by R. K. Thorne
Jaena blinked. “I did. I did steal it.” Her eyes flicked to the knapsack, on the other side of the bed beyond Ro. “You figured out all that from throwing it in the fire?”
“Well, yeah, guess fire made me think faster than usual, but then I had to put out the fool thing, so there you have it. It was in rather good condition before I did all that.”
Jaena shook her head and grinned down at the book. “This is incredible, Kae. I can’t believe it.” She met Ro’s eyes. “Maybe we can finally find a way to destroy it, after you almost gave your life protecting the thing.”
He tilted his head and gave her a serious look. “I wasn’t protecting it. I was protecting you.”
“Quite selflessly, I might add,” said Jaena, narrowing her eyes at him.
He opened his mouth to disagree, but for once, finally, he knew she was right. About the oath, about selfishness, about everything. In the split of the moment, when no thought could intrude, he’d happily risked his life for her. And he’d do it again.
Niat had thought the first half of the night had been the best sleep she could remember having, but the second half of the night put it to shame.
She woke again to even stranger sensations than she had the first time. Not only was she breathing the warm, humid air swirling around her, but her head was resting on something soft and warm. And it wasn’t a pillow.
Opening her eyes, the night came rushing back. Her back was warm where he was cradled behind her, and his breath came in soft puffs against her neck. One arm draped over her waist, and the other lay just under her ear.
She stayed stock-still for a while, listening to water and breath and the wind blowing through the tiny crevice in the cave above them that now let in some sunlight. The whole moment felt nigh on impossible, it was so peaceful.
She didn’t want to move. Or leave. Ever. Maybe they could just stay here and live in this damp cave. It was warm enough. She didn’t know what they’d do for food, but surely there must be a way.
Reality tugged at her, though, her mind reminding her that he was a prince and highly unlikely to want to live in a cave with a mad seer. She’d also clearly seen visions of the two of them together somewhere other than this cave—his home, he’d said—so she already knew they couldn’t stay. That made it all the more disappointing.
He would have things he wanted to do when he awoke. For her, staying in this cave might be the safest she’d ever been, but he’d want to get back on the road. Get back to Panar, probably. She sighed deeply.
His arm tightened slightly around her for a moment, then relaxed again.
When they got back on the road—the events of the day before hit her. The man he’d tried to defend. The one those thugs had killed. When they headed out to the road, they’d see whether it had been Kae or someone else who’d lost their life.
Unless…
Slowly but surely, she eased herself away from him. He must have been sleeping deeply for it to work, but she managed it. He stirred and tucked the arm that had been wrapped around her up in front of him, but ultimately he settled back to sleep.
She picked her way out of the caverns. They’d ventured far from the cave network’s entrance, his magic telling him this strange cave and its hot water spring lay deep inside. She hoped she could find her way back without disturbing him. Ideally, she’d make her way out here, see who had lost their life, and… well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Maybe try to drag them out of the way so he didn’t have to see, or cover them somehow.
Or at least she could warn him personally if it was Kae.
Thankfully, it wasn’t. She hadn’t seen the man before in her life. She stood for a long while, staring at the body, trying to figure out how she could move it or give it some sort of final rites.
A throat cleared behind her. She jumped, catching her breath and whirling.
Thel stood leaning sleepily against the entrance’s side. She smiled, but he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Finally he blinked warily at her. “Everything all right?” he said softly.
Her body was blocking his view of the dead man, she realized. She froze. “Yes, I… I just thought I’d come out and see if I could honor the dead somehow. So you wouldn’t have to see him when you woke up.”
His eyebrows rose, and he appeared to have been stunned silent.
“It wasn’t Kae,” she said, probably too cheerfully.
He said nothing for another long few breaths.
“Are you all right?”
“I thought you’d finally gone.” His voice barely carried over the wind.
Shaking her head, she strode back to him, stopping just short. It felt strange to have been so close so few moments ago, but now she didn’t know what to do. How to act. How to cross this kind of distance. Tentatively, she reached forward and laid a hand on his forearm.
“No, I’d stay here forever if I could,” she said. “But I imagine you want to get back to Panar.” She tugged on his arm, trying to pull him closer.
Smiling now, he gathered her into his arms. “We could stay a little while longer. For one thing, there’s a hot spring in there, and neither of us has bathed in days.”
“Weeks, maybe,” she agreed, laughing.
“Oh, I don’t smell that bad.”
“I meant—”
“I’m joking. Come. I can bury this man, and we can go back inside. Want to say a prayer?”
“All right.” She dug through her memory for some invocation, and it was no effort at all for once to reach up and offer up her thanks, her wishes that this man find peace and order in the Balance and in Nefrana’s golden fields.
And just like that, it was done. They headed back inside to their warm sanctuary, their damp clothes almost frozen by the chill winter wind. They could spend a few more hours, maybe another day. Panar and the rest of the world would come calling, but not just yet. Not today.
