That afternoon did not find me with Cartier in a private lesson, because we both forgot that the tailor was coming to measure the ardens for our solstice dresses. But I was never one to be seen lacking a book. I stood in the hall beside Ciri as we waited for our measurements, my fingers turning the delicate, speckled pages of the Maevan lore book Cartier had given me.
“Listen to this, Ciri,” I said, my eyes rushing over the words. “‘The origin of the Stone of Eventide is still largely speculated about, but legends claim that it was found at the bottom of a cave pond in the Killough Mountains. It was retrieved by a Kavanagh maiden, who took the stone to the clan elders. After many deliberations, the Kavanaghs decided to bind their magic to the stone, which slowly led to the digression of their ability to shapeshift into dragons.’”
I was enchanted by the lore, but when Ciri continued to remain quiet, my eyes drifted to her, to see her standing rigid against the wall, her gaze stubbornly fastened to the wainscoting.
“Ciri?”
“I do not care about the Stone of Eventide,” she said. “In fact, I do not wish to hear about it at all. I have enough things to crowd my mind these days.”
I shut the book, my thoughts quickly sifting through my memory of that morning, trying to find the source of her irritation. “What is wrong, Ciri?”
“I cannot believe I never saw it until now,” she continued.
“Saw what?”
At last, she turned her eyes to me. They were cold, the blue of ice ready to crack. “That Master Cartier favors you.”
I stood, frozen by her claim. And then my words rushed forward, incredulous. “He does not! Ciri, honestly . . . Master Cartier does not like anyone.”
“For seven years, I have striven to impress him, to gain his favor, to try and get even a tiny smile out of him.” Her face was exceptionally pale, the envy burning bright and hot within her. “And then you come along. Did you see how he looked at you today? How he wanted to smile at you? It was as if I was not in that room as you both prattled on and on about Maevan queens and magic.”
“Ciri, please,” I whispered, my throat suddenly hoarse as her words sank into me.
“And then he couldn’t help himself,” she continued. “He had to hold you back and tell you that he had chosen your constellation. Why would he tell you that? Why wouldn’t he say the same to me? Oh, that’s right—you’re his pet, his favorite.”
My cheeks warmed as I realized she had been eavesdropping on us. I didn’t know what to say; my own temper was roused, but arguing with her would be as foolish as banging my head against the wall. All the same, she stared at me, daring me to oppose her.
That was when the tailor opened the door and called for Ciri.
I felt the brush of her passing, breathed in the fragrance of lilies that trailed her as she disappeared into the dressing room, the tailor shutting the door.
Slowly, I slid to the floor, my legs feeling like water. I pulled my knees up and held them close to my chest, staring at the wall. My head began to throb, and I wearily rubbed my temples.
I had never thought that Master Cartier favored me. Not once. And it baffled me that Ciri would think such rubbish.
There were certain rules that masters and mistresses followed very closely at Magnalia House. They did not show favoritism to one of the ardens. They evaluated us by a certain rubric at the solstice, far removed from bias and prejudices, although they could provide some level of guidance. They did not bestow a passion cloak if an arden failed to master. And while their modes of teaching ranged from dancing to mock debates, they abided by one cardinal rule: they never touched us.
Master Cartier was nigh perfect. He wouldn’t dare break a rule.
I was thinking of this, my eyes shut, pressing my hands to my flushed cheeks, when I smelled a faint tendril of smoke. I drew it in, deep to my heart . . . the scent of roasting wood, of crushed leaves, of long, tangled grass . . . the metallic aroma of steel being warmed over fire . . . wind carved from bright blue skies free of clouds . . . and opened my eyes. This was not a scent of Magnalia House.
The light seemed to have shifted around me, no longer warm and golden but cool and stormy. And then came a distant voice, the voice of a man.
My lord? My lord, she is here to see you. . . .
