The Silvered

by Tanya Huff

  Adeline took her time, clearly waiting for Danika to be embarrassed by her nudity.

  Danika resisted the temptation to box the midwife’s ears, so often so perfectly in position, and considered Terlyn’s prophecy. Bag of nothing could mean he Saw empty cells and white light could stand for freedom. Of course, it could also mean he Saw an empty bag—there had to be a few around the palace—and a beam of moonlight through his window, if he had a window. That was the problem with Soothsayers.

  Finally, after entering the distance between navel and hips in the ledger, Adeline growled, “You lay with beasts and you have no shame.”

  “I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,” Danika chided gently, but she spoke Imperial because she doubted the watching guards spoke Aydori.

  “Talk to me.”

  On the way back to her cell, she breathed harmless at Dimples and Freckles.

  No one missed the second meal. The emperor did not join them.

  Talk to me.

  Later, lying on the floor by the door, Danika dug her fingernails into the wood as the young male howled.

  “Can you hear him?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  “Race you to the tree!” Holding the bedroll tight against her side so it wouldn’t bounce, Mirian took off running. They ran at least half the time now and every day she ran farther and faster. Her skirt felt looser where it moved over her hips, and her feet had become so callused she doubted any of her old shoes would fit.

  A black wolf ran by, bundle of clothes gripped in his teeth, a dangling sleeve dragging through last year’s grass.

  “Tomas, you cheater!”

  He dropped the clothes at the base of the tree, circled it, and changed. “You didn’t say anything about staying on two legs.”

  “It’s not much of a race if you’re on four!” she panted, throwing an arm around the trunk to stop herself.

  Tomas grinned. “You only say that because you lost. If you want to rest here for a minute, I’ll go make sure we’re still on track.”

  “Be careful.” The words were habit more than anything. Without a map, the road was their only way to Karis; the compass she’d taken from Captain Reiter, no good without a heading. She watched Tomas run off to the south, then sank crossed-legged to the ground. Circling a breeze around the tree about ten feet out so she’d know when he returned, she settled in to practice.

  By the time Tomas broke through her circle, she’d blown down three dead cedars, tipping their roots up out of the ground, pulled a scattering of old bird shot out of the tree behind her, re-formed it into a small lead bar, and had lifted a trio of fallen leaves about fifteen feet above the ground. She set the leaves on fire—one, two, three—and scattered the ash as Tomas settled beside her, the silver streak at his shoulder glittering in the first strong sunlight they’d had for a couple of days.

  “It’s not silver like a standard silver wolf, is it?” The fur felt both coarser and sleeker under her fingers. “I mean, Jaspyr was really more a pale gray. This is almost a metallic silver. Very elega…”

  “When did you meet Jaspyr?”

  Mirian sighed and pulled her hand away. Tomas almost never changed when she was touching him now. She suspected it had to do with what they’d almost done. “At the opera.”

  “In fur?”

  “No, that was the next day.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. Mirian lifted her chin and stared back. “You were the mage he had up his nose.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes.” It didn’t hurt anymore. Apparently, she wasn’t quite sensible enough to not miss the ache.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Only one possible answer to that. “It wasn’t any of your business.”

  “Wasn’t? And now?”

  She shrugged and sent another half dozen dead leaves up into the air, far enough she had to squint to bring them into focus. Far enough seemed to be getting closer every day, living rough doing her vision no favors. She split the breeze carrying the leaves and danced them around each other before igniting the odd numbered and letting the evens fall back to the ground.

  Tomas picked up one of the fallen leaves, crushed it, then reached for his trousers. “You promised you’d take it easy.”

  In fairness, she didn’t want to talk about what was or wasn’t his business either, so she let him change the subject. “Practice won’t cause another collapse. The last time, I’d expended a lot of energy in the market…” She still hadn’t told Tomas the details; that she’d killed another man to keep him safe. She wondered if she ever would. “…plus gone through two days of constant healing from the drug…” Tomas told her he’d had to change multiple times while she was out to completely clear his system. Had they not been who they were, Mirian suspected they’d both have died before reaching the empire, let alone Karis. “…and then I did that final thing with the trees. This…” Another half dozen leaves danced into the air and ignited one by one as they reached the highest point in the dance. “…is just playing around. It’s all basic levels just…extended a bit by circumstances. What?” she demanded as he made a face.

  “Extended quite a bit.” He pulled his shirt on over his head and added as he emerged, “Harry was a second level Fire-mage and he couldn’t do that thing you’re doing with the leaves.”

  “Of course he could, it’s just lighting candles. Only they’re leaves.” She took Tomas’ offered hand and let him pull her to her feet. “And once you can blow a candle out, and you blow it…Ow!” With her attention on Tomas, she lost track of the last burning leaf and a piece of it landed on the back of her free hand, the blister healing almost before it formed.

  “That’s not basic.”

  “It really is. It wouldn’t be basic if I healed you. Which I won’t do,” she added hurriedly, pulling free of his grip. Healers practiced on themselves for almost a year before they were taught to heal others and she had no one to teach her. The drug had forced first level body equilibrium to perform more efficiently, and she didn’t remember healing herself in the market so that couldn’t count. What’s more, she didn’t need to know how to heal someone else. When they found the Mage-pack, Mirian would remove the nets and Jesine Hagen could heal any injuries they’d taken.