The window of shining light glimmered in a circle before Jaena, showing the road to Anonil and north. No matter how many times she saw this air magic, she never got used to its beauty. Or its power. Kae was asleep, and Ro was busy studying Kae’s book—and clearly feeling better, even if he was still in bed—so Jaena had headed to see Wunik. She still wanted to throw obstacles in front of the Kavanarians, but between everything with Ro and the brand, there hadn’t been time. She would only get so many chances the farther the enemy marched south.
Wunik slowed the window’s speed. Spelling the earth was harder than normal, much harder at this distance, but she was glad she could do anything at all.
The earth of the road cracked, split, and this time shifted up, rising like a cliff. The precipice was three-men high, the other side breaking into a rocky tumble.
She sighed. “The mages are just going to put the road back together when they arrive.”
Wunik gave her a tight, but encouraging smile. Pytor surprised her by speaking up. “Ah, but think of how they’ll feel with each obstacle they encounter. This will be the most trying, awful road for anyone to ever trod on. I hope it demoralizes the hell out of them.”
Jaena couldn’t help but smile at that.
“And even if it doesn’t, we tried. Maybe it will slow them down.”
As they’d spoken, a thick bramble of thorny vines had grown around the base of the small cliff, and a few pines spiked up into the sky for good measure.
“It does make me feel a little better,” said Jaena, sighing.
Pytor’s face darkened. “I’d feel better if I knew where Miara was.”
Wunik patted him on the shoulder. “We’re looking. We’re going to find her.”
“I hope you’re right.” Pytor sighed.
“For Miara, then. Let’s keep at it keep at it, and give them a fraction of the pain they’ve given her.”
Jaena nodded, determined now. “Canyon this time.”
“Nicely hidden by some leaves. And with brambles at the bottom.” Pytor frowned, concentrating.
Wunik cleared his t
hroat. “Let’s not let them forget this road for a long, long time.”
The wind rushing past her, Miara fought back panic and reached for her magic, desperate, her thirst for it frenzied beyond just the terror of the fall.
Yes. Finally. The energy she’d stolen rushed through her, racing like a wild stampede through her veins, and she tucked in her knees. There was only one way out of this fall—to fly out of it.
Or die.
She managed to keep her clothes and the pendant within the change but lost her grip on Scri in the final moments. The hundreds of feet might work in her favor now while she struggled to right herself and take her eagle form. She surged up with one wingbeat. Then another. And then she was soaring through the air, still a dizzying lurch but not an outright plummet to her death any longer.
Scri, though, continued down without her.
She dove, chasing after him with furious beats of her heavy wings. He wasn’t far, but she’d gone forward, out of line with him, and she needed to swing around her talons to grab him. She got close to his level, twisted, trying to reach him—and missed.
No. No. She would not let him die for trying to help her.
She dove again, flapping again and then spinning, reaching with one desperate talon.
Feathers brushed her skin. Her claws found purchase, wrapping around him. She headed quickly toward the earth, the obscurity of the treetops. Those archers could still shoot her, and an arrow whistled by to prove it. She pumped energy into Scri as she struggled to control her flight, dodging the first limbs she passed.
One wingbeat, then another, then she finally slowed enough to alight on the earth. Setting Scri gingerly aside, she wasted no time abandoning her eagle form, shutting out her discomfort as the shape unraveled. She focused only on Scri.
The slow pump of his blood sped up slightly. The first vein closed, then the second, and then the skin. She eyed his chest weakly, sprawled on the ground beside him, waiting for a breath.
There. His chest rose and then fell, and she heaved a sigh of relief.
Of all that might yet still go wrong, neither she nor Scri had died this day. As if to threaten her relief, the whistle and thunk of an arrow sounded not far off in the trees. Well, at least they hadn’t died yet.
She staggered to her feet, but her limbs shook weakly. Magic or no, she hadn’t eaten much in days, and the intensity of leaping from a cliff and fighting to survive hadn’t done much to calm her nerves.
She glanced down. The dress, now much bloodstained and crumpled, was still fairly intact but wouldn’t provide much warmth. The emerald was still clutched in her hand. Moving quickly, she tried to clasp the necklace behind her only to see she’d broken part of it ripping it from Evana’s neck. Fiddling, she found a way to clasp it on a lower link in the delicate chain. Good. She didn’t want to loose the thing again, and carrying it would very much get in the way.
Scooping up Scri under one arm, she crept forward slowly, hugging the trees. Soft thwunks told her the archers were still hoping to luck into a blow, but she’d give them no such satisfaction.
She lost track of time, moving quietly through the shadows of the trees as the sun sank lower toward a horizon that seemed strangely flat and far away. She hadn’t seen land so flat since they’d left Kavanar. Where was she? Where had Evana taken her? Was she still even in Akaria?
Her limbs grew weaker, her blood rushing in her ears, as she struggled forward. She reached a road and followed it south as best she could. At least that ought to take her toward the sea, and she could follow the sea to Panar. If only she could be sure whether it lay east or west…
She hadn’t made it far enough to decide before she drifted and fell, a rock digging into her knee. She groaned and crawled away from it, not sure she had the strength to stand. At the base of a tree trunk, she collapsed, every part of her feeling both too heavy to move and too insubstantial to try. She closed her eyes. Just a brief moment of rest, and she could continue on to wherever this road led.
