Renegade's Magic (The Soldier Son Trilogy #3)

I had crossed into the Kidona spirit world to do battle with their ancient enemy. Instead, Tree Woman had captured me and claimed me. From that day forth, the magic had taken over my life. It had dragged, spurred, and coerced me to the frontier. In Gettys, I’d made one last attempt to claim my life as my own. I’d signed my enlistment papers as Nevare Burv, and taken up the only position the regiment offered, guarding the cemetery. Even so, I’d put my heart into my task, doing all I could to see that our dead were buried respectfully and left undisturbed. I’d begun to have a life again; Ebrooks and Kesey had become my friends, and Spink, my cousin’s husband and my best friend from our Academy days, had renewed our friendship. Amzil had come to live in Gettys; I’d dared to hope she felt affection for me. I had begun to make something of myself, even believing I could provide a refuge for my sister from my father’s tyranny.

That life did not serve the magic’s purpose for me, and as Scout Hitch had once warned me, the magic would not tolerate anything that ran counter to its plan for me. It had destroyed Hitch’s life to make him its servant. I knew I had to choose death or serve the magic. Before Hitch died, he’d confessed all to me. Under the magic’s influence, he’d killed Fala, one of Sarla Moggam’s working girls, and left the evidence that would implicate me. He’d done that, despite being my friend, despite being an otherwise upright man. I still could not imagine Hitch strangling poor Fala, let alone betraying me so treacherously. But he had.

I didn’t want to discover what the magic could make me do if I continued to defy it.

CHAPTER THREE

LISANA

My path led me ever upward. Somewhere, I knew, the sun shone and the wind stirred lightly in a soft summer day. But here, beneath the trees, a soft green twilight reigned and the air was still. My footfalls were deadened by decades of leaf mold. Great trees, roots braced and humped against the rise of the hills, surrounded and shaded me, making the forest a many-pillared palace. Sweat ran down my face and my back. The calves of my legs ached from the steady climb.

And I was still hungry.

I’d had little to eat for the last ten days. My jail rations had been bread and water and a disgusting grayish pudding that was supposed to be porridge. Epiny had smuggled a tiny fruit tart to me, precious because it contained berries picked in this forest. When Tree Woman had sent her roots to break the walls of my cell, she had brought me the mushrooms that had given me strength for my magic. Those, and the hardtack and the handful of berries I’d picked in the morning, were all I’d had. Belatedly, I recalled that Amzil had told me she’d packed food in my panniers. Well, that last act of affection was gone now, carried off by Clove with my saddle. Strange to tell, the loss of that food did not distress me. I was hungry for the foods that would feed my magic rather than the ones that sustained my flesh.

I had early realized that restricting my food and even fasting wrought little noticeable change in me. The only thing that consumed my fat was using the magic. In the last day and night, I’d used the magic more than I ever had before, and my appetite for the foods that would feed the magic now raged proportionately.

“I’m hungry,” I said aloud to the forest. I half expected some sort of response: that mushrooms would spring up underfoot or a bush of berries would sprout nearby. But there was nothing. I heaved a sigh of disappointment, then paused and took a deeper lungful of air, breathing in through my nose. There. The faintest scent hung in the still forest air—I followed it, snuffing like a hound on a trail, and came to a bank of deep blue flowers nestled against the underside of a fallen log. I could not recall that Olikea had ever fed me anything like them, but the fragrance from them enflamed my appetite. I lowered myself to the forest floor to sit beside them. What was I doing, thinking of eating something I’d never even seen before? I could poison myself. I picked one, smelled it, and then tasted it. It was like eating perfume, and the flavor was too strong to be appetizing. I chose a leaf instead. It was fat-stemmed and fuzzy-edged. Cautiously, I put it to my tongue. There was a tang to the foliage that counteracted the sweetness of the flowers. I picked and ate a handful of the leaves, and then abruptly felt that although I was still hungry, I’d had enough of them. Was this the magic finally speaking clearly to me, as Tree Woman had told me it would? I couldn’t decide if that were true or if I were deceiving myself. With a grunt, I heaved myself to my feet and walked on. I reached the rounded top of a hill and the walking became easier.

I found and ate a cluster of bright yellow mushrooms growing in the moss on top of a tree root. I came to a place where parasitic vines had attacked on older tree. The tree was losing its leaves and patches of its bark had fallen away, revealing the holes and tracks of insects intent on rendering it down into soil. But the vine that cloaked the dying tree was lush with thick foliage and large teardrop-shaped fruit, so purple they shone black in the filtered sunlight. Some of the fruit was so ripe that it had cracked and lightly fermented. Purple juice dripped from them. Bees and other insects hummed ecstatically round the vine, while over my head I could hear the competitive twittering of small birds. Some of the fruit had fallen to the forest floor. There was a busy trail of large black ants carrying off gobbets of pulp.