Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [48]
Outside, the wind was dying, but in the trailer I shivered. If this gray winter was my fault—if it was—this might be my one chance to make it right. It seemed too much to hope for. “Of course I’m willing.”
Karin let out a breath, as if she’d doubted it. “We need not act right away. It may be that spring will yet find its own way back into this world, as your people expect, heeding the call of light and warmth and requiring neither summoning nor the memories of the Realm to help it return. We have time yet to summon spring. More time than we have to stop my mother.”
My thoughts spun back to the Lady. “We should go.” I glanced at Kyle. He slept soundly, and I didn’t look forward to waking him. I didn’t look forward to carrying him through the wind and the dark, either. He needed rest, but the ice had stopped and the wind was letting up, which meant the Lady could set out for my town anytime.
“Tell me of the other children in your town,” Karin said. “If we can find any the Lady’s glamour has not touched when we get there, will you speak with them? Can we rely on their help?”
Afters stick together. “They’ll help us.”
“All right, then. I can teach you little more of magic, in so short a time, that will make you any more effective against the Lady. But I can at least give you this much: I can take your oath before we leave.”
I stared at the vine that nuzzled Karin’s wrist like an affectionate cat. I’d heard Karin give the oath before, in her town, to a child who had just come into his magic. The words had angered me then, with their easy promises to do no harm with magic. They made me uneasy now. “I’m not sure I can.”
Karin’s eyes narrowed, and the leaves around her wrist went still. “Do the words trouble you, Liza?”
I met her level gaze. “No one can promise not to do harm with magic, least of all me.” I already had done harm with my magic: to Ethan, and perhaps to Mom as well. Magic was merely a weapon, no worse than the one who wielded it—but weapons slipped in the hand, arrows went astray, blades were blunter or sharper than expected, the wielder proved too weak for the task. “And if the Lady gets hold of me again—” I drew an unsteady breath. “Anything could happen then.”
Karin looked at me thoughtfully. “I think perhaps you do not understand what the oath is for.”
“Tell me, then.” There was a challenge in my words.
“Very well.” Karin rested her chin on her hands. “The oath cannot protect against the error in judgment, the failure of knowledge, or the lack of skill. Avoiding harm is not so simple as flipping the switch linked to a human generator, knowing that light will always follow. What the oath demands is that you always choose with care, with the intent of not doing harm—and that when you cause harm in spite of these efforts, you do all you can to mend it. The oath may also provide some small protection against those who would sway your thoughts toward harm, but that has never been tested.”
“Wait—the oath is protection?”
Karin stroked her ivy leaves, and one by one they curled up. “It is no promise of safety, only of mindfulness. Yet mindfulness is a sort of protection, too.”
“There are no promises of safety,” I said.
“Even before the War, this was true. Will you give me your oath?”
I nodded slowly, knowing that once I spoke the words, I had to mean them. “All right.”
I thought of the child who’d taken the oath in Karin’s town, surrounded by family and townsfolk who’d known him all his life. Here there were only Karin and I, the soft creaking of wind through trees, and the softer sound of Kyle’s breathing. Karin spoke, her voice quiet and sure, and I repeated