Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

“Not so simply as that. I would provide thee the necessary teaching.”

“And the price? I understand that your…gifting…is to Clyste, not to me. But to gain these skills, surely I must be required to yield something. Janus warned me to stay away until I was eight-and-twenty…past this last change…”

“The Cartamandua never understood the remasti or the gards.” Kol’s tone made it clear that folk held higher opinion of crawling snakes than he did of the man who’d fathered me. “Janus believed a vayar imposed some alteration upon the body at the remasti, thus making it something other than ordained by birth. Even while promising to do as Clyste asked, he confessed his fear that I would make thee more our kind than his. To him birth was blood, and blood was all. But the change is already trapped within thee. Necessary, even for one with a human parent. Thy own skills and talents and practices determine the partitioning of thy nature—entirely of humankind, entirely of the long-lived, or somewhere part of each.”

“So my father was wrong, and you, who despise me and my kind, will generously share your Danae magic with me.” Kol’s assurances sounded promising, but I could not bar Janus’s wild eyes and drooling mouth from my memory.

Exasperation broke through his chilly reserve. “I shall not harm thee. Many easier ways could I damage thee, if vengeance were my intent. I could have left thee for Tuari to be broken. Do thou pass the time of the last remasti entirely unchanged, thy skin will harden into a prison and thy spirit shall die captive within it. To change, thou must yield only the desire to remain ignorant and incapable and incomplete.”

Ignorant and incapable and incomplete…my skin a prison. A pureblood diviner reading my cards could not have so captured the entirety of my existence. My gaze traveled the length of Kol’s marked limbs. What did it feel like? Would my own human magic behave differently…be lost? Great gods, did Danae eat? Make love? Well, of course…I was evidence of that. But all I knew was fireside tales of beings forced to live as stone or trees, who died when trapped within walls. Different. Not human. I rubbed cheek and jaw, as if I might discover lines and sworls waiting beneath my skin.

Events were moving so rapidly. Gildas had taken Jullian to Sila Diaglou as a tool to manipulate me. Weeks it had been already. If she came to believe the boy of no use to her…I could not allow that, which meant my time was short. Yet Danae magic might make all the difference, enable me to get him away, to learn and do the things I needed to do. The lighthouse must endure, no matter what wickedness Osriel the Bastard thought to work with solstice magic.

I blinked and gazed up at Kol. “How long would this take?”

He threw up his hands. “How long, how many, how far, how much. Hast thou no questions of substance?” He pointed to the rock where he’d sat. “If thou art here when the sun wakes from the cliff, I will begin thy teaching, as my sister would desire.”

He turned his back and waded into the sea. Once the slack water lapped his thighs he dived into the rolling waves. Lightning the color of lapis and indigo infused the churning surf and then faded.

Snugged between the two chunks of granite, wavelets creeping ever closer to my toes, I tried desperately to think of some reason not to be here in the morning. But I could command neither mind nor body to any useful purpose…what with the exertions of the day…with this unknowable path beneath my feet…

“You didn’t ask him about a fire.” Saverian’s head popped up from the far side of Kol’s rock, causing me to slam an elbow into the rock. My heart crashed into my ribs with the impact of the surf.

“Mother Samele’s tits, do you forever sneak around and show up where you’re not invited?”

“I’ve noted several nice-sized chunks of wood lying around. I can either set them afire so that you’re not quaking like an Aurellian torturer on Judgment Night, or I can use them to turn your knees to powder as your other relatives proposed. And then I’ll politely ask the naked gentleman to tell me where in the Sky Lord’s creation you’ve brought me. You forgot to discover that, as well.”

I was trembling. Fear had its part, no question. But the damp had penetrated my sweat-soaked garments, as well, and though in no wise as frigid as in Evanore, the wind cut through the layered wool like Ardran lances. “I’d say burn what you like. He’s not going to be happy no matter what I do. Can you see where he’s gone?”

Her gaze roved the enclosing night. “We should leave this place. Use your skills and get us away. Trusting a creature like that…” She shuddered. “His spirit is surely a glacier. He may have had feelings for his sister, but he has no feelings for you. He doesn’t even hate. He exists.”

“So speaks the woman who serves the Duc of Evanore.”

She came round the rock and offered me her hand. “Osriel of Evanore is a human man of extraordinary discipline. His passions run very deep and sometimes lead him to ill choices. But I understand him.”

“Explain the ill choice of crippling his friends.” Weary to the bone, I accepted her hand—unusually cold on this night—and hauled myself up. We strolled down the shore, collecting the odd bits of wood thrown up on the sand. “Will he forgive what you did tonight?”

“Forgiveness is not Osriel’s strength. He tolerates no weakness in himself, and while he does not expect the same of those who serve him, he does expect their trust. No matter how I argue with him, I’ve always given him that in the end.”

“Even with whatever mystery lies beyond the rock gate at Dashon Ra?”

She halted in midstep. “If you ever whisper of that again, even in private, I’ll unravel my spell and leave you gibbering until your mind is muck. Elene is a fool to have shown you.” She snatched an arm-length branch from the sand. “Never misapprehend. I am Osriel of Evanore’s loyal servant whether or not I dare stand in his presence again. As for tonight…in no way was I prepared to tend horses while you and Osriel strolled into heaven or hell or wherever we are. And when their intentions became clear…No worthy physician could stand by and see a healthy body damaged. But be assured I will always wonder what might have happened if I had let events play out as he planned. You would have survived without my intrusion.”

So she knew at least somewhat of Osriel’s plan for Dashon Ra. Unfortunately, as we wandered about the shore filling our arms, naught in her demeanor invited further discourse. At last we threw our bits and pieces into a pile, and I spread my arms so my cloak might block the wind as she arranged them and worked her magic. With her third snapped “flagro,” the center of the little pile began to smolder. She broke off splinters of the half-rotted wood to coax and nourish the little flame.

“I should have you teach me how to do that,” I said, stretching my hands toward the growing flames. “Probably more use than what Kol will teach me.”

“You’re going to allow him to work his wiles on you? Have you heard no tale of the Danae? Great Mother, preserve my reason, you are a fool.”

“So, my wise physician, come up with a better suggestion before tomorrow—something that does not include mutilation, chains, or removal of my eyes. An innocent child languishes in captivity, his days short unless I show up to claim him, and another lies dead, and I’m the only one who seems to care anymore. Indeed I’ve done nothing of worth in my life, and see little prospect of it. But everything in this world has a purpose: clouds, thorns, fleas. Perhaps I’ll do better as a…whatever I am…than I’ve done thus far, pretending to be human.”