Tora peers wistfully at me, biting her lower lip.
“Yes, of course.” Why shouldn’t I help with an impromptu wedding? It’s not like I might fall over if I stand much longer, or that I may have just triggered an enemy attack against us.
(Please, let me not have triggered an attack against us.)
“I leave her in your care, then,” says Etricos. “Tora, I will see you soon.” He kisses her goodbye, so passionately that I have to look away in embarrassment.
As Etricos brushes past me to depart, I blurt, “Will you bring Demetrios to the wedding?” He pauses, giving me a look that makes me blush to the roots of my hair. Thank heavens for the cover of darkness. I temper my voice to minimize its trembling. “I need to speak with him.”
“How could I marry without my own brother present?” Etricos says with a grin. He favors Tora with another loving glance and continues up the road.
“Goddess, you may think it strange—” Tora begins.
“It’s not strange. You love him and he loves you, and you should have married ages ago.” And the sooner they get it over with, the sooner I can counsel with Demetrios on my rash long-distance magic.
“It’s not a traditional Helenai ceremony,” she says as I hurry her toward her home.
“Helenai traditions must adapt,” I reply. “The important thing is that you marry.”
“Baba might not approve.”
My fatigue robs me of any patience for this exchange. “Are you trying to talk yourself out of your decision? Your grandmother will be happy not to guard you against Etricos anymore. Moru will make the marriage known. There will be no dispute over whether it is valid.”
Tora breathes a sigh, her shoulders sagging, but she nods.
“Are your orphans here?” I ask as we approach her house.
“No. I was supposed to be at the infirmary. Others care for them tonight.”
“Perfect.” I pull her through the door, determined to exit again as quickly as possible.
Tora’s butter-yellow wedding dress fulfills its purpose at last. The bride, elegant in her simplicity stands with serenity beside her groom as Moru recites the marriage covenant before them. Two tribal elders act as witnesses, allowing Demetrios to sit with Huna and me. We are the only guests to this sacred rite.
If I weren’t so tired and worried, I might cry for joy. Instead, my ears buzz with low white noise and I struggle not to let my eyelids droop.
Moru instructs the couple to kiss one another. Tora sends a self-conscious glance toward her grandmother and shyly pecks Etricos on the lips. Huna grunts but makes no other sound of disapproval. The tribal leaders congratulate the couple, their well-wishes sincere despite the restive atmosphere that surrounds this event.
Demetrios leans over to whisper in my ear. “Anjeni, what is wrong?”
I look askance at him. “I need to talk to you alone.”
He tips his head to the door of the hall and helps me rise. “Baba, I am taking Goddess Anjeni back to her tent,” he says.
Huna favors him with a reproving glance. “See that you don’t go inside with her. People might talk. And don’t say you want them to talk,” she adds when Demetrios opens his mouth to reply. “You should not eagerly defile a woman’s reputation.”
Apparently my reputation is still intact. That must count for something.
“We’re not going to my tent,” I say. “I will sleep in one of the dormitories with my students. You will be at the infirmary until dawn?”
She studies me, suspicion lingering on her face as she nods. “The Helenai are to watch the injured through the night. The other tribes will relieve us in the morning.”
I would lay odds that Tora devised this arrangement to ensure that proper treatment occurs. She would trust her own tribesmen to offer care that others might consider futile.
Whether they live up to her expectations is anyone’s guess. She will spend the night elsewhere, if Etricos has any say.
I leave the council hall on Demetrios’s arm, relying on his strength more than might be proper under Helenai standards. As we step into the night, he asks, “You will sleep among your students?”
“Agoros came again.” The muscles in his arm flex beneath my touch. Briefly I relate the encounter.
“You should have come for me immediately,” he says, which is beyond unreasonable.
“I did, but I came across Etricos and Tora first.”
“You’re not hurt? He didn’t attack you?” He lifts one hand to caress my face, his fingers tangling in my hair.
My heart thuds in my chest. This was not supposed to be a romantic interlude. “No.”
He brushes his thumb against my cheekbone and withdraws the warmth of his touch. “I’m glad. I’ll warn the city guards to watch for attacks through the night. You’re not to return to your tent. Do you wish me to stay with you and your students?”
Yes.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I say, squashing my instincts to keep him by my side. This attachment to him grows at a pace much faster than I anticipated. “You need your sleep as well.”
