Raishal looked years older than she had the day before. Lines of grief and anger were graven deep on her still face, the rich copper of her skin dulled as if dusted with ash. Even in sleep, the spark of her ikilhia flared and guttered in distress.
A short distance away, Teo moved through an oddly repetitive series of postures. He knelt, touched his forehead to the stone, stood, stretched his hands to the sky, knelt again…it had the air of ritual. A prayer, perhaps, but if so, it did not appear to be bringing Teo any peace. His body held such tension the effect was of a silent, unceasing scream.
Kiran’s initial burst of panicked energy drained away to leave body and heart leaden. More memories assaulted him: Veddis’s easy amiability, the playful joy captured in his carvings, his tenderness with Raishal, his eyes softening when he spoke of their unborn child…
The child. Kiran leaned toward Raishal. He couldn’t distinguish any separate pulse of life within her, but he never had before. An unborn nathahlen was too faint an ember for him to sense through the obstruction of his barriers. Yet the fear wouldn’t leave him, huge and terrible: he’d killed her husband. What if the stress of Veddis’s death and the exertion of the climb meant Raishal lost her child, too? Kiran edged closer and reached a tentative finger for her brow. If he touched her, then he could discover if the baby still lived. He was afraid to learn otherwise and yet compelled to find out.
“Get away from her!”
Teo was advancing on him. Kiran scrambled back and spread his hands in apology.
“I only wanted to know if her child was all right.”
“The child lives. Not that it matters to you, so stop pretending.”
At least the weight of Raishal’s grief need not grow heavier. “It’s not a pretense. I never wanted any of you hurt.” I did my best to save you, Kiran wanted to protest, but that wasn’t true. If Dev’s memories were to be believed, he’d once sacrificed all hope of safety to save the lives of convoy folk he didn’t even know. Yet last night he’d watched the murder of a man who’d helped and sheltered him, and done nothing.
Had Ruslan so successfully changed him by the mere act of taking memories? This was not the kind of man he wanted to be.
“We must talk,” Teo said, clipped and cold. “Come away. I gave Raishal and Sivyan a tincture to help them sleep, but that was hours ago. Raishal, especially, must rest while—while she can—” Teo turned his back on Kiran. He strode across the dome’s gently curved summit to where a scattering of rounded boulders sat like marbles carelessly abandoned by some passing giant.
Kiran followed, his throat hard and hurting. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t be salt in Teo’s wounds. After Ruslan killed his lover Alisa, he must have endured similar pain. How had he survived it?
Hatred. That was how he’d endured. Dev had told him so, and he’d seen it himself in Dev’s memories. He’d channeled all his rage and grief into a hatred of Ruslan so intense he’d preferred any fate, no matter how terrible, to remaining with his master.
Remembering Teo’s face distorted with fury, his hands forcing Kiran toward the chasm’s edge, Kiran suspected Teo was choosing the same path. Except it wasn’t Ruslan he hated. Kiran’s stomach knotted. He still needed Teo’s help. But after Veddis, Kiran could not bear to force that help with tactics Ruslan would applaud. No more threats. He must convince Teo. No matter how impossible that seemed in the face of Teo’s bitter anger.
Teo halted behind a wine-red moon of a boulder large enough to block the sleeping women from view. He’d regained a measure of control; when he turned to Kiran, his face was a brittle mask. Beyond him stood the wickedly tapered spires of the horns, still gray in the dome’s shadow.
Kiran hurried to ask, “What about Sivyan’s brother?” The horns were too far away to spot a human figure on the rock, or for Kiran to sense any flicker of life.
Teo said, “After the fog vanished and the sand stopped glowing, Sivyan’s whistles were answered, so we think Idryk lives. I convinced Sivyan to wait before venturing off this summit. I sense no trace of the hunt, but…” He shrugged. “You’re the one with knowledge more reliable than ancient legends. Must we fear that the moment we set foot on the sand, the hunters will return?”
The desert looked empty in the dawn light. Strangely empty. Peering down off the dome, Kiran saw only stone and wind-smoothed sand. The clumps of spinebrush he’d crashed through, the cactus and sprawling tangles of poisonvine—all were gone. No scrap of vegetation remained, as if the entire valley had been scoured clean of life. Remembering the hunters’ gibbering howls, Kiran shuddered.
