Chapter 1
Magnus heard the familiar lightfooted tread of his mother’s moccasins against the hard-packed dirt floor as she moved around the yurt. If the sweet smell that wafted to his nose was any indication, she was preparing his favorite breakfast.
This was the morning of his tenth name-day.
The thought pierced loudly through his still sleep-addled brain. A shiver of excitement rippled through him, and his hands fisted in the thick winter furs that made up his bed.
After today, he would no longer be considered a child, forced to wear his hair long and stay behind to clean and sort and carry and mend under the strict eyes of the Elder tribe members whose task it was to mind the young children. It was a day most tribe-children looked forward to with both eagerness and fear, but Magnus was not afraid. After all, he was the first tribe child in two generations that could see magic, so the chief would surely apprentice him to one of the tribe Canters. That is, if any of the Canters were willing to take on a halfblood like him.
His mood deflated a little.
His mother finished preparing the breakfast and moved toward Magnus’s corner of the yurt.
Magnus held very still, pretending to still be sleeping, wanting to hold on to the warmth of this morning just a moment longer. Now that the long-awaited day had come, he almost wished he had to wait if it meant he could feel this happy a little longer.
Mother’s long hair tickled his nose as she leaned down to place something warm and heavy and squirming on his chest. Magnus blinked sleep from his eyes, yawning. His half-sister blinked back at him and gurgled happily. She hadn’t received her proper name yet—Magnus’s parents were still deciding—but he called her Babygirl. Her eyes were slowly losing their cloudy newborn blue as their color deepened, now almost the same rich brown-black as his mother’s and Tymren’s.
He had hoped her eyes would remain lighter in color, thinking how nice it would be to have something more in common with his half-sister. As often as his mother told him that his eyes resembled “liquid gold,” the other tribe children called him “wolf-eyes.” His eyes were one of many things that made Magnus disconcerting to most of the other members of the tribe.
Before Tymren started courting Mother, they had been one of the poor ones and had lived with Aunty Cresianda in her yurt. Magnus liked Tymren’s yurt much better. His aunt had a shrill voice and a quick temper, and his five older boy cousins, when not fighting with each other, loved nothing more than to tease Magnus, calling him names like “citybaby” and “yellow-eyes” and making a game of pulling out and collecting strands of his golden-hued hair. Of course, they were on their best behavior in front of Mother, whose sweet nature and beauty had a softening influence on everyone around her, and didn’t dare ever take things too far within earshot of Aunty or Pipa.
Drool trickled out of the side of Babygirl’s mouth. Mother squatted beside Magnus’s mat and wiped away the drool with a corner of Babygirl’s blanket and smiled. “Babygirl wanted to be the first to wish her big brother a happy tenth cycle.”
Magnus grinned, wrapped his arms around his half-sister, and touched his nose gently to hers. “Thank you, Babygirl!” he said and kissed her on one cheek, and then, since her dark cheeks were so cute and chubby, he kissed the other as well.
Babygirl blinked her long lashes at him, and Magnus found the look on her face so cute he showered her with even more kisses.
“You’ll smother her,” Mother said.
“She likes when I give her kisses.” Magnus blew a raspberry on Babygirl’s cheek. Babygirl giggled. “See?” he said.
“I do see.” Mother moved to stir the contents of a pot that hung on a hook above the glowstones oven. Most other tribe members still used wood fires to heat their yurts or moved closer to the base of the mountain where the snow did not get so deep in bad winters, but Tymren, as one of the best Canters in the village, could afford nicer luxuries. Tymren had brought them both into his yurt when Mother became pregnant with Babygirl.
Magnus liked Tymren. His love for Magnus’s mother was unmistakable and showed in the way he cared for her and the way he doted on Babygirl. He treated Magnus fairly, and over the last year he had become a real father to Magnus, so that sometimes Magnus forgot that he had not always been his father.
“You’ll have to eat quickly so you’re ready when Tymren returns,” Mother said. She ladled porridge into a carved wooden bowl, set it on the rug beside him, and plucked Babygirl from his arms. “Are you excited to receive your first instrument?”
“I won’t get an instrument at all if the Chief decides I’d serve the tribe better as a Crafter or a Spinner.”
Mother snorted. “You’ll be a Canter, sure as anything.”
