He would not—could not—wait until spring. But neither could Rasim leave Hongrunn the same night of the lake explosions, no matter how much he might want to. That thought helped him in the days following, as the sea witches did what they had come to the Northlands to do.
It had not, Inga had told them a thousand times, been necessary. Certainly not so soon, she had said, and not in such quantities: the city could survive easily on purified barrels and mountain run-off. But it had been necessary, not just for the city, but for the seamasters' hearts. They had come to know every drop of water in the deep lake, dredging it with magic over the course of five long, hard days. Rasim, like all of the uninjured witches, barely slept in those days. They dropped when exhaustion took them, and returned to work the moment strength returned.
They had taken more than salt from its waters. They had found bodies as well, their crewmates preserved in the icy lake. Not all the dead were rescued—some, Telun said dully, must have simply been destroyed by the explosions—but enough were. Enough to ease Rasim's spirit, and the spirits of those around him. Earlier that morning they had taken the Waifia out of Hongrunn's harbor, out to the open ocean, and given Siliaria back her dead.
There would be a wake tonight, a roaring party full of tall tales and shared memories of their friends, but until then, Rasim wanted to be alone. So he'd climbed the mountain again, glancing back once in a while to see if he was followed. People were easy to see against the glaring white snow and slippery black ice paths, but no one else seemed to have the same thought he did. No surprise, really: they'd spent five full days and nights on the mountain. Climbing it again was the last thing on most of their minds. Rasim was grateful. The silence of snow and winter air was unlike anything he'd ever encountered in Ilyara, and he wanted its peace.
The half-frozen air over the lake smelled different: clearer, sharper, without the tang of salt. The water moved differently, too, less sluggish and visibly less brackish. Rasim crouched and sank his palm into it, bringing up a handful to sip. It was perfect, fresh and clean and cold enough to hurt his teeth. The harsh, fresh agony of it suited his mood as he stood up from the lakeside and began to walk along the shore.
There wasn't much shore, truth be told. A few hundred narrow feet where the Northerners had made their beach approach, but mountains plunged straight into the lake in most places, without so much as a passable strand or climbable hill in sight. For anyone but a water witch, it was a daunting aspect. Rasim called witchery, wrapping himself in a swirl of lake water, and let it carry him around a bend or two, until he found another small patch of beach. He stepped free of the water and knelt, brushing snow away with bare fingers until he'd scraped down to frozen stone.
It was foolish. He shouldn't do it. He shouldn't even try it, because if it was possible, then the trouble he was in knew no bounds. But he did it anyway, just to see if he could.
He had spent a week in the darkness of the mine. A week surrounded by an element not his own. A week surrounded by stone, washing it, cleaning it, trying to see inside it, as if, like water, it could be transparent. And for a moment, fighting the stone snake, he'd felt that he understood the stone as well as he understood water. Eyes closed, he searched for the calm depth of stone that he remembered from the mines. It was more unchanging than water, though of course everything changed with time. Still, stone was in no hurry to change, even when he tried whispering and coaxing it into new shapes. It didn't rush, it didn't spill, it didn't seem to do much of anything, even when Rasim thought he felt the weight of witchery alive in the air around him. He had a vision in mind, an idea he wanted to make happen, but the stone's quiet presence had none of water's excitement or life to it, no sense of anything happening. Finally, feeling silly, he opened his eyes again and looked around.
Stone figures stood all around him.
Triumph so sharp it was almost terror spiked through Rasim. His hands, already cold from the winter air, became icier while his cheeks burned with excitement. His chest felt so full he thought it would burst, or that he might lift up and fly from the speed of his heartbeat. It was impossible, but he'd done it. Mastered stonewitchery, felt its quiet magic working around him—he had felt it, too, just hadn't realized it was working!—and had built the thing he had dreamed.
