung around his neck. It was simpler than Lady Mykaela’s and mine, bound by a small white chain instead of gold embellishments. “I would have thought it obvious.”
“But he can’t!”
“He can. Not for the usual things we use them for, no. Not to exchange wedding vows with or to delve for illnesses. His heart will be silver marked and identical in every way to yours. No one who knows the magic will mistake him for anything but what he is: a bone witch’s familiar. But even the dead have uses for a heart, even one they’re given instead of the one they were born with. Go ahead.”
Fox said nothing, only waited.
With shaking fingers, I drew the Heartsrune in the space between us. The red flowed from my finger and followed the path my hand took, staining the breeze with every movement, so that when I was done, the symbol stood before me, written in my own blood. I felt that welcome rush of relief and elation as the magic filled me up, infused itself into the rune.
The heartsglass rippled once, twice, took hold. Mist filled the tiny case, swirling into every nook and corner. At the same time, Fox opened his mouth, took a breath, and exhaled noisily, his first since his death. His face no longer looked wan and sallow. Color leeched back into his face, a healthy pink from neck and chin to cheeks and forehead, and it warmed every feature it touched.
“He will be stronger,” Lady Mykaela said. “Faster than when he was living. Tougher. Unkillable by normal means. He will need blooding for every half and full moon, and only your blood will take. He will never be fully alive, but this is the closest to living that the dead can know. It is, naturally, your brother’s choice.”
Fox examined his hand, flexed his fingers. They no longer creaked like old bones.
“I would like to stay for as long as Tea wants me to,” he said. His eyes were brighter, smiling at the corners, like he had found more reasons to laugh at the world.
“Then stay,” I said, and my hands shook. “If I can make you stronger and if I can help you live the life you ought to have had, then stay. For as long as you want and for as long as I can.”
Fox watched me fidget and shiver, and when I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, he opened his arms. I ran into them without another word. For the first time since his death, Fox was warm and smelled of home.
? ? ?
The graveyard lay on the outskirts of the city, a sensible distance for citizens to pay their respects to the dead without intruding on their territory. I looked around, wondering what traces remained of the damage I had caused, but the masons and bricklayers of Ankyo were efficient workers, and the only things out of place were the few new headstones whose polished brightness stood out among the weather-beaten graves like bad notes. But I was uneasy. This cemetery was divided into two fields: one allotted for more recent burials, the other for graves dating back centuries. We stood in the latter.
“Heartsglass were not originally created for courtship nor were they crafted for business,” Mykaela said as we stood among the rows of dead. “In the olden days, asha were employed in battlefields, and so noblemen and others of royal blood took to wearing heartsglass in battle, because even there, they were granted special privileges. If they fared badly in their wars, bone witches from the opposing side could take their heartsglass instead of their lives. Better a prisoner than dead, apparently. Over time, other soldiers protested this treatment and began wearing heartsglass of their own, until the asha could no longer distinguish between commoner and royal.”
“As things should be,” Fox noted.
Lady Mykaela drew another symbol in the air. “This is the Rune of Raising. I’m sure you recognize this.”