IN THE DAYS AFTER I REFUSED INA AND NISMAE’S offer, my anxiety continued to grow. Now that I knew they were already in Corovja waiting for the right time to strike, it was that much more important to win over the king so he could ask the shadow god about Atheon. I had to find the Fatestone.
I spent most of my time in the following days with Eywin, working on blood enchantments meant to empower and protect the king. I threw myself into the work, knowing that every successful enchantment meant impressing the king enough to get him to speak to the shadow god. Soon my fingers were nicked all over, making me almost grateful that I wasn’t able to use my left hand for much anyway. Still, I fought the scarred tendons in my arm, attempting every day to make a fist, and every day failing.
Hal was my only source of levity: Hal who winked at me across Eywin’s workshop, Hal who often got himself thrown out after distracting me one too many times. When our experiments failed or became frustrating, he sometimes gave silly voices to objects in the workshop and acted out scenes. The forbidden love story he’d conjured up that involved a preserved baby bat in a jar that sat high on a shelf above the door and the lemon balm plant that lived on one of the windowsills was a particular source of amusement. Hal and I didn’t tell Eywin what was going on between us romantically, but we weren’t exactly subtle. Sometimes Eywin looked back and forth between us and smiled, shaking his head. He had to know.
With Eywin’s help I was quickly able to reconstruct most of the notes I had lost to Nismae with my satchel. Combining those with his research meant soon I was doing more powerful enchantments than I had ever mastered with Miriel. A twinge of fear came with the rush of every discovery—I hoped none of the enchantments would be used to harm the innocent. With a smudge of my blood I could now lend the ability to shield, draw magic from other living things, or, most terrifyingly, tear someone apart as I had Leozoar. I even figured out how to replicate the enchantment Nismae had cast to make herself and Ina invisible to my Sight when they’d ambushed us in the meadow.
It was after that last discovery that the king finally came to the workshop to check on our progress one afternoon. Informal armor of leather and dark-red cloth hugged his body closely, showing off an impressive physique. Only one guard accompanied him, but the woman was half a head taller than me, with enough ice in her gaze to freeze a lake with a glance.
“How goes the work?” the king asked us.
I set aside the pain-relieving tinctures I’d been working on, grateful that he hadn’t interrupted us in the midst of more difficult or volatile work. This was my chance to impress him and to ask for the favor I so desperately needed.
“Asra has been a gift from the gods themselves, Your Majesty.” Eywin smiled approvingly in my direction.
Hal watched the king with a warier eye from where he sat on the floor, cleaning vials for us. Though he hadn’t expressed any opposition to what we were doing, he always frowned at the mention or sight of the king.
“May I have a demonstration?” the king asked.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” A rush of anticipation hummed through me. I couldn’t wait to show him what we’d developed.
I beckoned him to the section of the workbench I’d taken over and uncorked a vial of my blood that had been mixed with an anticoagulant and infused with other herbs for stability and preservation.
“Asra, let’s show him the true magnitude of your power,” Eywin said.
The king raised his eyebrows in curiosity.
“First I’ll enchant you, Your Majesty. Then Asra will do the same. You’ll see the difference.”
“We are going to give you my Sight,” I explained.
Eywin performed the enchantment first, carefully tracing the spirit god’s symbol on the back of the king’s hand. I watched Eywin with my Sight as I had many times before. Since he wasn’t a magic user himself and didn’t have the amount of power I did, he relied on what already existed in the blood. He also had the disadvantage of working blind without having my gift of Sight. It was a wonder that mortals had ever figured out how to manipulate magic at all.
“Ah! I’ve seen the world this way before,” the king said, taking in the workshop with new eyes. “Raisa is a daughter of the spirit god and uses this gift often, and I’ve borrowed it from the gods a time or two.”
“Wait until you see what Asra can do,” Eywin said.
