***
That day's riding class was a disappointment. Due to the spread of the flensu, we were confined to the stables to perform the invigorating task of learning how to feed the rangir. I spent half of the time yawning and the other half muttering a conversation to Signy. After we were dismissed, Mira and I sat near Signy at a bench, working on yesterday's history assignment. "I spend at least an hour looking for this name," I said, flipping through my book. "He wants me to write about how Lord Magnus Ahlstrom affected the Nordgren Succession War, but he doesn't show up anywhere."
Mira took the book in a delicate hand and ran her other hand along its brittle page. "Which Nordgren Succession War?" she asked.
"There was more than one?"
Signy snorted a chuckle. "History isn't your strong point, it seems." I suppressed the urge to stick my tongue out at her. She nuzzled against my shoulder. "That's fine. A Witch needs to be strong. She doesn't need to be smart."
Mira laughed. "I think she likes you, Kaybree."
I gave Signy a sidelong look. From the time I'd been able to hold a book, my mother had mandated I study everything the sages offered at a given sagekeep. I'd suffered through classes in alchemy, geometry, natural history, philosophy, sophistry, astronomy, and applied political theory, all taught by sages who gave various rationales for offering them. Our geometry teacher had justified the topic as a way to recognize the symmetry in Nature as a sign of God's perfect creation. Mankind had fallen from this flawless state, and ever would dwell in sin, unless we heeded the counsel of God's messengers. I would rather have gone outside and studied the shape of an aspen leaf, or the angular alignment of a boar's tusks.
"What have you found from the book?" I asked, changing the subject.
Mira took out a sheaf of notes from her bag. "I've done a translation of a few of the pages," she said. Her eyes shifted back and forth between the paper and the surrounding students, as if one of them would snatch it from her hands at any moment. "It mainly contains quotes from the Book of Visions about the role of Angels in executing divine judgment."
"Does it say anything about why?"
"Do you have to ask? It has something to do with cleansing us of our sins." She found a passage with her finger and began reading. "'Behold, the Almighty will not suffer you to live in your iniquities, if you seek to destroy his people. Nay, he would rather destroy all who claim allegiance to him and raise up a new people, if it so be that his people fall into transgression, after receiving so much knowledge and wisdom from his hand.'"
"Sounds pretty grim," I said. "Do these judgments come to make us repent, or just to destroy us?"
"Both, it seems," Mira said. "Makes you think differently about the Angel attacks, doesn't it? Of course, what are they trying to tell us? If we just get destruction, how are we supposed to know what to change? That's what doesn't make sense."
"Hello, ladies," said someone from the side. Willard grinned at us, sweeping his long coat in a grand gesture. "Still keeping company with this foul-tempered beast?"
"Only nice-tempered beasts are allowed here," I said, gesturing to Mira to put the paper away. We didn't need overeager boys grabbing them. "That's why we let you stay." I glanced over at Mira, but she said nothing as she slid the papers away, reverting to her usual silent self around boys. Or around anyone who wasn't me. "So what brings you over here?"
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. "Apprentice night is coming up at the Bard Song in a few weeks," he said. "It's where new bards sing and old bards recruit. I'm working on a song, so, uh, . . . want to hear it?"
I tried not to let the cringe show on my face. The last time a boy had sung a song to me, it had been the poor beggar who sat on the steps of the capital's grand sagekeep. I'd passed him every morning on my way from my guardian's house to classes in the sagekeep, and occasionally dropped a penny or two in his hand. But one day he arose and started singing. He stood right in front of me, blocking my path as he coughed and wheezed a ballad of forbidden romance. His raspy voice proclaimed undying love for me, and said he would be the happiest boy alive if only I would marry him. Half the sagekeep must have stood there watching, chuckling into their scarves and mittens as I blushed beet red. I'd told him I'd ask my guardian about it—the impossibility of a noble marrying a peasant didn't occur to him—and finally escaped.
I never saw him again; the next day he died of the flensu. I told myself that refraining from laughing in his face provided some small comfort as he shivered to his grave. But with the ghost of his memory still haunting me, I had no desire for Willard to embarrass me with a love ballad with the entire class nearby.
He didn't wait for my approval, though. Taking a deep breath, he started singing—and I cringed for a whole different reason:
Riding toward the horizon,
Saddle up to charge the line
The battle cries of a thousand swords
Will tear through this night sky
As the ring of steel hits my ears,
I am bleeding for the right
The smell of burning flesh will rise
From our campfires tonight
And though we charge to the ends of our dreams
The sound of blazing hooves, and terrifying screams
We will not shrink from fear or war
Let death arrive and slam the door
We ride through the night
And ever will we fight
Through darkness and rain, through steel and through pain
We'll charge to the ends of our antlers!
No one can deny
The rivers of tears we cry
We'll ride rangir wings 'til we die!
I stared at him as he finished. I'd never heard any song lyrics quite so . . . ridiculous. My ears burned. He smiled and glanced between Mira and me. "So, what'd you think? Strong? Gutsy? Battle-cry worthy?"
I shrugged. "Definitely not what I was expecting," I said.