Magnus put the warm bowl of porridge in his lap. He popped the first spoonful into his mouth and sighed in pleasure. Mother had put in extra honey, just as he liked it.
Magnus licked the bowl clean and set it down with a contented sigh. “Will Pipa be coming up the mountain for the ceremony?”
Mother sat in the cushioned hammock-chair Tymren had made for her as a pregnancy gift. The chair was like all things in Tymren’s yurt: well-made and covered with layers of enchantments that shone faintly orange, just as all Tymren’s enchantments appeared to Magnus.
“Pipa wouldn’t miss your ceremony for anything. I heard from your aunty that she’s collecting bets from her brothers about what instrument you’ll choose.”
As Babygirl suckled at her breast, she made soft grunting noises like a hungry puppy.
Magnus smiled. It was just like Pipa to collect bets on him.
Magnus left the now porridgeless bowl next to the furnace and went to the clothes he had carefully laid out the night before. He removed his nightshirt and replaced it with a thin cotton undershirt before pulling the woolen tunic over his head. The tunic glistened faintly with unbound magic, no more than a few colorless fog-like wisps that clung to the tunic like burrs. Magnus guessed the tribe Spinner who’d made the tunic had spun some magic into the fabric dye to make the vibrant red color stick and take on a softness that was unusual for wool.
He brushed the strands of magic off his tunic, scattering the wisps of loose magic into the air. The magic glittered like spider silk and moved, attracted to join thicker tinted threads of magic that Tymren had Canted into enchantments and woven through the walls of his yurt to keep out the cold.
Tracing his fingertips across the thin spirals of embroidery on the cuff of his right sleeve, Magnus remembered how Pipa had reacted when they found out he could see magic and she couldn’t.
“I don’t know what’s wrong!” Pipa said, glaring at the tin whistle in her hands. “This thing is broken.”
Magnus could see from the look in her eyes that Pipa was contemplating chucking the offending instrument at the nearest tree. He took the whistle gently from her hands. “It’s not broken. You just need to play more slowly,” Magnus said.
“What are you talking about?” Pipa demanded, glaring at him over the crooked bridge of her nose—a nose she had broken twice: once fighting her brothers (earning them respect for her scrappiness and halting their hair-pulling torments on Magnus), and once bucked off a soldier’s horse. Aunty had moaned it ruined her beauty forever, but Pipa wore the crook like a badge, drawing eyes to it proudly.
“I mean you’re playing too fast.”
“What do you mean I’m playing too fast? I’m playing the same speed I played in the village.”
“Let me have a turn,” Magnus said, taking the whistle from her hands.
“You idiot,” Pipa scoffed. “You can’t just pick up any Canting instrument you please. The magic won’t work.”
He placed his fingers over the holes, calling to mind how Pipa had moved hers. It took one or two tries, but on the third, the lazy wisps of magic paused, attentive. He played the Cant to summon fire more slowly, watching them gather near the sticks at Pipa’s feet. The bundle burst into flames.
“Whuh?!” Pipa stepped back from the blaze. “But that’s impossible!”
“There’s less magic here than around the village. You have to give it time to gather,” Magnus said.
Pipa raised an incredulous eyebrow. “What do you mean give it time to gather? You’re talking as if you can see it, but no one sees magic. It’s invisible.”
“I think I sort of taught myself how,” Magnus admitted. “It’s hard to say. I just watch for it—like the wind in leaves or ripples on the lake. Or how sunlight’s shadow shows it’s blocked. You watch for signs of it being there or not, and eventually it’s less invisible.”
This didn’t convince Pipa right off, but after dragging him across the mountain for fire-summoning trials in sparse spots, she believed. She even “borrowed” brother Drumming’s harp—easy, since he lost everything—to test versatility. Magnus recalled a simple sleep Cant’s tune but not fingering; he puzzled it out by evening, lulling two vicious village dogs to slumber.
Pipa was convinced, but concerned. She made him swear secrecy: no boasting about multi-instrument Canting or seeing magic. Magnus bristled at first, but her instincts for danger were spot-on—better to be underestimated, she said, drawing from life with rowdy brothers. “You’re already different enough. Being so gifted invites trouble. It’s amazing, but hide your strength till needed. We’ll practice in secret, just us.”
“Are you nervous?” his mother asked, drawing him back into the present.
