Hero (13 page)

Saturday walked to the next shelf, which was full of daggers and sharp throwing implements. “May I?”

“Of course. They come in handy when one needs to chop ice from the walls.” Peregrine had replaced his own broken dagger earlier.

He’d destroyed many a dagger while hacking at the walls of his prison, but there was still a plethora to choose from. Silver, iron, bent, curved, and serrated, they stretched out before Saturday like a smorgasbord of pain. After lifting and balancing a few of the knives, Saturday added only one more to her swordbelt with its empty scabbard.

“Did you bury the skeletons?”

“Of course! Thankfully one of the knights who died here brought a magic shovel that could cut through icerock like freshly churned butter.”

Saturday rolled her eyes at him but did not stomp away. Perhaps there was hope for a friendship between them yet. “Bones have useful properties,” he said seriously. “The warriors here are long dead, as are the ones who mourned them. The only living being to come up this far in recent years was Jack.”

“Right,” said Saturday. “You mentioned that.”

Peregrine took her hand. “You really haven’t seen your brother, have you?”

Saturday pulled her hand away, scalding him again with those eyes of fire. The feeling that he’d known her forever struck him again.

Peregrine wondered why he kept trying to please her and realized it was because of Jack, but Jack had enjoyed himself during his stay. Peregrine couldn’t stop from asking, “Do you enjoy
anything?
”

Saturday exhaled. “Can I just fight you now? Please? I’d rather die than continue this conversation.”

“Oh, this is going to be
fun.
” Betwixt leapt to a shelf beyond sword’s reach and settled himself comfortably.

Peregrine curtseyed. “As milady wishes. But you can’t have so little faith in your abilities. I’m sure you’ve had teachers more recently than I.”

“My sword was my nameday gift. As you know, it’s enchanted. I’m not so good without it, despite my teachers’ attempts.”

Peregrine indicated the pile of swords. “So choose another one.”

Saturday put her hands on her hips. “None of them is my sword.”

“But many of them are enchanted,” said Peregrine. “Most of them, I’ll wager. One doesn’t hear many tales of men going up against beasts like our dragon with only their wits and cold steel.”

“Unless those tales are about Jack Woodcutter,” she said under her breath.

Peregrine had heard few tales of such men as a boy in Starburn; bedtime stories in the north typically ventured into the realms of gods and monsters. But having met Jack, he could imagine the kinds of stories that confident swagger left in its wake. As many hearts broken as curses, he’d wager.

“Well, then, let’s see if you live up to your reputation, Mister Woodcutter.” Peregrine pulled a sword from the pile at random and unsheathed it. The hilt’s basket was ornate and set with dull jewel chips. The blade was thin and glowed a red that tinted the crystal walls around them a sinister pink.

“What does that sword do?” asked Saturday.

“No idea,” said Peregrine. “Hurry up and pick one so we can find out. Who knows? You might decide you like something here better than the one you had.”

“Doubtful.” Saturday took a little longer over her selection. The sword she chose was far less decorative, with only crude runes etched haphazardly into its pommel, grip, and cross guard. It looked ancient, and heavy, and didn’t have much of an edge. She’d have more luck using it as a club. Perhaps that was her plan.

Peregrine took up the stance his father and swordsmaster had taught him: arm held up and blade pointed down. Conversely, Saturday held the hilt at her center of mass with blade pointed skyward. He tried to remember which of the regions of Arilland Jack had said her family was from.
“En garde.”
He hoped she knew what he meant.

He did not expect her to say, “This grip is warm.”

“You’re welcome to choose another sword,” he offered. “We have all day, night, afternoon, and evening, or until the witch finds us.”

“No, this sword is fine. It’s just . . .” As she spoke, the sparkling runes from the hilt duplicated themselves on the skin of her hands, her wrists, and then her arms. She drew in a sharp breath, but she did not let go of the blade.

Peregrine worried for her safety. “What’s happening? Saturday, talk to me. Are you all right?”

She looked up from her silver rune-covered arms and her bright eyes flashed above that impish smile. The dirty locks of her hair framed her face. “I’m perfect,” she said, and struck out at the red blade.

Peregrine dropped his sword.

