“Come on, it’s your big day!” Whiskey caught him and tossed him again.
This time he stayed up in the air, supported by the wind. Whiskey was Fire Clan, having inherited their mother’s red hair and ability to tap the Fire Spell Stones. It meant someone else was manipulating the wind.
Wolf guessed the culprit. “Jay Bird!”
With a snicker, Jay Bird Screaming in Wind swaggered out of his hiding place. He was dressed up to go to court in his namesake’s colors of creamy tan with brilliant blue highlights. “What? A great warrior such as you should be able to escape that hold.”
Whiskey smacked Jay Bird lightly. “Put our baby brother down. No magic in the living quarters. Besides it would not do for him to be presented to the queen with a broken nose.”
“Aunty Ember has seen him thousands of times! I don’t know why he needs to be presented,” Jay Bird sulked. He nevertheless lowered Wolf gently down to the floor. Whiskey was remarkably easy tempered for being Fire Clan, but he was fierce when riled.
Whiskey gave Jay Bird a worried look. “Are you seriously asking that question? You should know it’s all about protocol.”
“I know!” Jay Bird shouted. He turned and stomped out of the room in a huff.
“Looks like Father, acts like Mother,” Whiskey murmured of their brother.
“He’s jealous,” Wolf said sadly. “He wants to live at Court too.”
“Only because he doesn’t know what it’s really like.” Whiskey pushed Wolf toward the hallway. “Yes, our cousins are good and gracious to us, but everyone else looks down their nose because we’re mixed blood. If someone is kind to you, remember that they most likely have an ulterior motive.”
Wolf wanted to say “I know” but it would echo Jay Bird. Besides, he didn’t know. Not really. This day was decreed the day he was born. He’d spent his life knowing it would come. The future, though, was filled with uncertainty.
“I will only be able to be with you through Winter Court,” Whiskey said. “Once thaw starts, I will need to go to my new holding.”
Wolf nodded. He and his many siblings were spaced close together, yet another thing that set their family apart from the norm. There were only two hundred years between him and his eldest brother. It meant that most of his elder brothers and sisters had been busy gathering Hands of sekasha to them, recruiting young clan members to set up households, and building a house guard of laedin warriors. With the exception of Jay Bird and Cricket Chirping by the Hearth Fire, who were in their doubles, all his siblings planned to finish their tasks and set off to claim what they could as their own. Pickings were lean, as their parents had many children and very little could be passed on in the way of land. Whiskey had been given an island to the far north filled with volcanos. It sounded like icy hell to Wolf — and to most others, which was why it was free to claim — but Whiskey was fascinated by volcanos.
“Kiln, Charcoal, and Echo will go as soon as land can be found for them,” Whiskey said.
“Ibis and Dove too,” Wolf said.
Whiskey laughed, “Yes, but they won’t be at Court with us.”
Kiln Fired Vase, Charcoal Banked for the Night, and Sunrise Echo could only tap the Fire Clan Spell Stones. They’d been sent to Court to be trained by the teachers of the royal household. Ibis and Dove both were Wind Clan and had stayed at home.
They were nearly to the bathhouse when Starlight Singing in the Wind came sweeping down the hall.
“Wolf turns fifty today, let us see him off and away,” his sister sang. “Searching in the moldering heaps, I found something for Wolf to keep.”
Starlight had their father’s hair and eyes but their mother’s height. She was dressed for the day in her best gown, a shimmering black dress of fairy silk studded with hundreds of crystals that glimmered like stars in the night sky. She held out a map case to Wolf.
“A star map?” Wolf guessed since Starlight was as fascinated by stars as Whiskey was by volcanos.
Starlight laughed. “If it was a star map, I wouldn’t be giving it away, silly! I was wandering through the Stone Clan market, digging through the stall of an old quad who used to trade with Earth. He only had the most outlandish things left. Humans must be frivolous beings, judging by his stock. Without magic, all they have to guide them are the sun and moon and stars, so their maps of the night sky far exceed ours.”
If not a star map, then what did she have in the map case? Wolf opened it and found a map of unfamiliar coastline. The landmass seemed quite large but Wolf couldn’t match it to any place he’d seen before. The lettering wasn’t in Elvish; Wolf couldn’t recognize any of the symbols. The map looked new, still smelling of ink. “What is this? I don’t recognize any of this.”
“The merchant couldn’t remember how he came by it,” Starlight said. “I got it for a smile and a nod. He saw no value in a map of Earth since all the pathways are closed.”
“Earth?” Wolf eyed the alien symbols that must be human writing. “This isn’t old enough to be from before the war with the oni.”
“I had it copied for father’s collection,” Starlight said. “The land is not a secret, just little known. The merchant said that the ‘French’ and the ‘British’ had a war over it just before we closed the gates. The humans were just beginning to map it in earnest when we lost contact with Earth. The idiot merchant failed to understand the implications.”
Implications? Wolf gasped as he realized what the map revealed. “There will be a mirror continent here on Elfhome. We could parcel it up for holdings for those who have none.”
Starlight grinned. “Very good, Wolf. You see it immediately.”
“Why give it to me? Why not Ibis or Dove? They’re already in their triples.” While their mother was Fire Clan, many would criticize Starlight if she gave the valuable maps to any of her non-Wind-Clan siblings. Even Wolf was a dangerous choice since he hadn’t decided his clan yet.
“I knew you would ask.” She took out another map case and pulled from it a map of the Summer Court and the waters around it. She pointed to an island in the northeast corner. “This is Whiskey’s volcanic island. See this wedge of land, here, beyond it? That is the large island here on your map.”
Whiskey had wanted to claim the larger island but it was more than a mei from the Fire Stones of Summer Court. It would require Whiskey to build a set of Spell Stones. He hadn’t been able to gather enough Fire Clan households to warrant the Crown’s backing. His failure had been a combination of the lack of prestige in his name and the perceived quality of his sekasha. Like their father, Whiskey had taken a female he loved as his First. Whiskey had to settle for the closer, smaller island that was at the very edge of the stones’ range. If the scale was correct, Starlight’s map showed a full continent two or three mei from the nearest Spell Stones, Fire Clan or Wind Clan.
Wolf cocked his head. “If no one has been there, then there’s no Spell Stones. A domana would be powerless. They couldn’t protect their people.”
“Yes, it would take someone with bold ambition to venture into uncharted land and set up a holding,” Starlight said. “To gain the support that they will need, they would have to build an impressive personal household and a large number of Beholden. Ibis and Dove are living up to their names as peaceful, loyal followers. Ibis plans to settle in high country and breed gossamers. Dove is lost to silkworms. I don’t understand the fascination. Neither has the desire nor the ambition needed to take on such a task. I plan to head to the mountains, to be closer to the stars. I’m not even sure I want to have a traditional household. If I can talk my way into a monastery, I might go that direction.”