I rose shakily to my feet and leaned against the wall, staring down the corridor. It sounded like that voice was coming toward me, the weathered and raspy words of an older man, yet I stood alone in the hall. I briefly wondered if there was a secret door I didn’t know about, if one of the servants was about to emerge from it.
My lord?
My assumption faded when I realized he was speaking in Dairine, Maevana’s tongue.
I was one moment from stepping forward, to search and discover who was speaking, when the dressing room door groaned open.
Ciri emerged, ignoring me as she walked down the hall, and the light returned to summer gold, the cloying scent of burning things evaporated, and the stranger’s beckoning fizzled into dust motes.
“Brienna?” the tailor inquired.
I forced myself to walk across the hall to him, to step inside the dressing room. I carefully set Cartier’s book aside, made sure that I stood still and quiet on the pedestal as the tailor began to take my measurements. But within, my head was pounding, my pulse darting along my wrists and neck as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked pale as bone, my brown eyes sadly bloodshot, my jaw clenched. I looked as if I had just seen a ghost.
Most Valenians would claim that they were not superstitious. But we were. It was why we sprinkled herbs on our thresholds at the start of every season, why weddings only took place on Fridays, why no one ever wanted an odd number of sons. I knew that saints could appear to sinners, but this . . . this almost seemed as if Magnalia House was haunted.
And if it was, then why was I just now hearing voices?
“All right, Mademoiselle, you are free to go.”
I stepped down from the pedestal and reclaimed the book. The tailor undoubtedly thought me rude, but my voice was tangled deep in my chest as I breathed and opened the door. . . .
The corridor was normal, as it should be.
I stepped into it, smelled the yeast of freshly baked bread drift from the kitchens, heard Merei’s music float on the air as a cloud, felt the polished black-and-white floor beneath my slippers. Yes, this was Magnalia.
I shook my head, as if to clear the gossamer that had gathered between my thoughts and perceptions, and glanced down to the book in my hands.
Through the protective sheet of vellum, its maroon cover gleamed bright as a ruby. It no longer looked ancient and worn; it looked freshly bound and printed.
I stopped walking. My hand gently removed the vellum, letting it drift to the floor as I stared at the book. The Book of Hours, its title read with embossed gold. I hadn’t even noticed the title on the cover when Cartier had given it to me, so worn and tattered was the book; it had seemed more like a smudge of stardust before. But now, it was strikingly clear.
What would I tell him when I returned it? That this crafty little Maevan book of lore had turned back time?
No sooner did I think such than did my curiosity sprout as a weed. I flipped open the cover. There was the Maevan publishing emblem, and there was the year of its first print. 1430.
And the fingers on the page—the hands holding this book—were no longer mine.
They were the hands of a man, broad and scarred, with dirt beneath his nails.
Startled, I released the book. But the volume remained in the man’s grip—my grip—and I realized I was anchored to him. As my senses became aware of his body—he was tall, muscular, strong—I felt the light shift around us, gray and troubled, and the smoke trickled down the hall again.
“My lord? My lord, she is here to see you.”
I glanced up; I no longer stood in Magnalia’s hall. This was a corridor built of stone and mortar, with flickering torches sitting in iron brackets along the wall. And there was a man standing patiently before me, the owner of the voice I had first heard.
He was old and bald with a crooked nose. But he bowed to me, dressed in black breeches and a leather jerkin that was worn about the edges. A sword was sheathed at his side.
“Where is she?” The voice that warmed my throat was nothing like my own; it rumbled as tamed thunder, masculine and deep.
I was no longer Brienna of Magnalia House. I was a strange man standing in some distant hall of the past, our bodies and minds linked by this book. And while my heart was wild within my chest, terrified, my soul settled comfortably into his grooves. I watched him, from within, through his eyes and his perceptions.
“In the library, my lord,” the chamberlain said, bowing his bald head once more.
