“You can’t kill me,” he said. He grabbed her arms. “My life is not my own. As time goes on, this will be more and more true, until no weapon at all can stand against me. I’ll show you why.”
She struggled, but he forced her into the shadows beyond the firelight, to a wall dominated by a massive tapestry. He flung the tapestry aside and revealed a hidden door.
“My husband knows I am here,” she hissed.
“So he does,” said Nickon Gerrard. “Oh, don’t tempt me with words like that, Ria.” His arm pinioning her arms to her sides, he forced open the door.
“Don’t look,” Ned said urgently in Rianna’s ear, in a strangled voice.
Beyond the hidden door, she saw what looked like a table constructed of bones and skulls. Cut into the center of the table was a concave hollow, splattered dark. The skulls still had their hair—some of it long. Some of them were small, as if they belonged to children.
“Blood divination,” said Daria in a choked voice. “As King Aldemar thought.”
“The new king,” said Nickon Gerrard, “will be just as weak, but far more pliable.” And suddenly he threw her again, this time halfway across the room.
“Then your plan must be to kill me here,” said Daria, her hair ragged across her face.
“I’ve already killed you,” said Nickon Gerrard.
Her face whitened even before he went on. “It’s a rare poison,” he said in a suave voice now, as if to seduce her again. “I am immune to it, as I have become immune to most things. In the next hour, you will begin to go mad, to find yourself not knowing your own name or the faces of those you love. That will last a day. Then a fever will take you and burn away whatever of your mind is left. I am told it’s painful.”
“I will know my daughter,” said Daria Gelvan. Her pupils had dilated until her eyes were pools of black. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
“It’s the strangest thing,” Nickon Gerrard said, musingly, as if in contemplation. “There was a time when my feelings for you were—everything. You were all I thought about. The king knew that, of course, when he chose you to spy on me.”
She was dragging herself across the carpet, but it was with an effort; she had to steady herself on the arm of the couch.
Nickon Gerrard was staring out into the rain. “Now I feel nothing,” he said. “Like all of it—that awful weakness—happened to someone else.”
At last Daria reached the door handle, pulled the door open. Her breaths were a terrible grating noise.
Nickon Gerrard suddenly laughed. “Go, then. I wonder if there’s a hell for traitors.”
“Same as for killers,” said Daria Gelvan, barely forcing it out. “I will see you there, one day.” She gathered her skirts to her chest and dashed to the door then, leaving it ajar behind her. Nickon Gerrard remained motionless. Another moment, and he picked up his glass from the end table and drank, his eyes already far away.
It was a mercy when this image drained away and left Rianna and Ned back in the white place, which now seemed at once safe and sinister. “I hope that was all,” said Rianna. She was trembling uncontrollably. “I want to go home.”
Ned gave a short laugh. “Where is home?”
Rianna forced a smile into the whiteness, a show of bravery even though he couldn’t see it. “I thought perhaps you knew.”
He didn’t have a chance to reply. His hand tightened on her arm as the shroud of white around them changed to black.
* * *
A THOUSAND voices and scents and colors assailed them, a cacophony of sensation that after days in the stillness of the woods felt like an attack. They stood in a city square where domed palaces of marble blocked the sky. A bronze fountain, itself nearly the size of a palace, dominated the center of the square: it was a taloned and scaled beast with enormous wings, water shooting up onto its back and rilling swiftly down. On islands of carpets spread on the paving stones merchants displayed their wares: pots of all shapes and colors, baskets piled high with shockingly bright fruit buzzing with flies, vivid bolts of jacquard and damask. Sacks of spices breathed perfumes into the choking heat of the day: cumin and rosemary and saffron, as well as other, sweeter scents Marlen could not identify.
Amid the chaos, Marilla was struck oddly still beside him—or perhaps it was not odd; she was probably shocked to find herself here, just as he was. They were not in Eivar, that much was certain. Eivar never had sunlight so powerful that it shimmered blinding white from the cobblestones, not even in summer.
