“But is it any worse than being buried alive here?” Dylias murmured, closing the sleeping man’s door.
Returning to the tavern, Iya sat with the others and listened to their stories. Most were still at large in the city, carefully pretending loyalty and earning their living in the small ways the king’s ordinances still allowed. They could make useful items and cast helpful household spells for pay. The greater magics were reserved for the Harriers. The mere charming of a horse was a capital offense now.
“They’ve made tinkers of us!” an elderly wizard named Orgeus sputtered.
“Has anyone tried to resist?” Iya asked.
“You haven’t heard about the Maker’s Day riots?” a man named Zagur asked. “Nine young hotheads barricaded themselves in the temple on Flatfish Street, trying to protect two others who were marked for execution. Have you been by the place?”
“No.”
“Well, it isn’t there anymore. Thirty Harriers appeared out of nowhere, and two hundred grey-backs with them. They didn’t last an hour.”
“Did they use any magic against the Harriers?”
“A few tried, but they were mostly charm makers and weather tellers,” Dylias replied. “What chance did they have against those monsters? How many in this room could strike back? That’s not what the Orëska teaches.”
“Perhaps not your half-blooded Second Orëska,” Saruel said disdainfully. “In Aurënen there are wizards who can level a house if they choose, or summon a hurricane down on their enemies.”
“No wizard has that kind of power!” a Skalan woman scoffed.
“Do you think the Harriers would let one of us live if they thought so?” someone else said.
The Aurënfaie retorted angrily in her own language and more joined in.
Dismayed, Iya thought again of Skorus, dying alone in agony.
It is time, she thought. She held up a hand for silence.
“There are Skalans who know such magics,” Iya said. “And it can be taught to others who have the talent for it.” Rising, she downed the last of her wine and placed the silver cup on the stone floor. She could feel the others watching her as she spread her hands above it. Chanting softly, she drew the power down and focused it on the cup.
The rush came more quickly than it normally did. It was always so in company, though it took no power away from the others.
The air around the cup shimmered for a moment, then the rim began to melt, slumping in on itself like a waxwork on a hot summer’s day. She broke the spell before the cup collapsed completely and cooled it with a breath. Prying it loose from the flagstones, she handed it to Dylias.
“It can be taught,” she said again, watching the faces of the others as they passed it from hand to hand.
Before she left the Wormhole that night, every wizard in the room—even proud Saruel—had accepted one of her little stones.
12
Tobin had only just gotten used to having Iya at the house when she announced that she was leaving. He and Ki watched glumly as she packed her few belongings.
“But the Festival of Sakor is only a few days away!” exclaimed Ki. “You want to stay for that, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” Iya muttered, stuffing a shawl into her bag.
Tobin knew something was troubling her. She’d spent a great deal of time down in the city and didn’t appear to approve of what she found there. Tobin knew it had something to do with the Harriers, but she wouldn’t even let him speak the word aloud anymore.
“Stay away from them,” she warned, reading his thoughts or his face. “Don’t think of them. Don’t speak of them. That goes for you, too, Kirothius. Even the magpie chatter of little boys doesn’t go unnoticed these days.”
“Little boys?” Ki sputtered.
Iya paused in her packing and gave him a fond look. “Perhaps you have grown just a bit since I found you. All the same, the pair of you added together are nothing but a blink of a wizard’s eye.”
“Are you going back to the keep?” asked Tobin.
“No.”
“Where, then?”
Her faded lips quirked into a strange little smile as she laid a finger to the side of her nose. “Less known, the better kept.”
She wouldn’t say more than that. They rode with her to the south gate and the last they saw of her was that thin braid bouncing against her back as she cantered into the crowd on Beggar’s Bridge.
The Festival of Sakor was celebrated with great fanfare, though everyone said that the king’s absence and the rumors of ill luck brought back by returning veterans put a damper on the usual glory of the three-day celebration. But to Tobin, who knew only the rude country observances in Alestun, it was impossibly grand and magical.
On Mourning Night the Companions and principal nobles of Ero stood with Korin in the city’s largest Sakor Temple, just down the hill from the Palatine gate. The square outside was jammed with people. Everyone cheered as Korin, standing in his father’s place, killed the Sakor bull with a single stroke. The priests frowned over the entrails and said little, but the people cheered again when the young prince raised his sword and pledged his family to the defense of Skala. The priests presented him with the sacred firepot, the temple horns sounded, and the city began to go dark, as if by magic. Beyond the walls, in the harbor and distant steadings, it was the same. On this longest night of the year, every flame in Skala was extinguished to symbolize the yearly death of Old Sakor.
The Companions stood the vigil with Korin all through that long, cold night and at dawn they helped carry the year’s new fire back to the city.
The next two days were a blur of balls and rides and midnight parties. Korin was the most sought-after guest in the city; Chancellor Hylus and his scribes had prepared a list of homes, temples, and guildhouses he and the Companions must appear at, many only long enough to pour the new year’s libation.
True winter soon set in after that. Rain turned to sleet, and the sleet to wet, heavy snow. Clouds sealed the sky from the sea to the mountains and soon Tobin felt like he’d never see the sun again.
Master Porion kept up with their mounted battle practice and the morning temple run, regardless of the weather, but sword fighting and archery were moved indoors. Their feasting hall was cleared and the bare floor chalked with archery lists and fighting circles. The clash of steel was deafening at times, and everyone had to be careful not to walk between archers and their targets, but otherwise it was not unpleasant. The other young bloods and girls of the court hung about as always, watching the Companions and sparring among themselves.
Una was there most days and Tobin noted with a guilty pang how she followed him with her eyes. His duties had kept him too busy to make good on his promise, or so he told himself. Every time he looked at her, he seemed to feel her lips on his again.
Ki twitted him about it and asked more than once if he was going to keep his word.
“I will,” Tobin always retorted. “I just haven’t found the time yet.”
Winter brought other changes in their daily routine. During the cold months all the noble boys had lessons with General Marnaryl, an elderly warrior who’d served King Erius and the two queens before him. His hoarse, croaking voice—the result of a blow to the throat in battle—had earned him the nickname “the Raven,” but it was said with great respect.
He taught by recounting famous battles, many of which he’d fought in himself. Despite his age, the Raven was a lively teacher and salted his stories with amusing asides about the habits and peculiarities of the people he’d fought with and against.
He also illustrated his lectures in a manner Tobin admired. When describing a battle, he would get down on the floor and sketch out the battleground with chalk, then use painted pebbles and bits of wood to represent the different forces, pushing them about with the ivory tip of his walking stick.