Magnus shook his head and grinned. “Just excited.”
Mother set Babygirl down on her and Tymren’s bed and came to help him with the sash.
“A little worry can be a good thing. It can keep you from acting without thinking,” Mother said. She cinched the sash securely around his waist. She reached up to tuck Magnus’s long curls behind his ears, and after she had done so, she hesitated. A flicker of emotion that Magnus could not describe darkened her features. “You are so much like your father. So confident. So self-assured…” Her words trailed off, her expression sad and hard. He’d pressed her once about the blood father—a wealthy, beautiful citydweller, the most beautiful she’d seen—and heard her cry that night. He never asked again. His mother laughed, and Magnus was glad to see that dark expression flee from her face. “This is true. That girl could do with more than just a bit of worry! I was so nervous on my tenth name-day that when the Chief handed me my violin, I nearly dropped it!”
Magnus frowned. He hadn’t considered this possibility. What would he do if he dropped his instrument?
“Now you look more like a child on the day of their tenth cycle,” Mother said, chuckling. “Go and fetch the comb. Your hair is a mess.”
“We’re going to chop it all off after anyway.”
“You’re right,” his mother said, giving him a gentle push toward the chest where they kept the combs. “Then I’ll have to take extra care to get all the tangles out.”
Magnus grimaced, but went to fetch the comb and tried to be patient as his mother worked the comb through his tangled golden curls.
The familiar form of his stepfather entered the yurt, just as his mother was finishing fixing the last of the decorative feathers into his hair. Tymren’s expression, usually in harmony with his stern Pied features, softened drastically at the sight of his family. He slung the bag on his back off his shoulder.
“Hello, Babygirl,” he said, plucking her up from her fur cradle and nuzzling her cheek.
Inside their cozy yurt, Tymren left off the formal dignity of his position as the son of the Chief of the Pied Tribe and relaxed into the role of husband and father. From the first day when he had begun courting Magnus’s mother, he’d treated Magnus with all the affection and familiarity of blood kin, so that there were times that Magnus forgot that they weren’t actually related by blood.
“Congratulations on your tenth name-day, Magnus,” Tymren said, ruffling Magnus’s curls. His large hand was heavy and warm on his head. “I think you know what I’ve brought you.” He nodded toward the bag by the door.
Magnus’s heart thumped like a rabbit. He sprang to the bag, reached in, and lifted out his Pied cloak. It was heavier and larger than he anticipated. The inside of the cloak and the hood was lined with rabbit fur for warmth, while the outside was stitched from patches of different fabrics: scraps of fabric he knew Tymren and his mother had gathered from the clothing of as many tribe members as were willing to part with them as tokens of welcome to the tribe.
“We don’t have this many people in our village,” Magnus said, looking at all of the scraps of fabric.
“This cloak was my father’s,” Tymren said. “When it was my tenth name-day, he had the new pieces added to his cloak. And I know that I’m not your father by blood, but I wanted you to have it.”
Magnus felt his face grow warm. He shifted his weight, looking around the yurt while his mind searched for some way to respond.
“I’ll help you put it on,” his mother said. She lifted the garment from his hands, and Magnus relinquished it gratefully.
The weight of the cloak as it settled around his shoulders was a comforting one, and the earthy musk of the fox fur that lined the inside settled his nerves somewhat. He rubbed his cheek against the fox fur, marveling at how soft it was against his skin. Though the cloak was embroidered, it did not feel stiff. It was a bit large on him though: Magnus thought, seeing that the bottom edge of the cloak rested on the ground. He was tall compared to the other Pied children his same age.
“Though I may not be your father by blood, I am proud to call you my son this day.”
“These two patches are ours,” Mother said, touching two patches sewn next to one another over his left breast. “The lavender is from the skirt of my favorite dress, and the plum-colored one is from Tymren’s best shirt.”
Warmth flooded Magnus’s chest. He threw his arms around his mother’s waist and buried his burning face in her stomach. Her arms went around him, cradling his head against her. When he pulled away and looked into her face, there were tears in her eyes. “Enough of this,” she said, swiping impatiently at her eyes. “If I start crying, I won’t be able to stop. Take off your cloak. I want to put a few more feathers in your hair.”