Belatedly, Marlen noticed another charming detail: their horses were gone.
“Marilla,” he said, “it appears that we are having a bit of an adventure.”
She raised an eyebrow. The sun seemed harsh on her pale face, but she did not so much as squint against the light. “Majdara,” she said.
“What?” He thought perhaps he had not heard her, above the noise.
“Majdara,” she repeated. “Capital of Kahishi. That’s where we are.”
“You really are educated,” he said. “I should have known not to trust an educated woman.”
She bared her teeth at him. “My lord,” she said with exaggerated courtesy, pitching her voice above the tumult of the square. “Is this truly the time and place to discuss my dalliance with Ned Alterra?”
Marlen moved nearer to her. “Is that what it was—a dalliance?”
She inhaled sharply, her teeth still bared in what was almost a smile. “I would make love to you right here in front of all these people if it would convince you—and if that would make you focus, please, on where we are. This city is dangerous.”
“The lady is right,” said a new voice, and Marlen felt the bottom drop out of his heart.
Standing just behind them was a tall man, distinguished, with shaggy silver-streaked black hair that fell to his shoulders. His deep-set dark eyes were lustrous, in the fine-boned mask of his face. “Stop gaping,” he said with contempt. “You have ever been a disappointment to our house. And to me.”
“Father,” said Marlen. “You have ever uttered the same things to me, both in life and now, apparently, in dreams.”
“This is no dream, idiot,” said Lord Humbreleigh with a snort. “Don’t you know where you are?”
“The Path,” said Marilla, expressionless. “Isn’t it.”
In that moment a hunched man wrapped in rags lurched into her, his hands open and outstretched. Before Marlen could react, Marilla swiped at the man’s head with the heel of her hand and barked something unintelligible, her face hard with scorn. The beggar went scurrying as if terrified for his life, melted into the crowds in the square.
“The Path,” Marlen’s father agreed. “In this case, it has chosen to bring you here. And it has chosen me as your guide, which must be some sort of joke, considering how little interest I take in your company.” He was wearing the colors of their house, black and green, as if for an official occasion. The crest of House Humbreleigh gleamed gold on his breastplate and on the pommel of his sword. Even at his age, his craggy features were handsome.
“It is another sort of joke for me,” said Marlen. “I was guided by you all this past year. It brought me the fame and glory that you promised, and they taste of ash and dust.”
“All of it?” Marilla asked, as if with interest.
Marlen smiled. “Yes. Even you, my treacherous darling.” He then glanced up at his father, suddenly confused. “But in my research, when guides on the Path were mentioned, they were always…”
“Dead?” said Marlen’s father. “So the news didn’t reach you.”
The colors of the square suddenly ran together in Marlen’s eyes like wet paint, and the noises of Majdara seemed to be coming to him from miles away. His knees felt weak. “How—?”
“It was the heart,” said Lord Humbreleigh. “The curse of our family.”
Marlen barked a laugh, though it came out shaky. “As curses go, that one seems ironic.” He shook his head, trying to steady the blurring colors into th
eir proper shapes again. “Did you—did you even know I’d won the contest?”
“Of course,” said his father. “It was the first time in your life that an act of yours had pleased me. All the more so that you apparently did it without that millstone Darien Aldemoor around your neck.”
“So I pleased you,” said Marlen, more to himself than to his father. “If you knew how I achieved it, I suspect that would please you even more.”
“It’s not truly you, is it?” Marilla asked Lord Humbreleigh. “Can the dead walk, even here?”
Marlen’s father seemed to give thought to the question, according Marilla more respect than Marlen would have expected. Lord Humbreleigh’s views on women and their mental capacity were no secret, and had not even exempted his own wife. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I may be no more than a projection of Marlen’s mind given shape. These are matters unknown even to the dead.” He drew himself up, his lip curling into the dignified sneer that Marlen realized, with a shock, he would never see again in life. “But my task is to guide you where the Path dictates. Follow me, or you will be trapped here for the rest of your life.” He smiled, the familiar wolfish grin Marlen saw when he looked in the mirror. “Not really much of a choice, is it?”
