Chapter 45: Winter

Chapter 45: Winter

Are you sure? Kalen asked, giving Yardas face a searching look.

It had been a good morning. She had felt well enough for them to have a meal at a table in the inns common parlor, and now she sat in a large chair by the window, looking out at the Circonians passing by.

I dont have to go

Youve missed a full days work already. And the city is peaceful after all, isnt it?

It was true. Everyone had felt that something terrible would happen after the incident between the Acresses and the citizenry in the streets, but so far, nothing worse had come.

Yarda smiled out the window. The white light made the silver strands in her hair shine. Im glad winter has finally come on proper.

The snowfall was an inconvenience, but Kalen knew what she meant. Winter was supposed to look more like thisnot dry and brown as it had been up until now.

All right, he finally agreed. Ill go work at the church until evening. Then Ill come straight back. Ill bring you more of that fancy cake the priests are hiding.

Thats good of you, small man.

Im too old to be called that, Kalen thought. But he didnt say it.

Stealing desserts makes me good?

She chuckled. Aye. Among other things.

Kalen ducked into their room to grab his satchel. He stuffed it with a couple of his old books, in case he found time for reading in some quiet spot within the church. His book of mage spells always stayed behind now. It was too noteworthy to be caught reading such an expensive book intended for practitioners beyond his level.

Am I really going back to Clywing now that I know who Tomas is? Is it safe? What if he realizes that I know, and thats a bad thing? Hes a secret as much as I am, isnt he?

He wasnt a risen corpse, like Kalen. But he was the real, naturally born son of Iven Orellen.

Does that make him someone enemies would want to find even more?

Kalen wished, not for the first time, that he had even the faintest understanding of what people meant when they talked about practitioner politics. Politics was a scarcely-heard word back home, and almost always it had been used in reference to the goings on in faraway places.

Well, Im in the faraway place now. I suppose Id better figure out this word, too.

He added it to the growing mental list of new things hed encountered.

Going back to the church with Tomas there should be fine. It has been for the past week. He hasnt said anything to me about who he is or who I am, so as long as I do the same, it will stay the same. Hell wander around staring at things, pretending to be a priest aspirant named Matthew. And Ill scrub floors or polish brass, pretending to be the devout Nerth from Tiriswaith.

He gripped the strap of his satchel tightly.

Before he headed out the door, Kalen stopped to check on his cousin one last time. He found her sitting where she had been. She was slumped over in the chair with her head against the window frame.

Just like that, quietly and with her face turned toward the sight of a more familiar-looking winter, Yarda Strongback had died.

#

Shelba had charged Kalen with looking after Yarda.

For the rest of that day and into the next, he held onto that charge with everything he had. A death came with so many choices. Details. Rushing and pressing from those who were trying to help Kalen, or more often, hurry his problem out of their own lives. Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

Kalen ignored the sudden influx of opinions from people who had no right to them, and the offers of help from those who had not been at all interested in helping up until now. On dark nights full of fears he hadnt wanted to acknowledge, he had already decided how Yarda would be laid to rest.

He cried while he saw it through, but he saw it through.

He cut off her braid and coiled it, tying it neatly with a ribbon. He would carry this with him, along with the letter he would write to her son and the last jar they had recorded for him, until winter ended and ships headed toward home again. It felt safer than leaving it to be stored at the Office of the Post.

Afterward, he walked to the harbor.

I want her to be buried at sea, he said to the gruff old harbormaster, who he found standing out in front of his office, squaring off with an angry captain. Its tradition on our island. Please.

This was a partial truth. Sea burials were a tradition for sailors who died without kin. Others were buried in graves. But Yarda had not liked this land anymore than Kalen did, and the ocean was ever so slightly closer to home.

I have money to pay men to help, said Kalen, while the harbormaster chewed on the end of a twig and considered the matter. If you know of any. Ill give it to you, and you can pay them in turn.

Sounds fine to me, boy, the man said finally. I would not mind a burial in the wet myself.

By mid-afternoon, the harbormaster had gathered enough people to help. And the job was done with as much care and respect as Kalen had hoped for.

As evening fell, he watched the crown of the sun disappear below the horizon. The icy wind ruffled his hair.

I will never forgive Zevnie if she got the letter and hid it from Sorcerer Arlade, he thought while he trudged back to the inn under the darkening sky. I will never, ever forgive her if she did that.

