The Bonds of Blood (29 page)

“That certainly explains the lightshow
with the Hobbedy’s Lantern’s, doesn’t it?” he asked with a chuckle.
Joya did not seem to think he was amusing.

“And that means that Amber is …?” Joya
was still having a hard time wrapping her mind around it
all.

“Indeed it does,” Grace
nodded.

“This changes everything.” Tears stung
Joya’s eyes. She felt a sudden, unexplainable emotion welling up
inside of her. “Nothing will ever be the same again,” she sobbed,
and Angelica gathered her to her shoulder.

“Nothing ever stays the same,” Grace
soothed sagely.

“I am different, I am a freak,” she
wailed. “I am not normal.”

“Now come on, Joya.” Jovian grinned
mischievously. “You have never been normal.”

Grace shot him a dangerous look; he
fell silent.

“You are not a freak,” Grace scowled.
“Are you different? Yes. Are you rare? Again, yes. Are you
powerful? Are you changed? Not yet, but once the power takes hold
of you, you will change forever, Joya Neferis. But rest assured,
you are normal, you are completely normal for who you are. Never
forget that; you can never be anything other than who you are, and
in so being you are perfect. You are perfectly Joya in every sense
of the name.”

Joya removed her head from Angelica’s
soothing embrace a few moments later, still hiccupping with her
tears. “What do you mean?” she wiped her eyes. “What do you mean by
‘once the power takes hold …’?”

“I mean that once the power comes over
you and changes you into a sorceress. More than that I cannot tell
you, for I do not know. I know that one destined to be a sorcerer
will undergo an elemental trial in which they go to sleep, in a
sense, and are taught and tested by each element. This is the event
that changes them.” Grace puffed thoughtfully on her
pipe.

“But I am not yet a sorceress?” Joya
asked almost inaudibly through the pounding rain and booming
thunder outside.

“You are, you just don’t have your
powers yet.”

“But I used wyrd back there with the
Hobbedy’s Lantern, and that was not the first time.” Using the back
of her hand, she wiped the rest of the tears away as her crying
subsided.

“You did not use your powers, Joya, and
I think a part of you knows that. You would not have been that
powerful yet.”

“Then what was it?”

“It was the power the book lent
you.”

“The book?” Joya looked down to her
feet at the closed book.

“Yes, by now you know that the book is
a book of sorcery, but it is also more than that. The book is the
instrument of sorcery. I assume you have been hearing a
voice?”

Joya looked at her
surprised.

“My sister told me about the voice,”
Grace informed her, patting the bag that contained the telfetch.
“That voice is the Voice of Wyrd.”

Joya was floored, almost literally. The
realization of who she had been communicating with, acting so
foolishly toward, hit her like a physical blow. Her mind reeled;
she could think of nothing to say in reply to Grace’s statement.
There were so many questions running through her mind, but she
couldn’t think to put them into words.

“When will this elemental training,
whatever it is, take place?” Jovian asked for her, and Joya grunted
in thanks.

“Most anytime; it always happens in the
twenty-first year of the sorcerer’s life, unless the wyrd is forced
out of them, or into them, by an outside force. Rest assured,
however, that no being of good intent would force the Wyrding Ways
open.” Grace puffed harder at her pipe, realizing it had grown
cold; she refilled it and lit it again.

“How did it happen?” Joya
asked.

“How did what happen?”

“This,” Joya hissed, flicking her hand
to indicate the birthmark. “How did I contract this sorcery
thing?”

“First, Joya, it is not a ‘thing.’ It
is simply sorcery. Second, it is not a disease; it is a gift. And
third, you were simply born with it. I don’t think anyone knows why
someone is just suddenly born with the stigmata, or with sorcery,
it just happens.”

“How does it work? How can I use it?”
Joya asked.

“I know that you cannot use it right
now; you have to undergo the trials. Joya, you must understand that
I know little to nothing about sorcery and how it works. You are
asking the wrong sister about that.”

“Well then ask your sister,” Joya said,
pointing to the bag. “Let’s ask her it all right now.” Her voice
was rising to near hysteria.

“I won’t, mainly because those are not
questions she would answer through a device like the
telfetch.”

Everyone was silent for a time in which
the rain and thunder seemed to lull them all into near
sleep.

“Will the trials hurt?” Joya asked in a
small voice.

“If it does I have heard nothing about
it, though I can’t imagine that such a rigorous training can be
enjoyable.” She knew that was not what Joya wanted to hear, but
Grace was not one to lie.

“Listen; there are a few things I know
that I can tell you about sorcery.” Grace sighed and rubbed a hand
over her face. “And there are a few things I know that I will not
tell you, mainly because to do so would serve no purpose other than
to stir up questions that I cannot answer. Do you
understand?”

Joya thought for a moment, and then
nodded. The three eager listeners inched closer to the table
centered in the cozy, modest room.

“Good. First, I should say that you are
not completely powerless at the moment. Before the trials, all
sorcerers have a minimum access to their powers. These powers
normally appear in the form of prophetic dreams, strange visions,
apparitions, voices, and sometimes as little works of wyrd, like
calling a storm or influencing the environment around you in minor
ways.

“The mark of the lemniscate, as you now
understand, is the marking of sorcerers. This is the stigmata that
aids them in tapping into their wyrd; it also announces when one is
in danger, using wyrd around them, and in their elemental training.
It also glows when fire is brought close to the sorcerer, though I
am not sure why that is.

“The last thing I can tell you:
sorcerers, once completing their training, are
immortal.”