Before the span of one breath, she fell deeply asleep.
Darkness had almost fallen on Panar as they trudged the last few miles to the city. Its white towers still soared into the sky, banners crisp and whipping in the wind, and Aven could just smell the salt of the sea and the smoke of the city over the sharp winter wind.
Siliana sent off another sweet, generous bird with a message and a fruit, and soon they were approaching the north gate. The same gate he’d left with a thousand men.
And he returned with twenty of them. His chest felt heavy and simultaneously hollowed out, like someone had taken his heart and replaced it with a lead weight. They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, husbands, wives, lovers—all not returning to someone, tonight or ever again.
His mother caught his eye, waiting at the gate as they finished the tired last hundred yards. She, Dom, and Beneral, it looked like. Miara was not among them, and the ache in his gut returned.
It redoubled when he was close enough to see their eyes. Suddenly it seemed less paranoid.
Reaching them, he didn’t dismount, just stopped.
His mother opened her mouth but didn’t say anything for a long moment, just looked at him, the sadness growing.
“Where is she?” he said softly.
Dom looked down at the horse’s hooves, clenching his fists at his side. Elise closed her mouth, then opened it again, but still nothing.
“What happened,” he demanded. He felt stiff, frozen, like he couldn’t have gotten off his horse if he’d tried. His fingers tightened around the leather of the reins in his hands, and he was glad they couldn’t tell.
Dom glared at Elise for a long moment, then met Aven’s eyes with a smoldering, angry glare. “She’s missing. We don’t know exactly what happened. Someone tried to fake her death.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t let them,” his mother said softly.
“Why?” He barely kept the anger from his voice.
“I wanted to look for her first,” she replied. “I thought maybe we’d find her, and then you wouldn’t have to worry.”
“What do you mean fake her death?” Maybe this wasn’t the time to ask for details. Maybe he couldn’t handle it, on top of everything else.
“Someone killed the healer Nyor and transformed his body to look like her. But we haven’t been able to…”
Dom kept talking, but Aven wasn’t hearing him anymore. He stared off over their heads into the city, forcing himself to take deep breaths, but his heart was racing.
She’s disappeared before, he told himself. The last time it was because she knew best. And there was a body that time too. Surely nothing horrible’s happened. Miara’s tough. She can defend herself, she can survive anything, she can—
But of course, no one could survive everything. Why had he left her here? He had been a fool, and now Miara was paying the price.
Just like his soldiers had paid the price—the ultimate one. He should have known this would happen, should have done better, should have done something differently.
He wasn’t sure when the horse started walking, and if it started on its own or if his boots had subconsciously flinched and urged it forward, but at some point the creature wandered forth. Dom was still trying to talk to him, his mother adding things in Dom’s wake, but nothing got through the thick fog that seemed to have settled over Aven’s thoughts.
He just rode toward Ranok, less riding than letting the horse carry him home, not responding. Eventually they gave up and followed him. Still the mental fog didn’t lift, words rolled over him, in one ear and out the other and he merely drifted through the motions of getting off his horse, getting inside, getting out of his filthy clothes.
The star magic. Was this the price he paid to the Balance for using it? Had he truly had no choice, no other way? No, it couldn’t be; he’d been saving his soldiers, saving Dyon and Siliana. He couldn’t have just left them there.
At the door to his ro
oms, he shut the door behind him, cutting them off. He didn’t answer whatever Perik asked him.
Hot water waited for him, and for the first time he wondered if he deserved it. Why not Dom? Why not a thousand others? Why should Aven be a king and not a slave?
Maybe someone else could have kept everyone alive. Maybe someone else wouldn’t have utterly failed nearly everyone they’d ever loved. Maybe someone else could have not been a mage in the first place, not started any of this trouble, not even been tipped off to the tragedy occurring a nation away. Maybe someone else could have blissfully ignored it all.
He splashed the water on his face, ignoring the voice. For better or worse, it came down to him. He was the king, he’d been singled out, and he had to make his choices and play his hand.
Truth be told, he didn’t know that she was dead. She could be alive. When she had disappeared from Estun, it had worked out all right. But then she had been planning to make the journey. It’d made sense that she’d disappeared. This? This didn’t make sense. He should wait to grieve—and panic and despair—until he knew the truth, but that was more easily said than done.
The logical part of his mind knew to be patient. To wait and see. The rest of him was in control, however, and it dragged him half awake into his bed, where he collapsed weakly. But again he couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t calm down. He stared at the ceiling, unblinking and unfeeling and at the same time raw.
He remembered that last kiss, the way her fingers had dug into his arms like talons, the way it’d ended too quickly just as he was trying to memorize her taste in case he never returned.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he could return and still lose her.
Chapter 16
Promises
Miara awoke and clutched at her neck. The emerald was gone. So was… well, everything else. Rough burlap scratched across her skin, and straw crunched underneath her. A far cry from Ranok or Estun, that was for sure.
