Swift Magic (The Swift Codex Book 2) (26 page)

Father bristled. “What are you accusing me of?”

“Nothing more than being a parent.”

“You don't approve of my methods.”

Mordon shrugged. “It isn't for me to say, but I would raise my children differently than you raised yours. That is all.”

“You're asking for a squashing.”

“It wouldn't make a difference in my behavior, but the exertion sounds appealing.”

Father laughed. “Put that brew away, Meadows. I'll send for Maggie to watch Fera while we visit the training clearing. Maybe you'll learn a few tricks from this old dog.”

“I would be honored,” Mordon said. He put down a cup near me, drew the blanket up to my chin, and left the hut.

Beneath my feet, the trail felt unusually hard and unforgiving. I leaned against the door to my hut, taking a shallow gasp. My ribs had been bound and were healing, the pain had subsided to a hazy, distant awareness thanks to the potions I'd been cooking with Mother's help. There was no reason I should stay any longer in seclusion, except to avoid Rossalinda's family. From what I overheard, my own parents didn't know what to do about the situation. No one seemed to know.

I looked around at the humid steam of sunlight striking wet ground, and tucked a newly-formed curl behind my ear. Mordon's hair was curling this morning, too, I'd noticed. All the humidity in the forest, it was a new experience for me.

There had been talk of a private funeral service to be held tonight under the triangle of the moon, Jupiter, and Venus. Feys didn't seem to hold public funerals, they were private affairs, but my parents were talking about what gift they could give in my name, what gift would be considered appropriate. They'd been stuck.

After a little bit of scrounging around in the low-lying foliage of the nearby trees, I found a sturdy branch to use as a walking stick. Thorn-lined rose bushes snagged my clothes while I made my way down the path. A flurry of wings exploded near me, I jumped, a pheasant calling as it burst into the open. It flew off, all brown and red feathers gliding through the trees, clucking as it went. I laughed and shook my head. Too skittish after all my excitement. Aunt Linnia would explain the fey traditions and help me decide what best to do. If the Wildwoods allowed me to get there soon.

Though I fervently wished to encounter no one on my trek to Auntie's house, the Wildwoods obeyed someone else's wishes.

The thin, short man who headed for me with single-minded determination was obviously one of Rossalinda's family members. He had brown hair and a terrible look on his face. That was all I had time to think before he stopped in front of me and spat on the ground in front of me.

“Is there something you want to say to me?” I asked.

“A hundred, but I won't speak them because of your father. I owe him much.”

“He is a good man. And the village won't be the same without Rossalinda. I am sorry for her death.” Was this the right thing to say? I didn't know, but it was the truth.

The young man sucked in a breath.

We stood there, facing each other in silence, then he said, “Your words can't bring her back.”

“They cannot. I truly am sorry.”

“Sorry does nothing for us. Do you expect me to accept your apology and absolve you of your part in this?”

“I did not kill her. There is nothing for you to absolve me of.”

He closed a fist. “You deny your part, then?”

I considered what I would say. “Rossalinda was noble and wise. I am certain that she did what she knew would save more lives than just mine. Would you ruin her good deeds by acting counter to her wishes and counter to the cause she died for?”

Such a brutal attack could only stir up harsh feelings, so I shuffled past the young man and continued on my way before he could respond. The Wildwoods granted me a speedy departure from him, though the walk was slow, excruciating work over a packed down trail. I took a sip of a pain potion from a flask tied to my belt. The going got easier until I could walk without hindrance.

Up until that encounter, I hadn't realized how hard it would be to face Rossalinda's family. Surrounded by such an attitude as that, I worried how I would ever be accepted by the village. My coming had been tainted, and I knew how easy it would be to spoil my presence altogether.

There was just so much I could do now, but how I behaved would influence how the others treated me now and in the future. I did want to be welcome for other visits. And I did want to participate in their death rites. Which meant I had to find out what those were, and what would be a gracious gift to give.

When I stopped for a break, it was in a park-like clearing with benches made of rough-cut lumber. I sat down with relief, wondering where it was the Wildwoods had taken me. It wasn't Aunt Linnia's.

There was something isolated about this clearing, a place where the birds didn't sing and nothing rustled in the bushes. A few bees went from flower to flower across the meadow, but nothing else moved. My breathing returned to normal and my sweat dried. I stood up to leave.

“Not going so soon?” Lyall asked.

I found Lyall this time, chewing on a bit of grass, his pack there beside his feet in the gravel.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Nice of you to ditch me to the battalion last time.”

Lyall grinned. “Wonderful people, aren't they? Such a gracious welcoming party.”

I considered his sudden reappearance and the path the Wildwoods had taken me on, and knew there was a reason behind it.

“I'm sure they are wonderful people when you don't intrude unexpectedly in their territory with fake documents and a fire drake.”

Lyall took the blade of grass out of his mouth and pointed it at me. “That was your fault, not mine.”

“They think you disappeared.”

With a groan, Lyall muttered something unintelligible, then said, “I should have trusted the message with someone else. You'll have to do. When you get back, you tell them that I'm one of the Wildwoods' chosen, and they'll understand.”