He did not drop it on purpose; he’d fully intended for the two of them to fight evenly and fairly. But what Peregrine had just seen beyond that ancient blade, atop smelly limbs and a neck now covered with glowing runes, was neither the face of Jack Woodcutter nor that of his far less likeable sister.

The face that had grinned at him with those bright eyes was the face of the woman from his visions.

Betwixt had been right: Elodie of Cassot was not the woman of his dreams after all. The image he’d been seeing for most of his life had been that of Saturday Woodcutter.

The familiarity he’d been sensing crashed like a wave in his heart. No words sprang to mind to describe the feelings this epiphany swept through him, but the ones that came closest were not meant for mixed company.

“Peregrine?”

Peregrine snapped out of his trance. “I’m sorry,” he said to the chimera, and he picked up the sword again. “You’re completely covered in those runes now,” he said to Saturday. “Are you sure you’re all right?” He was amazed
he
was all right enough to string coherent sentences together.

“Perfectly lovely,” Saturday said pettily. “Are we doing this or not?”

He wanted to stop the argument, sit her down, and ask her a barrage of questions. But more, he wanted to watch her, to see the face burned on his soul bearing down on him in real life. Peregrine resumed attack position. “Best two out of three?” he asked cheerfully.

“Prepare to die,” said Saturday.

9

“TELL ME what to do!” Saturday screamed up at the catbird.

Betwixt took wing and dropped down to where Peregrine now lay dying at her feet. “I don’t know,” he answered.

“I didn’t mean it,” she said, “when I told him to die. I didn’t really mean it.”

“I know that. So did he. It’s all right.”

“This”—Saturday pointed at Peregrine’s prone form—“is
not
all right.” She was a killer. She’d killed Trix and heavens knew how many innocent people, and now she’d killed Peregrine, when she was just starting to like him.

Saturday’s mind spun. She begged the gods to hear her: she hadn’t really meant it. Mama’s oft-spoken warning repeated itself in the back of her mind:
Words have power.

The message had always been meant for her little sister, or for Mama herself. It had never applied to the ax-wielding giantess who traded quips in the Wood with her father and brother all day but couldn’t tell a proper story to save her life. Yet here she stood, over a boy she’d threatened to kill, watching him die.

“Think, Saturday, think!” She tossed the heavy blade aside and felt the runes fade from her body. He’d been right; the feeling was reminiscent of her own sword, not that it could ever take its place. The symbols had turned her skin into armor, impervious to any blow. By all rights, Peregrine should have won first blood with his ruby blade, but thanks to her magical protection, he had not.

They had fought long and hard, longer than she should have and not half as hard as she’d wished to. They were well matched: he was as rusty with his weapon as she was untrained. After much teasing and taunting and running and jumping, she’d turned the tables and scratched him first instead. Peregrine fell to his knees almost immediately, but not in mock defeat as she’d first supposed.

Saturday’s blade hadn’t just been decorated with enchanted runes. It had also been poisoned.

The moment Peregrine’s hand left the hilt of his sword, the blade’s red glow faded and the walls around them regained their shimmering powdered-sugar whiteness. Similarly did the blood leave Peregrine’s face, rendering him deathly pale. It had been only a scratch on his wrist, but he was already beginning to shake.

Saturday’s hand instinctively moved to the bag that was not at her side. “If I were in the Wood, I would have crushed jewelweed,” she told Betwixt. “Is there anything like that here?”

“Maybe in the witch’s caves,” he said. “But they are far from here and difficult to reach. And it wouldn’t be a plant.”

“Right.” Proper plants couldn’t grow in caves. Saturday didn’t know the first thing about magic spells, but she knew a little bit about poison. There was one option left.

Saturday removed the ornate dagger Peregrine had sheathed in his belt and used it to cut deeper into the angry wound. Moving his confounded skirt out of the way, Saturday lowered her lips to Peregrine’s wrist.

The gryphon put a paw on her shoulder. His dark fur was soft and his feathers tickled as they brushed her dirty skin. “You might be poisoned too.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Saturday. She hoped the catbird took her at her word. She didn’t have time to explain her recent indestructibility, though it would have been nice to have her sword to help her on that front. She sucked the blood from Peregrine’s wound and spat it onto the icy stone floor. She could taste the poison’s taint amidst the copper on her tongue. Peregrine’s eyes rolled back up into his head.

