I don’t see Maekallus at first, only his cloak hanging high in a tree. But he isn’t hard to find, even if he did wish to hide. The string of red light remains rooted in the earth, and it points to the heavy branches of a tree.
The Telling Stone throbs as I stare at it, and curiosity drives me to unhook the clasp of my bracelet and let it slide from my wrist into my basket. The light vanishes. When I touch the Telling Stone, it reappears. I feel a sliver of relief, knowing that my secret is unlikely to be discovered by passersby. Fortunately, there will be few in this area, only hunters, and unless they have a charm like mine, they will not see the binding spell. According to the narval, they’re unlikely to see him, either.
After securing the bracelet, I walk toward the spot where the spell skewers the ground and set down my basket. “Are you trying to hide?” I ask.
“I’m exploring,” his voice replies, and it has almost a metallic ring to it, like a heavy bell swaying in the breeze. He falls to the earth in a blur, graceful and swift, landing on two hooves, his other hand skimming the dirt. His reddish hair falls over his shoulder, tied with a long piece of grass. The binding spell shifts with his movements as he comes near, menacing horn leading the way, tail swishing behind him . . . and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but the asymmetrical end of that tail no longer looks sharp as a blade. I wonder if I should modify my sketch.
“My cage is complete.” Maekallus doesn’t look at me, but into the wildwood, toward the town. A stupid part of me marks the spectacle of his half-naked indecency, now much more notable in the daylight. His shoulders are just as broad and well sculpted as Tennith’s. His waist is narrow. A body that, by the standards of my world, hasn’t seen a bottle of mead or many lazy days.
But that tail twitches, driving the foolish thoughts away. I grab the silver dagger and let my basket drop to the earth.
The sound brings his attention back to me. He smirks like I’ve told a good joke. “You mean to kill me? Even if you had the skill, you’d be authoring your own—”
“Oh be quiet.” The words are hard, and I let them be. “We must be allies in this.”
I crouch next to the spot where his glowing leash pierces the earth.
Maekallus snorts as I try again to cut it with the silver dagger. “You’ve tried that.”
I pause long enough to glare at him. “Do you want my help or not?”
He hesitates, then folds his arms. The light of the binding gleams right through them. He consents with a small nod, but in his eyes I see desperation. I imagine a creature of his make is not used to being trapped, especially in a place that threatens to destroy his very being.
I dig, trying to cut the string where it anchors to earth. Dig deeper, try again. Each time my dagger, though made of silver, does nothing. My father’s sword is enchanted against mystings. Would its edge do any better?
Needless to say, the earth is ruining the soft metal of my mother’s dagger. I stand, brush off my skirt, and try to cut the glowing strand again. Step along its length, closer to Maekallus, and swipe out with the blade. Again and again, until I reach him. He’s taller than I remember, but perhaps that’s because I last saw him as a bubbling heap of refuse.
“It will stretch about thirty paces in any given direction,” Maekallus says. His tone isn’t friendly, but it lacks malice. “Pierces through stone and tree. Unaffected by blood. At least hart blood.”
I pause on my way back to my basket. “Hart blood?” I scan the clearing. “Where . . . ?”
He glances up to the tree. I see a smear of blood on two of its branches; the rest is hidden by foliage.
I sigh and drop the dagger into the basket. “At least you’ll be fed. I trust you eat food.”
He snorts. “What other reason have we to come here? The selection is far better. You know little of us.”
I wait for him to say, We prefer souls, but he doesn’t. Wise of him. “What do I eat? For how many meals? And do tell me my favorite leisure activities, Maekallus.”
He cocks his head.
I snatch lavender and tusk nettle from the basket. “You don’t know all there is to know about humankind, either.” I approach him, leaves in hand. His face wrinkles, and he steps back. “Let’s see if we can break this spell so that we won’t have to learn, hm? Put this in your mouth.”
He cringes at the lavender. “It smells terrible.”
At least my herbs still affect him. “Good. I grow these to keep away your kind. Perhaps they can break the spell your kind created. Open your mouth.”
He doesn’t, but opens his hand—his perfectly human hand. I put a sprig of lavender in it, and he immediately drops it, hissing through his teeth.
“Vile,” he spits.
“Better than tar.”
Growling deep in his throat, he takes the tusk nettle from my hand and puts it in his mouth. I watch the binding light as he chews, hoping it will fizzle or darken, but it holds strong, and soon Maekallus gags and spits the nettle out. I hope the thorns caught in his gums.
I pick up the lavender. “Again.”
That herb makes him dry heave, with no effect on the spell. None of the herbs work. They all pass through the light just as the dagger did, and even when I bunch them up around the hole I made trying to dig the spell up, there is no alteration whatsoever.
I kneel by my basket, one hand pressed to the ground as I steady my breathing. My efforts have exhausted me, more so than they normally would. My chest aches for its missing soul. I pull free my heavy book and turn to the next blank page, where I diagram the binding spell and recount my failed attempts to break it.
Maekallus regards me silently. Something about his gaze infuriates me, and once I’ve recorded my thoughts, I unleash myself on him.
“You knew you’d take my soul. From the beginning you did, before the binding. You tried to barter it from me.”
“Only a piece.” He looks me over. I tug my sleeve over my bracelet.
“Only a piece! What if you’d taken my leg? It’s only a piece of my body!”
He steps toward me—the press of his footsteps equine, the pace of them human. His horn hovers high like the ax of an executioner. “Would you hate me for surviving? You’re narrow minded, Enna. You mortals pity the songbird clutched in the fox’s jaws, yet you possess no remorse for the kit whose fur hangs around your neck?”
I force myself to stand, to be less small. “Do you see fur on me?”
“You would don it.” His yellow eyes narrow.
I take a few breaths. “You’re very cunning in your speech, I’ll cede that.”
“I’ve had a long time to improve it.”
“How long?”
He hesitates. Turns toward the deepest part of the wildwood. For a moment, his eyes lose focus. “I’m not sure.”
Despite my desperation, my uncertainty, and my hate, his answer intrigues me. What is Maekallus, to not know his own age?
I eye my tome. Formed from the spilled blood of bastards. Human bastards, of course. Where the human ends and the magic begins, I haven’t a clue, and I imagine Maekallus doesn’t, either.
“Then tell me,” I say, turning back to my growing entry on narvals, “how long do your kind live?”
He glances down at my book and frowns. “Until something kills us.”
Constitutionally immortal? I write. But I am tired, and Maekallus is ornery, so I close my notes and set the breakfast leftovers and bread on the ground. Straighten and lift my basket. “Eat this if the hart isn’t enough. I’m going to get a sword and see if that helps. I’ll return.”