It took only a few moments to perform the same enchantment again on the king’s other arm. Soon I was tethered to him with thin strands of magic that drew from my power, far stronger and more solid than those Eywin had cast.
The king opened his eyes, blinking as though in bright light. As soon as his eyes adjusted, he walked to the windows and laughed—a booming sound too large for the room.
“This is astonishing,” he said, awestruck. “It’s so far beyond what I’ve been able to do before, even with the help of the gods. I can See everything.”
I knew what he meant, because I could too, though this was normal for me. The gardens outside glowed with life and magic. I sensed people everywhere in the city, like sparks in the streets. The Grand Temple also had its own energy, power so deep I couldn’t imagine where it ended.
I tore my eyes from the view to glance at Hal. His frown had deepened. When he caught me looking, he turned away to line vials up on a shelf.
The king continued to survey his kingdom, gently tugging at the magic I’d shared with him. How long could we sustain this? It had been easy with Hal because he had a vast well of his own power to draw on, but the king was mortal. And it was easier for him to use me than the gods, since channeling their power took more energy from him. With me in control of the enchantment, he didn’t have to think about it. The Sight was effortless.
Finally, he turned toward me again.
“You’re a wonder, Asra. Your service to the crown will be remembered for years to come. Perhaps centuries.” He smiled warmly.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I murmured. I wasn’t sure being remembered was anything I wanted. Not if it meant being remembered for the same things as Veric—or worse.
“I must reward you for all this astonishing work,” the king said. “Are you finding your accommodations here satisfactory? Is there anything else we can do?”
My heart leaped. This was my chance. “Actually . . . there is. Might you be willing to speak to one of the gods on my behalf?”
A flash of surprise crossed the king’s face. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I only speak to the gods on the high holy days—solstices or equinoxes. Perhaps at the autumn equinox we could revisit the subject?” He smiled again, but this one was a veneer compared to the last. I had asked for too much.
My heart sank as quickly as it had risen. The autumn equinox would be too late. This far north, the first snow of autumn would probably come weeks before then.
The king must have seen my disappointment, because he said, “But in the meantime I would like to extend an invitation to my feast table. You deserve a seat there. And please take this token—it will allow you access to nonpublic areas of the castle, including the Grand Temple. You may go there to pray and offer to the gods if you wish.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I bowed to hide my frown. Getting into the temple myself was better than nothing, but I didn’t feel sure the gods would deign to speak to me.
We dispelled the enchantments while the king chatted amicably with Eywin until the two departed for a council meeting with the king’s bodyguard trailing after them. The moment they exited the room, I sat down and slumped over the workbench and laid my face on my hands, trying to breathe as I sank further and further into a pit of despair. He’d refused to help me. The equinox was too far away.
“What am I going to do?” I asked.
Hal walked up and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Are you sure finding the Fatestone is the only solution?” he asked, his voice soft.
“The only other choice is to continue this.” I gestured around the workshop. “Help the king. Let him kill Ina.”
“But that’s not what you want,” Hal said, a little wariness in his voice.
“I don’t want anyone to die. I’m responsible for enough death. And even if things aren’t quite right with you and Nismae, I don’t want to watch you lose a sister, too.” There was no way the king would let her live if he defeated Ina, and she couldn’t possibly escape Corovja quickly enough to escape him.
“So rewriting the past is truly the only way we can avoid something horrible from coming to pass,” he said.
I turned and gazed up at him, even though it made my heart ache to see the pain and worry in his eyes. I couldn’t promise him that things would be all right, but there was one promise I could make—one I had been thinking about since he’d first noted that changing the past meant we’d lose each other.
“With the Fatestone, there’s no limit to what I can reshape, or the number of words I can use. I can make sure the kingdom stays safe and preserved.” The amount of detail it would take to write all of it out made me nervous, but it seemed like a sacrifice worth making. If I had the Fatestone and didn’t have to worry about aging, I would be able to much more carefully dictate the changes to prevent any other collateral damage. I paused, considering my next words, weighing the promise I was about to make. “When I change the past, I can try to make sure I still meet you.”