It was rough, nothing like what Telun or Milu, never mind Stonemaster Lusa, might have done. But there, written in stone, were the faces of those who had gone into the lake and not come out again. They were taller than in life, more slender, almost airy, despite the element they were shaped from. They stood in a circle around a more delicate, elongated version of the salt fountain, which had ripples in it. A statue of Stonemaster Lusa touched it. Above all of them, dancing on graceful reeds of stone, were patches of dome, like the water dome they had held beneath the lake. Droplets even formed on the undersides of the domes, reminiscent of water.
It wouldn't last. The harsh winters, with their snow and cold, would shatter the sculptures as time passed. But it didn't have to last. It was a memorial, and memories faded. His would last at least as long as the sculptures, and that was enough.
More than enough, since he wasn't supposed to be able to do something like this at all. Rasim flashed a pained grin at the sculptures and at the sky. He wasn't going to tell anyone, not ever, but knowing he could do it was a bright burning delight inside him.
It was the only warm thing about him, he realized. He was freezing. He shivered all over, then breathed a quiet, steaming laugh into the cold air, and turned his palms up. Fire. Dancing, light, impatient, afraid of its own death. Fire, glowing deep and dark in the heart of an ember, patiently waiting to ignite again. Anything, he thought hopefully, anything to warm his frozen fingers.
Nothing. Rasim shivered again and grinned at his half-numb fingertips. Nothing, and that was good. It was best for Kisia to be wrong sometimes, and besides, if he hadn't set the Waifia's ropes on fire, maybe it had been Kisia after all. Maybe he wasn't the only Ilyaran witch able to work more than one magic at all. Maybe Taishm and Isidri were right, and it was only tradition that kept all of them from being much more than they were. Shivering more, Rasim rubbed his chest and hurried back the way he'd come. Water witchery carried him to shore, and then he concentrated on where to put his feet until a splash startled him into looking up.
Kisia sat on the shore, tossing rocks into the lake. Rasim cast a guilty look back at the stoneworking he'd done, though it was well-hidden behind a curve of mountain. When he looked back, Kisia was watching him with one corner of her mouth turned up. Squirming like he'd been caught doing something wrong, Rasim hurried the rest of the way to her. She stayed where she was, idly tossing rocks into the water, until he got close enough to see a smirk of knowledge dancing in her eyes.
He bit back the impulse to ask what she'd seen, and somehow, like she knew he was silencing himself, her grin got bigger. She stood up, but all she said was, "There you are. Come on. The sun is setting, and they won't want to start the wake without you." She offered her hand.
Rasim took it, surprised that steam didn't rise from their clasped fingers, hers were so much warmer than his. "Desimi," he said, "will always be glad to start a party without me."
"True. Let's not give him the satisfaction. Come on." Kisia tugged Rasim's hand, drawing him toward the path they'd climbed to reach the lake. "Captain Nasira has some things to say."
Rasim winced as they slipped and slid their way down the ice-covered stone. "I bet she does." They spent the rest of the journey in silence, concentrating on where their feet went so they wouldn't end up sliding down the hill like children playing on the sand dunes outside of Ilyara. Not until they'd passed the tree line and found more solid footing on snow-covered earth just outside of the city did Kisia say, "You saved her life, you know."
"She was mad enough about it, too."
"The rest of us aren't." Kisia waved up at one of the big yellow-haired guards who stood watch on Hongrunn's enormous fortified walls. He waved back, gesturing them through the portcullis gate that they closed at dusk every day, as if trouble might come rolling down the mountainside in the middle of the night. And maybe it did in the summer months, for all Rasim knew, but he couldn't imagine anybody hearty enough to attack over the mountains in a ferocious Northern winter.
They scurried through the streets, nodding greetings to Northerners who no longer looked twice at the brown-skinned Ilyarans in their midst. The city still struck Rasim as it had when he'd first visited, grim and grey on the outside but surprisingly warm and welcoming behind heavy oak doors and thick stone walls. The Waifia's crew had been given space in a block of inns and taverns that faced a central square and were backed up by alleys narrower and more treacherous than anything in Ilyara. Some of the apprentices and younger journeymen had been racing down those sharply angled alleys on foot, on sheets of metal, on wooden blocks—anything they could find. The first broken arm had been considered a sign of pride, until Usia refused to heal it, or any other injuries sustained through what he called youthful idiocy.
