Shimmer and Burn Read online

  “Is it true?”

  “It’s true,” he says. “Tobek is no longer infected. I was there.”

  “No, I mean Farodeen the First,” I say. “Did he actually wrestle giants out of the sky?”

  “Of course. That’s how Avinea began.” North closes the book and tosses it on the table, resting his hands on top of his knee. “Fire and giants and a farmer.”

  I stare at his fingers, long and narrow but also swollen and trembling, the joints discolored, callused from wear. When he notices my gaze, North slides his hands into his lap, out of sight, a gesture meant to be casual but too deliberate to be anything but habit.

  Don’t hide them, I want to say. I think they’re beautiful. The hands of a boy who knows how to fight. How to survive.

  “So how did he get up there?” I ask, leaning forward, my own hands entwined across the table. I pick at the edge of a book. “And how did he get back down?”

  “He took a leap of faith and landed in the clouds,” says North, deadpan. “After that, he just closed his eyes and fell.”

  “And he didn’t die?”

  “Sometimes, falling makes you stronger.” North stands, his chair screeching across the floor.

  “Did it hurt?” I ask softly. “Saving Tobek’s life?”

  North tenses. A debate plays across his face before he grabs an atlas from his apothecary chest. “Yes,” he says.

  He opens the book to the index in the back before angling the book toward me with tented fingers. “I can’t find Brindaigel,” he says. “Does it have another name, maybe? Or is it a newer territory?”

  My stomach tightens. “Why does it matter?”

  “Your king was Corthen’s ally in the war,” he says, scanning the list of countries. “He had to have some stake in Avinea, a possible trade route or resource Corthen promised in return. What did he want badly enough he would send his daughter into enemy territory twenty years later to find, and without an escort?”

  “Wrong question,” I say with a ripple of nerves. Can Bryn hear us? I cover my wrist, almost unconsciously. “You should be asking what kind of daughter seeks out her father’s enemy behind his back.”

  North stares at me. “So then it is mercenary.” He chews his lower lip, expression darkening. “Maybe I should ask what kind of girl agrees to go with her? A binding spell requires mutual agreement, Miss Locke.”

  “I was compensated,” I say, standing to avoid his prying eyes.

  “With what?”

  I don’t answer, sifting through the jars of tea stacked on a shelf above the stove. After unscrewing a lid, I sniff the contents and make a face that doesn’t quell the tumult in my chest. “Rosehip,” I say with a forced smile, turning to offer the jar toward him. “Is that what monks drink in New Prevast?”

  North holds my eyes with a half smile before demonstrating his swollen hands. I flush, embarrassed. Of course. Rosehip for its anti-inflammatory properties. It’s exactly what monks would drink in New Prevast after years of praying gave them arthritis.

  I cradle the jar to my chest and wish I was back outside hitting things, instead of in here, where the conversation feels too delicate—too dangerous—for someone like me. Bryn laughs, bright and sincere, and I look out the door with a strange hitch in my chest.

  I didn’t know she could laugh.

  “Would you like some?” North joins me by the stove, opening the samovar.

  Relieved at the change in subject, I slide the jar back on the shelf, aware of how close he stands, within an elbow’s reach of me. “I don’t drink tea.”

  “Political or religious opposition?”

  “What?”

  “Are you socially opposed to the importing of tea from foreign shores, or morally opposed to the rumors of child labor involved in the process? Because I assure you, Miss Locke, I only buy locally grown product. That’s all we have anyway.”

  He’s teasing me.

  “Traditionally,” I say, relaxing even more. “My sister refused to drink tea. It’s what old women with bad hats and twelve surnames drink, she said; she wanted coffee. Like soldiers drank.”

  Like Thaelan did.

  “But coffee cost money,” I continue. Cheap herbal tea could be grown in the hothouses of the higher stretches of the kingdom, but coffee grew more finicky and couldn’t be bought anywhere that gold didn’t flow freely. “So to compromise, we drank hot water with sugar.”

  “You have a sister,” says North.

