Kingdom of Ash
Page 45

Dorian decided he didn’t need a hidden place to practice. Which was lucky, since there was no such thing as privacy in the Crochans’ camp. Not inside the camp, and certainly not around it, not with the sharp eyes of their sentinels patrolling day and night.
Which is how he wound up sitting before Vesta at Glennis’s hearth, the red-haired witch half asleep with boredom. “Learning shifting,” she groused, yawning for the tenth time that hour, “seems like a colossal waste of time.” She flicked a snow-white hand toward the makeshift training ring where the Thirteen kept up their honed bodies and instincts. “You could be sparring with Lin right now.”
“I just watched Lin nearly knock Imogen’s teeth down her throat. Forgive me if I’m in no mood to get into the ring with her.”
Vesta arched an auburn brow. “No male swaggering from you, then.”
“I like my teeth where they are.” He sighed. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
None of the witches, even Manon, had questioned why he practiced. He’d only mentioned, nearly a week ago, that the spider had made him wonder if he might be able to shift, using his raw magic, and they’d shrugged.
Their focus was on the Crochans. On the trip to Eyllwe that would likely happen any day now.
He hadn’t heard any mention of a war band gathering, but if it could divide Morath’s forces even slightly to venture south to deal with them, if it distracted Erawan when Dorian went to the Valg king’s stronghold … He’d accept it.
He’d already offered Manon and Glennis what he knew regarding the kingdom and its rulers. Nehemia’s parents and two younger brothers. Adarlan’s empire had done its work thoroughly in decimating Eyllwe’s army, so any hope on that front was impossible, but if they mustered a few thousand soldiers to head northward … It’d be a boon for his friends.
If they could survive, it would be enough.
Dorian closed his eyes, and Vesta fell silent. For days, she’d sat with him when her training and scouting permitted it, watching for any of the shifting that he attempted: changing his hair, his skin, his eyes.
None of it occurred.
His magic had touched that stolen shifter’s power—had learned it just enough before he’d killed the spider.
It was now a matter of convincing his magic to become like that shifter’s power. Whether it had ever been done with raw magic before, he did not know.
Be what you wish, Cyrene had told him.
Nothing. He wished to be nothing.
But Dorian kept peering inward. Into every hollow, empty corner. He need only do it long enough. To master the shifting. To sneak into Morath and find the third key. To then offer up all he was and had been to the Lock and the gate.
And then it would be over. For Erawan, yes, and for him.
Even if it would leave Hollin with the right to the throne. Hollin, who had been sired by a Valg-infested man as well. Had the demon passed any traits to his brother?
The boy had been beastly—but had he been human?
Hollin had not killed their father. Shattered the castle. Let Sorscha die.
Dorian hadn’t dared ask Damaris. Wasn’t certain what he’d do should the sword reveal what he was, deep down.
So Dorian peered inward, to where his magic flowed in him, to where it could move between flame and water and ice and wind.
But no matter how he willed it, how he pictured brown hair or paler skin or freckles, nothing happened.
She was no messenger, but Manon took the hint—and the offer. Along with three other brooms, all for witches across the camp.
It would not be enough to fly with them to Eyllwe. No, she’d have to learn about them. Each of these witches.
Asterin, who’d been monitoring from across the fire, fell into step beside her, taking up two of the brooms. “I forgot they used the redwood,” her Second said, studying the brooms in her arms. “A hell of a lot easier to carve than the ironwood.”
Manon could still feel how her own hands had ached during the long days she’d whittled down her first broom from the log of ironwood she’d found deep in Oakwald. The first two ventures had resulted in snapped shafts, and she’d resolved to carve her broom more carefully. Three tries, one for each face of the Goddess.
She’d been thirteen, mere weeks past her first bleeding, which had brought about the zipping current of power that called to the wind, that flowed through the brooms and carried them into the skies. Each stroke of the chisel, each pound of the hammer that transformed the block of near-impenetrable material, had transferred that power into the emerging broom itself.
“Where’d you leave yours?” Manon asked.
Asterin shrugged. “Somewhere at Blackbeak Keep.”
Manon nodded. Hers was currently discarded in the back of a closet in her room at her grandmother’s seat of power. She’d thrown it in there after magic had vanished, the broom little more than a cleaning tool without it.
“I suppose we won’t be retrieving them now,” Asterin said.
“No, we won’t,” Manon said, scanning the skies. “We fly with the Crochans to Eyllwe tomorrow. To rendezvous with whatever human war band they’re to meet.”
Asterin’s mouth tightened. “Perhaps we’ll convince all of them—the Crochans, the Eyllwe war band—to head north.”
Perhaps. If they were lucky enough. If they did not squander so much time that Erawan crushed the North into dust.
They reached the first of the witches Glennis had indicated, and Asterin said nothing as Manon motioned her Second to pass over the broom.
The Crochan’s nose wrinkled with distaste as she let the broom dangle from two fingers. “Now I’ll need it cleaned again.”
Asterin gave her a crooked smile that meant trouble was swiftly approaching.
So Manon nudged her Second into another walk, wending between the tents in search of the other owners.
“You really think this is worth our time?” Asterin muttered when the second, then the third witch sneered upon receiving their brooms. “Playing servant to these pampered princesses?”
“I hope so,” Manon murmured back as they reached the last of the witches. Karsyn. The dark-haired Crochan was staring toward the ring of wyverns, just where Glennis had said she’d be.
Asterin cleared her throat, and the witch turned, her olive-skinned face tightening.
But she didn’t sneer. Didn’t hiss.
Mission done, Asterin turned away. But Manon said to the Crochan, jerking her chin toward the wyverns, “It’s different from using the brooms. Faster, deadlier, but you also have to feed and water them.”
Karsyn’s green eyes were wary—but curious. She glanced again at the wyverns huddled against the cold, Asterin’s blue mare pressed into Abraxos’s side, his wing draped over her.
Manon said, “Erawan made them, using methods we’re not quite sure of. He took an ancient template and brought it to life.” For there had been wyverns in Adarlan before—long ago. “He meant to breed a host of thoughtless killers, but some did not turn out as such.”
Asterin kept quiet for once.
Karsyn spoke at last. “Your wyvern seems like more of a dog than anything.”
It was not an insult, Manon reminded herself. The Crochans kept dogs as pets. Adored them, as humans did. “His name is Abraxos,” Manon said. “He is … different.”
“He and the blue one are mates.”
Asterin started. “They’re what?”
The Crochan pointed to the blue mare huddled beside Abraxos. “He is smaller, yet he dotes on her. Nuzzles her when no one is looking.”
Manon exchanged a glance with Asterin. Their mounts incessantly flirted, yes, but to mate—
“Interesting,” Manon managed to say.
“You didn’t know they did such things?” Karsyn’s brows knotted.
“We knew they bred.” Asterin stepped in at last. “But we haven’t witnessed it being for … choice.”
“For love,” the Crochan said, and Manon nearly rolled her eyes. “These beasts, despite their dark master, are capable of love.”
Nonsense, yet some kernel in her realized it to be true. Instead, Manon said, though she already knew, “What’s your name?”