“I know far less than I’d like, but the demon who warned me spoke of the hunt rising with the moon. We may be safe while the moon is gone from the sky. From those beasts in the fog, at least.” He wasn’t so sure about the hunt’s masters, the ssarez-kai. After last night, the demons must know exactly where he was, and Vidai’s demon-fueled attacks in Ninavel had not been limited to times the moon was high. But then, Ninavel’s confluence was so massive the city’s aether was a continual maelstrom of magic regardless of the season or hour.
Struck by realization, he looked up at Teo. “Every time I’ve seen a demon, it was on ground possessed of some natural magic, either confluence or earth-current. If the current in the valley below has subsided to its usual meager flow, we could pick a route that avoids it, and cross out of the valley before nightfall to reach desert wholly devoid of magic. That may keep us safe.”
“Us.” Teo freighted the word with such viciousness it was like a slap. “We go nowhere with you. It’s you who are pursued by demons and mages. That you could imagine I would risk losing Raishal, after Veddis—” He turned away again, as if he could not bear to show Kiran his grief.
Kiran said, “Let me help you keep her safe. You know the strength of my ikilhia. Even through my barriers, I’d wager I can sense more deeply than you. I can find the safest route.”
Teo rounded on him, glaring. “Safest is if Raishal, Sivyan, and I stay right here on this dome until you’ve left this valley and drawn your enemies after you.”
“Dev is on his way from Prosul Akheba right now, with icelight and soleius oil in hand.” Oh, how Kiran hoped that was true, that Dev was safe. He kept remembering the silver-sweet voice in his mind saying, The lives you claimed for your own will be forfeit. “The moment you provide me a cure, I’ll run as fast and far from you as I can. Until then, please—you don’t understand what’s at stake. I—”
“I understand Raishal and her child—Veddis’s child!—are in danger every moment they remain in your presence, and I will not abandon them for you.” Teo clasped his hands together before his chest, the knuckles pale with pressure, as if he hoped to squeeze his anger back under control. “When I first met you, I thought your soul poisoned by your power. Yet after I saw the depth of your friendship with Dev, I wondered if I’d misjudged you. If Dev’s faith in you isn’t misplaced—if arrogance hasn’t yet eaten all your humanity—then you will heed me and leave us.”
Listening, thorns stabbed Kiran’s heart. “I don’t want you in any more danger. But if I leave you when I’m not yet healed—”
“Prosul Akheba is only two days away. Even without the icelight and soleius, I can prepare doses that should let you meet Dev and reach the city before you sicken to the point of collapse. The Khalat is a bulwark of inert rock far more massive than this dome. Within its walls you can find safety while the scholars of the collegium help you.”
The ache of Kiran’s sympathy urged him to yield to Teo’s plea, but Teo didn’t know about the war that might still rage in the Khalat. Dev’s message had been insistent that the collegium was not a good option. And what of the demon’s claim that Ruslan had already made some bargain with the ssarez-kai?
“If I don’t stop my former master, he’ll murder every man, woman, and child in Alathia to punish their Council for—for denying him something he wanted.” Kiran couldn’t bring himself to admit aloud that
those deaths would be on his account too. “You’ve dedicated yourself to preserving lives and never causing harm. You must see how terrible such a massacre would be. Dev and I have so little time to prevent disaster. What if I waste it all in finding another healer?” His breath came short at the thought. “I can’t risk that. I can’t. I know you don’t understand, so let me show you. I’ll throw my mind open to you and prove I’m not lying.”
No one had taken his belt knife while he lay unconscious. He ripped the blade free of its sheath and offered it to Teo, his other hand extended palm up. With blood contact, neither he nor Teo would need to release their barriers to see each other’s minds.
Teo recoiled as if the knife were made of magefire. “No!”
“It’s not casting,” Kiran said, exasperated. “It’s no different than using your mage-sight to view my ikilhia, and I know you’ve done that.”
