Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [49]
Blessed are the powers that grant me magic.
I promise to use their gift well.
To help mend my world,
To help mend all worlds.
And should I forget to mend,
Should I refuse to mend,
Still I will remember
To do no harm.
My voice trembled at first but grew steadier as I went on. Something inside me shifted, not the terrible twisting of my thoughts I’d felt with the Lady, but the steadier feeling of having found level ground on an uneven slope. I would do all I could. I’d always done all I could and thought it was never enough.
It was enough. That was what the oath meant. I would mend where I could, fight what I could, and put everything I had into both the mending and the fighting. If I failed, it would not be for lack of courage or action.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You are welcome, Tara’s daughter.” Karin squeezed my hand. “I will do all I can to be worthy of your trust.”
Through the hole in the ceiling, the night wasn’t quite as dark as before. It was time to go. I stood, stretching stiff legs, and walked to Kyle’s side. Outside, the wind had stopped. A hawk cried out, and Kyle bolted upright on the couch, throwing his blanket aside.
“She’s looking for me,” he said.
“Who’s looking for you?” I asked, though I feared I knew.
“The hawk.” Moss and bark fell out of Kyle’s sweater. I didn’t have to ask which hawk he meant.
Ice tinkled to the ground as Karin slid the trailer door open. “Wait here.” She slipped outside and pulled the door shut again.
I would have followed, but that would have meant leaving Kyle alone. I took off his sweater and sat beside him, picking the remaining moss from beneath his bandages and rewrapping the bandages over his wounds, which were a less angry shade of red, the puffiness around them gone. He’d lost the bandage around his hand in the night, but the scabs there were thicker now and seemed to be holding this time.
I put his sweater on again, still backward, to protect his back, and he crawled into my lap. There was no sign of fever in his eyes, and his skin remained cool. He was as ready to travel as could be hoped for. He was shaking, though, and not with cold. “Mean bird,” he muttered. “Mean, mean bird.”
“I won’t let Elin hurt you.” I was surprised I could speak the words aloud. None of our promises were a surety of safety, but magic wasn’t concerned with that, only with whether we meant what we said.
I couldn’t tell if Kyle had heard me. “Go ’way,” he whispered under his breath. “Go ’way, stupid bird.”
The oath is protection. Scant protection, perhaps, but hadn’t I just vowed to do all I could? I drew Kyle close. If the oath could protect me, it could protect him, too. “Before we go, I have some words I need for you to repeat. Can you do that?”
Kyle looked up at me. “I’m hungry.”
How long had it been since he’d last eaten? I pulled the dried blueberries from my pocket and handed them to him. Kyle sniffed them skeptically, then tasted one.
A startled grin crossed his face. He grabbed the rest of the berries and shoved them all into his mouth at once. Blue stained his lips and tongue. He held out his hand. “More.”
I didn’t have any more. I handed him a strip of jerky instead. Kyle gave me a suspicious look but took the meat and ate it, too. Karin’s water skin was in the trailer, beside her pack. Kyle drank deeply when I handed it to him. Then he looked up at me.
“I want you to repeat what I say, Kyle, okay?” I waited until Kyle nodded, and then I spoke the oath, one line at a time.
Kyle bit his lip and repeated the words, his expression growing serious as he did. He added a couple of things at the end: a promise to try not to be mean, another promise not to send ants into his brother’s pants ever again. Only then did he nod at me, as if satisfied.
I tore the last of my jerky in half and handed Kyle the larger piece. He chewed it solemnly. The door creaked open, and Karin stepped inside, her jacket wrapped around a bundle in her arms.
I nudged Kyle from my lap to put myself between him and what Karin held. She crouched down,