“Why would you do that?” he asked. “Not the part about the kingdom. The part about me.” Hope gleamed in his eyes.
I stared back at him, weighing honesty and vulnerability against each other.
“Because I don’t want to lose you.” I caressed his cheek. In some other version of the present, the future ahead of us might be amazing.
“But if you created a past in which Nismae never left the crown and you never left your mountain, I might have been a messenger for the king instead of my sister’s hunting dog. How would we have met then? There would have been no search for the Fatestone or the only living bloodscribe.” He sounded like he had it all mapped out better than I did.
Then I realized what he’d just said.
“Wait. What do you mean, a search for the only living bloodscribe?” I asked.
“I meant the Fatestone. Nismae’s research. Veric.” He fumbled the words.
He was lying to me.
Everything started to snap into place.
His willingness to stay with me when we first met even though we’d been complete strangers.
How easygoing he’d been about leading me back to his sister, who was otherwise incredibly secretive about everything she did.
The knowing look in his eyes when I’d channeled Leozoar’s magic to heal the Tamer huntress.
The way he’d stopped fighting back when Nismae stabbed me.
“You knew what I was all along,” I said, my voice shaking. “Did she send you to look for me? Is that what really happened?”
Hal winced and looked at me with anguish in his eyes. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.
“You didn’t know what?” My anger surged. “Because you had to know she intended to hurt me.” I held up my left hand, demonstrating the feeble way the fingers moved.
“I didn’t know I would fall in love with you,” he said, and hung his head.
For the briefest moment, my heart soared, only to come crashing back to earth seconds later.
I stared at him, reeling. How could he tell me he was in love with me? Was that supposed to make up for leading me to Nismae? Were lies and deception his idea of love? All his actions had ultimately been for his family—something I couldn’t understand because I’d never had one. Nismae could still be behind all this, waiting for a chance to strike as part of a master plan I’d been too naive to see. Maybe that was what they’d been talking about in the meadow.
No one had ever loved me. Not my parents, not Ina, and not Hal.
I had never known love.
“I’m so sorry, Asra. I wanted to tell you, but there was never a good time. . . .” He trailed off, looking as stricken as I felt.
“So what’s your secret mission now? To seduce me so I’ll be distracted from what I’m supposed to do? To kill me before I can get the Fatestone? To let me get it, only to turn it over to Nismae?” The fury made my veins feel like they ran with fire instead of blood. New possibilities of his ulterior motives sprang up like weeds, choking the tender feelings I had for him.
“There’s no secret mission,” he said firmly. “I betrayed Nismae when I set you free. I meant it when I said I would always choose you.” He looked me in the eyes.
“I can’t . . .” I didn’t even know if I could believe what he was saying. How could I, with all the lies between us I’d never known about until now? There were no words. The pain was too great, too complete, too unbearable.
I never should have trusted him in the first place. Stupid, stupid Asra. Always wanting to believe the best of everyone, even Ina. The world was full of monsters, and my isolation had raised me to be blind to them.
“Go back to your sister. Go back where you belong.” I flung the words at him like weapons. I had survived almost entirely on my own for years, and there was no reason I couldn’t do it now.
“But Asra—”
“No.” I grabbed my cloak of shadows from the rack on the far side of the room. When I got the Fatestone, it would be so much easier to change the past knowing I had nothing to salvage from the present.
I wished I’d never met him.
“I’m sorry,” Hal repeated, his voice cracking.
I headed for the door. No footsteps sounded behind me, but a breeze rose to caress my cheek.
“Stop that!” I whirled around and threw a shield up to repel the wind into Hal’s surprised face. “Don’t touch me. Don’t follow me. I never want to see you again, and I will never trust another word you say.” My voice came out so cold I barely recognized it.
The world had made me a monster, too.