He barely slept. Hours before dawn, he rose and went through Yardas possessions. He took her moneyan amount roughly half as much as his ownand a wooden charm shaped like a whale she had carried in her pocket. He packed them into a fat clay jar hed been saving to record messages, and he took it all the way to the citys graveyard.

He planned to bury it there behind one of the redstone tombs, but after the snow was brushed away, he found the ground frozen. He dug his nails into the cold grass, staring at the earth by the light of his sun crystal.

I could thaw it.

A heating circle would be difficult here. The one he knew was fairly large. Hed have to lay it out in found stones or try to carve it into the earth with his small knife. He didnt like his chances of making clean lines with either method.

I could thaw it with a cantrip.

Kalen knew a lot of cantrips. He had mastered every one in Cantripy of the Sorcerer Brou. Brou had tried to create a spell for every major category of magic, so of course there was one for fire.

For the inflaming of cinders

You took something that had already been burned before, sang the cantrip over it, and the flames came to life again.

Even ashes from a fireplace would work. I could spread them here and perform the cantrip. I could pour my magic into it over and over, as many times as it takes. I could

Kalen stopped himself.

He was being childish. Cantrips were unrefined spells that took vast quantities of magic to produce the tiniest of effects. He was just angry and sad, and it would feel good to use his power in that familiar wayto fill and empty himself as many times as it took. He could draw in the magic of the continent a dozen times, twenty, fortyand throw it at something.

But he still hadnt figured out why or how Zevnie had been able to feel him casting his germination cantrip that day. Hed been in the city for ages now. There were plenty of practitioners here. Hed visited the Enclave. Hed been near someone performing large spells at some point, surely?

He was beginning to think Zevnie just had some special talent. But since he wasnt sure, he shouldnt risk it.

He went back to the inn and used his magepaint and brushes to encircle the jar with two different patterns. The first was an old one hed almost forgotten how to do, since hed only used it a handful of times before. He had to pull out Basic Magical Practices of the Leflayn Family and reference it.

I wonder if I should feel strange about studying their book?

He decided that he didnt. It was his oldest book. Nanu had learned from it as a girl, and she had given it to Kalen. It felt like it belonged to him, not them.

It was a relatively simple spell. The painted pattern was just a different version of the heating circle; it warmed water inside a container when the caster poured magic into it. Kalen thought of it as the bath day spell, because hed painted it on the washtubs his family used.

The second design was more complex because it functioned as an actual enchantment rather than a spell circle. It was the one hed learned from Gares parents on Elder Twin islandthe one that made mugs and cups keep their contents from losing temperature.

Probably there were easier ways to do this. For all Kalen knew, you couldnt use this spell on top of this enchantment in this fashion. But he needed something to keep him busy badly.

So busy I cant think too much.

And at least this would stop him from casting in the graveyard until he passed out and froze as solid as the dirt.

When he was done painting, he filled his jar with water, tested it, and carried the now-warm crock with him to the graveyard. The sun had risen when he hid behind the chosen tomb again and set the jar on top of the ground. He pressed his finger to the activation rune for the heating spell and cast it.

I wonder how hot I can get it? And how hot it will stay?

Hed brought his paint this time. If he burned through the spell circle or the enchantment, he could just remake them.

He had been told not to use the door that led to the attic stairs. He hadnt been tempted to disobey at all, before. When he was still seeing Tomas occasionally.

He couldnt risk this easy, free, and safe resting place hed found for himself. Yarda and his mother and everyone who cared about him would be so disappointed in him if he did.

But, thought Kalen. What if they are gone?

If real practitioners, with real training and the protection of the church behind them had to run away, does that mean I should now, too?

He opened his eyes.

He opened Swift Wind Magery.

He practiced Casting Pearls. Eight different pathways. Forty points of intersection. Enough complexity to last Kalen a lifetime, hed thought a time or two, but he was getting close now. Hed been practicing every night since Yarda died. And he was getting close.

One spell after another.

One day, Ill have enough of them to not be afraid anymore.

A month later, Kalen went for a walk to see the ocean. Hed never in his life been so long without sight of it, and hed begun to feel like he wasnt himself.

He kept his cloak hood pulled up over his face, and he kept his sleeves tugged low over his wrists. Every third child he saw now was wearing the Acress bracelet. Almost nobody was wearing the one for Clywing.

