Page 115 of The Iron Dagger
It was as her mother had said. Some eighty or ninety sorcerers were clustered in the small space. Some had joined Roger and the woman in their efforts to forge a path through the ice, while others sat huddled in the sand with their knees drawn up and their eyes clamped closed. But as she looked around at all the faces, young and old, she saw relief. Sometimes even joy. Curious glances were thrown her way, but there would be time to explain everything to them later.
An unfamiliar voice spoke beside her.
“I saw you were injured when you came out of the stone. Would you allow me?”
Hara turned to see a round-faced woman in scarlet robes. The robes of a court healer.
Hara nodded, and the woman began to move her hands in odd flicking motions over her arm. It was an unfamiliar spell, but Hara sighed in relief as the pain melted away. A strange sensation, like cold liquid running down her arm, loosened the stiffness and the swelling, allowing her to flex her fingers and move her arm without strain. It was as though the injury had never existed.
“Thank you,” she said in wonder. She was so used to mending others’ hurts that it felt peculiar to be on the other side. “What is your name?”
“Margaret Oberfor. What is yours?”
“Angharad.”
Margaret bowed her head deeply. “I shall remember it. We shall all remember it.”
Tenderness filled her heart as she watched the woman move to another witch nearby, whose lip bled freely.
Hara rubbed absently at her chest. Her heartbeat was only now beginning to slow. It felt surreal that only a few moments ago, she had been running for her life in a never ending maze, hiding from the manifestation of her father that hunted them.
She remembered what Gideon said at the ball:he is just a man.Now that she had confronted her worst fears, she realized that it was true about them all. Corvus, Falk, Turnswallow, Seith. These men who had overturned a country and caused countless lives to be lost were still only that—men. Mortal, aging, and weak. They could not make gold or See the future, could not heal the sick or relieve pain. They would be gone, with nothing but a legacy of manipulation and cruelty to mark their time on earth. There were more worthy things to be frightened of.
Hara watched as the prison that had held the sorcerers for decades finally crumbled and collapsed, its still-smoking pieces continuing to disintegrate on the sand.
Reality, cold and wet as it was, had never been so beautiful.
TWENTY-ONE
Gideon
The fire flickered bright and hot, and Gideon held his frigid hands to it. Seraphine lay in his lap, curled asleep. She often accompanied him when he left the cottage to continue his watch.
They sat under a hollowed portion of rock that faced the glacier. It blocked the wind and allowed him to see the hole that yawned on the surface of the ice, dark and silent for almost two months now. He had set up camp in the hollow space, with a propped canvas as a shelter and a crate that held cooking implements, blankets, and some food.
The time that passed worried him, and he often wondered if Hara had met with some trouble. Perhaps the two-headed monster on the beach had caught her, or her mother was proving difficult to reason with. Maybe they could not convince any other sorcerers to take the plunge into the pit again. There was no way of knowing, and so Gideon had to remind himself that while time stretched into weeks here on the outside, inside the stone it may have only been an hour.
Once a week, he made the short journey back down the mountain to visit the fae and Alcmene. She was adjusting well to life outside of the stone, and she and the fae couple had become amiable companions. With her help, they expanded their underground home and added two new rooms. Gideon thanked them profusely for opening their home to two human strangers, but they always waved away his words.
There was a hot spring that burbled up into a pool nearby, and during his visits, Gideon would soak away the chillof the mountain. Afterward, he would savor the comfort of a roof over his head and, over a supper of hearty root soup and wild fowl, they would speculate.
“If Hara succeeds in getting the others out, the stone will no longer provide magic to the city,” said Gideon. “It will be gradual, but eventually, they will start to notice.”
“If each person takes several months to extract, it might be so gradual that no one will notice until a significant number have been freed,” said Alcmene.
“But there will come a day when they do notice, and when that day comes, I don’t know what my father will do,” said Gideon. There was an ominous silence after this statement. Who would receive the Commander’s wrath?
“Would they attack the fae?” asked the fae woman softly. Gideon wanted to assure her that his father would not move against her people, but he could not promise that.
“He might. What was the agreement between them?”
“After my sister showed them how the stone could be used, they were promised that they would be granted special protection under Corvus, unlike the sorcerers. He entrusted them with this special privilege under the condition that the stone continued to provide the city with power.”
“And the fae posted no guards?” asked Gideon.
“The stone protects itself. It has been used by our people for hundreds of years and has never come to harm. Anyone who comes close to it would either fall to their death or become trapped in the stone with the others. It needs no guards,” said the fae man. “I think Armot counted on that. It was easy to hold up their side of the deal.”
“Then it is very possible that the fae could be targeted if the magic dries up. They could even be thrown into the stone as replacements to supply magic to the city.”
