20

The sky continues to lighten, becoming a palette of pale pinks and blues, fiery red dulled by the cover of fog. Soon it will be time to leave this camp behind and resume our journey.

“Question,” I say, running my fingers over the log’s rough surface. “I’ve asked Olivia to explain this, but I’d like your insight now. The town you lived in is called Maford. And the kingdom is…?”

“Seriously?”

“Ha. That’s what Olivia said.”

Jadon looks at me with amused eyes. “Maford is in the kingdom of Vinevridth.”

“In the realm of…?”

“Vallendor.”

“And beyond Vallendor?”

“Some call it ‘heaven.’”

“Some? What do you call it?”

“I have no opinion.”

Doubt that.

“What are the names of other realms beyond Vallendor?” I ask.

Jadon shakes his head. “According to the emperor and therefore more than half of the provinces, there are no other realms, Kai. At least none that matter to regular people. Clerics have always told stories about destroyed worlds to keep children from stealing sweets. The realm of Ithlon, for example. The old tales say that Ithlon was destroyed by the gods. But Emperor Wake refutes that and says that there is no proof of such a place and that the people telling those tales are just trying to subvert him. And ‘gods’? Anyone looking to believe or even acknowledge gods is beaten and burned.”

“And what do you believe?”

“That there is one Supreme who couldn’t care less about any of us.”

I watch the sky. “You think Supreme made Vallendor and created beings, then said, ‘You’re on your own, good luck, pray to me’?”

He sucks in his cheeks. “I have no opinion.”

“Do you think Supreme created other beings beyond those living in Vallendor Realm?”

“Why are we discussing this?” he snaps.

“Because something is happening here,” I say. “Something that neither of us understand. I’m just trying to hear other perspectives. Work on my self-growth .”

Because no matter how hard he tries to convince me that I’m a mage from a neighboring town or a pariah kicked out of my community of magic-makers, I know there’s more to me than that. Sybel’s warnings and Elyn’s anger don’t make sense if I was just someone’s lost daughter or a wandering mage. I know my abilities—thought-reading, communing with animals, seeing the glows of death, flicking air with my hand, all of it—are bigger than anything a mage can do.

“What about beings that rank somewhere between the Most High and… you ?” I ask.

“Like angels or gods?”

I tug on my amulet. “Not quite immortal but long-living. Not all-powerful but stronger than a regular being.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know if those beings have a name. And if there are beings like the ones you describe, they’re messy and selfish and, like Supreme, probably care even less about people. Why should they? Humans, especially, can offer nothing to someone who can bend time and manipulate objects or whatever.”

I pick at the bark on the log. “But you believe they exist?”

“I do, but I also believe that everyone does what they want. Including Supreme and these nameless demigods.”

“Do you think these nameless demigods are actually children of the Vile?”

He shakes his head. “But who says that they’re children of Supreme? What if they simply existed? What if they simply enjoyed being powerful and almost immortal? Perfect in every way but delightfully…”

“Delightfully…?”

“Shameless. Pleasantly unrepentant. Deliciously transgressive.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Whew.”

He chuckles and shrugs. “Don’t listen to me, Kai. I know nothing. You want spoons, I’m your guy. If you want a sage who ponders the realms and the beings who inhabit them, you should’ve crashed in the forest and ran into town naked before I became the guy who made fucking spoons.”

“Don’t do that,” I snap, annoyed.

He tosses me a look. “Don’t do what ?”

“Don’t diminish yourself like that. I’m going to chalk up your grumpiness to you being tired and hungry, in need of a stiff drink and a massage. But it needs to stop at dawn. You’re more than the guy who makes fucking spoons. People look up to you. Or looked up to you.

“The ladies of Maford, the ones who were hiding with Olivia and me in the barn when the emperor’s men stormed into town? You should’ve heard them go on about how glorious you are. A few of them even called you a god among men. They would’ve run naked through town if that landed you in their bed.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because of the way you moved out there with your big sword and your bigger—”

“No,” he says, “why do you think that there’s more out there?”

I chew on his question, then straddle the log to face him . “Don’t know, but let’s look at the evidence.” I hold up my hands. “This wind power had to come from somewhere, and I haven’t seen anyone except me chuck wind to knock big-ass flies out of the sky.”