Saturday sucked and spat again. “Go find that witch of yours. Tell her that her daughter is dying.” She didn’t want to involve the witch, but she saw no other choice. Jack Woodcutter would take the blame for this, though it was Saturday who deserved the punishment. She resolved to tell the witch everything if this boy died.

Betwixt did not argue. He leapt toward the archway through which Saturday had entered, only to be stopped by a mass of cerulean wings. The raven was blue now? Fantastic. She’d probably be blamed for that, too. Well, if that loathsome bird was here that meant the witch wasn’t far behind. Saturday hoped the lorelei wasn’t too addled over the state of her “daughter” to cast some sort of antidote spell.

Saturday wiped her mouth and laid an ear flat against Peregrine’s chest. She feigned calmness in an effort to discern a breath and heartbeat that were not her own. His shivering increased. His skin was clammy. Saturday’s lips tingled. She should have asked him which of his gods he’d like for her to pray to. Perhaps the catbird knew.

“Step aside, daughter.”

The words were not the witch’s, and the daughter referred to was not Peregrine. Saturday recognized the voice as the one that had echoed loudly inside her head upon her arrival, deep and rough as a chimney sweep’s.

Betwixt hissed. Where the raven had once been now stood a sturdy, blue-robed woman of average height with a face like Mama’s: grim, no-nonsense, and full of lines. Her messy hair was as rich a blue as the raven’s feathers had been and her build was thick, as if she were no stranger to hard work. The woman rushed to Peregrine’s side.

An enchanted bird turning human did not surprise Saturday. One of her sisters had done the same thing just that spring, and that goose had been as white as a wedding gown. “Did you bring the witch with you?” Saturday asked the woman.

“This will go far more smoothly without her,” she replied. “We have to act quickly. Is there a container of any sort handy?”

Saturday hastily scanned the armory and returned with a smallish helmet, a metal gauntlet, and a finger-claw. There might have been something more suitable in the room, but she didn’t want to waste Peregrine’s breath trying to find it.

The woman smiled at the choices Saturday laid before her. “Well done,” she said, and leaned over them. Saturday had no idea what the woman was looking for. Hadn’t she said they were in a hurry? Curious, Betwixt leaned in too. The woman gently reached out a hand as if to pat his dark ears reassuringly, but she grabbed a whisker from his muzzle and pulled it out instead.

The catbird screeched, hissed, and flapped his wings. He unsheathed the wicked claws on his right front paw and snapped at the woman with his beak. She held his head down. “Tears,” she said to the chimera. “Don’t waste them.”

Betwixt stopped struggling. The woman placed the gauntlet under the cat’s beak and coaxed the tears from his eyes with the finger-claw. She did not touch the tears herself.

“You deserve to be pecked,” Betwixt said from beneath her arm.

“I could have told you a sad tale and waited, but your friend is in quite a bit of danger,” said the woman. And then, to Saturday, “Hold his arm still.”

Saturday placed her hand in Peregrine’s, turning his arm so that the festering cut on his wrist pointed heavenward. There was little blood, but the skin was red and angry. Around the cut, the veins ran black and blue and green.

The woman tilted the gauntlet and let the tears fall—one, two, three—directly onto the wound. Almost immediately the blood dried and the redness began to fade. The flesh turned pale again but for a thin blue line of scar marking the original cut. His shivering stopped, but not in a bad way. Saturday placed her other hand on his chest and felt his breathing, slow and deep and even.

“Was there a need for all that?” asked Betwixt. “He cannot die in this place.”

“Just because a man cannot die does not mean he cannot be crippled,” said the woman, “and there are many ways to cripple a man.” She dipped her finger in the tears again and traced Saturday’s lips before gently placing the gauntlet aside. “Gryphon’s tears have healing properties. Do not waste the rest.”

“Thank you,” said Saturday. Her lips still felt swollen, but the pain had stopped.

“Who are you?” asked Betwixt.

The woman sat back on her haunches, crossed her legs, and rested her folded hands on her belly. “I have many names,” she said. “In these mountains I am usually known as Vasilisa. Here, the lorelei calls me Cwyn. That will serve.”

Saturday gave a half-laugh. “No one else in this cave is what they seem. Why should you be any different?” She felt a gentle squeeze and realized that she was still holding Peregrine’s hand. She let it go immediately and leaned away from him. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice.