My magic had always craved greater strength, but now that I bore the death-passed magic of dozens of streghe, it didn’t feel like I held a single, seamless power inside of me. It was a collection of splintered pieces.
“Do you think the streghe we met in the market yesterday will heed our warning?” I asked.
Cielo pulled her cloak, one of our few possessions, tighter against the newborn cold. We’d left summer behind in Amalia. “Who knows with the northern streghe? They are ferociously independent.”
If Cielo thought that, I felt little hope.
We kept moving—north as far as I could tell. Cielo tested the winds by becoming one, flicking the pages of the book she used to control her changes. Not that the strega’s magic was obeying the rules now, either. Only an act of unchecked power had been able to break me away from servitude to the Capo. I was the reason Cielo had lost control of the magic she’d worked for years to bring to heel.
We had lost so much to gain each other.
The wind that was Cielo swirled around me, raking through my hair, toying with the hem of my dress, sliding under my collar and working its warm, sure way down the valley between my breasts.
A blush started in my cheeks and then went on a rampage. “Not now,” I said roughly.
I ran my hands down my dress, pretending to smooth it from the ruffling of the wind but really savoring memories of Cielo’s hands, Cielo’s mouth, Cielo’s skin.
The wind breathed over the book, flipping it to a well-worn page that turned Cielo back into the boyish version I had first met on the mountain those months ago. He stood up, naked and grinning, and I tossed a pack directly at his stomach.
“We need to lay a course,” I said as he removed a shirt from the pack and shook out the wrinkles.
He hopped into his pants and then removed the green-and-purple traveling cloak that had snared my attention the first time we met. As it turned out, the web of stitching on the back was not just a rich design—it formed a map of Vinalia, including the locations of all streghe known to Cielo.
“We’re here,” Cielo said, jabbing a finger at the silk.
Pavetta—or Paletta—sat in the western foothills, as far as we could walk before the Uccelli dwindled to nothing, soon to be replaced by the sharp angles and snowy creases of the Neviane. My mind filled with those peaks and the war the Capo waged there.
“Let’s see if we can make it to the hazelnut fields of Alieto by midday,” Cielo said. “From there, it’s only a short hike to—”
“No,” I said, stabbing through the heart of Cielo’s plans. “We should be doing more than skulking from village to village, warning a few streghe at a time, always afraid we’re about to be caught. Unless we find some way to unite the people, our people, the Capo will be able to pick them off.”
My hands slid into knots, and Cielo eased them back open. “Don’t think of him.”
“He’s your uncle,” I muttered.
“I take no responsibility for that,” Cielo said. “I didn’t choose my uncle any more than you picked Beniamo from a batch of possible brothers.” Even the mention of Beniamo felt like an attack, and I cringed away from it. When I blinked, light alternated with fractured bits of memory—turning my brother into an owl, watching him come back more vicious than before. The last time I’d seen him, he’d vowed to make my life an endless parade of pain and loss.
“You’re shaking,” Cielo said, taking me by the shoulders.
“I’m not.” I forced myself to stillness and then realized I hadn’t been the only thing shuddering. The ground shivered subtly beneath our feet.
I hoped this was one of the earthquakes that seized the Uccelli on a monthly basis, gave the mountains a quick shake, and then died. But the feeling grew steadily, and so did the dread in my chest. Cielo dropped to one knee and spread the cloak over the ground. It jolted and danced.
“Someone’s coming.” Without so much as touching the book, Cielo split into a flock of birds. Dark wings rose into a sky as pale as a fevered brow.
I called on my own magic and found it restless. It hissed, angry that I had been holding back for so long. When I pulled, there was no smooth and ready response. Instead, I grasped for sharp edges. There were so many of them, so many different ways to hurt.
I turned to the mountain and focused on its smooth hide. I need a place where I won’t be seen.
A dozen spots on the mountain burst as if they’d been hit by cannon fire. Above me, the flock of Cielo-birds crowed.
Not very inconspicuous, I told the magic.
It buzzed a rude, angry response. It had become a chorus of discontent, always pressing me to do more. I rushed to a pockmark in the mountain’s newly pitted face and settled behind a great stone that gave me a perch to spy from. Just as I rounded the corner, the road came alive with dust.
Men marched across the foothills of the Uccelli, wearing green and black. They were moving north from the Capo’s beloved capital of Amalia to the brutish cold of the Neviane, their necks slung with scarves, their sweat evident under winter coats, even from here. The Eterrans had chosen to swarm over the northern mountains: the least forgiving approach, but their navy was tied up in constant skirmishes with the Sfidese. Keeping their army alive meant trusting the known passes through the Neviane, and only one was large enough to allow a great number of troops through its harsh, rocky embrace. It sat just north of the town of Zarisi. These Vinalians were marching toward the pass, pouring over the fields, a river of bodies. There had to be at least two thousand trampling crops and fallow fields alike. They kept their eyes ahead on the glory of coming battles.
I thought about changing them now, to spare them the pain and death of this ridiculous war. The Capo shouldn’t have so many lives at his disposal. I could save them all in one great sweep.
Turn them into a field of toy soldiers, the magic said.
Would that be mercy? What would I do when the Capo, bereft of soldiers, lost the war? When the Eterrans broke into the country and took whatever they pleased? It was no secret that the northern invaders had their eyes on our rich fields. They wished to claim our glories in science, art—possibly even magic. Eterrans were empire builders. For a few centuries they had been focused on spreading over the seas to the virgin continent, but they’d lost most of their colonies there to war. Now they had their eyes on Vinalia, and they were well practiced in taking what was not theirs.
I remembered that moment of being forced into the Capo’s army—my body, my magic, belonging to him.
Would Eterra try to claim the streghe? Would our magic be the first thing they stole?
The Capo had exposed us to the world and then brought on a war in the name of his own glory. My rage took flight, but I kept still. These troops might not have been sent to scout for the two streghe who had set magical fire to Amalia, but if they caught us along the way, it would certainly earn them the Capo’s gratitude.