He looks around us, checking the shadows for potential threats. “I can sleep anywhere, Anjeni. I won’t sleep if I’m worried for your safety, though.”
“I don’t think Agoros will confront me like that again.”
“I hope you’re right,” he says.
I hope so too, though the magic within me itches for another chance to strike.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fear taints the darkness. I sleep only fitfully amid my younger students, and when the first rays of dawn crest the horizon, I leave the small house and its silent occupants.
Figures trudge through the morning mist: Demetrios escorting Huna and Aitana from the infirmary. I trusted him to rest, but it doesn’t surprise me that he’s up so early. Sometimes it seems like he’s the personal guard of everyone among the Helenai.
I gather my blanket tight around my shoulders and sit upon the low stone fence that borders the street. Will the little group notice me, or will they pass? Aitana droops against Demetrios’s arm as though she belongs there, her golden hair cascading against his shoulder where she rests her head. If not for Huna on his opposite side, they might look like a pair of lovers returning after a long night’s revelry.
Demetrios halts as our eyes connect through the morning haze. Huna arches her brows at me. Aitana lifts her head in confusion and, upon perceiving me, scowls. Her hold on Demetrios’s arm tightens.
Payback for my similar conduct last night, I’m sure.
The possessive motion draws his attention. “Aitana, you need to rest. Hurry inside.” He gestures to the house across from where I spent the night, the second of my students’ dormitories.
She ignores him and calls to me instead. “Goddess, have you come down to train us today?”
Pettiness cannot occupy a place in my heart, especially after my impulsive attack last night. But I indulge it anyway. “Perhaps I should. We need stronger magicians.”
Demetrios gives me a warning look. Aitana straightens on his arm.
“I am refining my superlatives,” she says.
My harrowed night has drained my self-restraint. I steel my nerves and split, my shadow-self rising from the fence, darkness wisping from my edges as I close the distance between us.
The color drains from Aitana’s face.
“Is that so?” I ask, mere inches from her. At the same time, upon the stone fence, I calmly watch the scene of my own specter menacing a terrified girl.
Truthfully, I’m no better than Agoros in using this technique.
The specter evaporates in the mist as my twin senses recombine. I rise on legs that quiver beneath my clothes. My blanket fails to ward off the chill that comes from magic exhaustion, but something within me has changed. I can’t explain it exactly. The attack upon Agoros last night broadened my understanding to a degree I had not thought possible. My body lacks the stamina to follow through with al
l the new options open to my mind, but I can build that stamina with practice.
On my own two feet I approach the trio—Aitana, who cowers; Demetrios, who scowls; and Huna, who regards me with a troubled eye.
“Did you sleep at the guard house?” I ask Demetrios.
“Yes,” he says.
Relief floods through me, that Aitana has not commanded his attention for long. I turn my focus elsewhere. “Huna, you should sleep.”
She detaches herself from Demetrios and latches onto me instead. “If you will come with me, little goddess,” she says. Before she can walk more than two steps, I tug her toward the nearby house.
“Sleep here. There will be no more sleeping in the tent on the hill.”
Either Demetrios has already warned her or Huna is weary indeed; she does not argue. We enter the house and I settle her on the same bed I vacated only a short while earlier. My students stir in their slumber.
“What strange power have you discovered now, little Anjeni?” Huna asks as she lies back upon the mattress.
I tuck a blanket to her chin. “You don’t have to worry. I have discovered everything and nothing at all.”
She rolls to face the wall. “If that is true, watch that it does not consume you.”
I think, perhaps, her caution comes too late.
This wave of injured refugees continues throughout the day. Our people commit the dead to an ever-growing mass grave beyond the city walls, with casualties in the hundreds already.
Etricos finds me among my students, overseeing a cluster who practice their intermediates. He tips his head away from the group. I give instructions and detach myself to join him. Demetrios accompanies me.
“Our scouts have returned,” Etricos says in a low voice. “The Bulokai have set up small encampments beyond our borders. It looks like they are shipping their captives in, torturing them, and setting them loose upon our lands.”
My stomach turns. “What will you do?”
“We will raid the camps. Goddess, will you help us?”
Demetrios tenses beside me. I look askance at him as I reply, “Of course I will.”
Etricos nods. “We leave within the hour. I will send Tora to you to prepare.”
