Page 14 of Shade of Ruin

The wings on his back stop moving suddenly and immediately disappear, and he drops the half an inch to the ground, amovement that’s barely noticeable. “Each Great House has its own strengths and weaknesses. My house, the House of Flame, can control fire just as easily as you would wield a knife, but we’re smaller, slower, and relatively weak. We’re still far faster, larger, and stronger than a human, but compared to other Immortals such as the House of Steel, we’re inferior, physically speaking.”

He takes a deep breath, and the wheel turns, all the pieces moving in time with each other. “The House of Earth is stronger, physically, than the House of Flame. They’re… complicated. They aren’t the greatest warriors, nor are they the greatest magic-wielders. But they built Draenyth and created many of the greatest works of art. There are many secrets in that House, and unlike the others, they refused to allow outside Houses to breed with them. Thus, their secrets stayed hidden.”

The wheel spins again, and the cloak comes to the top, still flickering in and out of sight. “The House of Shadows is the house of assassins, of secrets, of debts, and of deals. Even humans have heard of the Shade, haven’t you?”

I nod to him, not wanting to say anything lest I give too much about my dealings with the Shade away. He continues, “The Shade is the personification of the House of Shadows. And then, there is the House of Steel.”

He pauses for a moment as the wheel turns one more time. “The House of Steel is unlike any of the others. Where the House of Flame can set a tree on fire or the House of Shadows can hide that same tree in plain sight, the House of Steel can’t affect that tree at all with magic. Their powers only work on themselves.”

I think back on what he’d said about the wings. “They can… do magic on themselves?”

Cole nods. “They manipulate their own form. I was not born with those wings. I’m using magic to create them and then dismiss them. If I want to fly a long distance, I create the wingsof an eagle or owl rather than the wings of a pixie.” He raises his hand and takes another deep breath. I watch as the skin of his hand slowly transforms into shiny black stone that reminds me of his sword blade. It stays like that for a moment and then it returns to normal.

“Wait. I thought you were from the House of Flames?”

He chuckles. “Excellent breeding is the answer to that question. My mother is from the House of Steel. My father is from the House of Flames. I can use my House of Flames bloodline naturally, but my mother’s powers are… difficult.”

That makes sense. “And Ismelllike shadows?”

“Yes, but barely. It’s like your mother was a Wyrdling herself. It’s rare that they have children since they rarely master their powers. Wyrdlings tend to kill their families if their immortal parent isn’t there to teach them how to wield their powers. Just like you, Immortal parents rarely stick around.” He says that last bit as if it were a given rather than a tragedy.

Again, I nod. Everyone has seen a Fae, but they’re always passing through. I was always told to ignore them. Note them, be wary, and pretend like they’re not even there. And never ever fall for one. They’re nothing but trouble.

“But… I have magic,” I say. “I nearly killed my cousin. That’s why I’m going to Draenyth. I need to find a cure.”

Just like when he picked up my spear, he looks at me with confusion written all over his face. “Do you know how unusual you are, Wyrdling? You walk around carrying an enchanted spear, yet you didn’t know you have a magical bloodline. You smell of almost no magic, yet you say you nearly killed your cousin only a short time ago. What is it about you that you don’t know? Or aren’t telling me?”

It feels like I’m the stupidest person in the world right now. “I would love to know why I’m confusing. It would be fantastic if I wasn’t a Wyrdling at all. I just want to sleep in my bed andspend time in my own woods. Traipsing around the country with a Fae who grumbles about everything I do was never a dream of mine.”

I say that, and then I pause as I process what he said. “An enchanted spear? What do you mean?”

He nods his head toward my spear, completely ignoring my comment about the grumbling Fae. It’s a spear that Vesta made me when I was still living with my father. “That spear is imbued with shadow energy,” he says. “Ithinkit’s to harden the wood and pull it toward its target, but I’m not an enchanter, and the House of Flame is the worst of all Houses to do something like that. Our magic doesn’t work for enchanting very well. Most of the time, the magic has as much chance to burn the item up as it does to imbue an item with flames.”

His last comment is lost on me, as I can’t stop thinking about the spear I’ve used since I was barely large enough to hold it. Vesta made that spear. I reach for it, and my thumb goes to the little black mark on the shaft. The glyph that’s been there my entire life. When she taught me to wield it, she told me to always keep my thumb there, that it gave my thrusts force. What if it was for another reason?

“My tutor made it,” I say softly. “I remember when she took me into the woods one morning, and instead of lessons, I watched her as she shaped the shaft and burned the tip.” The memory floods my mind.

Vesta was constantly around from my very first memories. I know her as my tutor, but I think she helped raise me when my mother left. She certainly was there when I was learning to walk and talk. Unlike my father, who laughed and played with me, all she cared about was teaching me and making sure I grew up strong enough to take care of myself. I don’t think she ever smiled. Not even once.

She was a tall woman, a little taller than my father, and lithe. With long, light brown hair that she always kept in a braid, she was my constant companion until I turned seventeen. Every day, she taught Hazel and me in the morning. We read from old books and learned our three R’s: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.

Then, she’d take us into the woods and teach us how to walk quietly or climb trees quickly or find the tracks of animals. Hazel stopped coming on these trips by the time I was ten after Aunt Prudence and Vesta got into a fight about it.

The day she made my spear was before my father disappeared. We skipped our lessons that day, and she took me out before the sun rose. She picked a long and stout yew branch. The entire time, she had hummed a singular rhythm. I’d caught on and hummed along with her.

She built a fire, and we’d fire-hardened the tip. Nothing was unusual except for the humming.

I remember the way she’d looked that day. Shining and shimmering, it was almost like she was different. Like she wasn’t quite there. The smoke had swirled around us while we’d hummed that song together, and the wind had been so loud. Then again, the wind used to be louder than it is now. It used to be so loud that I was sure it was speaking to me back then.

Memories I’d forgotten until right now flash through my mind. She’d pulled her belt knife out, the same one I wear now, and she’d poked my thumb, the same thumb that I press against the little glyph on the spear.

She pressed my thumb into place then. When she’d pulled it away, I’d expected to see a thumbprint in blood, but that little black glyph had been there instead.

I hadn’t remembered any of that until now, and when I look up at Cole, he’s staring at me. Once again, I wonder if he can tellwhat I’m thinking just by looking at me like that. “She was Fae, wasn’t she?”

Cole sits down on the log and stares into the fire again. “I’d assume so. Few human mages tutor young Wyrdlings, and even fewer mages could hide the enchantment that well.”

Vesta was Fae. That’s why she didn’t shy away from my oddities. That’s why she knew to teach me to roam in the forests and why she’d talked to me about the Fae so often. Thinking back on her, it should have been obvious.

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