“And will you still marry Garen, if it isn’t necessary?” I asked. I shouldn’t have let my willingness to help her depend on it when the remaining lives in the village might be at stake, but I needed the answer.
“Perhaps not,” she said, setting down the remains of her bread and taking my hand. Her slender fingers wove together with mine, her touch and her words filling me with uncertainty. I couldn’t tell what she wanted. Maybe she didn’t even know.
“I’m going to need some time to think about all this,” I said. Her return had brought light back to my life and just as quickly plunged me into deeper darkness.
“Of course. I’ll appreciate anything you can do. You’ve always been so good to me, and I wanted to ask someone I trusted, someone who might have other ideas besides telling me to pray or fast or go outside naked and howl with the wolves.” She rolled her eyes.
“Surely no one suggested that.” My mouth twitched in the barest hint of a smile.
“I just want to have a say over my own future. If I don’t manifest, I’ll never be able to become an elder. I won’t be able to do anything to protect Amalska from bandits. I can’t watch my family and my village suffer.” Passion darkened the sapphire of her eyes.
I knew what she meant, because my protectiveness of her was equally fierce. I also understood what it was like to want a choice over one’s own future—not that I’d ever had one. It was fairly rare for someone not to manifest eventually, but she was definitely overdue.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do,” I said. It wasn’t entirely true, but I didn’t want to give her false hope. Besides the arcane ritual Miriel had told me about, I knew only one other way to help Ina; I could dictate her fate and write her manifestation in my blood. The thought made me shudder.
“I should go before it gets much colder,” Ina said, her voice gentle. “I’ll come back soon. I want every moment with you I can get. At least until I manifest . . . if that ever happens.”
“And if you don’t?” I asked, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll take up sewing undergarments, like the last girl in our village who failed to manifest,” she said. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. As always, she took a lighthearted tone when she most wanted to hide her fear. My heart ached. She cared for her people and deserved whatever life she wanted.
Last summer she’d told me about her ambitions for Amalska—a multi-village midsummer trade festival, a better network of messengers for winter, and ideas about how we might export lake ice to the south or even into the kingdom of Mynaria in the west. She was too bold and passionate to be content on the outskirts of town, relegated to second-class citizenry without a manifest.
I packed a canvas bag for her, carefully wrapping the tinctures in cloth to protect them.
“Garen must return to Nobrosk with my answer to his proposal as soon as the roads clear,” Ina said as she pulled on her indigo cloak.
“That can’t be more than another week or two,” I said, feeling faint. Snow would melt sooner in the valley than it did up here. I needed to buy myself a little more time. “Promise me you won’t make a decision before the next community meeting. Come back before then and I’ll have some ideas about how to help you.”
“Oh, thank you, Asra!” Ina rushed over and threw her arms around me.
I took a breath, catching a whiff of lavender that lingered in her hair—dried lavender I’d given her when she told me how much trouble she had falling asleep most nights. The painful familiarity of it deepened my confusion. Did she share any of my hopes for the future, or did she only want my help to forge her own way without me?
Once the sun had set and the winds grew biting and sharp, her loss felt colder to me than ever before. If I did nothing, she could be cast out for failing to manifest, but if I helped her, it might lead to her marrying someone else. I didn’t know what to do. At least if I tried to help, perhaps there would be more choices for her—and a chance for us. She belonged with me, didn’t she? She could become a village elder with me by her side. She didn’t need to marry Garen—not if I could find a better way to protect the village, not if we could find a better reason for Nobrosk to support Amalska. A common enemy should have been enough.
Either way, I had less than a week until the community meeting to figure out what I was able and willing to do for her.
CHAPTER 4
IN CONTRAST WITH MY TROUBLED MOOD, THE GOOD weather held for the next few days. Necessity demanded I trek to the lake. I preferred its water for my tinctures, as it was much easier to purify than melted snow or the muddy creeks just beginning to flow. Also, the lake carried history in its depths, memories of the mountain far deeper and more enduring than the streams that came and went with the seasons. I loved the lake. If I hadn’t known my father to be the wind god, I might have wondered if the parent who’d given me life was one of the genderfluid gods—water or spirit. Their fluid natures might have explained the magical gifts that made fate so malleable in my hands.
Only a few wispy clouds overhead hinted that winter might not yet be done. Life stirred all around as I traversed the mountain. Pine trees pondered the bursts of fresh green needles that would soon adorn their branches. Animals stirred in their nests and dens. Beneath the dirt and snow, bulbs released their first shoots, pulsing with life I could feel but not yet see. Still, spring felt more like a curse than a promise if the coming summer wouldn’t be like the last.
I checked the vista on my way out, hoping against reason that Ina would be waiting for me again. But I found it empty. All I saw was a fresh funeral pyre in the valley sending a thin coil of black smoke up into the sky. With a pang of sadness, I sketched the symbol of the shadow god and whispered a prayer. I still had important duties, and potion work seemed like the only thing I had control over now. My options for how to help Ina hung over me, each one feeling increasingly impossible. The deeper I dug in search of a reason she should be with me instead of Garen, the more empty my hands came up. I couldn’t give her normalcy. I couldn’t bear my own children—a fact that devastated me anytime I dwelled on it for more than a few heartbeats.
Nuts and dried berries in my belt pouch made for a lean breakfast as I crossed the mountainside toward the lake. Even as I ate, my stomach growled at the prospects spring would bring, like fresh hare roasted with salt and honey and spices, or fiddlehead ferns sautéed in butter brought to me from the village. On the north face of the mountain, snow still obscured deep gullies that cut through the land, but I knew the ridges and ravines of the mountain like I knew the contours of my own hands.
As I crested the last part of the summit, the expanse of the frozen lake glittered below. I picked my way down to the shore and knelt beside the lake. Water gently lapped at the lacy gray ice falling apart near the edge. Beneath the frigid surface I drew a variation on the water god’s symbol to clear the mud and ice from a patch of water. I dipped jars in to capture some and stopped them with corks. Once my satchel was repacked, I had everything I needed to brew my next batch of potions—just in time to see ominous clouds gathering over the western peaks.