“What?” Joya asked.

“However, that does not happen until
after your training. At the present time you are just as mortal as
Angelica or Jovian.”

Angelica and Jovian’s eyes widened, but
Joya seemed unaffected by the thought.

Joya thought for a moment, and then
said, “So once I finish the training I can then tap into my wyrd
whenever?”

“You will be able to use it. Depending
on the skill and power of the sorcerer, the amount, type, and
strength of the wyrd they use varies. However, do not expect to
understand how wyrd works, or how to completely control it until
you are trained by another sorcerer in that area.”

“So I undergo two
trainings?”

“Not necessarily, though I am not
completely sure how it works. As I understand it, you are placed on
a trail by the elements. This might be a form of training in their
use, or it could just be a testing of your intent and emotions; I
am not sure. I do know that your wyrd will not be fully functional,
or at least completely controllable, until you understand how to
use it. This normally happens through the tutelage of an already
established and experienced sorcerer.”

Unable to stop the floodgates now, Joya
persisted with her onslaught of questions. For she sensed both the
power and danger attached to her new identity, and she wanted to be
as prepared as possible for what lie ahead of her.

“What will happen if I use my wyrd and
I don’t know how to control it?”

“Well, that is a far way off at the
moment. Don’t push yourself at first. You will have the wyrd to do
what needs to be done, but not always the proficiency. If you are
trying to accomplish something that is out of your skill, or that
you do not have the power to control, something you are not able to
understand completely, you could be destroyed.”

Joya swallowed hard.

Angelica suddenly remembered
something that the Baba Yaga had said to them:
“The will to do that which must be done.”

Angelica sprung to her feet, drawing
all attention from the conversation to her. “I just
remembered.”

“What?” Grace asked alarmed, and Jovian
leaned forward.

“Amber is being taken to the Lunimara,
the Mirror of the Moon.”

“What?” Grace said also standing. “How
did you find this out?”

“I, er, I had a dream about it,” she
lied, looking down in shame.

Grace smiled smugly, though she
appeared to do so with great effort. “Well then that does not mean
anything.”

“I have never even heard of the Mirror
of the Moon. How could I make it up?” Angelica sounded truly
offended.

Considering Angelica’s point, Grace
seemed to mull it over for a while. Finally she shrugged looking
lost in thought. “I suppose it is the closest thing to a lead we
have so far; might as well investigate.” Grace thought that taking
Amber to the Lunimara could have more meaning than simple slave
trade, though it did make sense to take her there …

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
Joya asked angrily. All thoughts of sorcery and wyrd fled from her
mind at the prospect of finding Amber, and they were replaced with
a burning fury that they had not had this information
sooner.

Angelica blushed. “I
forgot.”

“At least we are headed the right way,”
Grace observed distantly as she headed to her cot to lie
down.

Joya stiffly got up and found her cot.
Rolling over, she placed her back to them.

“How could we have been so stupid to
forget?” Jovian whispered to Angelica.

“I don’t know,” she muttered, her words
full of self-condemnation. “It didn’t seem like I forgot though,”
she argued. “It felt like I was not allowed to remember.” Rolling
her eyes, she knew how far-fetched it sounded.

Jovian knew all too well what she
meant.

“And why did Grace act so strange in
hearing its name?”

Angelica only shrugged.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

_T
he rains had started
again around
midday, but they were all
thankful that they were not as violent as they had been.

Angelica saw in Joya’s eyes that she
was very cross with her. Jovian had escaped free of her anger,
though she still refused to speak to him. The blame for the lack of
information was placed completely on Angelica’s shoulders; after
all, she had told them it was her dream, not Jovian’s. Angelica
understood her sister’s silence was one born of anger.

Grace was harder to read. At times the
old woman would fall into haunted silence when Angelica was sure
she was reliving an element of her past that none of them knew of.
The old lady was indeed something of an enigma. This was a silence
they had seen from time to time, but it was one that was hard to
figure out. Angelica was not sure if Grace was angry with her as
well, or if she was allowing the ghosts of her past to plague
her.

The truth was that Grace had been
silent upon the mention the Mirror of the Moon.

The answer came that night when
Angelica had just finished picketing the horses and seeing to their
relief of gear and tack. The rain had stopped an hour past, and
Angelica sat limply on a damp rock, easing the cramp in her back
with firm hands.

The old lady sat on the rock beside her
with a grunt.

“I am not mad at you, Angelica,” Grace
patted her on the arm. “It is only that the Lunimara, the Mirror of
the Moon, holds a lot of mixed emotions for me, a lot of tangled
and Chaotic times from my past. It is both an extremely happy place
and a very haunted place. Haunted with loved ones lost.” Grace
looked down, and her hand slid from Angelica’s arm. “I was shocked
when you said the name of the place, shocked and amazed that you
would know of it having never been told of the Mirror of the Moon
in any of my classes.”

“Grace,” Angelica began, “what happened
there? How do you know of this place, and why would Amber be taken
there?”

Grace offered a weak grin. “Some
things, dear child, are private and should remain so for
now.

“As for why Amber was taken there, I
have my suspicions. They don’t make any sense, but there may be a
loosely connected reason she is being taken there.” Grace sighed
and looked quizzically at Angelica. “So, tell me, how did you
really hear the name Lunimara? I know it was not from a
dream.”

Angelica was taken aback, and her mouth
hung open. She watched Jovian making the fire, and Joya bustling
around the camp, and she said the only thing she could think of:
“Some things are private, Grace, and should remain that way for
now.”