Page 21 of Ties of Legacy

The same thing happened with a brass lamp, a single candlestick, a small coal shovel, and an oddly shaped bowl. Avery carted item after item into the trees without effect. When she pulled out the final item—another lantern, but this one tiny, they both looked at it.

“Of course it would be the last one,” she said, amused.

He examined her face. Was she disappointed it was the tiny lantern? And did that mean it was a valuable or inexpensive item? He couldn’t tell from her expression.

“I suppose we had better confirm it,” she said. “Just to be thorough.”

Before he could reply, she started off between the trees once more. Elliot braced himself for the coming pain, but nothing happened. He waited longer, blinking against a moment of dizziness. But no, he had imagined it. His mind was still clear.

He waited longer and longer. Surely it was going to set in any minute now? He hadn’t had to go far from the cart for it to start the last time.

But still nothing came.

Avery eventually reappeared, frowning. “Did I go too far? How sick do you feel?”

“Not sick at all,” Elliot said, bewildered. “It didn’t do anything. Are you sure there’s nothing else in there? Not even a little spoon or something?”

He jumped down himself and rummaged through the straw left in the crate. But it didn’t take much effort to ascertain that it was empty of all metal items.

Avery snorted. “A spoon? The smith in Henton doesn’t make spoons.”

“Why not?” Elliot asked. “With a wait list of six months, I’d hope he makes whatever his customers request.”

“He probably does.” She put the lantern down with the other items and started carefully repacking them into the crate. “Butwho in the kingdoms would wait six months for the Henton smith to make them aspoon?”

Elliot shrugged, his confusion making him ornery. “Spoons are very useful.”

Avery laughed, but the sound died when she peered up at him and saw his expression. She straightened, a look of wonder on her face.

“Did you really spend days camped across from his smithy, watching him constantly, and you don’t know what the Henton smith is famed for?”

Elliot shrugged uncomfortably. “He didn’t exactly have a sign explaining it, and you may have noticed he’s not the chattiest of fellows. And I already told you I avoided getting into conversations with anyone else.”

Avery shook her head. “There’s a reason your thieves sold him a candelabra of all things. That smith isn’t from Henton. He isn’t even from Sovar.”

“So?” Elliot stared at her, confused. They’d already established that some people chose to travel despite the price their Legacy enacted.

Avery lowered her voice, although there was no one anywhere near them and he doubted she knew any secrets about such a taciturn man.

“He doesn’t come from any of the six kingdoms on this side of the mountains,” she said.

Elliot brows drew together. “He’s a mountain baby like me?”

“No!” Avery sounded frustrated. “He comes from one of the kingdoms across the mountains!”

“The Henton smith was born in one of the kingdoms on the other side of the northern mountains?” Elliot clarified, struggling to believe it.

It might not have been common for people to travel between the southern kingdoms, but it happened. No one ever crossedthe northern mountains, though. A few had tried it in the distant past, but almost none of them had made it back. The mountains were too difficult to traverse for there to be any proper passes, and the treacherous waters in that section of both the eastern and western seas made bypassing the mountains by ship a foolhardy endeavor. The southerners knew only the barest details about the kingdoms on the far side of the mountains—snatches of information passed down about the unfamiliar Legacies that shaped their landscape.

“He not only came over the mountains,” Avery proclaimed, warming to the topic, “but he managed to do it with his anvil in tow.”

“He lugged that thing across the northern mountains?” Elliot stared at her, mouth hanging open.

Avery nodded eagerly. “He’s unique in all the kingdoms. He comes from the northern kingdom where their Legacy affects lamps and anything else that creates light. And since he lives in Sovar, the lingering affects of his Legacy somehow combined with the Sovar Legacy. You know how their Legacy allows the Sovarans to make almost anything out of glass. Well, this smith can do similar remarkable things but with brass instead of glass. Of course he does the most impressive work with items like lamps or lanterns or candlesticks. He can make items no one else can.” She gave him a triumphant look. “So no. No one is asking him to make spoons.”

Elliot shook his head. “Impressive,” he murmured, looking down at the now refilled crate. “But that doesn’t explain what happened to my candelabra. Are you sure you put everything you bought from him in this crate? It looked like you did, but maybe?—”

He stopped, looking at Avery and reading in her stricken expression that she’d just had the same thought as him.

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