Chương 30

Never trust a noble. They're too well dressed to bother with the truth. With great effort Adhira heaved the last of the trees out of the way. It had been a true giant of the forest, at least six feet in diameter, and if she hadn't chopped it into pieces, there would have been zero chance of her moving its bulk. As it was, shifting a ten-foot log was pushing the edge of her refined strength, but she had done it.

It crashed to the forest floor, rolling down the incline and off a short cliff, where it thudded into a shallow puddle of snowmelt. Adhira glanced back down the path, and her smile faltered. Harker wasn't watching. Why does that matter? She shook herself. The boy was just a country bumpkin she'd fallen in with by chance. A useful aid for her journey, true enough, but little else. Right? He was tall, somewhere around six feet and broad of shoulder despite his lanky frame.

His hair was a mess, somewhere between curly and tangled—dark as loam yet flecked with warm gold in the sunlight. His eyes were dark too, set above sharp cheekbones and beneath heavy, moody brows that she couldn't read. Harker was a strange conundrum. Clever and tactless by turns, he had an animal agility that she'd seen in some hunters back home. Even his hands were nimble in that clever way she'd noticed in crafters, though he had more scars than she'd expected.

Sejal had stripped him down back in Vale, insisting that Adhira stay out of the room while she did so—which was, frankly, ridiculous. She hadn't been snooping, as the woman so ingraciously described, but tending to an injured peer. Sejal had bundled her out of the room swiftly. Even so, she had spotted his scars. He bore the ones on his left arm she'd seen at the Drop and more besides. Nothing large, just small cuts that criss-crossed his legs and back.

It was far too many for anyone to have, let alone a young Talented. What has happened to you, Harker Shoalborn? She hadn't missed his surname, of course. Shoalborn was a foundling's name used only for those that were abandoned by their parents.

"Left in the shallows," the old saying went. In the southern Isles, foundlings were given up to the shrines. Ancestor Maffa had built them for the children after the wars killed so many adults, and her Keepers had held on to the tradition ever since. Did they even have shrines to Maffa out here in the cold reaches? Adhira hadn't seen any. Most folks seem to venerate Threll and Yor in the north. Good harvests and vigilance against the deep. What else would farmers care for? Harker was different.

Most northfolk she encountered on her journey had been dour and insular but all of them had shown her a measure of deference or even joy when they met her. Even if they didn't know her name or her family, Adhira's bearing and armaments were more than enough to signal power. Harker didn't seem to care. Sure, he made some small efforts, just enough that she could tell he'd noticed, but most of the time he was… She glanced back. He still isn't looking. Why did that bother her so much? It wasn't that he was handsome.

He was, in a dirty, smelly sort of way—but Adhira had met plenty of pretty boys, ones with manners and pedigrees longer than her arm. No, it was that he seemed so... capable. In battle, he wasn't much to speak of. He avoided direct conflict, and when he had engaged, it was with a thrown knife barely strong enough to penetrate an ophidian's eye. The weakest part of most Aberrants Sea-Maddened—something that everyone worth their salt learned in the crib. Yet in battle and outside it, he had an unshakable poise.

Frustratingly so at times. He also tracked down the coralsnout and found its weak point. The latter was something few could manage in the heat of battle, even at the Hollow Hold. Adhira felt as if she were missing something about him. His capabilities and his demeanor made him a curiosity. His Talent was Accuracy—she could see that much from his Chartermark. He had tried to obscure that detail for some reason, but clearly he didn't know that the initiated could see one another's base information.

Sejal had mentioned that not everyone was told the truth of the Chartermarks, and so not everyone could use it to its fullest capabilities.

"For their safety," she had said. But the twist in her lips had belied the words. For control. The Spires didn't want everyone to know the true purpose of the marks. This was a test, after all. Yet if things were going at the rate they were, reaching the Travelspire would be only a matter of time. Adhira scowled up the mountain. She couldn't have that. She'd already lost the Vestige, if it had ever been in Vale at all.

In the process, she'd lost her steward, friend, and the only person Adhira trusted to watch her back. The test was everything now. In order to survive the next year, Adhira had to seize every advantage she could, and that started with their Ordeals. Adhira focused back on the path, hunting for anything else to toughen her journey. The trees were all cleared, and most animals had been chased away by the noise, but there were doubtless more Aberrants somewhere on the mountain. She would just have to find them.