“Where do we go, then?” said Marlen wearily. Beside him, he felt Marilla tense like a knife, even though they weren’t touching; waves of apprehension seemed to prickle from her skin to his. It surprised him; in all the time he had known Marilla, she had been horribly unafraid of everything, even of his arm against her windpipe. Perhaps the unnatural state of things shook even her.
Lord Humbreleigh indicated a street that twisted away from the square, overhung with the shadows of a great arch. “That way,” he said. “Try not to get killed.”
* * *
IT was euphoria that first filled her when they met, despite all the strangeness that had befallen them: in that moment, all that seemed important was that she was free and that they were together again. On a ledge overlooking a dizzying view of roiling white mist, breaking apart to reveal a carpet of dark green that was the forest miles below, they found themselves standing with joined hands. For a moment, she registered surprise that Valanir Ocune was not there, but that was eclipsed by the simple joy in Darien’s face when he saw her, when he clasped her around the waist and spun her around and around in the air as if she were a child. Lin realized that, like him, she was laughing.
When her feet touched the ground, she embraced him tightly, just for a moment. “I thought…” she began.
He nodded, his smile fading. “I know. What did he do to your face?”
“They’re shallow cuts,” she said. “They’ll heal cleanly. Rayen keeps his knife very clean.”
Sometime in the course of their reunion she had found an opportunity to close up her shirt. She felt relief when she saw that Darien had her cloak, which, with some ceremony, he fastened around her shoulders. “Good thing I found this, or you’d be freezing in short order,” he said. “As it is—do you know where we are? I wonder why Valanir Ocune didn’t come through with us.”
The wind was whistling among the stones as though it were alive. Lin thought of what else could be alive out there: Chamois. Mountain cats. It had been years since she’d hunted them, in what she saw now as pitiful attempts to win her mother’s love. But she remembered the dangers.
“Aside from somewhere in the mountains,” she said, “I have no idea. I hope he’s all right.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Valanir Ocune,” said Darien. “The man has the lives of a cat. Likely he managed to skip off to someplace warmer.” The wind ruffled his hair. Darien shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around his neck.
Lin smiled. “I hope you’re right. I—I am grateful to both of you.” She recalled Rayen’s finger coming up red from the pot, efficient, even gentle on her bare skin, and had to suppress a shudder.
“Hush,” he said. “It is no less than you deserve.”
It was hard for her to meet his eyes. The obscenity of the blood symbol on her chest felt like a brand, rendering her somehow unworthy. “Darien, do you think we are really on the Path? This place—it doesn’t look different from the mountains. Can it be that what we did was pass through a portal to a different part of the north?” Another thought immediately followed. “Perhaps it is Valanir Ocune who is on the Path now.”
As she spoke, she realized that Darien’s face had become like wax and that he was no longer looking at her. His eyes were focused over her shoulder. With what seemed like an effort, he murmured, “No, Lin. We are indeed there.”
She turned, dreading what she would see. And not for nothing, for the man who leaned his great bulk against a tree was not someone she wanted to see here. “Thalion’s light.”
Straightening to his full height, Hassen Styr smiled. “That is surely no way to greet a friend.”
“Guides on the Path are not of the living,” said Darien.
“True,” his friend agreed. “But that was not news to you.”
Darien swallowed. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Please, Darien,” Hassen held up a hand. “You’re embarrassing me. Let’s just get to the business of this Path, shall we?” He smiled, but looked genuinely discomfited. “No sane man wants to be a tragedy. I would prefer that you remember me for my songs.”
“Always,” said Lin. “We will play them wherever we go, for however much time we have. And we will attribute them to our friend Hassen Styr, who was so brave.”
