“I’d like to return to the aviary,” he said, interrupting the matron as she explained some detail in the architecture.
“What?” she asked, surprised. “Now?”
“Yes.”
He felt he owed some sort of respect to the woman who ruled Carrion Crow, but etiquette had never been his strength. He had learned basic manners under his father’s roof while his mother still lived, and his tutors, particularly Paadeh, had demanded deference. He knew how to hold his tongue and nod along to useless words, but it rubbed at him like a pebble underfoot, and he did not enjoy it.
“I thought you would be interested in learning more about your ancestral home.”
“I am not.”
Before Sun Rock, he would have been. He would have reveled in the idea of learning the history of this place and his people. But something had changed in him, something profound, and all he wanted to do was retire somewhere quiet where he could be alone to unravel what that was.
“I find architecture fascinating,” she continued. “The kind of stone from which a building is made, particularly. Old stone, local stone, it is by far the best. Foreign stone cannot be trusted.”
“Is there much foreign stone in the Great House?”
“None.”
“I would think it would not matter where the stone originated from as long as it was strong and fit to the purpose.”
“Oh, no. Foreign stone may look the same as local, but the differences begin to show immediately.” She led him on. “I remember a story of a man who thought to build his home from foreign stone, eschewing the provincial because he found the foreign new and attractive, a novelty, really. But no sooner had he laid the foundation than he discovered it was much too porous, and it began to crack.”
He understood her meaning now, and countered, “Perhaps the man mishandled the stone. Does not the fault then lie with the builder? It is easy to blame the material, but it is only performing the way it was meant to perform.”
“The stone was bad from the beginning. No amount of work could have saved it.”
“A strange thing to think.”
“The fault may have been in the forging. Improper firing and testing, a defect in the native materials. It’s difficult to account for all the faults possible if one is not intimately familiar with the process.”
He stopped, turning to face her. “There is no fault in my forging.”
“We all have faults we cannot recognize in ourselves. It is human nature.”
“You forget that I am not only human.”
“So you say.”
He could feel her eyes weighing and judging him. Deciding if he was worthy material on which to build the future of Carrion Crow, or if he was defective.
“You are not so different from your brother,” he said.
“Oh?”
“He seeks to use me as a weapon against your enemies. You test me, seeking to use me, too. Although I am not sure for what.”
“It would be naive of you to think we did not want to mold you to our needs. After what you have done. You are… explosive.”
He smiled. “Do you have a knife?”
“What?” Her voice was wary, and she released his arm and stepped back.
“Do you fear me? Think that I would hurt you?”
“In my own house? You would not dare.”
“No, I would not.”
He held out his hand, and after a moment, he felt the weight of a blade against his palm. “What is it that a master builder must look for in his stone?”
“Strength, first.”
He ran the blade across his forearm. Felt when his flesh parted under the obsidian and the blood welled. She sucked in a breath, more curious than repulsed.
“What else?”
“Porosity,” she answered, understanding.
He knew he could not call the shadow from his god, but he thought he still might be able to do so through his blood. He had not thought of it at the monastery; his panic had been too acute. But now he remembered his old tutor’s words, and he was sure of it.
“Porosity is essential to sorcery as well, after a fashion.” He wiped the knife against his pants and tucked it into his waistband. With his other hand now free, he ran his fingers through the flow of his own blood. “The barrier between our world and the shadow world is porous and breeched by sacrifice.” He held up his bloodied hand. “Once it is crossed, magic is the sorcerer’s to control.” What had once been as natural as breathing now took concentration that brought wrinkles to his brow, but he felt the shadow come to him, wrap around his fingers, and caress his palm as it fed from his blood. “I am no ordinary stone.”