“Idoneed to understand. I have learned three forms of magic already, and none of them were ones I could do without practice.” I felt frustration building, feeling the fire of rage licking up my throat. “You must teach me more than this basic understanding.”
“No.” Riini shook her small head. “We don’t have time for full knowledge.”
“Then I refuse.” I could feel the twist of anger in my stomach. “Find your own way to regrow your tree. I will burn the entire forest down to find Spider if I must.”
That was the danger of the fire dragon’s magic. It was too likely to eat up whatever common sense I had. Rage was easy, and when it cleansed, it did so completely. There was nothing left, justas the fire dragon had killed everyone left in the mountain, no matter their guilt.
“You won’t find her if you burn the forest. You think an animalia who survived this long would reveal herself to you? You think you can threaten her?” Riini leaned forward, her eyes a brilliant green. “The only way for you to find Spider is to do this. She sees the web of fate. Do you honestly think you can outsmart her?”
I glanced at Naî. The words were an echo of a question she had asked me before we had taken on Centipede. Did I think I was as clever as Fox, trickster of the animalia?
“I think I have done more than enough to prove what I am capable of.” I clenched my jaw, fisting my hand before opening it and revealing a wolf made of ice that threw back its head in a silent howl. “I mustlearnbefore I do magic.”
“There isn’t time. Forest magic is meant to be learned by the elves, who have hundreds of years to master it. You have hours. Give me your power and that will be enough.” Riini barely glanced at the wolf, her gaze fixed on me. “It will not hurt, and you will not remember it when it is gone.”
“Whenwhatis gone?” I asked, suddenly wary. I closed my hand around the wolf, and it turned to water, dripping between my fingers.
“Close your eyes,” Riini said.
“Why?” I asked.
“So that we might find out what you can afford to sacrifice to save Tavornai and the elves in it.” Riini’s voice was tired. She pressed a hand to her temple, rubbing the skin there. “Please. This child grows weak; she has so much less to offer. If she attempts the task one more time on her own, there is a chance that she will not recover.”
I let my gaze linger on Riini. Despite her vitality, I could see the sharpness of her clavicles, nearly pushing through her thin skin.
I closed my eyes, forcing back the anger of fire magic. I heard Riini shift forward, taking one of my hands between two of hers. Iexpected to feel the pull of forest magic like the tug on my body when I dove into the cold ocean, or the pull on my scalp when someone redid my braids.
Instead, I opened my eyes and realized I was in a vast, empty room. There were statues around me, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were.
“I’ve been here before,” I said.
“Yes, you have,” Riini said, only it wasn’t her. It was a warped tree that was the same size as her, with soft green leaves for hair and arms and legs made of branches twisted together. “Not with me. Do you remember?”
I shook my head, the memory falling away.
It was hard to read an expression on that face made of carved wood, but I thought Riini looked drawn. She turned, pulling at a golden thread, similar to the one I had seen wrapped around Hallu when Naî and I had saved him from Centipede.
Riini shook her head, the leaves shivering. She dropped the golden thread and picked up another. This one was blue, and she rubbed it between her fingers.
As she did so, I felt something rise in me. A memory.Yorîmu handed me a blade. It was silver and made from Krustavian ore.
She crouched in front of me, because I was too small to meet her eyes. “Airón, do you understand why I am training you?”
“I understand. I need to kill the emperor or he will destroy the Northern Kingdom.” I turned the hilt of the blade between my fingers. “Do you think I can do it?”
Yorîmu closed her hand around mine, stilling the trembles that had taken over my body. “Yes.”
I blinked, coming back to myself. Riini was watching me, her hand still on the blue thread.
“Will you sacrifice this one?” Her voice was strange, wooden.
“Sacrifice that memory?” I asked sharply. “I thought you charged in life? In years?”
“No. Not always. There are other sacrifices that holdmore value.” Riini tugged on the thread, and it no longer felt harmless when she pulled.
“I will not give up any of my memories for this task.” I kept my jaw from clenching, trying to keep my breathing still.
“Then she will.” Riini tapped her chest, the sound hollow. “Only she has so few left to give. Only the things she has clung tightly to. It makes them all the morevaluable.”