“Lin, the one who always knows what to say,” said Hassen. “I am glad Darien has you with him.” His cloak was draped around his throat, concealing it—and the wound that had killed him, Lin realized. “Follow me,” he said. “We have very little time.”
“What do you mean?” Darien asked. “Little time?”
Hassen’s brow furrowed, as if he heard something they could not. “I don’t know,” he said. “I only know what I’m told. Hurry now.”
It was then that they saw that in the distance before them the trees stopped to reveal a valley filled with sunlight, the white walls of a city arising like a jewel at its center. And in that moment the forest around them began melting away, the trees vanishing to reveal the sky and sun, the undergrowth transforming into wild grass and weeds stirred in a gentle wind. A road, wide as a king’s highway, wended toward the city walls.
But for such a wide road, toward such a large city, it was strangely deserted.
“Let’s go, then,” said Darien Aldemoor, and together they set out, the two who lived and the one did not, on a road they didn’t know.
* * *
THEY had arrived on a mountain ledge, perched above a breathtaking panorama of the woods below. In the distance, dark folds of green undulated in a rhythm that was like music, or perhaps seemed so as the wind sang around them. It was cold, but in that moment Ned was so grateful to be out of the white emptiness that he felt it as a relief. In the distance he could hear the call of a bird of prey, resounding from peak to peak in the stillness.
He was even relieved to see Rianna, though she was a horrid mess of blood. She laughed unsteadily when she caught him looking at her. “I am even worse now than when you found me,” she said. “Bald and filthy.”
“Your hair will grow,” he said. “And the rest—that is the price of what we did. I hope you don’t hate me for letting you kill him alone. I considered doing it for you, but I thought—I thought perhaps you needed to wash your soul clean of him by doing it yourself. Was I wrong?”
Her eyes were distant, reflective. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I will ever be—clean,” she said. “I can now imagine the journey to becoming someone who kills without regret. It’s not a road I want to take.”
“Nor will you, then,” said Ned forcefully. “You will go back to the life you had. And be happy.”
The sound she made was not quite a laugh. “You will make a good father someday.” Her face grew solemn. “Ned, Lord Gerrard killed my m
other.”
“And now he has your father.”
“If he’s not dead already.” Rianna’s face was carefully expressionless, but Ned knew what it cost her.
“It is so much,” said Ned. “What we have learned today. What we’ve done.” He was silent, but when she didn’t speak, he went on. “When we find Darien Aldemoor, there will be much to tell him. Perhaps he will have some idea how to deal with Nickon Gerrard.”
Now Rianna seemed stirred to speak, though she looked away from him, toward the expanse of mountain and wood spread at their feet. The wind pried at her snood and skirts. “We must find Darien, to make certain he’s all right,” she said.
“And because you love him,” said Ned.
Now Rianna did look at him, and in her bruised face he saw something that surprised him: naked fear. Yet as he watched, her jaw firmed, as if she were steeling herself to put her head inside a lion’s mouth. It touched him to see it, though he couldn’t imagine the reason. If you knew how brave I think you are, he thought. And perhaps she somehow read it in his face, because at once she relaxed, almost smiled into his eyes in a way that reminded him of when they were children.
“I don’t love him, Ned,” she said, as if drawing the words from a great distance. “I love you.”
He didn’t know how the distance closed between them, how she was suddenly in his arms. Ned only knew, when she drew him to her—fingers caressing his hair and her lips hungrily finding his—that the world could have ended in that instant and, to him, it would have had no more significance than a distant falling star, exploding gently in its descent to earth.
CHAPTER
34
THE music of dripping water, echoing somewhere in the tunneling street, was constant. They traipsed shallow stairs, indented at their centers with gutters that pooled with shadow. The street Lord Humbreleigh had chosen was almost entirely covered in arched stone shutting out the sun. Rainbow clotheslines hung from the windows, breaking the monotony of smooth stone. It was quiet here. Smells of cooking and bittersweet khave drifted from windows, and underlying these, a whiff of urine. Drip went the trickle, in the distance.
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