I ARRIVED BACK IN MY ROOM TO FIND TWO MAIDS waiting for me in a state of near panic—they’d been sent an hour before to prepare me for supper with the king. The two of them stuffed me into a borrowed formal dress, used the braids done by the clerics as the basis for a more complex arrangement, then fussed and fretted over my tearstained face, powdering me until I sneezed. I spent the whole time lost in my own mind, haunted by memories of my mother’s face.
I was seated next to Eywin for the meal as usual. An empty chair on his other side vanished before the second course, but I knew it had been meant for Hal.
“Where is he?” I asked Eywin.
He looked at me strangely. It wasn’t as if Hal and I had often been apart in the past weeks.
“He said he was leaving. He didn’t say why or for how long,” Eywin said, seemingly unconcerned.
Worry crept in at the edges of my anger, but I tried not to give in. I’d told him I never wanted to see him again. What did I expect? I hated the way he’d lied. That was what I needed to hang on to. I couldn’t let myself think of how he’d made breakfast for me day after day, how he’d taken care of me in fights, or the way he’d made me laugh in Eywin’s workshop. I couldn’t dwell on how it had felt to trace the angular line of his jaw or to kiss the dimple in his cheek. I needed to stay focused on finding Atheon.
Still, I couldn’t help needing to confirm what Eywin told me. I knocked on the door to Hal’s room after dinner, but there was no answer. And when I tested the knob, the door swung open to reveal a chamber that showed no signs he’d ever been there.
That empty room crushed my heart like a vise.
I told myself I didn’t care.
Every day after that, the battle between Ina and the king felt more inevitable. Though I did not see Ina again, her presence in Corovja was palpable even in the castle. Outsiders poured into Corovja in droves. No one spoke about the challenger in polite company, but rumors spread quickly among the servants. I even caught one of my maids tugging her sleeve down to cover a white ribbon tied around her wrist. Without asking, I knew exactly what that meant and who she supported. She’d gazed at me with panic in her eyes, but I shrugged and said nothing. I had sworn to support the king, but that didn’t mean my choice was right for everyone.
Sleep stopped seeming particularly important. My days were spent in the workshop, and at night I used the king’s token to sneak out a side gate and stalk the streets of Corovja in my shadow cloak. No matter how deeply I probed with my Sight open, I couldn’t find the thread of magic my mother said would lead me to Atheon. I didn’t know what my mother had meant when she said to listen to my heart. If the magic I was following felt like my own, shouldn’t it have been one of the brightest things in my Sight?
The ache of Hal’s absence grew the longer we were apart, showing no signs of healing over. Still, I refused to allow myself look for him. Instead, every time he crossed my mind, I let the feeling burn to galvanize me. I would fight him, Ina, and Nismae that much more fiercely knowing they all deserved it.
But at night, when I put on my cloak of shadows and left the palace to follow random threads of magic in search of Atheon, I remembered him in other ways. In the palace gardens, I remembered how he’d rained petals over us. In the woods outside the castle walls, I remembered the way we’d slept next to each other, his warmth radiating through me. In city cemeteries I remembered running through the streets of Valenko with him, and the spark that had jumped between us the first time we touched. When I returned to my room, I remembered the way he’d kissed me and it felt like coming home.
In those moments of weakness, I would have given anything to have him back.
With less than a moon remaining until the autumn equinox, the king summoned me to the coliseum to exercise my enchantments and strategize for battle. He had never seemed to notice Hal’s absence, and I had never felt compelled to explain.
The coliseum lay on a plateau carved into the side of a sheltered valley in eastern Corovja. A tingle of magic made me shiver as Eywin and I passed beneath the arched entrance. As soon as I was inside, I knew what that feeling had had been—a ward. Apparently the battle was meant to take place in a protected area. Neither the king nor Ina would be able to draw on the magic of anything outside the coliseum. The barrier was so strong, it had even protected the inside of the coliseum from my Sight, so I was surprised to find the king already waiting when we arrived.
