Page 19 of Tangled Power
Carter leaned in and whispered angrily. “You and Lord Arctos were digging on the Vesten grounds last night. What were you looking for? What did you find?”
Rose sighed. Even though she’d had all night to come up with an answer for this, she hadn’t. Of course it had been Carter’s shifted form in the bushes. Part of her wanted to give him the coin now—say that Lord Arctos might have been wrong in his direction. But another part of her wanted some time with the Vesten artifact to learn whatever it was that Arie thought shecould. She wouldn’t lie to Carter. Maddening vagueness was her only option.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not your enemy. It was Arie’s mission—he wanted me to come with him.”
Carter assessed her words, his brow pinching impossibly deeper. “Again, I point out, he is conveniently not here for me to question!”
“Arie does as he wishes. You won’t win any favors with him trying to change that.”
“You don’t think having him with us as we go after a rogue god would be helpful?”
“He was with me for ten years,” Rose said. “He had plenty of time to go after Aterra himself. He clearly had his suspicions about the cause of the mist plague. And I am sure he knew something was wrong for far longer than that.”
She turned to face Carter, her gaze locking on his. “The thing is, he didn’t do anything about it. He found me, the rightful Norden Point. He befriended and supported me and was there with me on a journey to take back what was mine.” Rose sighed, wiping her hand against her brow as the sun beat down on them on the mountain pass. At the high elevation, it was hot without the tree cover from the ascending or descending switchbacks. “Arie agreed with our plan. He can’t do anything on his own about Aterra.Weneed to do it.” She let the statement hang there, willing Carter to understand they were the continent’s only hope.
Carter’s eyes widened. Particularly as she noted that Arctos couldn’t solve all their problems. It may be near blasphemous to him, but it was the truth from Arie’s mouth. Rose knew that Carter and Juliette needed to understand it, or they would never succeed.
“It’s up to us.” She paused. “The gods can’t help us. This is why we exist. We can and will stop Aterra.”
“Yes, you said that yesterday. I’m still not sure I believe you.”
“And that is part of the problem. We know our magics are going to need to work together. I can’t imagine that will be easy without trust.”
“I might trust you more if you gave a better explanation of why you were on Vesten property. ‘The Lord of Fire made me do it’ is a little weak.”
Rose sighed, acknowledging that he was right—but she had nothing else to offer him now. She wondered if he could sense the coin in her pocket. It was obviously a source of Vesten magic. But it wasn’t exactly…doing anything. Like with fae, it’s magic probably needed to be actively in use before others could sense it. The problem was that Arie hadn’t told her precisely what it did. It enhanced Vesten power—did that mean only Vesten could activate it?
They had learned quite a bit about what the Suden artifact was capable of yesterday morning. While she had the Norden dagger, she didn’t actually know what it did either. It was known to be a symbol only the Norden Point could claim, so she had done so. She hadn’t had time to test what additional magic that symbol brought to the wielder. As she considered what she knew and didn’t know about the godly artifacts, she wondered what the Lost God had left the Osten. It bothered her that they were riding away from Compass Lake, one of the main sources of information to answer these questions. The libraries at the Compass Points houses would absolutely have held this knowledge. But stopping Aterra was the priority, the artifacts more a curiosity. If their journey took them to Sandrin, they might be able to research there.
Finally, they reached the other side of the mountain pass, which required them to drop back to single file for the descending switchbacks. Maybe it was for the best that there would be little possibility for further conversation today.
CHAPTER NINE
The coin weighed heavily on her the rest of the day. She tried both her wind and water magic to activate it—but was unable to provoke a response. She hoped again that Arie knew what he was doing when he asked her to study the coin before passing it to the Vesten Point.
Part of her doubted he did.
They made camp at the crossroads where she and Luc had stayed on their previous journey from Bury to Compass Lake. Staying on the western road would lead to Sandrin. Heading north would ultimately take them back to Bury. Rose checked her compass. They would be heading south for this journey. She set up her bedroll next to Luc’s as she tucked the compass beneath her tunic. Carter and Juliette spread out far away from each other as well as Rose and Luc.
“You didn’t come up with a response to the question you knew he was going to ask, huh?” Luc questioned as one side of his lip curled into a smile.
“I couldn’t lie to him,” Rose replied as she ran her fingers through her hair. “And like I said last night, is it really stealing if the Vesten god told me to take it?” Her tone was wry as she reminded him, “It’s his to begin with.”
Luc hmphed a laugh, but she could still see the worry lines marking his brow. The concern was evident in his quiet voice as he spread out a blanket. “You seem to be collecting godly artifacts. Do we know what this one does?”
“I was trying to figure that out on today’s ride, with no luck. I assume Carter knows, but I can’t exactly ask him.”
Luc nodded. “While you’re right, none could rightly contest you having Arctos’s artifact if he gave it to you. He’s not here right now. And I’m not sure how Carter will react when he finds out.”
“Noted. He said as much this afternoon, and he doesn’t even know I have it. He just knew I was on his property with Arie.”
“Which, I assume, he didn’t care for?” Luc asked, his voice low and teasing again, sending unexpected shivers up her spine. She wished they had more time to enjoy the newness of their relationship before heading off to save the continent.
“You assume correctly,” Rose replied, pausing their conversation as Juliette approached.
“You two seem cozy,” the Osten Point said, her gaze lingering on the proximity of their sleeping mats.
Rose fought the urge to roll her eyes. It wouldn’t help the situation. Instead, she kept her gaze locked on Juliette’s.