He thought people might question him about his business if he stood still in one place, so he walked along the waters edge, through the harbor, along the dirty strip of a beach that ran past part of the fishing village the city had swallowed. He formed his spell patterns inside himself while he went.

Startled Bird took less than four minutes now. Hed been practicing it more than the others.

He didnt cast it because it was too noticeable.

But he did indulge in his newest acquisition. It was so painstaking. He almost tripped and fell flat on his face while he worked to piece it together. But Casting Pearls was a channeled spell, like Ears of the East, so once he had it he could at least maintain it. And it didnt require all that much power.

When hed finished building it, he felt it settling. It seemed to be becoming easier, though it hadnt found a place for itself within his mana structure yet.

The casting part of it was easy, too.

After checking his surroundings, Kalen turned toward the water and flung out his hand, as though he were holding an imaginary pebble. And just about in the place where such a pebble would fall, little skittering swirls appeared on the waters surface. As if small invisible things were rolling rapidly across it.

So it does work on water too.

Hed wondered, but he hadnt expected success.

The spells effect was hard to see on the floor of the cellar, unless he scattered a lot of dirt or sand. Eight invisible balls of wind, about the size of grapes. He fed magic into the internal pattern and watched them. They were confined to the waters surface, in an imaginary circle about seven feet wide.

They would bruise you badly if you put a hand in their path. Kalen hadnt been brave enough to stand in the middle of them after that, but he thought for sure they would trip you if you were unwary.

Not the most useful of his spells, but it was still an accomplishment.

This means I can cast every spell in the book eventually. Hed already gained a couple more along the way.

After a minute more, he stopped channeling and headed back to the church.

He decided he wouldnt leave again unless he had to.

That afternoon, scraping wax from a spill on the floor, he kept staring at the door that led to the attic.

Tomas hadnt ever reappeared. The Office of the Post didnt send letters by portal anymore. The priest had continued to speak out against the Acresses, but he no longer mentioned the Leflayns or their pursuit of the Orellens.

By now they must be gone for sure.

I must really be alone.

He thought about it while he worked. He wanted to know. He had to know.

He had been patient for more than a month.

Surely that was long enough for a single question not to be suspicious.

Priestess Riat, he said, when she walked through the chapel with a heavy blanket clutched under one arm. Whats through that door?

Its just the attic, Nerth, she said. Youve been on your knees for ages. Dont you want to take a break for a while?

Im all right, he said. Can I go up there and see the attic sometime? Ive seen every other part of the church. Im sure its interesting up there, too.

She blinked. I think that would be all right, she said after a moment. Go have a look this evening. Take a lantern. And dont get turned around in the passages. I dont know what they were thinking when they built it.

Oh, Kalen said.

Dont be worried! If you do get lost, Ill come find you.

Its not that

Thank you.

They truly are gone.

Tomas left. Just like that.

He didnt know why it made him feel so desperately alone. Hed barely even spoken to Tomas. He wasnt really Kalens older brother. They didnt know anything about each others lives.

That evening, he took a lantern as the priestess had suggested, and he climbed up the steep dark staircase. The boards creaked beneath his feet.

There were signs people had been living here recently. Narrow halls and cramped rooms that should have been covered in dust if they were long-abandoned were instead clean.

The least they could do is let me stay here now, instead of down in the cellar, he thought bitterly, as he stood in a corner under a low rafter and stared at his empty surroundings. Its every bit as isolated, isnt it?

He pitied himself for a long while, wallowing in it in a way hed been trying hard to avoid. Then, he pulled himself together and left.

He was several steps down the cramped hall when he heard the noise.

It was almost too quiet for him to detect; it was almost too simple and subtle for him to care about even though he had.

A whispery rasp of a sound, as if something lightweight had just slid across wood.

Kalen looked around curiously. He retraced his steps, peering into the room hed just passed by, and then entering the one hed left behind.

He held up the lantern.

Nothing.

No. Not nothing. Theres something on the floor.

You werent here a moment ago, Kalen said, staring down at a rectangular bundle of folded paper, sealed with string and pale blue wax. I know you werent.

He picked it up.

On the outside, written in clean and elegant script, was a list of ten names.

Lizen, Wether, Sara

He read to the end.

Matthew.