Tymren set Babygirl down in her furs and cleared away the remains of breakfast while Mother fussed over Magnus’s unruly curls, tying in feathers and using a mixture of water and salt to tame his curls into semi-obedience.
Magnus submitted to these ministrations as patiently as he could, though it was beginning to feel like an eternity. He was thinking about ways he could make sure he would not drop his instrument during the ceremony when he felt a change in the air around him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and his muscles tensed.
“Magnus?” Mother asked. Her hands stilled in his hair. “I’m sorry. Did I pull too hard?”
“Something’s wrong,” Magnus said. Panic rose in his chest.
A woman’s scream, raw and filled with terror, ripped through the air close to their yurt and was abruptly cut off.
Mother had Babygirl in her arms in an instant. Tymren snatched up his drum and was out the entrance in the next breath.
Babygirl, startled by the sudden motion or perhaps because Mother was holding her a little too tightly, whimpered uneasily and squirmed. Magnus heard another angry scream—this one sounding a lot like Pipa’s voice—and a man’s cry of pain.
His mother caught him by the wrist as he sprang for the door. Her grip was like iron.
“It’s Pipa!”
“I need you here. Secure your cloak and take Babygirl,” she told Magnus. Her voice was like ice. “I need my hands free.”
Magnus secured the leather buckles that held the cloak in place and took Babygirl.
Magnus recognized the familiar pounding rhythm of Tymren’s drum, though the rhythm and melody of the Cant wasn’t one he recognized: something more violent and harsh than anything Magnus had ever heard Tymren play before.
Mother snatched up her violin. Turning to face the back of the yurt, she dragged the bow across the strings in a quick succession of screeching notes. Wood and fabric both splintered and tore apart, creating a large hole.
“Hurry, Magnus,” Mother said, helping him through the hole and dragging him forward into the snowy wood that backed up against their yurt. “Run, Magnus. Keep running and don’t stop, no matter what, until you get to the smoking caves.”
Wet clusters of snow struck Magnus’s face and melted instantly, so that droplets of icy water ran down his face and soaked the collar of his cloak as he ran. He hunched over, trying to shield Babygirl from the worst of it. Still, Babygirl—cold and scared—let out loud wails of protest.
Mother played a series of quick notes on her violin, but Magnus could see that the Cant was not catching the magic as it should. She couldn’t play the notes properly while running through the woods at the same time.
Magnus risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a soldier clutching at his stomach. His leather armor had been torn open, and blood seeped out from between his fingers: startlingly red against the snowy landscape. Magnus could see other soldiers chasing after them through the gaps in the trees.
Magnus’s foot caught on a root, and he stumbled. His heart leapt up into his throat as he lurched forward, holding Babygirl tight to his chest. He fought to recenter himself and managed to regain his footing, though his ankle throbbed painfully and his breath was coming in gasps now.
“Eyes forward!” Mother yelled.
Magnus trained his focus back on the path ahead, on where he would next place his foot, and tried to ignore how ragged his throat felt as the cold air entered and exited his lungs. He could hear their heavy boots crunching in the snow, their labored breathing as they drew closer, but he could not worry about that. Just run, he thought to himself. All you have to do is keep running.
Mother fell back, and Magnus slowed to catch his breath. She turned around, lifted her violin to her chin, and played a longer, swirling melody. The magic captured the air and directed it, creating a strong wind that picked up the snow around them. It whipped into the air in a frenzy that blinded the nearest soldiers, who were forced to halt and take shelter.
“Magnus, I need you to keep going,” Mother said. Her voice was calm in spite of the tightness around her eyes. “Don’t stop until you get there, and don’t come back out until I come and get you.”
“Mother—” Magnus cried, reaching to grab a fistful of her skirt. But she did not, or rather could not, look at him as her attention was on their pursuers.
“Whatever happens, whatever you hear, don’t look back until you get to the cave,” she said. She changed the notes of her song to open a narrow path for him through the swirling snow. “I love you. Now, run.”
Magnus wanted to refuse, to beg her to let him stay with her. Babygirl whimpered against his chest. That’s right. He had only just reached his tenth cycle and did not yet even have a Canting instrument of his own. He was useless in a fight. And what about Babygirl? What would happen to Babygirl if he stayed?
“Please, Magnus,” his mother said again. A note of desperation entered her voice.
He turned and ran.
