His lips twitched and then broadened into his bright smile. His smile washed over her, and she realized how much she had missed it these last five days. “Very well,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
Overhead, the stars filled the bruise-black sky. Liyana breathed deeply. The night air crinkled inside her lungs instead of scorching her throat.
“You can still change your mind,” Korbyn said behind her. He was close enough that she inhaled his scent. “Magic is forbidden to vessels because it is dangerous. If you try to reach too far . . .”
She realized that this was the first time they’d been alone since the other vessels had joined them. Behind them, Pia and Fennik slept cocooned in their sleeping rolls. The horses dozed in a semicircle around the tent. “I don’t need to work miracles,” Liyana said. “Just teach me enough to help.”
“Magic isn’t about miracles,” Korbyn said. “All we do is speed up or slow down what happens naturally.” He pointed to a shriveled bush a few feet in front of them. His arm brushed against hers, and her skin tingled. “For example, this plant is capable of blooming. We can induce it to bloom faster. But we can’t cause it to sprout wings and fly.”
Causing a plant to bloom
“Sit.” Korbyn pointed to the hard ground next to a shriveled bush.
Liyana sat cross-legged. She patted her thighs to wake up her sore muscles. Korbyn joined her on the ground, his knees almost touching hers. He didn’t look at her, and Liyana wondered what he was thinking. She wished he’d tell her a story, like he used to when it was just the two of them. It had been easy to talk to him then. She tried to think of words to say.
“Your soul fills your body.” He paused. Wind whistled across the dry earth. A desert owl cried out. “You can nod to show you’re engaged in the lesson.”
“I assumed that was an introduction.”
“I am attempting to be pedagogical,” he said. “I have never taught anyone before.”
“The stories say that deities were the ones who taught the first magicians. In fact, Talu said that Bayla instructed Talu’s many-times-great-grandmother—”
“I was busy at the time.”
“Doing what?”
“Creating a mountain range.”
She tried to picture a mountain bursting out of the ground. Staring at this boy-man-god, she wondered what it would feel like to change the shape of the world. “Truly?”
“We needed a valley. It took a very, very long time. Several lifetimes, in fact.” Reaching out, he put his hand on her chin and turned her head so that she faced the bush instead of him. He released her, and she had to fight the urge to look at him again. “Your soul fills your body. So to work magic outside your body, you must expand your soul. In other words, if you want to cause this bush to bloom, you need to make it a part of you, at least temporarily. Once you’ve done that, then you can use magic to influence it.”
She nodded, though she had a thousand questions.
“You may ask, ‘Where does the extra soul come from?’ After all, your soul is a fixed size—it fits your body perfectly. So how can it expand? The answer is that the ‘extra soul’ is magic drawn directly from the Dreaming.” He smiled broadly as if he were pleased with himself for explaining the matter so clearly and concisely.
“But how—”
He tapped her forehead with his finger. “By concentrating. You’ve seen me in a trance. I am connecting to the magic of the Dreaming with my mind. You can learn to do it too. Only reincarnated souls and deities can.”
Sorting through the questions in her mind, Liyana opened her mouth to let them flood out. She hoped that these were questions he’d answer.
“Your soul will be lost.” Pia knelt in the opening of the tent, holding the flap open with one hand. Her milky eyes seemed to encompass them both. “Your body will wither and die without it, and your clan will perish.”
“She isn’t wrong,” Korbyn said in a cheerful voice. “A body without a soul cannot survive. You must maintain your connection to your body throughout the process, or you risk losing yourself.”
“It is wrong to take such a risk,” Pia said. “If the gods thought it an acceptable risk, it would not be forbidden.” Her voice was earnest and sweet. She had a hint of melody when she spoke that made one want to listen to her.
Liyana felt fear curl inside her gut, but she kept her voice confident. “The gods never anticipated any vessel, much less multiple vessels, needing to make this kind of journey. If they had known, they may have made an exception.”
Pia smacked the side of the tent with her palm. “Fennik! I need you.”
Bursting out of the tent, Fennik grabbed Pia’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“I am fine,” Pia said. “But this”—she waved her hand toward Liyana, Korbyn, the bush, and the desert beyond—“is unnatural. We cannot allow this to continue.”
Fennik looked from her to Liyana to Korbyn and back again as if they’d suddenly crowded around him. “I . . . She . . .”
“Fennik!” Pia’s voice sounded as though he had slaughtered a kitten for dinner. She clung to him. “You said you agreed with me! If we embrace unnecessary risk for the sake of expediency—”
“If we keep arguing, none of us will have strength for the ride tomorrow,” Liyana pointed out. “You don’t want to be the one to slow the rescue of your goddess, do you?”
Fennik awkwardly patted Pia’s arm. “If the gods wished us to know magic, we would have been taught it. But . . . we are four days from the hills. Even if we find the Scorpion Clan quickly, we still need the Falcon Clan.”
Pia let out a gasp like a tiny wounded animal. Without another word, she vanished into the tent. Muttering a curse, Fennik ducked into the tent after her.
“Korbyn is a god, and he wishes it!” Liyana called after them.
“Thank you for noticing,” Korbyn said. He flashed a smile at her, and she felt the warmth of his smile pour over her. “Shall we begin? Close your eyes and look inside. Follow the course of your breath. Feel the pulse of your blood as it throbs through your veins. Feel the limits of your skin. Truly inhabit your body. Only then will you avoid the fate that Pia fears.”
Three hours later, Korbyn called an end to the lesson.
Liyana crawled inside the tent without looking back at the leafless bush. She curled into her sleeping roll and was asleep before Korbyn even settled into his.
She resumed the lesson at dawn, sitting cross-legged on the sand while Fennik packed up camp and Pia combed her soft, white hair.
Approaching her, Korbyn said, “You must be anchored to your body when you work magic. You cannot waver.” He shoved her shoulder.
Liyana toppled to the side. She caught herself with the heel of her hand. “Ow.” She glared at him.
“Keep concentrating,” Korbyn said. Whistling, he strode over to the horses.
She continued to practice as they rode. She focused on her calf and thigh muscles as they jolted and shifted with Gray Luck’s stride. She felt the wind as it blew grit against her face cloth. She felt the fabric of her clothes move across her skin. She counted her breaths. Every time they halted to water the horses, she listened to her heartbeat.
“We could spend a year on simply this,” Korbyn told her that night. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a year. So let’s skip ahead.”
Across the campfire, Pia looked horrified, an elegant expression on her doll-like face. “If she dies, so dies the hope of her clan. I will not allow you to endanger an entire clan with this recklessness.”
