Chapter 11
Bonnie watches Neven prepare to cast his first magic with her hand firmly on the hilt of a knife. She knows that if it goes wrong, all the swords and the knives in the world won’t stop what happens next, but it gives her some comfort. Someone once told her that magic is like standing before Gods and asking them for a favour. You’d best know exactly what you’re doing, or they’re just as likely to tear you into pieces as grant your request.
He reads through the yellowed page of the book for the tenth time, and then smoothes out the map for the eleventh. The map barely deserves that name at all. Bonnie drew it, as she has more experience with penmanship than Neven, and is the only one of them who has actually seen a map. Still, writing had never been her favourite subject, and her mother hadn’t considered it an important subject either. Reading is a fine thing for a highborn woman to learn, to keep themselves quiet and occupied, but writing is for men who can put the letters to good use. So the lines are heavy and scrawled, and in many places the ink is blotched. The parchment is rougher than she’s used to which only serves to spread out the ink more.
A small lopsided circle sits in the middle of the page. Above it are the words ‘Claudia’s house’ in messy uneven letters. She’s taken care to add in the small shed outside where the witch keeps most of her stores, the wood pile at the back of the house, the small vegetable patch beside it, and the carved rocking chair that sits in the largest patch of sun. She even circled the house carefully, trying to place bushes and trees on her map as they are in life. Everything beyond that is a blank of yellowed parchment. They’d considered adding trees, but didn’t want to confuse things by adding trees where there should be a clearing, and clearings where there should be trees. The spell says the more accurate the map, the more accurate the location given, but this should serve to give them an approximate direction.
He holds his hand out to Bonnie, and grudgingly she presses the hilt of the knife into his palm. She feels weaker without it, despite the weight of the sword on her back and the charred shield on her shoulder.
Neven shifts as if the bag on his back weighs a lot heavier than when they were running through the forest. Nether of them speak of it, but both are kitted with everything they had before the old woman found them, and everything they need to leave her. Bonnie knows Neven would rather stay. For whatever reason, he trusts the witch, and magic lets him dream a life beyond taking over his father’s farm and scraping by on what small portion of his hard earned money the King doesn’t take as tax.
She understands the lure of dreams. Farming is good honest work, and she doesn't doubt many a man can live a happy life with a spade in one hand, and seeds in the other, but she also doesn't doubt that Neven is not such a man. He's too curious, always wondering how things work, what he can do to transform metal and wood into creations up until then only alive in his imagination.
The druids might not take him at his age, but watching him, she resolves to use the gold earned from avenging her parents to persuade them to try.
Neven squeezes his eyes shut and draws the knife quickly over the ball of his thumb. The knife clatters on the table, and he stares at the blood welling up with a grey face. He swallows like he might throw up. "You can get this sickness from being cut by old metal. A poisoning of the blood. It draws up all your muscles tight, and your jaw locks shut. In the end you starve to death."
"The knife is clean," Bonnie says, picking it up and wiping it off on her shirt before slipping it onto her belt. "You're not poisoned."
Neven gives a slow nod, still staring at his thumb. Eventually he shakes off whatever thoughts haunt him, and turns back to the book. Holding his thumb over the map he begins to chant. The words are gibberish to Bonnie. Some long dead language that sounds sweet even on Neven's halting tongue.
Bonnie shifts on the other side of the table, hand on the hilt of her knife, and one eye on the door. Unease makes her twitchy. If anyone outside of this forest were to see what Neven is doing, it would mean a burning for him, as well as her for aiding him.
Fire consumes all. The ancestors may live forever in the worlds through the water, but those who die by fire do not. Some say they go to somewhere else - a hellish place sometimes glimpsed in the flames if you strain your eyes enough. Others believe fire has the power to consume everything; mind, body and soul. All gone like it never existed. It’s part of why dragons are so hated. They can give the forever death as easily as breathing.
Bonnie doesn't know which she prefers. Neither sounds a good way for things to end.
Neven sways a little as he squeezes the blood from his thumb onto the childish map, but he doesn't faint. Bonnie's legs twitch, wanting to walk around the table and help him, but she knows she can't. Neven had explained it to her. Magic is all about what you give up, and his magic will be stronger if he pays the cost freely with no help. Since he's new to this, and only paying with a few drops of blood, he needs all the added strength he can get.
The voices of the birds outside seem deafening. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, feeling like someone is watching them closely. She looks around the room, but nothing looks back at her apart from the many wooden carvings. She shoves the feeling aside. Now is not the time for fear.
The blood drops quiver on the parchment. Seven drops, the spell had said. Of course, the spell is from the witch, and witches lie. It would be a simple trick to say that a spell needs less magic than it does. Magic doesn't care about honest mistakes, all it cares about is getting paid. It would take from Neven, drawn to the things he loves most. The hands he uses to make his creations, his wits, his mother, her.
That's part of the reason why Bonnie wants to do this without Claudia watching. She can't sabotage what she doesn't know about. Unless she does know about it...
All at once the blood drops move, gliding across the parchment like raindrops sliding down polished metal. Bonnie lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. Some of the tension drains out of her. It's working, which means it's accepted the price.
By all rights the blood should drain into the page like the ink it passes over. Instead it skates over the material, leaving no marks, or smudges in the fresh ink. The seven drops march one after the other in a circle, chasing each other until one speeds up and is swallowed by the drop before it. That drop races to catch the next drop in the line, and so on until only one fat drop of blood circles on the map.
It veers outward, its circle widening until it circles the edge of the map. Then it spirals inward. The circle slowly getting smaller and smaller, winding around the trees, around the witch's roundhouse, until it stops all at once over the shed she uses to store her food. A heartbeat later the drop of blood drains into the paper, leaving no mark or stain to say it ever existed.
Neven looks at Bonnie, his face twisted in pain. He doesn't know this lesson, she realises with a lurch. He's never trusted someone, then had that trust betrayed like it meant nothing. He doesn't know how to take the feelings and shove them down until only dull anger remains.
Bonnie takes her fingers from the knife to pull her father's sword out of its scabbard. "Come on," she says, the weight reassuring in her hand. "Let's go rescue our princess."