"How so? Is it my voice? It's my voice, isn't it?"
I shook my head. "No, actually your voice is pretty good. But . . . 'charge to the ends of our antlers'? And since when did rangir have wings? Maybe someone else should write the words for you."
He scowled at me. "And how many bards have you heard in your time?" He turned to Mira. "Come on, don't listen to the critics. Listen to your heart. What does your heart tell you?"
Mira's face spread into a nervous grin. "Um, it was . . . spirited?"
He nodded. "Exactly!"
She cleared her throat. "It was great, Will, but everyone can still learn from the best. Like the bards tonight, right, Kaybree? You still going?"
Willard's eyes brightened. "Hey, let me guess, Bard Song? What a coincidence! I'm going too."
My stomach tightened up. "Oh, about that." I shrugged. "You two can go, but I have things I have to do. My mother doesn't believe in days of rest. The bards will be here all winter, right? I'll go some other time."
"Okay," Mira said. "We'll go check out the scene and see when the best bards are playing."
Willard nodded. "Don't worry about it. If your mother needs you to do something, it's probably pretty important." I forced a smile. You have no idea.
I returned to my room once classes and assignments were finished, checking the time on my wind-up pocket watch. Four-thirty. I still had an hour before Galen would meet me in the courtyard, so I rubbed the lingering weariness from my eyes and took out my father's journal. I lit my candle on the torch outside and shut the door to my room.
I set the candle on my nightstand, moving my dolls out of the way so they wouldn't catch fire. Winter was coming, and the sunlight outside dimmed a lot sooner than usual. I took out the journal, caressing its cover as I opened it. I squeezed Galen's relic for luck and turned to the first page. I skimmed past what I'd read before and came to this:
"The expedition should begin soon. Lord Myrkron has sponsored us, so we shouldn't have any trouble from the local sages. We're staying in a
tavern called the Bard Song tonight, hoping that the noise of the common room will deter any would-be spies. This mission is important, and we wouldn't want the wrong Houses to know."
I wondered what my father was referring to. I knew that he'd spent most of his life in the capital, and moved to Kant Vakt a few years before his death. I skipped some parts about the bards who played at the tavern and their preparations for their trip. What caught my eye next was the name "Andreya."
"I should probably mention Andreya about now. I've been so focused on writing down every detail of our expedition that I forgot the most important part. We haven't found anything yet, but we're being led by a local guide, someone who knows the forest inside and out. Her name is Andreya, and believe me when I say that I've never met anyone quite like her. She has the most gorgeous eyes, a smile to die for, and she can beat any man in this party in a knife fight without contest. I think I even saw her kick a bjorn in the face and send it whimpering away.
"But that's not the only thing. She stays up late keeping watch, and I sometimes stay up with her. We've talked about all kinds of things, like why we're looking for the trove, where we've come from, and what we believe about the Angels. Father has prodded me to court girls from low noble houses, hoping to get our foot in the door and rise to the high nobility in a few generations. But Andreya's not like any of those girls. Of all the girls I've ever met, she's definitely the smartest and probably the funniest too. I don't think I've ever seen her not smiling. Everything makes her laugh, and seeing her smile makes me smile too. I've never felt this way about someone before, but I think I'm in love."
I burst out into a fit of giggles. It was such a weird experience reading my dad's feelings for my mother, especially knowing her now. But his words were so sweet and so honest that I felt like I was intruding on his private life. Of course, if he'd left this journal for anyone, it would be for his family, right? I laughed again as I read a paragraph full of flowery prose, comparing my mother to a rose and a sunset and failing miserably. I promised myself never to repeat it, to preserve my dad's dignity.
At that point, I stopped. My mother, Andreya Staalvoss, compared to a rose or a sunset? It seemed so incongruous with the Lady Staalvoss that ran the Vormund Order that I began to grow suspicious. Was this even referring to the same person? Or if it was, what had happened to her that had transformed her from a wild forest girl to a Witch in a uniform?
His words sobered in the next section:
"It's a strange place to fall in love, this forest. One of our lads got his arm ripped open by a scaly creature with razor-like claws. And the ravens are always swooping down and trying to peck at our eyes, so we have to wear helmets when we get to clearings. This is a dark place, the lair of the Angels. The forbidden land with hidden wonders. For the sake of everyone back home, I hope we find what we're looking for."
People shuffled outside, snapping me out of my trance. I glanced at my pocket watch. I had five minutes to get to the courtyard. I shoved the book under my pillowcase and straightened my clothes as I headed out. I couldn't stop thinking about what my father had written, though. He had been sent on an expedition here to Kant Vakt, but what had he been looking for?
Perhaps this was what drew me to the magic of the forest: my parents' own wanderlust and desire to see beyond the lands of Nordgard. I should go on a ship to explore somewhere. Or the forest itself. I wonder if my mother still visits there. As I left the room, a nagging sensation tugged at me. What was so important about my father's old journal? Why had that mysterious "messenger" given me this key?
Galen was waiting for me in the courtyard by the fountain, but he didn't have his bag with him. "Where's your bag?" I asked. The mere thought of sword training made my legs sore. My joints were stiff enough already from the cold.
