Sawyer glanced between them. “What happened out there?” Sol tried not to hurl again as another wave of nausea rolled over her.
“They struck a nerve.” Cas shrugged. “He was uselessanyway.”
“That’s not the point! He was alive. He had a family, Cas!” Nina shoved Kahaida into Lilah, the two mares squaring off like their masters. “You cannot just prance around and use violence whenever someone pisses you off.”
“Like you didn’t slam Finigan and the other fool to the ground with your magic?” Cas's voice dropped, laced with agitation.
“Gods, shut up, both of you!” Sawyer stepped between them, pushing the mares away from each other while banging and yells sounded beyond the wall. “I’m usually the one who needs an intervention. Disappointed in you both.” Sawyer sent a spark of fire their way, then walked back to Sol.
“Come on, cousin. Let Cassie cool off.”
Sol climbed onto Fey behind Sawyer, hoping after this mess she never had to ride another horse again. They took off down the road, and as Sol finally gathered her head and stomach, awe spread through her at the sight before them.
The dirt road stretched directly into what seemed like a town made of stone. Houses and stores and courtyards spread out on either side of them, all made of the grayest yet loveliest rock. As they continued down the path, people of all ages and origins crowded around their windows. They dressed in a similar fashion to what she used to wear at the Hound, beige skirts or pants and ivory shirts. The women even donned bandanas to keep their long hair from their faces.
Like her mother used to wear.
A small smile pulled at her lips, for the wary onlookers, and at the connection she saw between this foreign place and her mother. It made it seem…not as scary.
Even as they continued, she watched the shops and their small flower gardens at their doorsteps, the familiar scents of mint and thyme making her sigh with comfort.
“These are the human sections,” Nina whispered from beside her, all her earlier anger seeming to have disappeared. She kept a steady pace next to Fey, even as Kahaida stopped every other block to sniff the gardens and try to take a bite of nearbypeople. “Only those without magic but with connections to the Wielder bloodlines reside here,” she finished.
“It’s also a cease fire zone,” Sawyer added. “Thanks to Queen Irene, no one may start conflicts here. Well, not legally.”
Maybe Cas should stay here then, Sol thought. She didn’t dare glance behind them at where he trailed silently.
The townsfolk seemed somewhere between terrified and cautiously curious. Sol met a few of their gazes. Some smiled shyly while others grimaced.
“Up there,” Nina waved her hand forward and Sol’s breath caught, “is the castle.”
No number of stories could have captured the grandiose beauty of it. The building before her was a breathtaking work of art.
It was also carved of stone with all sorts of dark grays and blues reflecting the hazy sky. Stone cylinders erupted from the ground holding delicate arches. Mezzanines extended every few spaces from the lateral walls, some occupied by silhouettes. The upper reaches of the castle bent into perfect cones, then flattened out into what looked like a vast flat rooftop. What was on that rooftop made Sol swallow a lump in her throat.
Fire. Water. Stone. Earth. All flying around and clashing with lethal precision. Spears of the elements shot from left to right in a dance.
Tracing her line of vision, Nina smiled. “It seems the students are training,” she said. “They’re learning different ways to manipulate their magic.”
Sol hadn’t realized the feeling of incompleteness she carried until it lifted as she watched magic dance. That nagging sense she was meant to be doing something other than living a blissful silence in Yavenharrow had been perpetual, but she always just figured it meant she wanted something a little bigger. Like going to the Scholar Towers and finding something she had a fire for doing, like her Aunt Lora with healing.
But she could never fully identify the source of the feeling, left only with awkward longing and no instructions of how to fulfill it.
It killed her slightly how right it felt to be in Rimemere. Angered her at how long she hadbeen deprived of it.
Still, Sol whispered, “I—I can’t see myself doing any of that.” At least not well.
“It’s…bizarre at first. There are lots of things that go into it, but we are here to make sure you do it all safely.” Nina leaned closer in a reassuring gesture. “Well, I can’t guarantee Sawyer won’t try to throw you off the rooftop training rink, but I can guarantee one of us will catch you.”
Sawyer laughed. “My days of throwing people off roofs are long over, Nins.”
“Are they?”
“I hope so.”
They continued through the human sections slowly. Nina spoke to some of the citizens, engaging in laughter and gentle smiles. The people loved her. They loved the four of them—even Cas smiled and dismounted Lilah to help carry trunks of equipment into a lonely shop.
It wasn’t until they were almost out of the sections that a girl—no older than fifteen with beautiful curls like a halo around her bronzed head and the most peculiar violet eyes—stepped in front of them, blocking their way down the singular road leading to the castle.