  Too close, I think with a mild rise of panic. He’s getting too close and I’m getting too sloppy.

  “Sangreve,” I blurt.

  He blinks. “Is that her name?”

  “It’s a suggestion.” I can’t look at him. “I used to work in the fields and my fingers would always be swollen by the end of the day. Sangreve helped.” Eager to escape his intoxicating closeness, I return to the table, finding my mother’s book tucked in between several of North’s. Flipping through the pages, I demonstrate the inked illustration and detailed entry on sangreve. “It grows by water,” I say.

  Taking the book, North skims the entry before his eyes meet mine. “Show me,” he says.

  “It’s dark,” I say. And Perrote could be out there, hidden in the shadows.

  Leaning forward, he mock whispers, “I know magic, Miss Locke.”

  “Magic hurts,” I say with a half laugh that’s half truth, flashing my wrist and the spell shackled around it.

  But he’s already pulling on his coat, snapping out the collar. “Not always,” he says, and there’s an invitation in the way his mouth curves, a hint of what it was like those nights when Thaelan snuck out of the barracks to meet me on the rooftops. Familiar places turned new again, transformed by the thrill of stolen freedom. The nights felt crisper, the stars looked brighter, and the kisses tasted sweeter. Defying a king was less a dream and more a possibility.

  North watches me, waiting for an answer, his expression cautious. Hopeful.

  I miss the girl that Thaelan loved, who wasn’t afraid to take chances or make plans for her future. That girl died the night he did, replaced with the girl I am now, full of guilt and grief and only one goal: to get my sister back. It’s a risk to leave the safety of the wagon, and to trust this boy with his unsettling curiosity and unwavering kindness.

  But it’s defeat to let Perrote terrify me into being an obedient Brim rat again.

  Like Farodeen the First, I take a leap of faith. I tip my head toward the door in invitation, fighting the hesitant smile that crosses my face.

  North smiles in reply.

  Sixteen

  NORTH WALKS BRISKLY, STEADY AHEAD, and I hurry to keep up even as I slow down, eager to map every labyrinth path between the trees, to touch every shelf of stone that rises from the ground like a mountain made in miniature. Everything is overgrown and green, ringed with flowers smaller than the freckles on Bryn’s shoulders. The storm-charged air is damp with smoke and something else, something that seems to radiate from North as he turns to check I’m still behind him. We don’t carry a light but I see him clearly, outlined in gray shadow.

  “Everything all right?” he asks.

  I shake my head. It’s dangerous, this wild, this world. Only a few days here and I can taste it melting on my tongue, seeping into my blood, threading through my veins like stolen magic. Closing my eyes, I tip my face to the hidden stars, to the smell of the Burn and the smell of the storm. Slowly, my muscles unfurl and I spread my arms, my fingers, my feet. For too long I’ve lived cramped, hunched, forced to be small in a kingdom that didn’t leave any room to breathe. Now I touch nothing but air.

  Is that what my mother understood? She never stole any gold but she stole the idea of it, the luxury of what the world could be like when you were free. Dangerous, yes, but full of choices.

  “Miss Locke?”

  I open my eyes. North watches me, expression guarded, almost envious. He is the pious and I am the pagan. Raised by monks to be sober, sedate, North thanks the gods for
their blessings whereas I was raised by the Brim. I fight and draw blood to get what I want.

  A fat bead of rain hits the top of my head and I lower my arms, feeling euphoric, silly. Above all, alive. In an instant, I’m tempted to tell North everything, starting with Thaelan and ending with Perrote and the warning I found in the wagon. But then lightning casts the trees in shades of violet, throwing shadows of doubt back over me.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Which way?”

  He gestures wordlessly, without pressing, but I catch him stealing glances laced with unasked questions. It’s a relief when we finally reach the river and I can direct his attention to the task at hand. Sangreve grows thick and nettled, I tell him, close to water, with serrated leaves and a fat, bristled stem. The sap will cause blisters, I add, so don’t touch it. He listens and nods and begins to dig, carefully unearthing a plant, roots and all, before setting it on the ground between us.

