Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

That was when I understood how much a fool I’d been. I’d never thought of magic, of my magic, as good for anything, until I stood there and knew that there was no one else but me; that whatever was in me, however poor and clumsy and untaught, was more magic than anyone else in my village had. That they needed help, and I was the only one left who could give it.

“But none of that matters at all.” His head raised to stare balefully at me, but I said, incoherent yet convinced, “It’s just—a way to go. There isn’t only one way to go.” I waved at his notes. “You’re trying to find a road where there isn’t one. It’s like—it’s gleaning in the woods,” I said abruptly. “You have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees, and it’s different every time.”

It wasn’t that I wanted a husband and a baby; I didn’t, or rather, I only wanted them the way I wanted to live to a hundred: someday, far off, never thinking about the particulars.

I knew she hadn’t meant it, but it was also true, a little, in twisted ways. It dredged up my own secret guilt, my cry:

She’d made up her mind to pay the price, and be brave; but now there was nothing left to be brave for, no glittering future ahead.

I was grateful now for the long terrible months trying to find something, anything; I was grateful for all the failures, for every minute I had spent here in this tomb with the Wood laughing at me. It gave me the strength to keep the spell going.

It was a familiar kind of searching. I didn’t go gleaning in the forest to find something in particular; I went to find whatever there was to find, and to let ideas come to me: if I found a heap of mushrooms, we’d have mushroom soup the next day, and if I found flat stones the hole in the road near our house would get mended.

I knew it wasn’t going to help me. It was a warm kind presence in my hands, but with the kindness of a friend who sits with you in comfort by the fire and can’t change what’s wrong.

Think,” she added, with a bite, “instead of going on blindly wanting.

I had a feeling the Summoning wasn’t really meant to be cast alone: as if truth didn’t mean anything without someone to share it with; you could shout truth into the air forever, and spend your life doing it, if someone didn’t come and listen.

“I’ve had lovers now and then, mostly soldiers. But once you’re old enough, they’re like flowers: you know the bloom will fade even as you put them in the glass.” I couldn’t help bursting out, “Then why—be here at all? Why do you care about Polnya, or—or anything?” “I’m not dead,” Alosha said tartly. “And I’ve always cared about good work.

I wanted to scream, to weep. I wanted to drag my hand across the world and wipe it all away.

I hated her; I wanted her to burn, the way so many of the corrupted had burned, because she’d put her hold on them. But wanting cruelty felt like another wrong answer in an endless chain. The people of the tower had walled her up, then she’d struck them all down. She’d raised up the Wood to devour us; now we’d give her to the fire-heart, and choke all this shining clear water with ash. None of that seemed right. But I didn’t see anything else we could do.

“We’re meant to go,” I said softly, answering for both of us. “We’re not meant to stay forever.”