The duke gently tugged one of her braids. “I am glad, too. You and your friends saved me from unpleasant choices, at least for Inoulia’s lands.”
Once the supper dishes were cleared, a few people brought musical instruments to the main hall and began to play. After the duke returned, Niko created illusions to amuse those who had stayed. Lark juggled a collection of plates and tableware to much applause, and two household guards performed a sword dance. Other talented people came forward, with the result that it was very late when Daja, Tris, Briar, and their teachers went to their rooms. Sandry was curled up in a chair, asleep. Her loom lay flat on the floor, with four inches of clean stripes after the section where fibers had created a satinlike cloth. The green, white, blue and orange-red stripes were not purely colored: the fibers still mingled enough to give lights in all four shades to each stripe. The white cotton barriers between the stripes were solid, though, and the cloth was ready to be cut from the loom.
Daja knelt and pressed a hand to the stripe that glowed like the heart of a fire. She felt the heat of embers on her palm, a warmth that grew up her arm to sprout limbs and branches within her flesh. Her veins filled with fire. Her magic blazed inside her once more.
Briar set a palm to the green stripe, Tris to the white. Pale fire rolled and twined through their bodies, blazing out through their eyes before it began to shrink—not to vanish, but to settle into their very bones. Daja looked at Sandry and realized that her friend had already reclaimed her own power.
“So now, with luck and hope, you will be settled,” Rosethorn announced with satisfaction.
“They won’t have just one kind of magic,” Niko reminded her. “Briar’s power is still bound to fire and lightning. You’ll have to work with him, to discover what he can do.”
“Could we work with me later, instead of now?” Briar yawned hugely. “It’s past my bedtime.”
Tris stumbled into her room without a word to anyone. Daja waved to Frostpine—who waved back—and followed the redhead.
“Go to bed, urchin,” Rosethorn told Briar, her eyes amused. “We’ll have all winter to explore your power.”
Frostpine picked up Sandry, who fussed a little. “Back to sleep, weaver,” he said quietly. “You did a giant’s work today.”
10
Just after breakfast the next day Daja thought it would be a good idea to give her iron vine one last, complete going-over before the Traders came for it. Tiptoeing in and out of the girls’ bedroom—Sandry was not yet awake—she got her creation and took it into the main room. Propping it on a wooden chair, she went over it by hand and by eye, fingering each stem, leaf and blossom. It had eaten all of Polyam’s copper plate, translating metal into flower buds. Many of them had opened roselike blooms like the one she’d planted in the glacier valley; a few were still half-open or tightly closed. There were as many leaves as flowers; tiny iron buds on all of the branches hinted at more leaves to come.
Her exploration told her that the vine had reached the limits of its growth. It needed more iron for the remaining leaves to open, and the large stems were a bit fragile. There was something else not right with it, though she had no idea what it was.
Still, the metal felt good in her hands. Closing her eyes to concentrate on the power that trickled through the vine, she realized that while this was not the kind of magic that she had learned as Frostpine’s student, it felt every bit as familiar. Could she do this again? she wondered, with growing interest. Could she create more living metal?
She thought that maybe she could.
Briar had watched as she inspected the vine. When she looked up, he commented, “It needs repotting. Actually, it needs a pot. And there’s something not right with it.”
She had never thought to get advice on care from him or from Rosethorn. “You think so?” she asked.
“I know so.” He jerked his head toward the vine and raised his eyebrows. Daja nodded, understanding, and moved back so he could handle her creation. Briar went over it as she had, by sight and by feel. When he got to the trunk, he lifted the whole vine. “I know what’s wrong. It’s got no roots.”
“Does it need them?” she asked.
“Well, the flower you poked in the ground yesterday sure put them down in a hurry.” Rosethorn and Tris had come in. Briar asked the woman, “Doesn’t this thing need roots?”
“If you want it to live it does. A pot wouldn’t hurt, either.” Rosethorn drew some copper coins out of her belt-purse. “Buy a clay pot the size of a bushel basket. This will cover the cost, if the potter isn’t a robber.”
“I can pay you back when I get the money from Polyam,” Daja offered. It was nice to know she now could repay Rosethorn and Lark for the things they’d bought her in the past.
Rosethorn waved the offer away. “It’s my contribution to this”—she looked at the vine, fumbling for a word—”experiment. Have you some iron to put in the pot with it?”
“I have scraps from the nails I’ve made.” Daja went to get them.
When she returned, Tris was looking at the vine over Briar’s shoulder. “I don’t think I realized it before,” she said, her voice hoarse, “but from overhead it looks like a cyclone.” She pointed to the cleft where the branches split away from the vine’s main stem. “See? The rods in the trunk all twist in the same direction, to make a funnel. Or you could say it looks like water going down a drain.” She started to cough from the smoky air. Rosethorn gave her a cup of juice, frowning.