The man I was anchored to shut the book, mulling over what he had just read—what I had just read—as he made his way down the corridor, down the winding stairs to the library. He paused, just before the twin doors, to look once more at The Book of Hours. There were some moments he wanted to believe in such lore, that he wanted to trust magic. But today was no such moment, and he abandoned the book on a chair and pushed open the doors.
The princess stood with her back to him before the arched windows, the light sweetening her dark hair. Of course, she had come to visit him in full armor with her long sword sheathed at her side. As if she had come to wage war against him.
Norah Kavanagh pivoted to look at him. She was the third-born daughter of the queen, and while she was not the most beautiful, he still had a difficult time looking away from her.
“Princess Norah.” He greeted her with a respectful bow. “How can I help you?”
They met in the center of the vast library, where the air grew deep and their voices would not be overheard.
“You know why I have come, my lord,” Norah said.
He stared at her, took in her delicate nose, the sharp point of her chin, the scar down her cheek. She was not lazy as her oldest sister, the heiress. Nor was she wasteful and cruel as her second sister. No, he thought, her eyes so blue they seemed to burn. She was grace and steel, a warrior as well as a diplomat. She was a true reflection of her ancestor, Liadan.
“You have come because you are concerned about the Hilds,” he said. It was always the Hilds, Maevana’s one true nemesis.
Norah glanced away, to the shelves burdened with books and scrolls. “Aye, the Hilds’ raids have provoked my mother to declare war on them.”
“And the princess does not desire to wage war?”
That brought her gaze back to him, her eyes narrowing with displeasure. “I do not desire to see my mother use her magic for evil.”
“But the Hilds are our enemy,” he argued. Only in a private space would he challenge her like this, if only to test how deep her beliefs ran. “Perhaps they deserve to be sundered by battle magic.”
“Magic is never to be used in battle,” she murmured, taking a step closer to him. “You know this; you believe this. You have been spouting such ideology since I can remember. I have grown up beneath your warnings, trained myself to master sword and shield as you suggested. I have prepared myself for the day when I would need to protect my land by my own hand, by my blade, not my magic.”
His heart slowed, feeling the space between them tighten. She was only sixteen years old, and yet who would have thought that the third-born princess, the one who would never inherit the crown, the one many forgot about, would be the only one to heed his words?
“Your mother the queen does not believe such,” he said. “Nor your sisters. They see their magic as an advantage in battle.”
“It is not an advantage,” Norah said, shaking her head. “It is a crutch and a danger. I have read your pamphlets on the matter. I have studied Liadan’s war and have come to my own conclusions. . . .”
She paused. He waited, waited for her to speak the words.
“My mother must not be allowed to enter this war wielding it.”
He turned away from her, her declaration making him drunk on his own ambitions, his own pride. Because of that, he would need to tread this very carefully, lest he turn her against him.
“What do you want me to do, Princess Norah?”
“I want you to advise me. I want you to help me.”
He stopped before the great map nailed to the wall. His gaze traced the island of Maevana, her edges and mountains, her forests and valleys. To the far west was the cold land of Grimhildor. To the south were the kingdoms of Valenia and Bandecca. And an idea seeded in his thoughts, grew roots, and bloomed off his tongue. . . .
“You could tell the queen that Valenia would never come to Maevana’s aid if we wield battle magic.” He turned back around to look at Norah. “In fact, they would most likely sever our alliance.”
“We do not need Valenia’s aid,” the princess replied. There was the haughtiness, which all Kavanaghs seemed to possess.
“Do not dismiss the Valenians so quickly, Princess. They are our strongest ally, our faithful brother. It would be folly to estrange them from us, all because your mother has decided to wage a magical war.”
Norah’s face did not soften; she did not blush or apologize for her arrogance.
He walked back to her, stood so close his chest nearly brushed her breastplate, so close that he could smell the fragrance of mountain air in her hair, and he whispered, “You do realize that your mother could annihilate Grimhildor? Could turn Valenia into her slaves? Could cast Bandecca in eternal darkness? That your mother could shatter the realm into pieces with her battle magic?”