Now the square had been filled with bonfires: small ones at each corner, and a larger one in the middle, all tended by Sunmaster Endat. Pynda sat to the side on a stone bench, watching the largest blaze with no light in her eyes; she had not called her power since Daka's death, and there were whispers that she no longer could. Rasim didn't believe that, although he believed she might choose to never do so again.
Sea witches had already gathered, swaying to music played on hidden drums and on Ilyaran pipes, as well as on Northern instruments Rasim didn't know. Others danced, and some carried the leather flasks of honey mead favored by Northerners. A few had clearly drunk heavily of the mead already, though no one was quite staggering yet. Even those who looked close to it straightened up, sobering, as Hassin escorted Captain Nasira toward the largest fire. She stopped well short of it, and in its flickering golden light Rasim saw sweat beading on her forehead and upper lip. He wondered if it was the fire, or the injury she was still recovering from, that made her stop. Her chin-length hair, shorter than any master sea witch Rasim had ever seen, was tucked behind her ears.
"We've cleared the lake's waters," Nasira said abruptly. Hoarsely; her throat had taken damage in the poison air, and Usia said only time would really heal it. She was easily heard, though. Skymaster Arret had to be nearby, helping her voice carry, but Rasim didn't see him. The music faded to near silence as she spoke, and dancers and drinkers alike came together to listen.
"We've given our dead into Siliaria's arms. We've sang our songs for them, and we've wept for them. Tonight we sing again for ourselves, and laugh, and weep, and remember. Tomorrow we'll begin to look for answers."
Her gaze swept the gathered sea witches, and a chill shot down Rasim's spine as she met his eyes momentarily. Then her attention moved on, her voice rising steadily. "We'll look for our stolen guildmates. We'll search for those who poisoned Hongrunn's lake, and perhaps even for those who began the Great Fire in Ilyara. We will find answers," she promised, and closed her eyes, as if the effort of that promise was almost too great for her. But she opened them again, looking to each of her crew with the same piercing regard she'd turned on Rasim. "But that's for tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate and mourn together, as a guild. As a family." She lifted a fist in a salute to the crew and gave a short laugh as someone tossed a mead skin toward her uplifted hand. She caught it, pulled the cork with her teeth, and drained a long sip to the cheers of her crew. The music began again, and in moments the square was filled with dancing bodies, their warmth carrying the heat of the fire through the cold night.
Someone handed Kisia a skin of mead. She took a sip and offered it to Rasim, who felt Desimi join them as he took a drink of his own. He handed the skin on, passing it to Desimi, and for a little while they stood together in silence, watching sparks rise toward the stars. Finally, under the cover of all the noise, Rasim said, "You were on the ship after we were thrown off, Desimi."
The bigger boy grunted. Rasim took it as invitation to continue. "Who let Missio out of the brig? Who dumped us overboard?"
Desimi spun toward him, genuine anger darkening his eyes. Startled, Rasim took a step back, hands lifted, then gasped a half-laugh. "Siliaria's fins, Desi, I didn't mean was it you. I didn't think that at all."
Tension remained bunched along Desimi's square jaw. "Some people did."
"Well, you haven't exactly been Rasim's best friend," Kisia said acerbically. "Who was it?"
"I don't know." Desimi, sullen but placated, hunched his shoulders and looked back at the biggest fire. It flickered as dancing bodies passed in front of it. Milu and Telun were among them, leaning on each other with tears on their faces. "We forgot about Missio for a while when we landed in Ringenstand. By the time someone remembered to get her, she was gone. It could have been someone on the ship, or someone from the city."
"How could someone in the city know she was in the brig?" Kisia asked.