"Let's speed up," she suggested, raising her voice over the fading thunder of cleared trees.

"We can make the foot of the mountain by nightfall." Distantly, she was certain she heard the boy grunt in frustration. His boots clattered against loose stones as he followed, his step a touch quicker. He'll slow me down, and that racket might bring in a threat. Adhira started walking faster, boots angled to climb the tilted hills. Good. Their time grew short. The afternoon passed excruciatingly slowly, yet their pace never slackened.

Harker wished it had—he didn't possess the refined endurance Adhira boasted, and it had been entirely too long since he'd slept. Which is why he took the risk and chewed on the kaffa sprout. While trusting Miriam had led him wrong in the past, he reasoned that she wouldn't have had poison sitting on her shelf for just anyone to grab. She'd been an opportunistic predator, not an idiot. However, he hadn't expected the full effect.

The moment the sprout ground beneath his teeth, a metallic tang cut through his palate and gums accompanied by the smell of deep, wet earth. Seconds later, it was followed by a rush of energy that set his pulse racing. Strong. He coughed, but managed to down the rest of the sprout. Very strong. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The exhaustion which had dogged him for days vanished like a popped soap bubble, clearing his head along with it.

Even his muscles relaxed. They had started to quiver with the strain of his Talent practice, now they felt loose and warm. Accelerated heartrate. Increased bloodflow to extremities. He swung his arms. Decrease in muscle soreness. Reduction in lactic acid? So quickly? Harker grinned as he tucked the remaining sprouts back next to the seeds in his pack. If the kaffa was this strong now, how would it change when he fertilized the seeds with the Sea?

He was almost afraid to find out—but whatever the answer was, it would be valuable.

"Give me one," Stillwater said.

"No." Head clear for the first time in hours, Harker reassessed his situation. Training had gone well as they'd increased their progress up the mountain. Harker was able to reliably shape his Talent into a narrow band about the width of his wrist. Distance was an issue, but he'd already pushed up to five inches, and with practice he'd manage more. The pinpoint nature of the technique made it far less of a burden on his mind, and that could only be a good thing.

If he could get it up to a few feet, then it'd really start being useful. For now, his tributary and the muscles around it were beyond sore. It was well past time for a break. Instead, he watched Adhira. Despite spending much of the day together, he still hadn't been able to get a proper read on the strange girl. She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt, but her murderous zeal gave him pause. Harker was all for a woman that liked to fight, but something about Adhira struck him as… desperate.

Her attitude was blunt and honest, with a brightness that softened her hard edges. It was not what he expected from a noble. Her gear, however, was. Harker had been trying to sneak a glance at her armaments since he'd met her, and hadn't managed it until she'd set all of it on the shoreline in the den. Since then, he'd been studying pieces of it as it was revealed under her torn cloak. He didn't know steel from iron, but the breastplate, pauldrons, tassets, and vambraces were all incredible works of art.

Not only did they appear protective, but they'd been silvered and inlaid with some sort of brassy metal along the upturned edges. Waves were carved into every surface, churning upward across her body as if the furious Sea were rising from the Depths. He hadn't spied any further glimmers of Water in those carvings, but he was almost positive it was infused. Or she has another Talent she's keeping hidden. Doubtful, but then again, infused gear was almost as good as having a second Talent—or third in this case.

The abilities that could be set into quality armor or weapons was entirely up to the alchemist and smith that made them. Or more rarely, a thaumist that could do both. Harker had a feeling Adhira's gear wasn't lacking for skilled hands. Up ahead, a heavy rock set astride the trail. Adhira reached it well before Harker, and it was easily three times her size. Far too big for a Surface refinement to shift.

Which was fine, as the boulder didn't take up the trail—the pair of them could easily squeeze through the side and be on their way. Adhira had other thoughts. Her axe flashed, a deep, azure spark cast upward from the point where the blades met stone. A crack like thunder shook the air, thrumming against Harker's eardrums. Still sensitive from practicing with his Talent, he clapped his hands over the sides of his head and took several rapid steps back. Adhira struck four more times.

The boulder broke apart, sheared across separate lines, and pieces lolled across the trail. She scraped her foot along the bottom of the largest piece and blue-green Water trailed behind.

