Greythorne (Bloodleaf 2)

When the temperature dropped at nightfall, I was forced to weigh the choice between the possibility of revealing ourselves to Castillion’s patrols and the prospect of dying of cold and becoming the first human tenants of the Tomb. I decided to risk the former to avoid the latter, and I made a small fire between us and cooked the last two of Father Edgar’s shriveled potatoes, scavenged from the very bottom of Onal’s pack.

Her shivering abated a little, but not much.

The waterskin had only a few drops of clean water left in it—not enough to conduct a full scrying spell even if I had been inclined to use it that way. I did find a six-inch pool of standing rainwater in the cavity of an old stone where a column had once stood. While Onal rested, I nicked a finger and let the blood drop into the puddle. “Ibi mihi et ipse est,” I commanded. Show me.

I saw Kellan first. He was shackled to the back of a darkened wagon that jerked and jolted over uneven ground. Beside him, Rosetta sat with her head on his shoulder, looking wasted and wan. An iron chain was around her neck, and her hands were now fully encased in iron as well; she had no power to get them free.

Zan was alone on the other side of the cart, staring up at the oppressive black-canvas canopy, where weak daylight peeked in from a scattering of tiny holes in the fabric like dim stars.

The vision broke when I heard Onal begin to cough on the other side of the tomb in guttural, full-body wracks.

I hurried over to find that her bandages—scraps of dirty fabric torn from our clothes—had already soaked through; when I went to change them, I finally ventured to break the silence. “You know,” I said, “I did learn ho

w to absorb sickness and injury. If you want, I could try . . .”

She wheezed, “Sure, do it. At least I’ll die quickly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I may not be a feral mage like Rosetta, but I’m a daughter of wardens, and blood magic weakens me.” Huffing, she added, “You thought you were helping me, using my blood on that wolf?? Ha! You may as well have put me in my grave.”

“If that’s true, why does it not hurt me? I’m a daughter of the woods too, am I not?”

Her gaze swiveled to mine. “What did you just say? What nonsense. Why would you—”

“When I was in the Gray,” I said slowly, “I saw what happened. I saw my father as a newborn baby, in the nursery back in Syric. And I saw his mother.” I paused. “She was not Queen Iresine.”

At the name, I saw Onal visibly stiffen. After a long silence, she said, “I never told anyone. Not my sister. Not even your father, Regus. That’s why you’re not weak to iron, why you age at a regular pace—it runs through the wardens’ direct female line, and you were born to my son.”

“Rosetta is desperate for someone to take the warden’s mantle from her, to become the guardian of the Ninth Age.” I was trying to sort all the mismatched pieces. “Does this mean . . . I could do it?”

“I don’t know,” Onal said. “But you could try, I suppose. If you found the bell, I could pass it to you—only two of Nola’s descendants are needed to make the change. Though I don’t know why you’d want to. It’s a very heavy burden.”

“Why didn’t you tell my father who you were?”

“It was safer that way, for everyone,” Onal said tiredly. “After Galantha died, Rosetta and I fought constantly and bitterly. So I left. I traveled around for a while before settling in Syric. I set myself up as an herbalist there and began gaining a reputation for good work when I was asked to come take a look at the queen. She’d been trying to have a child, but she kept losing them in the early weeks.” She sighed. “It was just a job. I didn’t expect to like her”—Onal’s eyes shone—“let alone love her. But I did. I couldn’t help it.” She sniffed. “And she loved me, too. For the first time in my life, I felt seen. Valued. Cherished, even.”

Gently, I said, “Oh, Onal.”

“She loved her husband, King Costin, too, but it never felt like she was torn between us. There was no jealousy or animosity. But, even showered as she was in our love, she was still fading, and there was nothing we could do about it. She wanted a child—she ached for a child—and she was dying of the wanting.”

“What did you do?”

“Everything I could. Everything. But no matter what potions I concocted, what remedies I tried—her body wasn’t capable of carrying one of her own.”

“So you gave her the heir that she wanted.”

“Yes,” Onal said. “I delivered her son. Their son.” She paused. “Our son.” Then, taking a deep breath, she asked, “What else did you see?”

“I think you know.”

Onal looked away, tears standing in eyes I thought were incapable of producing them. “It was a tradition by then to take girls born to the crown and spirit them away. I think that’s what they tried to do.”

My voice was barely a whisper. “Did you find where they took her?”

Onal shook her head. “I found a burned-out carriage. There was nothing left.” She cleared her throat, trying to rid her voice of the roughness that had crept into it. “Iresine died only two years later. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“But you went back. You became Father’s nursemaid when you could have been his mother.”