Desimi, sounding a bit like Guildmaster Isidri, said, "I don't know, Kees, maybe somebody told them? Probably whoever dumped you and the Stonemasters."
"Someone with access to sweet-sleep," Rasim said.
Kisia snorted. "Master Usia, maybe?" Both the boys looked at her in horror and she snorted again. "He'd be best at it, but it comes from seaweed. Any sea witch could have made some. Who else doesn't like you, Rasim?"
"I don't know. I think the list is longer than I realized."
This time Desimi snorted. Rasim aimed a half-hearted kick at his shin. "Whoever it was didn't like you, either, Kisia. Or the Stonemasters."
"Or they knew I'd never let Nasira sail on, once I found out you were gone."
"You're a first-year journeyman," Desimi said, about as half-heartedly as Rasim's kick. "Who would think you could make a captain do what you wanted? And nobody on the Waifia liked the Stonemasters."
"You should be with your friends," said a voice behind them. Rasim felt a hand on his shoulder and looked back to see Prince Lorens and Princess Inga joining them. "What's got you on the edges and so solemn?"
"We're trying to solve the mysteries of the world," Kisia said, lightly enough that Lorens laughed, even though it was perfectly true.
"Perhaps not tonight," Inga suggested. "We wondered if we might join you."
Rasim smiled. "I can't imagine anyone telling you no."
"Well…" Inga stepped aside, gesturing out of the square. Northerners stood beyond her, dozens and dozens of them, all carrying lit candles that gave their pale faces a gentle unearthly glow. "Not just Lorens and me. Tonight is our Longest Night, Rasim. It's our tradition here in Hongrunn, and across the Northlands, to carry candles on the longest, darkest night of the year, and to go to the eastern shore with them to show the sun the way back home. It's also the night we believe our ancestors and dead loved ones come closest to this world again. We carry the light to show them the way, too. If we could join your mourning tonight, and have you join our vigil in the morning—" For once, Inga seemed unsure of herself, as if she thought she might be intruding. "We would be honored."
"It would be our honor." Captain Nasira spoke from behind Rasim, who hadn't even realized he'd turned away from the bonfires. Hassin stood a step or two behind her, smiling at Inga. When relief flashed across her face, he put his hand out, and the Northern princess took it, her bright hair and gown a beacon even as they slipped into the crowd. Lorens offered his arm to Nasira, whose mouth creased with as much amusement as seemed possible for her, and they, too, went into the throng of dancing sea witches. Little by little, person by person, the candle-bearing Northerners joined them, until only Desimi, Kisia and Rasim lingered on the edges.
"She's right, you know," Rasim finally said. "It's waited this long. Tomorrow's soon enough. It'll be easier to see answers in the daylight, anyway."
"You can ask your ancestors why you're such a troublemaker on the way," Desimi said sourly. Rasim gaped at him in protest. Kisia, borrowing a candle from one of the Northerners, laughed, handing Rasim the candle. It went out as he took it, and she lifted her eyebrows in challenge.
Rasim blinked at her a moment, baffled, then felt his mouth twitch. "I'll try at dawn. With all my ancestors standing with me."
Kisia pointed a finger at him. "I'll hold you to it."
"Maybe if he has enough mead he can use two magics." Desimi slapped the skin back into Rasim's free hand. "Not otherwise."
Rasim promptly handed the drink back. "Better not risk it. I'd hate to show you up, King's Man."
"Not a chance, Sunburn."
"Sunburn," Kisia said again, incredulously. "Really?"
Desimi shrugged enormously and stomped off into the crowd, Kisia trailing along in his wake, although she glanced back to see if Rasim was joining them. He hesitated a moment longer, studying the candle's wick, wondering if he might, just might, see a glimmer of flame there, if he imagined hard enough.
"Rasim?"
He looked up guiltily, shoved the candle in a pocket, and shouted, "Coming!" as he ran to join the party.
to be continued in
SKYMASTER