He stood in the center of the coliseum, wearing practical armor for fighting. He’d brought four guards—two who stayed close, and two others who patrolled the edges of the ring in case anyone decided to preview what was going on here today. An even greater surprise than the coliseum itself was who he’d chosen to be his champions. Until now, he’d been secretive about his choices, no doubt to keep rumors from spreading.
“Raisa?” I asked Eywin, surprised. She sat on a portable chair heavily laden with cushions. Could she even fight at her age?
“Don’t underestimate her,” he said with a glimmer of something unreadable in his eyes. A warm wind from the south gently tugged strands of hair free from my braid. The sun shone brightly, forcing me to shield my eyes from both the sky and the white sand under my boots. I was grateful for the mild day—my injured arm always felt better when it was warm out.
As we drew closer, I saw that the other champion was Gorval, the king’s steward, a wiry man with a hooked nose, and eyes so dark I could barely see the pupils. He had a pasty face and a balding head, his shoulders perpetually stooped. Something about him had always felt off to me, something to do with his manifest, but since I’d never seen him take animal form, I didn’t know what it was.
“Welcome, Asra, Eywin,” the king greeted us.
Gorval gave us a curt nod, and Raisa stared silently as she always did.
I shuddered beneath her sightless gaze.
“Let’s begin,” the king said. “I’d like to enhance each of us in a way that complements our own abilities.”
“First it may help to give you the Sight again, Your Majesty,” I said. “That way you’ll be able to See with the clarity I have and make your own decisions about which are the most useful.”
The king regarded me with appreciation. “Clever thinking,” he said.
“I have three gifts to offer today,” I said, addressing the broader group. “First is the Sight, which I’ll give the king. Raisa would not need it anyway, as it’s something she already possesses.”
I turned to Gorval. “The second gift is that of healing—to restore injuries. But it can be costly if you don’t have the energy of another living thing to draw on.” Or a dying demigod, as in the case of Leozoar. “The third enchantment allows you to conjure a shield. It can deflect magic or reflect it back at your opponent, but again, it will require my energy or the energy of something else to sustain.”
The king frowned. “Are you sure you can hold all these enchantments together at once, or will Eywin be providing one of them?”
I glanced at Eywin where he stood quietly beside me. We actually hadn’t practiced that. Without Hal, we didn’t have anyone else to test things on. We couldn’t risk word of what we were doing spreading far enough to reach Nismae—and it wouldn’t have to go far to do that.
“I think it’s best if Asra places these enchantments. She is far more powerful than any human attempting to wield the same magic.” Eywin’s long robes fluttered in the wind, the silver frames of his spectacles glimmering in the sunlight.
A little burst of warmth for him swelled up in me. Eywin believed in my strength. He trusted me. At least one person did.
The king smiled. “That is what I’m counting on.”
“Of course, in battle only one of you would be fighting at a time. That would make these enchantments easier to manage.” I drew a vial of my blood from the bag of supplies I’d brought and carefully painted the symbol of the spirit god on the king’s forehead. Because of his geas with them, the spirit god’s symbol seemed most likely to give him strength.
To Raisa, I gave the shield. With so much power of her own, she probably wouldn’t need much assistance from me during the battle, but better defense seemed like a useful thing to provide her if nothing else. When she brought the shield up before her, her manipulation of the energies tugged at my own life force, my own magic. And it was strange to watch the dark river of my magic be unwound and re-formed into the blinding glitter of hers as she crafted a wall of power. She made it look effortless, as easy as breathing. She needed no coaching at all from me once I’d shown her what to do, though her power was so great that my head swam after she was done.
Finally, I used a last dab of blood to trace the symbol of the earth god on Gorval’s hand and bestow the gift of healing.
I didn’t dare test it by drawing my own blood and creating an enchantment loop, so Eywin nicked his wrist. I coached Gorval through using the power, and magic knitted the flesh back together until it looked as if nothing had ever happened.