“Do you think me a fool? Allowing you within my soul’s gates would let you bind me without alerting your enemies.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Kiran truly hadn’t considered it. Although now the idea had been suggested, a ruthlessly practical part of him whispered, A binding would solve much.
As if he could hear Kiran’s thoughts, Teo gave a jagged laugh. “You wouldn’t? Now there’s a lie. You warned me when we first met: you’re so desperate you’ll say anything, do anything…sacrifice anyone.”
Stung, Kiran snapped, “It’s easier to blame me, isn’t it? That way, you don’t have to face that you—” He choked off the rest, appalled at himself. He wasn’t Ruslan, to enjoy twisting a knife in a wounded man.
“You’re wondering why I didn’t cast,” Teo said, harsh and constricted. “Why I didn’t save him.”
Yes, Kiran was. “I know you loved Veddis. Whatever your reason, it must be compelling.”
“I vowed,” Teo said. “A sacred vow, made before Nakoali the soul-eater, oldest and darkest goddess of my people, that I would never again cast. Should I break it, she will spurn me after my death, leaving my soul to fray into madness, forever trapped in the rotting remnants of my flesh. For ten long years I have kept that vow. Yet now I wish I had possessed the courage to damn my soul by breaking it.”
Kiran was silent. He would have broken such an oath in a heartbeart. But easy for him to say, when he had no hope of gods or life beyond death.
“You vowed.”
Kiran jumped and turned. Raishal was standing mere feet away, one hand braced on a boulder. How long had she been listening? Kiran had been so focused on Teo he hadn’t noticed the dim glimmer of her ikilhia.
Teo said shakily, “You should be resting.”
“Because of the yeleran you gave us?” Raishal’s expression was as hard as the boulder she leaned against. “After we sang the death-chant for Veddis, I wanted to remember his life before I took the yeleran. To go into sleep seeing him, not his death. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t blot out the memory. Over and over I saw the hunters take him, every spatter of his blood burning into my mind, every sound, things I never noticed at the time…like what Kiran shouted at you.”
Oh, no. Why didn’t you cast? he’d yelled, without any thought for who might hear.
Teo paled to the yellow of old bone. “Raishal—”
“I thought I must have misheard. Yet then I thought of how odd you’ve been around Kiran since the day Zadikah brought him to us. How tense, how angry. I puzzled over it until I thought I’d go mad. I didn’t take your tincture. I pretended to sleep so I might hear what happened between you and Kiran when he woke and you thought yourself alone. I wanted answers, and now I have them.”
Kiran had thought he’d seen her angry last night. But her fury when she’d held a knife to his throat was nothing compared to the searing inferno of her gaze on Teo.
She said, “You’re mages. Both of you.”
If she felt any fear in confronting them, Kiran saw no trace of it. Either she was far bolder than even Dev, or—more likely—she’d never before encountered a mage, didn’t understand as a native of Ninavel would exactly how dangerous even a lesser mage could be.
Teo was shaking his head desperately. “I was once. I’m not any longer.”
He might want to believe that, but he must know that mere words could not make it true. While his ikilhia still burned, such a statement was as ridiculous as announcing, I’m not a man any longer, I’m a tree.
“Stop lying to me!” Raishal’s shout whipcracked off the stone. “I heard what you said just now. You had the power to save Veddis. You chose not to use it.”
Teo shut his eyes, his breathing gone ragged, and the agony harrowing his face—
“Don’t,” Kiran blurted, desperate to stop their love from crumbling to ash before his eyes. “Raishal, don’t blame him. He hadn’t cast in years, and it happened so fast. Save your anger for me.”
Raishal turned her molten, furious gaze on him. “Oh, there’s blame enough for both of you. Tell me this: if it had been Dev in danger, would you have cast to save him?”
Yes. Kiran knew it, bone-deep. He never would have hesitated, even though it meant Ruslan found him or demons took him. Guilt stabbed him deeper yet. Veddis’s life hadn’t been of less worth than Dev’s. He threw a helpless glance at Teo, searching for an answer that wouldn’t cause further pain.
“Look at him, Teo,” Raishal said. “The answer’s plain, for all he doesn’t want to say it. Whatever his lies, he knows more of love and loyalty than you. What were Veddis and Zadi and I in your eyes? Amusements? Playthings to be used and cast aside?”