I didn't want to do anything for him right now. “Rossalinda's dead.”

“I know.”

“I didn't come here to see you.”

“I know that, too. But I need to see you, or rather, we need you to see something.”

I frowned, watching as he tossed his pack over his shoulder and waved his pipe for me to follow. Life in this forest…I shook my head. On one hand, I loved not needing to delve into the bowels of markets in order to find potion ingredients, but on the other hand, I liked being able to control where I went and to some extent who I met along the way.

We proceeded along Lyall's path, a narrow affair riddled with currant bushes and tiny wild geraniums. Birds whistled and fluttered in front of Lyall, holding chirping conversations with him before flapping off again. Their messages Lyall nodded to and sometimes responded to with a whistle. Grabbing tree limbs snagged my hair, annoying me, before I realized that we'd left foliage and greenery behind us. What was in front of us were the drying remains of a forest.

It was like the dead, burned forest that the husks had teemed out of, but not as far advanced. There was a feeling of mourning about the place, as though it were in the process of dying, but not yet gone. I found I was listening to the silence around us, that my heart had picked up, and all my senses were in tune to catch any strangeness around us.

Lyall twitched his finger.

He was pointing to a tree which still had yellowed leaves clinging to its branches. I took a minute staring at the black lines following the grain of bark-like bulging veins before I saw what Lyall had brought me to see. It was a symbol branded into the inner flesh of the trunk. The tree wept sap all around it, building up a sticky residue like dribbling candle wax, but the mark itself would not be touched nor would it be healed.

My mind flashed back to when I'd taken Caerwyn's Recallation potion, how the paint on walls had seemed to be bleeding. But here was an actual, living entity, and it was bleeding with the single substance it could bleed with. I touched the cool trunk. This time, the spell was stronger. And different.

I stepped back and examined other trees. I found four more, set up in a star formation, and the zone in between them was noticeably colder than the rest of the forest. My breath fogged before my lips and it felt like invisible hands tickled my flesh.

I returned to Lyall. A flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye, but there was nothing there. In fact, there seemed to be nothing at all which could move. All the wildlife had abandoned this place. My magic stirred restlessly, putting me ill at ease. Lyall waited for me against the smooth bark of a young tree which was already dead.

Something made the hairs on my neck stand up, and I whirled on my heel. I saw what had caught my attention.

A crow hanged from a noose in the center of the branded trees, swaying as the wind brushed by it.

I gasped but by the time I raised my hand to point it out to Lyall, the crow, noose and all, was gone. As if it had never been there.

“What is it?” Lyall asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“What about the spell?”

I licked my lips, unnerved to the point of wanting to be gone.

“An Unwritten.”

“You mean the spells so dark that they were forbidden to ever be recorded?”

“The same.”

Lyall frowned. He tapped out the ashes in the bottom of his pipe even though it seemed to already be clean. “What does this one do?”

“I don't even know what the last one did, not really.”

“But they are different?”

“Oh, yes. Very. For one thing, the symbols in the last spell were far more plentiful.”

“But its simplicity doesn't diminish this one's strength.”

“No,” I said. “This one may be worse yet.”

We stared for a while back at the pentangle of trees. I remembered the last Unwritten, how it had bound soul after soul together in a nightmare of a beast, a shadow-dragon. I'd never taken the time to draw parallels between it and me, that the beast was both human and dragon, and that I was as well. That my form was bluish and silver, that his was black. I'd never stopped to think that its strength had been growing while mine had been, and that Railey's interference had damaged it—and damaged me. Until I had bumbled into the house, it hadn't had the chance to grow. If it hadn't been for me, would it still be sitting there, not dying, not growing?

“Move out,” Lyall ordered. A couple steps later, he whistled a marching song. My arms and legs were tired, my ribs sore from the compression of my wrappings. But I kept pace well enough with the lithe man as we moved through a trail which became wider. Leaves scraped by my skin, and the sun warmed my head. Fear began to abate, replaced by my wondering once again what was to be done with the funeral.

The Unwritten wasn't to be left behind so easily, but there wasn't much I could do about it yet. I'd learned last time that there was more to them than met the eye, and I'd have to research into it before I did anything. But before I could do that, I needed to settle matters with the village.

My arms bore scratches from rose thorns, stinging at first then numbing. The merciless march continued and continued, my guide lost deep in thought. A sunburn pinked my neck, and I stopped to tug a collar out of my dress. Lyall stopped and watched as the collar became a tiny scarf like the airplane stewardesses wore.

Our march was done. Lyall stood next to the same bench I'd been sitting upon when he had met me earlier. He reached into his pack and organized various camping items across the seat. I waited beside the tree he had waited for me at. My breathing settled with the calming of my heart, and I swiped sweat off my brow. When Lyall found a small bag, he put the rest back into his pack in a meticulous order. Insects buzzed overhead, and I tugged out long sleeves to keep the biters from having a feast in the humid air.

Lyall unfolded a swatch of plaid. In his lap rested a hand-bound book, seemingly a journal. When he opened the cover, the binding creaked, and I realized that its pages were made of large, oval leaves which had the tips and ends cut off. Despite what I expected, it was supple and pliant like thin leather.