A chasm opened in the stone, and the voices of trees echoed louder in my mind.
To bleed is the first step—drop your blood on the stone.
The next is to barter—match her price with your own.
The last is to bend—for magic does twist. You’ll lose your old self, like getting lost in a mist. The Spirit will guide you, but she keeps a long score. She’ll grant what you ask…
But you’ll always want more.
I swallowed. “I want a way to keep magic from degenerating. To heal the fever.”
The trees swayed. There will be a way. But there are many barters to make before that day comes.
I paused. “Then I want to be strong. Give me great strength.”
The wind picked up, smelling of salt. Bring a black horse from your stable, young Taxus.
My vision winked. It was another night. I was not in the meadow, but in a wood. I clutched my sword, the shepherd’s crook imprinting into my palms. My eyes had always been quick to adjust to darkness—I honed them on the wood, searching for movement.
When a shadow shifted beneath a juniper tree, a smile snaked over my mouth. The shadow grew to a plume of darkness.
And then I was upon him.
The clash of our swords echoed through the trees. Owls took to the sky, screeching in complaint. I paid them no mind and kept my focus on my combatant.
His steps were sure. With each blow, my teeth rattled. We parried through the wood, matching blow for blow. His sword hit my golden breastplate, and I sent my elbow into his jaw. He flinched, and it was all the time I needed. My foot swept his ankle. He fell with a curse, dropping his sword.
I stood above him, my smile widening. “Do you acquiesce?”
It was difficult to discern his features beneath the plume of darkness. But when he reached into his pocket, retrieving the source of the plume—a Black Horse Providence Card—and tapped it three times, I finally saw his face.
Young, handsome, with an angular brow. Even in the dark, I could see the green of his eyes. “You were right,” he said, studying the Black Horse in his hand. “This Card lends incredible strength. I might have snuck up on you and won—if you weren’t such an accomplished cheat and could see it by color.”
“Magic against magic.” I pulled him to his feet. “What’s unfair about that?”
We walked out of the wood together. When we reached my castle, he offered me back the Black Horse. “Thank you for another eventful training.”
“Keep the Card,” I said. “There are more. And I will make others that offer different magic. As providence would have it, I have a knack for bartering with the Spirit of the Wood.”
“And you’d give one of your precious Cards to a lowly guard?”
“No. But I would to the Captain of my Guard.”
His green eyes widened.
My laugh sounded into the night. “Magic isn’t just for those to whom the Spirit lends her favor.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Besides, you’ll need something to your name if you’re going to continue batting your eyes at my sister.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Ayris told you about us, then?” he said, rubbing his jaw.
“No. But I can read her well enough.” I titled my head to the side, hawklike. “Perhaps one day I’ll make a Card to read your mind, too, Brutus Rowan.”
Memories wove together, stringing me through time.
There were more Providence Cards. More colors—gold and white and gray—in my pocket. For each, I bled into the stone, and bartered with the Spirit of the Wood.
Then, there was a woman. With a kind face and gray eyes. Petra.
We stood together beneath the same stained-glass windows where I’d become King and embraced in front of Blunder’s lords and ladies. Ayris and Brutus stood from their seats, hands clasped, echoing a cheer of jubilation.
Wife. Queen. Petra looked up at me and I kissed her mouth. The softness of her lips reminded me of velvet.
Nine months later, Petra looked up at me once more. She was on a bed in a vast chamber, men with willow trees woven into their white robes tending to her. A newborn boy rested in her arms. He had her gray eyes.
“Bennett,” she murmured, her brow damp from labor. “I’d like to call him Bennett.”
She held the babe out to me, and I rocked him. But even as I did, my hands itched to hold something else. When I passed Bennett back to Petra, I slipped my fingers into my pocket for the Providence Cards I kept there. Only then did I smile.
I took Bennett to the wood. Asked the Spirit to bless him with her magic. A day later, his infant veins were dark as ink. His magic was the antithesis of mine, the trees told me. My heir, my counterweight.
But that was our secret, his and mine. Our fond, silent riddle.
More children were born. Boys—all yellow of eye like me. Lenor. Fenly. A pair of twins, Afton and Ilyc, so alike I could hardly tell them apart even when I took the time to try. I visited their nurseries, their rooms and tutor sessions, but often I was in another chamber, one I had built around the stone in the meadow.
I brought my sons to the wood—asked the Spirit to bless them with magic. But for all four, she kept her gifts to herself.
Then, a little girl was born. Tilly. Full of whim and a deviousness that reminded me of Ayris. Only, unlike my sister, the Spirit christened Tilly with the fever, and she was granted strange, wonderful magic.
She could heal. With a single touch of her little hand, Tilly could wipe away any wound—and often did so without intention. The cuts I’d dealt myself, bartering for Providence Cards, vanished whenever Tilly reached for me. It hurt, feeling her touch. But when the pain was gone, I was left with nary a scar.
But it cost her, little Tilly, to heal. Every time she did, her own body grew more frail. And so, for my next Providence Card, I asked the trees, the Spirit, for magic that healed. Magic that made its user as beautiful and unblemished as a pink rose—Tilly’s favorite flower.
Petra passed through the veil before Tilly’s fourth nameday. I buried her on the west side of the meadow, near the willow tree, not knowing I would dig her up soon enough to forge the Mirror.
But before that, I made a different Card. One that would make others bend their wills to me, just as I bent to the Spirit of the Wood.
Brutus Rowan came with me. He kept a hand on the pommel of his sword as I staggered into the chamber. “What was her price this time?”
“My sleep.”
His green eyes narrowed. “Do you ever wonder if the Spirit asks for too much for these Cards of yours, Taxus?”
Upon the edge of my sword, I split a seam in my palm. Droplets of red fell over the stone. “Providence Cards are a gift, Brutus. Their magic is measured. Neither they, nor those who wield them, risk degeneration.”
“Gifts are free, Taxus.”
My words came out a hiss. “Nothing is free.”
The stone opened to a chasm. My blood fell into it. I reached into my pocket—tapped the Maiden Card. By the time the cut in my palm began to knit, four Providence Cards rested within the stone, red as the blood I’d dropped. A scythe was fixed upon them.
I winked at Brutus and handed him one.
He stared down at it. “What would you have me do with this?”
“Keep my kingdom in order. My time is better spent here,” I said gesturing to the chamber. “Only be wary, Brutus. To command this Card is to command pain.”