"Bulwark!" The earth heaved, tossing the boulder up and off the path. She looked back at him, flashing him a grin. That axe though—that's definitely infused. Clearly it had been reinforced in some way—normal steel would have deformed against the rock. Whatever else it could do remained a mystery. Harker could make out the reservoir housed in the haft as well as several angular lines carved amid the rippled patterns. It was full, so she hadn't used its abilities yet. The axe heads were incredibly impractical.

It was clearly made by a madman, or for a person that didn't have to consider how obscenely heavy it would be. Ahead, Adhira shoved one of the smaller chunks of boulder out of their path. It crashed to the side, heavy enough that he felt it through his feet. He supposed she wouldn't have any issue with its weight. Moreover, whenever she was near, he felt… weird. Uneasy, as if someone was standing over his shoulder. Harker didn't like it, and even when she slowed, he made sure to keep a solid distance between them.

She didn't seem to care, stepping close to mention one thing or another. It was mostly small talk, little pleasantries about the countryside or the weather. Empty words to fill the silence he offered. Harker knew he was being rude, yet again he couldn't manage to match her energy. He couldn't quite get a sense of her or what she wanted. She hadn't once mentioned the Vestige, or even hinted at it since Creston. Everything else was… aimless. As if she were interested in him and his life. What's her play?

The Bargain would keep him safe from her—even if she didn't know that—and it didn't stop her from scheming in the meantime. Nobles were the least trustworthy of people. They weren't to be trusted, and their machinations were always layered. The solution, then, was to have contingencies of his own.

"You're good with that axe," he said, drawing closer than before. His heartbeat sped up again, but this time it was likely just the kaffa. She dabbed some sweat from her neck with a pale blue kerchief.

"I've had plenty of practice."

"Not only with trees and rocks, I imagine." She smirked, flicking a splinter from her weapon.

"Aberrants. It is what Talents are for, after all." Harker nodded. For most, the purpose of Talent was to safeguard the world from Aberrants. It was the entire purpose of the Nine Spires.

"You certainly seemed to enjoy it."

"Guilty. Sejal tells me I enjoy it a bit too much.

'A proper lady is meant to lead a battle, not wade into it.'""That sounds safer, certainly." She shot him an unreadable look.

"Who doesn't want to take risks?"

"Risks are for gamblers, drunks, and fools—" Harker bit off his words, jaw clenching around the panic that swelled in his chest. Adhira laughed.

"That's what Sejal says. You didn't happen to train with her, did you?" Harker unclenched his jaw.

"No." She raised her eyebrows, but he didn't hurry to fill the silence. He couldn't order his thoughts through the fading panic—and the rising surprise that he hadn't earned a beating for speaking to her like that.

"This Sejal. Who is she?"

"She's like family. Been with me my whole life."

"Like family? She's a…servant?"

"Nothing so clear cut. She's my guardian, meant to keep me from danger. But mostly she keeps me from embarassing my family too much." Adhira opened her mouth, but seemed to change her mind about something.

"Do you have family, Harker?"

"Not anymore." This time the silence stretched longer. Adhira seemed to struggle with his words, though Harker couldn't imagine why. People lost family all the time. His story was nothing special.

"What…" She hesitated, as if picking her words carefully.

"What did you do before this?"

"I was a healer."

"Really? I haven't known many Talented who have taken up that profession." She tilted her head up, thinking.

"I suppose alchemy is closely related, considering the medicines they produce. Did you not wish to train in it? Or even smithing?"

"I didn't have the option."

"Oh. It's just, healing is an Untalented profession. Herbalism—""Is a large part of alchemy. You said so yourself." Adhira shrugged.

"Sure, but alchemy is so much more. Sea-touched herbals can only take you so far. The real power in alchemy is infusing Talents, and that can't be done with a bunch of weeds. Aanything that doesn't aid in our Descent is a distraction." Harker's lips thinned and that uncomfortable quiet returned. She seemed to realize it too—Adhira opened her mouth twice in an attempt to break it, but the words died on her lips. Herbalism is useless, she says.

While he admitted infusing Talents was incredible—and something he planned on learning as soon as possible—he burned at the idea that his training had been pointless. He could produce all sorts of useful— Well, now isn't that interesting. Harker spotted something in the distance, clinging between wet ferns. He had nothing to prove, but he wasn't going to take insults to his mother's profession lying down. He stepped off the path.

"Where are you going?" Harker held up a finger but didn't answer as he disappeared into the underbrush.