“I told you, though,” Jadon says, “magic exists throughout Vallendor. Sorcerers, mages, healers. Just because no one in Maford shared your skill doesn’t mean that others in the realm don’t. Elyn, for example.”

“Elyn is no simple sorcerer. You weren’t there. You didn’t see her. If you did…” I shake my head, awed. “She is something else. I am something else.”

“Don’t let Emperor Wake ever hear you say that,” Jadon says. “He’ll jail you, charge you with heresy, blasphemy, anything that ends in Y , and then he’ll hang you on the public gallows. Now that Wake has told them that they are an extension of his own power and that of his church, mayors of the towns he’s conquered have started punishing people the same way.”

My scalp crawls as I picture Jamart and his daughter hanging side by side. “Olivia told me she’s seen altars that were hidden in homes around Maford.”

He nods. “Jamart was a member of one of those cults—Wake sympathizers’ word, not mine. He and his family—the people you freed from jail—worshipped…” Jadon presses his fingers against his forehead, trying to remember. “The Lady…the Lady…”

“Of the Verdant Realm,” I complete.

“Yeah, Lady of the Verdant Realm. I think it was Cecie, Freyney’s wife, who’d gone to buy wax from Jamart’s shop, and she spotted an altar in their sitting room.”

The woman’s face carved in wood. Flowers. Candles.

I remember Jamart’s expression on that afternoon I inspired him to make a new kind of candle. I recall how he looked at me with that light in his eyes. He glowed as though he knew he was in the company of…of a…

A chill zips up my spine. No. That’s not… I’m not…

Blasphemy , Father Knete would scold.

Anxiety swarms in my chest, and my nerves pull, tangled and tight.

“Cecie rushed over to the chapel,” Jadon is saying, “and when Jamart’s daughter took the colure down from the door, that was beyond the pale, so they arrested her instead, and the rest is history. They didn’t arrest Jamart because he’s the only one in Maford who can make candles. He’s also the only one who isn’t scared of bees.” Jadon folds his arms, satisfied. “Guess he didn’t tell you that he was a heretic, right?”

I look over at him. It sounded like a joke, but he’s frowning as though my friendship with the candlemaker makes him ill. “Your reaction suggests that you’re jealous,” I say.

“Worried.”

“That…?”

“That people will mistake your kindness for affinity. I don’t want them coming for you.”

I stretch until my backbone clicks. “Let them come for me and mine, and I’ll burn down their houses, too. They will perish, guaranteed, without forethought.”

Jadon studies me and chuckles. “What the fuck was in those honeycakes?”

I lift my face to the sky again and let cool, moist air sweep over me. “Yeah, I got honeycake courage.”

“You do.”

“You like it?”

“I’m lightheaded.”

I laugh. “Faint and prove it.”

“Keep threatening to destroy whole towns and I’ll do more than faint.”

Delightfully shameless. Pleasantly unrepentant. Deliciously transgressive.

“I care for you,” he says. “That’s why I’m saying this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I close my eyes again, buzzy and lightheaded, hesitant to let this moment go. I’m happy that he isn’t a zealot. Don’t know what I’d do if he were. Relieved, I rise from the log and stretch my sore back, readying for another day of riding—

What was that? Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw a flash of white slipping through the copse of poplars. My heart bangs once, and I go rigid. Maybe I imagined it.

No, I didn’t imagine…

The wolf is real. Long and lean, its fur whiter than any snow, its glow a hard blue, like it will never die. The beast’s silver eyes glimmer, and its lips curl to reveal sharp teeth. Even this far away, I smell its fur: wet dog and pine needles.

The beast stands there, on the other end of the dell, staring at me.

I keep my focus on the wolf as I whisper, “Jadon.”

He smiles and says, “Kai?” Seeing my expression, his face hardens. “What? What’s wrong?”

I hold a finger to my mouth, “Shh,” and nod to the forest at his back.

Right at the perimeter of that poplar forest, the white wolf stands, an odd brightness amid those columns of slender gray trees. The last pulses from the nightstar shine slices of pearly light to illuminate him.