“Da? What’s wrong?” Adrian stepped in closer, but his father shook his head, reached for his amulet, then dropped his hand away, swearing softly. His body shuddered, and despite the cold, a sheen of sweat gilded his face.
That’s when Adrian knew. It was poison. His father was poisoned. He followed his father’s gaze, and saw that the assassins’ blades were stained blue-gray with it.
His father stumbled to his knees, his sword clattering free on the stones. His face was pale, as if the blood were called to other places.
“That one’s done,” the leader said. He pointed at Adrian with his poison-daubed blade. “Bring the mageling, and let’s go.”
Howling with rage, Adrian turned and charged toward the assassins, sending a deluge of flame out ahead. But, somehow, his father tripped him, and he went down hard on his face in the snow. His father crawled forward and covered his body with his own. He felt warm breath in his ear.
“Lay still,” he said. “Play dead, buy some time. The bluejackets will come. These ones will run. They don’t want to be caught and questioned.”
Adrian struggled to get up, but his father had him pinned. He heard what sounded like an army of running feet and somebody shouting, “The High Wizard! The bastards have killed the High Wizard!”
A mob of people hurtled past. Adrian heard screams and blows landing, shouts of rage and despair.
Finally wriggling free, he gripped his amulet with one hand, pressing the other hand into his father’s chest. He sent power in, seeking to isolate the poison. But it was everywhere, and already the spark of life was all but extinguished. He ripped his father’s cloak and shirt away, exposing wounds that should have been minor. He sent flash in directly, desperately trying to draw the poison out. It hit him like a runaway cart, and he reeled back.
“Don’t,” his father whispered, twisting away from Adrian’s hand. “You don’t want to risk it. You’re not strong enough, on your own. Wait for help.”
Adrian understood. Wizard healers took on the ailments of their patients, and so healing a gravely sick patient was always risky. Even more so for someone who didn’t know what he was doing. But there would be no waiting, because waiting meant that his father would die.
“I am going to save you,” Adrian growled. “I don’t care what it costs. You’re important. You need to live.”
“Ash. Please listen. I have been saved so many times,” his father said. “First your mother saved me, and then you and your sisters. I’m not the one who needs saving now.” His body shuddered again. “Save yourself, and the Line. Your mother will take this hard, and she’s had enough grief in her life already. Tell her . . . tell her that having her . . . that being with her . . . that loving her . . . it was worth it. It was worth it. Will you tell her that?”
“No!” Adrian cried. “You can tell her yourself. I’m not letting you go.”
“Sometimes . . . you have to . . . let go.” His father took both his hands and closed them over the serpent amulet. “This is yours. I want you to go to Oden’s Ford and learn how to use it.”
And then he was gone, the spiritas departing like a whisper on the wind, or a gray wolf on the snow. And, with it, Adrian’s childhood.
A fierce anger ignited inside him, mingled with guilt and pain. His father had survived a lifetime of fighting—until Adrian lured him into a fight he couldn’t win. He’d failed him in every way possible. He bowed his head over their joined hands and prayed to whatever god was listening, “Take me. Take me instead. Spare him. Please.”
The gods, it seemed, were occupied elsewhere.
Adrian was no use in a fight, and he was no use as a healer. He was no use to anyone. He couldn’t bear the thought of facing his mother and sister and telling them what had happened. How could he live in a world that claimed the good and left the bad alone?
He lifted the serpent amulet from around his father’s neck and hung it around his own. He didn’t much care where he went, as long as it was away from there. So he ran, limping badly, until he lost himself in the tangle of streets.
3
RILEY
The day Jenna’s friend Riley died began as they all did—at three in the morning with the long, bone-jarring ride up the mountain to the mine. It was sleeting when Jenna trudged up the hill to the pickup place, so she was shivering and soaked through by the time she got there. The wagon was waiting, the horses steaming and stomping in the cold, the driver yelling at her to hurry up, he didn’t want to get fined for being late.