  Before long, we have a small pile, more than enough for a jar of tea. I sit back on my heels and North wipes his cheek against his shoulder. “Good?” he asks.

  When I nod, he smiles. “My turn.” Tugging his boots off, he rolls up his pant legs and slides down the riverbank in a spill of stones, splashing into the water. Fog eddies away from him, threading up the bank to creep toward me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, leaning forward to see.

  He bends into the river and emerges with a handful of stones. “Resupplying,” he says.

  “You have jars full of rocks in the wagon.”

  “These are different.” He turns cagey, protective, as if this is a defense he’s fought before. I bite back a grin to think of a younger North hoarding stones at the monastery. “The river wears them smooth, see?” He demonstrates one, squinting it into focus. His enthusiasm is endearing, as is the flip of his hair over his forehead. “They hold the magic more uniformly that way. Spells are less likely to fray.”

  “What about that one?” I point to a dark gray stone, rougher than the others, pockmarked and ugly.

  Making a face, he dances the stones across his palm and separates it out. “Pumice,” he says, “from when the earth bled fire. It’s not really rock, it’s just hardened lava. There are whole fields between here and New Prevast made of this stuff. They’ve all turned green now, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll still find it buried underneath.”

  Intrigued, I hold out my hand and he drops the pumice into it. It’s lighter than I expected, and feels brittle, though it doesn’t break when I squeeze. “Can’t you use these for magic too?” I ask.

  “Too porous,” he says, clicking his other stones together, discarding several, pocketing the rest. “Magic would slide through it like water.”

  I curl it in my fist, watching him scavenge. A touch of the giddiness returns, a hint of flirtation. “In Brindaigel, they say anyone who can catch Rook’s starlight will be granted a wish from the king,” I say.

  North’s expression is impossible to read. “What would you wish for?”

  “Nothing,” I say, my giddiness fading as a list of insatiable desires rolls through my mind. “It’s a meaningless gesture because it’s an impossible task. No one has ever caught starlight before.”

  “Have you learned nothing from us?” He leans into the riverbank, bracing his weight by my knees. Despite myself, I bend closer, tempted by the secrecy in his demeanor and the mischievous glint in his eye. There’s a touch of Thaelan to him, but he’s still entirely new. Entirely North. “Hold out your hand,” he says.

  I do so slowly, and he makes a fist above my cupped palm. Water drips from his hand, forming a small puddle in mine. It shimmers like a mirror before turning deep blue, freckled with twinkling light.

  I laugh, incredulous, as North leans even closer.

  “The skill is in cheating, Miss Locke,” he says softly. And then, “Make your wish.”

  The temptation is overwhelming; the moment feels like magic, like anything is possible. But all at once I remember myself, pulling back, spilling the water into the ground. I drag my hands across the tops of my thighs, unnerved by how easily I let myself be caught up in his company. “I don’t believe in wishes,” I say.

  He doesn’t bother hiding the flicker of irritation as he pulls back. “Not everything has to be hard won, Miss Locke.”

  It’s the same sentiment Alistair offered, made more tempting by a man who has never expected anything in return. But North is not a stupid man. Even if he wanted to help me, he wouldn’t risk losing Bryn’s potential value as the daughter of a king with magic to spare, not for the small amount of stolen magic that I carry. He needs a seedling to save the world and I’m the annual flower that won’t return in the spring.

  Clearing my throat, I push to my feet. “I’m going to keep searching.”

  “Me too,” he says, not looking at me.

  The thickening fog threads between my feet as I edge away from North and the strange feelings he’s awakening, a warring dichotomy of attraction and a deeper, bitter sense of guilt. Thaelan is barely dead, I tell myself, and Cadence needs me to be stronger than this.

  But when North approaches me some time later, his pockets weighted with stones that click as he walks, I can’t help the smile that flickers across my face.

  He sits beside me on a fallen log, stealing an inch closer than I would have ever offered on my own. “Is this in your book?” he asks, holding a small blue flower toward me.

  “Phoralis,” I say. “It’s poisonous.”

