Chapter 112. Every Rhyme Had a Second Line, and Every Second Line Pointed at Me

Chapter 112: 112. Every Rhyme Had a Second Line, and Every Second Line Pointed at Me

Sylvara taught me magic in the Moonveil garden.

I hadn’t seen it before. It lay behind the Covenant Hall, through a low arched gate half hidden by ivy, and it was one of the strangest places I’d ever walked into.

It had once been beautiful. You could tell if you look at it.

There were broken paths of white stone, a long still pond lined with reeds, and a ring of old stone statues of deer, standing in the long grass with their heads raised, half covered in moss.

But it had been left untended for a very long time. The grass had grown knee-high, and even the roses had run wild.

A huge, ancient tree stood at the center, with branches like a cathedral roof, and its leaves were silver on the undersides.

Sylvara stood beneath it, with her hat pushed back and her staff in her hand, and her little lights bobbing around her like a swarm of lazy fireflies.

"You are late," she said, smiling.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?"

"Because you are always late." She held out her palm.

A small pale light drifted down onto it. "Show me."

I held up my hand.

I thought of the pilot light in my belly, the thin warm flame that she’d taught me to find in a garden a lifetime ago.

I breathed in, the way Velora had shown me, and out. The spark rose immediately.

It lit at my fingertip, a tiny, steady gold bead.

It was the size of a marble.

I stared at it. I’d gotten it up to a chickpea weeks ago and a pea before that.

This was much bigger. It was a real, round, solid little sphere of light, hovering in front of my finger, and it was not flickering.

"Count," said Sylvara.

"One," I said. "Two. Three."

It held. "Four. Five."

And it still held.

I let out a whoop that scared a flock of sparrows out of the tree. I punched the air with both fists.

I think I did a victory lap.

Sylvara laughed, a soft, musical ripple, and clapped her hands together a few times, delicately, as if applauding a small child.

"That was very good," she said.

"I’m a genius, huh?"

"You are a marble."

"A magnificent marble at that!"

"Truly."

She was still smiling when she put down her staff.

"Now," she said, "I should like to try something..."

"It is only an idea, and it may not work."

"I’m in." I punched my own fist.

"You have been practicing two things," she said. "The step, which Velora has taught you."

"And the guard, which is your own."

"I think they may be put together." She tapped her chin. "When you step, you leave a trail of motion."

"If you were to catch that trail at the end, to wrap it into your guard, it would not be wasted... It could be turned."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning that you would land with a shield already in place."

I tried it.

Well, in fact, I tried it FUCKING three times.

The first time, I stepped, tried to catch my own momentum, and went headlong into a hedge.

The second time, I overshot and landed face down in the pond.

The third, I misjudged the distance and flattened a statue.

"I’m sorry!" I yelled to the stag.

"It is only a statue," said Sylvara, helping me up.

She was shaking with silent laughter. "It has been standing there for a thousand years... I am sure it will survive."

On the fourth try... fucking finally... I did it.

I stepped, and the world flashed silver.

I crossed ten paces in a single blink, and as I came out, I reached for the invisible blanket of force that I’d always felt wrapped around me, and I pulled it in, tight, like a hand closing around a fist.

I landed on one knee, upright, steady, with the guard already wrapped around me, shimmering faintly in the air.

I’d done it perfectly.

I looked up. I was grinning like a fool.

"Gehehehe..."

At the edge of the garden, in the shade of the ivy gate, three women stood watching. I hadn’t seen them arrive.

Velora had her arms folded, and her head tilted, and there was a faint line between her brows.

Elsbeth was beside her, calm and cool, like the usual Elsbeth.

And at the back, a huge, scarred figure leaned on the stone, with her arms crossed over her chest.

"He is not terrible," Magnara said, grudgingly.

"He is qualified," said Velora.

"Acceptable," said Elsbeth.

Sylvara put her hands over her mouth. And her shoulders shook.

...

It was a lazy, golden evening, and for the first time all day, nobody was trying to hit me.

We’d all collapsed onto the grass beneath the great tree, the five of us, in a loose and ragged circle.

I lay flat on my back with my arms spread.

Velora sat upright with her knees tucked beneath her.

Elsbeth leaned against the trunk with her legs stretched out.

Sylvara had settled cross-legged on the grass, with her hat in her lap.

And Magnara sat a little apart, with her back to a stone deer, looking at nothing.

Someone had brought a basket of bread and cheese and a jug of cold cider. We passed it around without discussion.

I don’t remember who started it... I think it was Elsbeth.

She took a swallow of cider, put the cup down, and said, in her dry, quiet voice, "My grandmother used to say that the Beastmate is a man with warm hands... who will not look away."

Nobody said anything.

I lifted my head.

"A thief," Velora said, slowly, "who steals nothing and is himself stolen from."

She was looking at the sky. "That is what my nurse told me... I thought it was a nonsense rhyme."

There was a pause. Magnara cleared her throat.

"Redhorn songs," she said, in a gruff, embarrassed voice, "say that he lifts what no one else can lift, and he weeps without shame."

I stared at her. Her ears had gone dark.

"A stranger," said Sylvara softly, "who will ask the moon a question."

She smiled a little. "I have heard it in several forms... I suspected it the first night we met."

"But I did not wish to be wrong."

A hush fell over the circle. The leaves of the great tree rustled overhead.

I groaned, loudly, and let my head fall back onto the grass.

"It sounds like you’re all describing a different guy to me," I said. "A warm-handed thief who weeps, moon-questioning, and a stranger-lifting guy."

"If you think about it... and when I also think about it... I can’t carry that much."

"We are not describing a different man," said Elsbeth. "You are simply a very strange person."

"Thanks, though. At least I got a good treatment as a human now."

"You are welcome."

It was Sylvara who spotted it first, because of course it was.

She’d been turning her cup in her hands, and her brows had come together in the faint, thoughtful pucker that I’d come to recognize.

After a while, she said, quietly, "Say the... second line again. Magnara, the one about weeping."

"He lifts what no one else can lift, and he weeps without shame," said Magnara.

She paused. "There is more to it... what I say is just the old version, which my grandmother used to say."

"He weeps without shame when the Gate falls."

A little cold silence slid over us.

Elsbeth had gone still. "Now that I think about it again..."

"Mine has a second line, as well," she said slowly. "I had forgotten... He will carry the hearth on his back."

"He shall be broken once," said Velora, "and the hand remains."

Sylvara closed her eyes.

"The moon answers him," she said, "with a hand."