"Not today, Kaybree," he said, leading me over to our usual practice spot. "Your muscles are probably exhausted from the past few days. Today we try a new approach." He glanced around the empty marsh and drew a small ring out of his pocket. My heart pounded in my chest. My first thought was that he was proposing to me, but soon my rational mind caught up and I regained my composure. "Here, take this ring. Slowly. It's a relic."
I stepped back in surprise, remembering the disaster of yesterday. "I'm not sure this is such a good idea," I said. "As much as I'd love to skip sword practice, I don't want to risk killing you."
"Just slide the ring on your finger," he said, handing it to me. "Don't try to do anything with it, though. Sit down and try to get the feel of it. Now, you can't keep Weapons with you at all times, at least not now, but I want you to start acclimating yourself to their presence."
I sat down by the boulder I'd been unable to move, and slid the ring on my finger. Energy waves appeared around me, sizzling in the air. I concentrated on doing nothing. The ring stayed on my finger, and no flames or sparks shot out. I took slow, even breaths, wiping raindrops from my forehead where they fell and fixing my hair a thousand times while I waited for catastrophe to strike. Aside from the moist earth seeping into my clothes, nothing happened.
A buzz hummed in my ears, emanating from the ring. I listened closer, realizing that it rose and fell in the melodious rhythm of a voice. Not an actual voice, but something that oscillated loud and soft, left and right, pulsing with a life of its own. I wondered yet again what the Weapons actually were.
Galen sat down beside me, putting his arms on his knees. "How do you feel?"
"Fine," I said. "I haven't burned or shocked anything yet, at least."
"Good." He leaned against the boulder and yawned. "I could use a break myself. In this weather, it may not be a good idea to push your body too hard. You could catch flensu from the peasants. And no one could treat you." He shook his head. "A shame, isn't it? We can build ships to cross the ocean, we can build sagekeeps to withstand the elements, we can write a thousand years of history, but we can't save those who fall ill. Noble or peasant, all are alike." He chuckled. "Oh, but my father would hate it if I said that."
"Your father, Lord Valkegaard?" I asked.
He frowned. "So you've heard of him."
"Who hasn't?" His father was the king's chief treasury advisor, not to mention one of the most powerful men in Nordgard. He had connections to most of the noble houses in all seven realms.
Galen sighed and gave me a wry look. I abruptly realized how close our faces were. "You don't hold it against me, do you?"
"Of course not," I said, turning away before I blushed from toes to eyeballs. "I am kind of interested to know how you got here, though. What brought a Valkegaard to the Vormund Order?"
His face turned pensive. "I was seven years old when the first Angel attacked," he said, staring into the distance. "But remember, it wasn't only the Angel in Kant Vakt that killed people; many died from the monsters who came from the forest and the seas to strike at our cities." His voice had taken on a somber tone, and I wondered who he had lost. "It was a day that changed my life. I used to go to bed thinking I was safe at night because of my father's soldiers outside the manor. But what can a man with a sword do against a kraken, or a direwolf, or an Angel?"
Galen fingered the Vormund crest on his uniform. "I became fascinated by the woman who'd stopped the Angel, the one who'd halted the attack. Andreya Staalvoss, in the exotic land of Kant Vakt. I looked for every excuse to go, but I had to stay and focus on my studies. I was the fourth son, so I wasn't important for reasons of lineage, but I could be useful to my father in other ways, like the military or the ministry." He shrugged. "Military formations and logistics confuse me. I don't have the head for it. So I became a sage's apprentice."
I laughed at the thought of him in black robes, striding imperiously alongside Father Traum and wearing the same pinched expression. "You were going to be a sage?"
He smirked. "Imagine that." He shook his head. "Believe it or not, that's how I ended up working here. We were conducting a routine inspection of your mother's facilities—for heretical materials, no do
ubt—and I happened to run into her in the central hallway of Vormund tower. I still remember seeing her coming down the hall and thinking that this was my big chance to talk to my childhood idol. I'd read everything I could about her, and I'd planned on wowing her with an impressive theory about how she'd defeated the Angel—everyone had their own theories back then." He laughed. "But I was only fourteen, and all I could manage was 'Lady Staalvoss, I'm Galen Valkegaard. And I don't think you're a Witch.'"
I laughed too. "What did she say?"
"She asked me why I thought that way. I said that I didn't believe in Witches, that I only believed she could have killed that Angel by rational means. I believe differently now, of course, but it seemed to impress her. We talked a little more, and eventually she requested that I be sent as the sages' representative in the Order." He shrugged. "Needless to say, I accepted, and the sages have never forgiven me for it."
I smiled at Galen. He knew my mother better than I did. In a way, he was her real son, and I was the child she'd given away to politics. But I didn't envy him; it only served as another link that bound us together. He continued to talk with me as I held my concentration steady, listening to stories of life in Kant Vakt while I subdued the energy of the relic ring on my finger.
By the time I returned to my room, I was exhausted again. I lay on my pillow, gazing up at the stone ceiling in the low moonlight, and thinking about Galen, my mother, and the mysteries of my father's journal.