  She pulled Captain Reiter’s compass out of her jacket pocket, flicked it open, and squinted down at the dial. “Same heading?”

  “Adjust about five degrees south.”

  “All right.” Moving around the tree, Mirian lined up the compass needle and pointed. “We’re aiming for that big tree at the edge of the woods, the one that’s been topped off.”

  Tomas frowned. “That’s not very far.”

  “So you won’t mind running it on two legs.”

  She blew a path through the grass in front of her as she ran, exposing the ground. Being able to heal whatever she might jab into her foot didn’t mean she wanted to deal with the pain.

  * * *

  Tomas scooped up the bedroll and followed, allowing Mirian to set the pace.

  Jaspyr.

  That explained a lot.

  But Jaspyr wasn’t here with Mirian; he was.

  * * *

  Four strides took her across the cell. Touch the wall. Turn. Four strides back. Touch the wall. Turn. Five shorter steps. Touch the wall. Turn. Five shorter steps back. Touch the wall. Turn. She couldn’t lie in front of the door all day.

  As Danika heard the bolt thrown back, she turned, biting her lips to give them a little color.

  Dimples and Bruised-thumb.

  “Harmless.”

  And when she got closer, she glanced down to see the bruising had faded, glanced up and smiled at him, pleased to see he was healing.

  You’re an individual and I see you, but I’m harmless so it doesn’t matter.

  Adeline wasn’t waiting in the big room.

  The emperor’s rathole had been opened again. This time the head and front paws of the p
elt—of someone’s father, husband, brother, son—hung down over the wall.

  “Come closer!”

  The guards stayed by the back wall, standing rigidly at attention. Danika walked forward until the lower edge of the rathole began to cut off her sight line.

  Leopald smiled and stared down at her, elbows braced on his thighs, his chin resting on linked fingers.

  Danika stared back. The Pack were predators and she was an Alpha. She’d been stared at with a lot more intent. At the last minute, she remembered this was a power struggle she needed to lose, tipped her head to one side, and looked down at the floor in a ritual submission.

  “You seem to be settling in well, no hysterics, no self harm, no pointless attacks on those you can’t hope to beat. Although,” he added, and she could hear the smile in his voice, “those last two points are essentially the same thing, aren’t they? I suspected your instinctive need to protect the unborn would temper your reaction once you were shown the alternatives, and I’m happy you’ve proven me right. Does it hurt?”

  That last question, Danika realized, was more than mere noise. He was asking her directly and he sounded as though he cared. That surprised her enough, she looked up.

  He straightened and spread his hands. “Look, I know you’re able to understand me—does the artifact hurt?”

  “A little, Your Imperial Majesty.” She spoke to him as though she wasn’t his prisoner. As though this were a social situation where Lady Danika Hagen and Emperor Leopald had been forced by proximity to make small talk.

  He seemed pleased she’d used his full title, as though she’d done an unexpected trick. “When you say a little, what do you mean, precisely? The mages it was tested on were depressingly inarticulate, although, in fairness, the available mages were just generally depressing. Poor. Superstitious. Uneducated.”

  Danika had a feeling that anyone with money or education or social standing would deny even basic mage ability in Leopald’s empire. “It causes…” About to say our, Danika changed her mind. Better he thought of them as isolated rather than as a group. “…my head to ache, Your Majesty.”

  “Constantly?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “On a scale of one to ten?”

  She considered that for a moment. The pain was background noise most of the time. On a scale of one to ten, a two or a three. “A four, Majesty. Sometimes a five.” Was he expecting her to tell him the truth?

  “Fascinating. And if you attempt to use your powers?” He smiled and shook a finger at her. “Come now, you don’t expect me to believe you haven’t tried?”

  “Any use of power causes the pain to increase, Your Majesty.”

  “Of course. Of course. I’d love a demonstration, for scientific purposes, but I’ve been informed it would be bad for your whelp. Puppy? Cub? What would you call it?”

  “A baby, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  “Yes, I suppose you would,” he said thoughtfully as though this had never occurred to him. He tapped a finger by his left eye. “You have blue flecks. If you weren’t wearing the artifact, what could you do?”

  What do I control when I control you? He might as well have whispered it on a breeze.

  “Air, your Imperial Majesty. Without the net, I could send a scent…”

  His lip curled.

  “…my voice,” she corrected, “across distances.”

  “How far?”

  “Majesty?”

  “Precisely how far?”

  “I’ve never tested the exact distance, Your Majesty.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was no need.” She’d fulfilled the criteria the university required for her level and had never needed to send her voice farther than she’d been able.

  Leopald shook his head, almost pityingly. “It’s lack of curiosity that sets the lesser races apart. Can you fly?”

  Social manners, Danika reminded herself. “No mage can fly, Your Majesty.”

