Page 149 of Brimstone

Yes.

So we’re still fucked.

Yes.

Gods, I need a drink.

I sighed heavily, another bead of sweat dripping from my chin.Yes.

“In Zilvaren, I always thought the city should have looked bigger from the rooftops.” Saeris took a swig from my hip flask and passed it back to me. She stared out over the lightening forest that bounded the estate, squinting toward the horizon. “It never did. I could see the walls of every ward from the rooftops. Could see the walls hemming us in. Bars on a window.” She scowled at the memory, making a chopping motion with the blade of her bandaged hand in the air. Te Léna had healed her as best she could, but the burns had been deep. It would take a little while for her palms to fully recover. “There are no walls up here. No bars on this prison window. The world feels as though it might go on and on forever.”

It would be dawn soon. She was exhausted and maybe in a little pain, too, but when she had asked to be brought up to the roof, I hadn’t had the heart to deny the request. I’d needed to breathe in the fresh night air after the penetrating heat of Archer’s home, anyway.

The land surrounding Cahlish was crowded with trees that had known the names of my ancestors. My mother and father had met out in those forests. Had courted each other out there, below their snow-clad boughs. The stories I had heard about them in their youth—two very serious people made utter fools by love.

“My father lost a toe out there.” I gestured to the small, dark patch of wood, just beyond the rise of the closest hill. “You see that shadowy spot? The one where no snow has settled?”

Saeris looked in the direction I pointed, nodding.

“A graven lives there.”

She looked to me, eyes wide. “What’s a graven?”

“Mm. A kind of . . .” I considered how to describe it. “Half satyr, half troll? With a little bit of basilisk thrown in for good measure.”

“What’s a basilisk?”

I laughed softly at the distaste in her tone. I took a swig of the whiskey I’d brought up for us and handed the flask back to her again. “A snake. Kind of. Bigger. Angrier.”

“So, part troll, part satyr, part snake.” She sniffed, brushing her face with the back of her hand; there were snowflakes on her eyelashes. “I can’t even begin to picture what that looks like, but okay. What about this graven, then?”

“It lives in a little wooden cottage out there.” I pointed at the shady, snow-free patch of the forest again. “It makes tinctures and salves and the like. A long time ago, people used to trade with the graven for potions and spells they believed would end hexes, heal ailments, or make people fall in love with them. My father had his own magic, but he was like me. He commanded shadows and not much of anything else. When he met my mother, he was relying on charm alone to woo her, and he didn’t have much faith in his own capabilities in that department, so one day, he decided to visit the graven.”

“For a love potion?” Saeris rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it.

I did the same. “For a love potion, yes. And the graven said to him, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I will give you my strongest, most effective love potion. A potion so potent that the object of your heart’s desire will be powerless against your advances. She willbe yours for all of time if she drinks this potion that I will make for you.’ ”

“And? What was the catch? What bargain did he have to strike?”

My mate was clever. She waslearning.

I smiled a little as I took the flask from her and drank again. The whiskey warmed me all the way down to the seat of my diaphragm. “The graven said to my father, ‘I will give you this potion, and you will live out your days with a wife and a family, and you will be blissfully happy. You will be able to create powerful wards, and you will be a role model to your people and all who follow you and support you.’ And my father was wowed by this prospect, and he said, as you so astutely guessed, ‘Wonderful. This is all I’ve ever dreamed of and more.What do you want in return for these gifts?’ And the Graven replied, “Your right foot. I want your whole right foot.”

“What?”

“Mm-hm. His foot. It wanted his foot. And my father said . . .”

I pointed at Saeris, who wrinkled her nose, confused, and said,“Why?”

“And the graven said, ‘Well, I’m sick of these cloven things. I’ve always wanted two properFaefeet to walk around on. I bargained with someone for their left foot a while back, and I’ve been trying to complete the set ever since.’ And the graven showed my father a severed left foot, sitting on a flocked red pillow by the fireplace, and that was all it would say on the matter.”

“But your father wouldn’t trade his foot for the potion,” Saeris said.

“He would not. So the graven said, ‘Fine. You won’t be parted with your foot, so how about this. When I stand in the sun, I cast no shadow, and it makes others around me nervous. They sensethat I’m different, and they run from me. Give me your shadows, and I will give you my very best love potion.’ ”

“He said no again,” Saeris guessed.

“My father’s shadows were his greatest strength. Of course he said no. So the graven was very frustrated by this point and growing rather tired of the negotiations, so he said, ‘Okay. This is my final offer. You give me justoneof your shadows, one that you deem fitting to someone like me, and we’ll call it even.’ So my father thought about this, and having decided that one single shadow was a seed of magic he was willing and able to part with, he agreed. The graven mixed up some stinking concoction and passed it off to my father, and in return my father handed over the graven’s new shadow. The deal was done. The graven walked my father to the door of his cottage and stepped outside to admire his new shadow, but it was midday, and the sun was high overhead.”