“No,” Teo protested. “Raishal, never. You know that’s not true. I love you. I loved Veddis too—”
“You know nothing of love. Nothing, if you could imagine even for a heartbeat that your soul meant more than Veddis’s life. I would have ripped my soul out and fed it to Shaikar himself if I could have stayed the hunters.” Raishal dashed aside tears.
Teo reached toward her, a helpless, involuntary movement. She jerked back, one hand going protectively to her belly. “To think I was so worried Zadikah’s lies would destroy the love between you, when yours prove you never loved her at all.” She drew herself up and spat between forked fingers at him. “Ashavas khabek andari vas.”
Teo cried out as if she’d stabbed him. “Raishal, no—”
“Our ties are severed,” she said, enunciating each word with bleak, brutal clarity. “You are no longer welcome in my house. Either of you.” Her gaze flicked to Kiran, hot as a brand, then back to Teo. “I don’t care where you go, so long as your path isn’t mine.”
Kiran stammered, aghast, “But, your child…you need him, Raishal.” He needed Teo’s help, but even so, he had to stop this.
With venomous contempt, she said, “Do you imagine he is the only person in the clanlands who knows herbs and birthing? Sivyan will find me better help. I would suffer even a Shaikar-loving black-dagger’s touch over his.”
“We should at least stay together until we leave the valley,” Kiran pleaded. “Without us, you won’t know the safest route. We need to stay on ground devoid of natural magic.” If he could just keep Raishal and Teo together, maybe travel would do for them what it had done for him and Dev: blunt the edges of anger and allow them to reach a new understanding.
Raishal only snapped, “I’m going to wake Sivyan.” She vanished behind the boulder.
Teo had his hands over his face. His breathing was hoarse and broken. After a short, helpless silence, Kiran said, “Give her time.” He hated how unconvincing the words sounded. “When I first met Dev, I hid my nature from him, and people died because of it. When Dev found out what I was, he was just as furious as Raishal is now. He despised me. I thought that would never change, but it did.”
Teo dropped his hands. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild. “What did she mean about Zadikah lying?”
Kiran had the sudden, powerful urge to run. Somewhere, anywhere, where he would not cause more damage.
“You’ll have to ask h
er,” he said.
Teo drew his belt knife. “Give me your hand.”
“What?” Kiran stared at him. He couldn’t mean—
“You said you’d open your mind to me. I want to see your memories.”
“I thought you were afraid I’d bind you.” When Kiran had offered before, he’d been thinking solely of Ruslan and demons, so desperate he hadn’t even considered what Teo might learn of Zadikah. Now he cringed to imagine Teo seeing the conversation he’d witnessed between Zadikah and her allies in the slot canyon. Raishal’s rejection was born of grief and anguish. Zadikah had chosen while clear-headed to use Teo in a way she believed he would never condone.
Teo’s laugh was as lost and wild as his eyes. “I don’t care what you do to me. Not anymore.” He pointed the knife at Kiran. “Last night you promised us truth. Break that promise now, and you’ll have no more help from me unless you cast to force it.”
He meant it, every word. Blazing off his ikilhia was the reckless abandon of a man who’d lost all hope of the future. Kiran hesitated, torn. That one conversation in the slot canyon wasn’t all his memory held. Teo would see Zadikah had been willing to break his trust, but he’d also see how desperate she’d been to avoid hurting him. Zadikah couldn’t possibly view Teo’s actions in such uncompromising terms as Raishal, after the secrets she’d carried and the choices she’d made. If Teo understood that, it might ease his despair.
Slowly, Kiran extended his hand.
Teo gripped his wrist. His knife hand was shaking, sunlight flashing off the blade.
“Let me,” Kiran said quietly. “This rock may be inert, but I don’t want any of our blood spilling on it.” He took the knife and sliced a quick, neat line down his palm. Teo thrust his own hand out, fingers splayed wide. His breath gusted through his teeth in short, sharp pants.
The Labyrinth of Flame (The Shattered Sigil Book 3) Page 21