  “No, not now, but in my Archive are documents that tell of mages who could fly. I have ancient journals that suggest even the mages of Aydori are powerless in comparison to the mages of old. Who were,” he leaned forward and dropped his voice slightly, “completely insane as far as I can tell and more trouble than they were worth. But still, flying…” He settled back in his chair. “I can fly. Science has given me the sky. I have balloons to take me above the earth. I can send my voice over a distance; I can split my voice into multiple destinations over short distances. My people have fire-starters and surgeons who can cut into bodies and pull out diseases. Science gives freely to all, not just the few. Mage-craft is done.”

  “I wonder…” She bit her lower lip and stared off at nothing. When she refocused on the emperor, he was staring down at her, red lips curved in a mocking smile.

  “You wonder if mage-craft is done?”

  “I wonder…” She smiled and shook her head, as though overwhelmed by the thought. “I wonder what science and mage-craft could accomplish if they worked together.”

  “Science and mage-craft don’t work together.”

  Danika dipped her head, reluctantly correcting him. “Haven’t worked together, Majesty.”

  Back in her cell, she tossed the pillow by the door, stretched out, and shared the details of the conversation with Kirstin.

  “He dismissed me after that, but I could almost smell him thinking.”

  “You think he’ll remove your net?”

  “Not without taking every precaution, but then we’ll know how it comes off.”

  “Lord and Lady, Danika, it’s like you think we have all the time in the world to get out of here.”

  She pressed a hand against her belly. Stina was the furthest along at nearly six months. “I know exactly how much time we have.”

  * * *

  “Tomas, that rabbit isn’t dead.” Not dead but clearly terrified, staring up at her from where it dangled from huge black jaws.

  Tomas set it on the ground, not opening his mouth and releasing it until it was securely held between his front paws. He changed and spent a moment crouched adjusting his grip although Mirian noted that he didn’t lift the frightened rabbit off the ground. Rather than straighten, he sat, the rabbit between his knees but outside the curve of his crossed legs. “It’s injured. I thought you could practice healing on it.”

  “What?” Mirian, who’d returned her attention to their small fire the moment Tomas had lost his fur, turned to stare at him. “You want me to heal a rabbit?”

  He shrugged. “You won’t practice on me, and we need to know what you’re capable of before we engage the enemy.”

  “So you want me to try and heal our evening meal?” The thought of healing something, then killing and eating it was a little creepy. Actually…She shook her head as though trying to shake the thought free…. it was a lot creepy.

  Tomas snickered and Mirian wondered how much of that had shown on her face. “If you heal the rabbit, we won’t eat it. It’ll live long and have baby rabbits. I’ll catch something else for us to eat.”

  “That’s not…”

  Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. It was a sensible idea even. She couldn’t practice on Tomas, and it was best they knew what she could do. It was sitting quietly within the cage of his hands. Mirian suspected quietly meant too terrified to move. If it could move…“How badly is it injured?”

  “Not badly. A couple of puncture wounds on the back of its neck.”

  She laid another stick on the fire and watched it start to burn without her help. “What if I can’t heal it? And it’s not that I want to fail,” she added hurriedly, “because I’m still thinking of it as food.”

  “It’s not injured so badly it couldn’t heal on its own. If you can’t heal it, I’ll let it go.”

  “All right.” Mirian shuffled around until she sat facing him, her knees touching his, the rabbit corralled between them. When Tomas tensed to lift his hands away, she shook her head. “No, you keep holding it. I can’t
be distracted by worrying that it’ll get away from me.”

  Its fur was soft, plush. She’d left a rabbit fur hat and muff back in her room in Bercarit, but this fur had more substance. The rabbit flinched as she touched it, in fear not pain, not that it mattered beyond how much it hurt her heart because she had to have contact. Although not the usual contact. Tomas hunted to keep them fed and they mostly ate rabbit.

  Don’t think of the rabbit as food.

  Logically, she reminded herself, an injury was an injury, whether on her or on a small animal. She could heal herself, so healing another would merely be extending that outward. An examination showed the rabbit’s skin had been pierced in two places by Tomas’ teeth. Blood had dampened the fur around the bites, clumping it into dark triangular points. She couldn’t put the blood back, so all she could do was close the holes.

  Close the holes…

  Close…

  The rabbit writhed, twisting out of Tomas’ grip, and Mirian snatched her hand away staring down at the animal in horror. Every thing that might be considered a hole on its body had closed. Unbroken fur covered its eyes, nose, mouth, ears…anus although she wouldn’t, couldn’t check.

  Scrambling onto her knees, she twisted to the side and threw up. Threw up again when she heard the crack as Tomas broke the struggling rabbit’s neck. Her stomach spasmed over and over until only bitter bile dribbled out of her mouth.

  She couldn’t stop crying.

  She could destroy. Two men were dead by her hand. But she couldn’t heal.

  When Tomas wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t fight him. She collapsed against his chest and cried until she had no tears left. Cried for the rabbit and the Mage-pack and Ryder Hagen and Jaspyr Hagen and the two men she’d killed and for Tomas and for her because they were going to rescue the Mage-pack and they didn’t have the faintest idea of how and for the first time since hearing gunshots that morning on the Trouge Road, she missed the bland certainty her life had been.