“He’s the only one who can slow it down. It’s why he takes tithes from the borderlands every season. Every tithe is a sacrifice, and sacrifices have power. The tithes allow him to keep the curse at bay—or they used to. They have less and less effect these days. The curse has simply grown too powerful.”
As they reached the top of the escarpment, the forest transformed into a sea of gray below them, shifting to green closer to the King’s City—which was a mere speck of white in the distance.
When Emeline looked north, towards Edgewood, she found no trace of her home.
Hawthorne swung down from Lament. The stones crunched beneath his boots as he turned back to Emeline, raising his hands to help her dismount. She would have preferred to get down herself, but Lament was so huge, even the stirrups were a mile high, and warring with her desire to be independent was a desire to not fall face-first into the dirt from such a height.
Reluctantly, she pushed herself to the edge of the saddle. Just as reluctantly, Hawthorne’s hands clasped her hips, pulling her down. When her feet touched the rocky ground, Hawthorne let go and they stepped quickly away from each other.
He looked to where the escarpment dropped, turning into sheer rocky cliff. “Claw should be asleep when we get to the aerie. But if for some reason he wakes …” His jaw hardened as he turned to her. “… you mustn’t listen to a word he says.”
Oh?Emeline canted her head. “Why not? Who is he?”
Hawthorne reached for the biggest, bulkiest saddlebag. Unbuckling it, he drew out a massive coil of thick golden rope. “Claw can … see things. The future, the present, the past. He just can’t tell you which is which. Not anymore.” He walked towards a leafy linden tree near the cliff edge, unwound the coil, and looped one end around the tree’s trunk. “Those who take his prophecies to heart tend to go a little mad.”
“What is he?”
Bracing one booted foot against the linden, Hawthorne tugged hard on the loop, testing its strength. Satisfied, he turned towards Emeline. “A watchdog of sorts. After the Song Mage’s death, the witch who killed him wanted to prevent his music from ever being sung again. Claw stands guard over it here.”
Hereappeared to be the edge of a cliff.
Why would anyone want to destroy the songs of a minstrel?
Why would anyone want to kill a minstrel?
She was about to ask about this homicidal witch when Hawthorne stepped abruptly towards her, looping the opposite end of the rope around her waist. She stiffened as he pulled her in close, but then realized what he was doing and lifted her elbows so he could tie the rope snugly over her hips into some kind of harness.
“And whatever you do, do not make any deals with him.” His hands deftly secured the rope with a knot. Emeline noticed that the fingers of his right hand were smudged with a steel-gray shine. It reminded her of Maisie’s fingers after she’d spent an afternoon sketching flowers in Pa’s garden.
Graphite,she thought.From drawing?
“Claw is fond of tricks and games, and he never plays fair.” When he finished tying, Hawthorne tugged hard on the loop, testing it. When it held firm, he let go and turned to the cliff edge. “In fact, if he wakes up, just leave the talking to me.”
Emeline joined him at the cliff edge, peering over. It was sheer gray rock until about fifty feet down, where a smooth shale ledge jutted out. From the way Hawthorne eyed it, the ledge was their destination.
“Where’syourrope?” she asked.
“I don’t need one.”
It was a long way to fall without anything to catch you. If he missed the ledge, it was several hundred feet to the bottom.
Not that she cared about his safety. But she did, unfortunately, need him to find her way back to the palace. Emeline didn’t think she could manage an ember mare on her own.
Hawthorne started down, his feet finding footholds. It was then that Emeline noticed the unlit torch swinging from his belt. He must have taken it from one of the saddlebags.
Pausing, he looked up at her. “Don’t fall, all right?”
She patted the complicated loop of rope he’d tied around her waist. “I have my trusty harness, though.”
His head disappeared as he descended, but his voice floated upwards. “Even with your trusty harness, a fall will be unpleasant.”
She got down on her knees, then followed him over the ledge, her stomach flip-flopping at the drop below.It’s only rock climbing,she told herself. An activity she’d done a grand total of one time. In phys ed class. In a well-padded gymnasium.
Emeline counted to three, then started downwards. Holding tight to the top of the rope, she let the slack fall below. Leaning back, she ever so slowly let the rope move through her hands and began to rappel down the cliff, the hot sun cooking the back of her neck as she did.
Emeline only made it halfway before her arms and legs started to burn with the exertion. She never used these muscles, a fact that was quickly becoming apparent. When her arms shook and her palms began to sweat, Emeline’s grip on the rope slipped.
The rope scorched her skin as it slid through her palms. Her feet—which had been planted firmly on the rocky cliffside—skidded out from under her as she slid downward. In order to stop her plummet, she grabbed for the rocky cliff with one hand.