  “So don’t eat it,” he says.

  “They teach you well in that monastery,” I say, and smile before catching myself, making my expression serious. Impenetrable.

  “Keep it,” says North, dipping the flower so it brushes the back of my hand. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn’t. “When you go home, you can show your mother all the plants you found in Avinea.”

  “She’s dead,” I say.

  He blinks.

  Maybe I should sit in the river until my rough edges are smoothed out too. Shaking my head in apology, I murmur thanks and accept the flower, twisting it between my fingers.

  We listen to the approaching storm, lost in our own thoughts. But when lighting breaks across the sky, I jump at the thunder that follows, close enough it sounds like gunshot.

  “We should go back,” North says with a sigh, standing.

  A gust of wind gutters his hair and snaps his coat behind him, and the first drops of rain slip through the branches. Reluctantly, I follow, hugging myself as the wind rises, howling and growling and—no.

  That’s not the wind.

  Fear slides down my back and pools low in my stomach. “What is that?”

  North doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. A beast appears, a shadow figure with its back bent forward, the serrated edges of its spine as pronounced as fresh tilled earth. Withered arms hang limp at its sides, its fingers tapered like tallow candles beaded with wax. Embers flash in the dark; raindrops hit its body as steam releases with a hiss. It turns toward us, blurring its edges out of focus before it redefines itself.

  A shadow golem. Another one of Perrote’s spies. While it’s bigger than his usual shadow rats and crows, I’d recognize the acrid smell of magic anywhere.

  North edges ahead of me, in a position of defense. The golem lifts its head with a grunt, beady red eyes scanning left to right, searching for its prey before it locks on us and roars in challenge.

  “Run,” North orders. He plunges a hand in his pocket and retrieves a stone overlaid with a lacework of magic. “Straight back to camp. Get Tobek and then lock yourself in the wagon.”

  I hesitate. I ran from Perrote’s magic once before and have regretted it every day since.

  Not this time.

  The golem charges. North stumbles back, slipping on the slick moss, and without thinking, I grab his arm before he falls. He spares me a momentary glance, gratitude framed on his lips, before we break apart as the golem bowls between us, roaring loud enough to silence
the thunder overhead.

  Sparks scatter across the ground as the golem immediately rounds on North. Mumbling quickly, North unspools the magic around his fingers but there’s no time to cast anything complicated. When the golem charges again, North throws out a meager spell, no more than a flicker of light that buys him a scant few meters of time to back away and try again.

  Frantic, I pat down my coat, unearthing the tinderbox from that afternoon. Alistair killed a shadow rat in the dungeon with a match, but it was much smaller. What if this doesn’t work?

  But what if it does?

  North is cornered by a brace of fallen trees and underbrush. He searches for a way out, fear on his face. Threads of loose magic roll across his palm, pooling into each of his fingers. He coaxes them into brightened knots, but the golem rears, its tallow-claws curled into meaty fists that glow gold where the knuckles strain beneath the shadow of its skin. It swipes at North and he throws an arm out just in time, sparing his face, singeing the sleeve of his coat. I dart in between them, settling my weight with a wave of terror. I’m close enough I feel the heat of the golem, can smell the charred stink of its skin.

  North grabs the back of my coat, trying to wrench me out of the way as the golem raises its arm for another blow. The skin on my face starts to stretch from the heat as my fingers shake, spilling matches to the ground. The rain extinguishes the first one I light and I toss it aside with a curse, striking several more. Throwing them all, I twist into North and flatten him to the ground as a flash of heat and light washes over us, hot enough to turn the rain into steam above our heads; bright enough the world becomes a monotonous field of white before darkness bleeds in from the edges, until finally, the forest returns.

  The ground smolders around us, turning raindrops golden, like falling stars that melt when they land. We clutch each other and North stares at me, his breathing hard and irregular. “Miss Locke,” he says, “you are terrifying.”

  And pious North smiles when he says it.

  I grin in return from behind the damp hair plastered across my face. There’s no reason to hold on to him and yet, I don’t let go.