The king hurled fireballs at Raisa, delighted when they dissipated against her shield. He increased his attack, pelting her with bolts of energy and spikes of ice. Every blow that landed on her shield reverberated through the connection she had with me until my head felt like the inside of a clanging bell. Raisa figured out how to use her shield as a weapon, pushing it away from herself to knock Gorval off his feet. They all marveled at their new powers, but the longer I helped maintain their enchantments, the more my own energy faded. The sun made my skull pound. Or maybe it was lack of sleep and the constant thread of desperate anxiety about not having found the Fatestone. I felt pulled in too many directions as each of them played with the abilities I’d given them. Soon I was on my knees in the sand, the sky spinning above me.
“Asra, are you all right?” Eywin asked.
“I need them to stop now,” I said, my voice coming out weakly. “It’s too much chaos. . . . I can’t manage this many at once.”
Eywin crossed the sand to them, waving his arms to get their attention, but it was too late. Darkness was already closing in.
My sacrifice for his gain.
I woke up hours later back in my room at the castle with Eywin at my bedside. Twilight hovered outside the window in gloomy colors as clouds rolled in from the west.
“How are you feeling, dear?” he asked.
I propped myself up in bed, trying to ignore the pounding in my skull. “What happened?”
“The enchantments broke when you collapsed,” he said, handing me a steaming mug of tea.
The sharp, herbal scent of it sent a pang of longing for Hal through me, and I made it through only a few sips before having to set it aside.
“I suppose this means I can’t enchant all three of them for the battle,” I said.
Eywin shook his head. “It was decided that you’ll reserve your powers for the king. Gorval and Raisa are both very powerful on their own. If they can’t match Ina, at least the king will be prepared to soundly defeat her. He’s defeated his last challengers with very little trouble. This shouldn’t be any different.”
“Right,” I said, a creeping thread of unease winding through me. Could I watch Ina die if that was what it came to?
“As for me, I should be off to the workshop. I have a few more calculations I’d like to run to see if there’s any way to prevent what happened today. You missed the evening meal, but I can have something sent to you if you like,” Eywin offered.
“That’s all right,” I said. Night had almost fallen—it was time for me to go out in search of Atheon again. Now that I knew what the battle might do to me, I wanted more than ever to find the Fatestone. I didn’t want to fight at all. I didn’t want to be anyone’s sacrifice.
After Eywin left, I pulled on my cloak and sneaked out to the city. As I crossed the palace gardens, the night smelled of dry grass and stones still warm from the heat of the day. Insects chirped and night birds called to one another. I picked up their melodies and hummed a few bars of a tune for comfort. My head still ached. Could I even do this tonight?
I took a deep breath. I had to.
After passing through the wall surrounding the castle, I stopped to look up at the stars. All I could think of was where I’d been a year ago. Back then, Ina and I would have been lying side by side somewhere remote, a blanket of wool spread beneath us and a blanket of constellations across the sky. She would have buried her face in my neck and kissed me there until I turned away from the stars and into her arms. Last summer I had two equally functional hands with which to touch her, and innocence that had not yet been broken.
Longing overcame me. I missed the person I used to be and the person I had hoped to become. I missed the version of myself that knew how to love without fear. I missed a time when I hadn’t felt like love was cursed to go hand in hand with betrayal.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember what it felt like to have a heart in one piece.
I couldn’t.
“Psssst,” a voice whispered.
My eyes flew open, and I had my knife drawn in seconds. I was no longer the fearful child I’d been before I left home.
“Asra?” the person said, his voice tentative.
The sound of it almost stopped my heart.
Hal.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my voice clipped.
He sighed. “I told Nismae this was a bad idea. She sent me to get you.” He sounded like a kicked puppy.
“So you did run back to your sister after all,” I said bitterly.
He shook his head. “No. But she knew where to find me, and she knew I’d be able to get to you. It’s not as though she can walk up to the front doors of the castle.”
“What does she want now?” I hadn’t changed my mind since I’d spoken to her and Ina. The questions I truly wanted to ask danced through my mind. Where had he been? Was he all right? The dark circles under his eyes seemed to indicate he’d been sleeping about as well as me, unless they were just cast by the moonlight.
“It’s Ina. The baby is coming and she asked for you,” he said.