“Scrying, if you need to have a use for everything.” I showed him glittering flakes that fell from my hand like snow. “But mostly it’s just wonderful—so delicate, and yet it’s stone.”
I flicked a tiny burst of magic up the slope. Flakes, sheets, and clumps of mica flashed, thousands of flat crystals in the sun. Everyone who rode by would now see the stone as I did, glittering in the light.
“Beautiful.” Jayat liked what I had done. “I never thought of it like that. It was always just glassy stuff, laying around.”
Luvo looked at Jayat. “That is what magic is for, Jayatin. To help us to think of the world in new ways.”
I went back to my horse, though I didn’t mount up. I hung Luvo in his sling from my mare’s saddle horn. That way I wouldn’t bounce him around as I searched for rocks. Then I carefully wrapped the mica I had gathered, before I stowed it in one of my packs. After that I walked beside the road’s edge. Jayat stayed with Luvo and the horse. I meant to find some excellent new stones for my collection. Briar would be sorry he went to boring old Namorn with his sisters, instead of coming to Starns with Rosethorn and me.
It was a mistake to think of Briar just then. I started missing him, and brooding as I walked along. Briar was my first true friend. He saw the stone magic in me. He taught me how to use it. I learned other things from him, too, like reading and writing and table manners. We saved each other’s lives constantly, from our meeting in Chammur through our time in Yanjing and Gyongxe. The problems came at Winding Circle. Briar could barely stay there for more than an hour or two. Being inside a temple city just reminded him too much of Gyongxe. I didn’t understand. I had been in Gyongxe, and I was just fine at Winding Circle. Rosethorn told me that everyone recovers differently from war, and not to blame Briar.
I did visit Briar practically every day after he moved in with his sisters. Then they took him to Namorn. Just four months home, and he’s off on the road again! I didn’t want to go on some journey that might last all summer. I had a stone mage at Winding Circle who could teach me new and tricky things. So off Briar went, while I smiled and waved. I thought, I’ll bet he’s glad to leave me. Of course. I’m finished business to Briar now.
“Evumeimei,” Luvo said, “will you mope, or will you regard the obsidian to your left?”
Obsidian?
I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Standing beside the road, I cast my magic out until I could feel it slide over pure obsidian. Before Rosethorn could say anything, I scrambled down the riverbank. It lay just offshore, not too far under the tumbling water. Here the river was somewhat wilder than it was closer to Sustree. On the far bank the ground rose into the air as if it had been shoved straight up. Its bare rock face was colored in pale sidelong stripes. They were made up of quartz layers and cemented with glasslike sand. Through the centuries the sand had been pressed into a mortar that could fight the river’s long rubbing. That rock face was a marvel all by itself. Then there was the river bottom. It was covered in fine white sand, the kind glassmakers praised to the skies. The obsidian shoved up through it in shelves.
I slid into the shallows to reach it. Feeling underwater, I gathered a handful of small pieces that had broken from the larger ones. I didn’t care if I made a mess of my clothes. Obsidian chipped in curved surfaces. It sent my magic swooping back to me like gliding seabirds. My power chimed off colored bands and sang from clear ones. It hummed on obsidian flecked with gold, then slid sharply from clean edges. I bathed in fiery magic and music.
“Another day you may admire the pretty rocks, my dear.” Someone wrapped a hand in my collar, then dragged me from the water to land on my bum.
If it had been Myrrhtide, I would have dumped an avalanche on him. Seeing that it was Rosethorn, I behaved. “I’m sorry. I’ll walk now,” I said. “I was just admiring the obsidian. There’s rainbow obsidian. And gold streaked, and translucent…”
I wasn’t arguing with Rosethorn, mind. Just before he left, Briar had told me, “Evvy, you have to watch out for her. She won’t care for herself, you know it as well as I do. Don’t let people work her too hard, all right?”
And because I was being brave, pretending that it was fine by me if he went off for months and months with his sisters, I had said yes. Rosethorn was mine, too, after Yanjing and Gyongxe. If the emperor and all his armies hadn’t made trouble between Rosethorn and me, then this sleepy island in its sleepy ocean would never do it.
I got to my feet, but Rosethorn still held on. “You can walk only if you stop slowing us down, Evvy.” She towed me along. “Otherwise I’ll tie you to your horse. Why are you acting like a child who got into the honey jar? I know you missed stone while you were at sea, but usually you calm down once you’re on land. It’s not like you to make visible displays like those farm walls or that rock slide.”
I didn’t think she had noticed that I made the granite walls sparkle. “But it’s all right if I play.” I said it, rather than asking. I was afraid that if I asked, she might say no. I never ask a question if I don’t think I’ll like the answer. “It’s not as if the woods are full of enemies waiting to pounce.”
“No, but usually you aren’t so, so prodigal.”
“Prod—hunh?” Educated mages like Rosethorn and Fusspot always talk as if you know every long word they use.
“Prodigal. In this case, it means profligate—no. Giddy. Reckless. Tossing your magic around, as if you shouldn’t save it for an emergency. Spending it without regard for the future.” She let me go.