“Yes,” she whispered in return.
It wasn’t fair, he thought. It wasn’t fair that the Kavanaghs were the only magical House, that the other thirteen were decidedly frail, weak, and human. That the slender woman before him could burn his land with a mere snap of her fingers, that she could stop his heart with a mere word. And yet he would have to kindle the fire to burn the land; he would have to draw a blade to end her. He could feel the magic teem about her, as tiny flecks of diamonds in her armor, as stardust in her hair, as moonlight on her skin.
Ah, he had always resented the Kavanaghs.
He thought back to what he had just read in The Book of Hours, about the Stone of Eventide’s ancient origins. Why should he believe such a foolish myth, that the Kavanagh elders would actually shackle their magic to the stone? Either they were foolish, or they were afraid of their own power. So they tempered it.
And he was about to make a great assumption—she would probably laugh when he told her—yet this was what he had wanted for quite some time.
“You must bring me the Stone of Eventide,” he said to her, watched a frown pull along her brow.
“What? Why?”
“Your mother’s magic, your sisters’ magic, your magic, Princess, is contingent that one of you wear the stone over your heart, against your flesh. That if the stone is separated from the Kavanaghs, your magic will go dormant.”
She drew in a deep breath through her teeth, but he could tell this was no surprise to her. So she knew? She knew that her House required wearing the stone in order to wield magic? And yet her clan, the Kavanaghs, had kept that secret. Who had begun it? Liadan herself?
“How do you know this, my lord?”
He smiled down at her; it tasted sour on his lips. “Years and years of reading your lore, Princess. It is an assumption of mine, but I can see in your eyes that I have stumbled onto truth.”
“I cannot take the Stone of Eventide,” Norah all but growled. “It never leaves my mother’s neck.”
“You cannot or will not?” he countered. “You are afraid of feeling the magic dim in your blood, aren’t you?”
Norah glanced to the window, where the storm finally broke, lashing the glass. “My mother would behead me if she caught me taking the stone. If she knew I handed it to . . . to you.”
“You think I could destroy such a thing?” he snapped, his patience waning. “Lest you forget, Princess Norah, that the Stone of Eventide would burn me if I dared to touch it.”
“She will think I have conspired with you,” she went on, paying him no heed.
He sighed, weary of trying to coax her. “I think you need more time to think on this. Return to the castle, Princess. Consider what I have said to you, what I ask of you. If you think you can temper your mother’s magic another way, then we shall consider a different approach. But if not . . . you must bring the stone to me. Or else we will witness your mother’s battle magic sunder the world.”
Norah’s face was carefully guarded; he could not read what she was thinking, what she was feeling.
He watched her leave, the library doors banging behind her.
She would return, he knew it. She would return because there was no other way. She would return because she was afraid of her own magic.
I was hardly aware of him leaving me, of his body dissolving as mist about mine, drifting out the open window. But my eyes cleared, as if I were blinking away the sand of sleep, finding myself standing in Magnalia’s familiar library. My hands still gripped The Book of Hours— it was old and tattered and threadbare again. But this book had once been his, the man I had shifted into. This book had once been in the hall of a Maevan castle one hundred and thirty-six years ago.
I winced, the sunlight deepening the ache in my head. I grappled for the door and shuffled down the hall, up the stairs, clenching my jaw when Sibylle’s sudden laughter rattled my ears.
It felt as if I had just slammed my head upon a rock. I was halfway tempted to feel my skull, to see if there was a crack.
Into my room I went, closing the door behind me.
I should be studying. I should be preparing.
But all I could do was set the book aside and lie down on my bed, closing my eyes and willing the pain in my mind to go away, trying to calm the alarm that began to thrum in my heart.
I retraced what I had seen, over and over, until all I could wonder was why and who. Why had I seen this? And who was this man?
Because I had never discovered his name.