I hesitate, then grimace. I remember the day Jax came to my bakery to tell me what had happened between Lord Alek and Tycho— but it was the morning after Alek had also come to see me, with burns on his arms and fury in his eyes.
Did he attack? Or did he defend himself? As usual, he always seems to be the villain and the savior simultaneously.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But maybe.” I study her. The purple and gray of her coloring is so different in the darkness of the cave, and it’s fascinating. She could melt into the wall if she needed to. “What did you mean about tethering their magic?”
“A magesmith can take hold of a scraver’s magic,” she says. “It allows a sharing, of sorts. Nakiis would have been able to heal the damage caused by the Iishellasan steel. He would’ve been able to stand against Xovaar.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Tycho refused?”
She shakes her head. “Nakiis was the one to refuse.” She lets out asigh, then reaches to touch the pendant that hangs over my heart. “As I said, our history with magesmiths is quite long and complicated. It is one thing to draw our magic through steel. It is quite another to take our magic directly from the source.”
Her voice is grave, and I think again of the way I learned that Tycho had access to the king’s magic.
“Would it make Tycho stronger than the king?” I ask softly.
“Yes.” She pauses. “But Nakiis has shared his magic with a magesmith before. And once it is done, it cannot beundoneuntil one of them dies. It is a trapping. An imprisonment.” She glances at the sleeping scraver in the shadows. “Just as his father was trapped and imprisoned by your king.”
“I remember that,” Alek says, speaking from the mouth of the small cave. He sets down a bucket that sloshes lightly over the sides. “The king’s scraver.”
I look at him in surprise. “You do?”
He nods. “He dragged him around on a chain.”
I frown a little, trying to imagine King Grey keeping a creature like this on a chain. A year ago, I would’ve believed it, back when I hated the king and his magic. But now that I’ve had a chance to know him, I struggle to reconcile this knowledge. The king is stoic and commanding, but he’s also thoughtful. Reflective.Humane.
And even if I could imagine the king doing it, I really can’t imagine Queen Lia Mara putting up with it.
I tuck this knowledge away for later. “Will he heal now?” I say to Igaa.
Her mouth forms a line, her eyes glinting in the limited light. “Perhaps,” she says. “There was a time when I worried he would not survive at all.”
I swipe my hands on my trousers. “Well, we’ve been gone for hours, and if we’re going to make it back to the palace before nightfall, we’re going to have to start walking.”
“No,” says Alek. He folds his arms, straightening to block the narrow opening of the cave. “We helped you, now you need to help us.”
Beside me, Igaa hisses a breath through her teeth. “You’re lucky I don’t gut you.”
Alek doesn’t move. “Put away your fangs,” he says. His eyes shift to me. “Tell her, Callyn.”
I sometimes wonder if Alek would have half as much conflict if he didn’t treat every conversation like a transaction. I look at Igaa. “You don’t have to help us at all,” I say quietly. “But the king and Tycho have been gone for weeks. If scravers intend to attack the palace again, it would help the queen to know.” I wet my lips. “It would helpmeto know.”
Her fangs are still bared, but she studies me. After a moment, her expression softens, and she turns for the front of the cave. “Come,” she says. “Let us speak outside so Nakiis can rest.”
The sun is beating down through the trees, and after the coolness of the cave, the heat smacks me in the face. I cling to the shade and lean against the sheer rock wall as Igaa speaks.
“Nakiis would not like me saying these things to you,” she says. “But he is too injured to move, and if Xovaar finds us, he will kill him.”
“You keep mentioning Xovaar,” says Alek. “Who is he?”
Igaa hesitates, then frowns. “Before I explainwhohe is, perhaps I should start at the beginning so you can understand thewhy.”
“Go ahead,” I say to Igaa.
She glances at Alek. “When the scravers first struck the treaty with Syhl Shallow, they did not expect the magesmiths to follow. But they knew the power our steel offered, and we’d always been willing to share. Butsharingturned tostealing. Our allies were becoming our enemies, and we were left with no choice but to make the ice forests uninhabitable for humans. But the magesmiths already had what they wanted: the secret of our steel. They eventually forged across theFrozen River and attempted to settle in Syhl Shallow, where they could still access our magic through the steel, but without being subject to our cold.” Her eyes return to mine, and I see the depths of anger there. “But your queen feared our magic, and would not allow them to remain here. The magesmiths proceeded to Emberfall— where their king eventually ordered their destruction.”
“But he didn’t succeed,” says Alek. “Because magesmiths still exist.”
“Of course,” says Igaa, surprised. “As long as humans have access to our steel, magesmiths can never truly be eradicated.”