“I can prepare myself. They need Tora at the infirmary.”
He pauses as though he might protest, but in the end he accepts my decision. I return to my students and issue a few final words of instruction before proceeding to my tent.
“I can’t ride a horse,” I admit to Demetrios as we climb the hill. He looks sharply at me, so I elaborate. “Few people ride horses in my realm. We have machines to carry us from place to place.”
“Machines?” Confusion wrinkles his brows.
“Cars, trains, airplanes,” I say, even though he can’t possibly understand. I pin him with a stare. “Is horse-riding difficult?”
“I’ll be with you to keep you safe.”
That doesn’t answer my question, but I quell my nerves. If I can attack an enemy a hundred miles away, I think I can manage a few hours on horseback.
He waits outside my tent as I trade my sandals for boots. Etricos probably wants me to wear the black paint that Tora so nicely supplies, but I would rather not distinguish myself from the other soldiers on this raid. I have every intention of destroying the encamped Bulokai before any among the Helenai can engage with them.
I tuck a couple of knives into my belt and bundle up in a hooded coat. The low, sullen clouds threaten rain at any moment. It is late enough that we will not return until after nightfall.
As we trek back down the hill, Aitana emerges from her dormitory, swinging a cloak around her shoulders. “I’m coming with you,” she says, her glare defiant.
She must have eavesdropped on my conversation with Etricos.
“Aitana, that’s not—” Demetrios begins.
“Fine,” I interrupt. “Bring Ria too. Tell Ineri to supervise the younger ones while we’re gone.”
I sweep past her as she gawks, robbing her of her triumph with such an easy victory.
“Anjeni,” says Demetrios beside me, “this will be dangerous.”
“Of course it will, but the Helenai need warriors, not hobby-magicians. They must start somewhere.”
He concedes the point, as does Etricos when we inform him that two more will join us.
Half an hour later, I ride stiff-backed, my every thought on keeping my balance. Demetrios runs his horse alongside mine, but we are falling behind the group. My confidence drains like sand in a sieve the further we get from the city.
If I were strong enough to project directly into these encampments, I wouldn’t have to travel there by horse. No one would.
We keep close to the river with its trees and greater vegetation rather than riding exposed out on the plains. The foliage overhead allows scant shelter from the intermittent rain. Etricos has scouts in the area to watch for any Bulokai encroachers. More than once I avert my eyes from a body in the underbrush—one of the many injured striving to reach our sanctuary. This is not a mission of mercy. We come to confront the enemy, and I must steel my senses to that purpose.
As night falls around us, Etricos halts the group in a small grove. “The nearest camp is a little over a mile away, on a hilltop. They will have sentries posted, watching for an attack. Speed and darkness will be our greatest ally.”
Even if the encampment is small, the Bulokai have the advantage. We have thirty warriors, but getting them up a hill robs us of the element of surprise.
“I’ll go alone,” I say. “If I can destroy the Bulokai here, you can leave men stationed in their place to wait for the next shipment of captives, and we can move on to the next encampment.”
Etricos looks uncertain. “Goddess—”
“I know what I’m doing, Etricos,” I say. That’s not entirely true, but I’m sure I can cast magic through my projection. I only have to follow the thread that runs between my two selves.
“I’ll go with her,” says Demetrios.
I glare at him. “I’m not going there in my physical form.”
“I will get you as close as possible, Goddess. This is only the first encampment. We will take Aitana and Ria as well. They can watch from below and guard against any Bulokai magic.”
To my surprise, Etricos agrees to this plan. In fact, he embellishes on it: his warriors will fan out across the terrain in watch of Bulokai scouts and guards.
We leave our horses in the grove and proceed on foot, spreading out as we go. The trees break and a hill rises before us, with torches flickering between the ghostly tent silhouettes.
“Do not overexert yourself,” Demetrios whispers in my ear.
Images from Tora’s infirmary play through my mind. If I fail, more people will suffer and die. My determination solidifies. I sit upon the ground and tuck my knees to my chest, resting my head atop them.
Distance is but an illusion.
In a flare of power, I launch up the hill to land in the midst of the encampment. Bristle-faced demons look up from their sloppy meals. A shout echoes through their ranks as weapons scrape from sheaths.
The fifth intermediate of magic is that it favors a radial plane. Fear no aggressor; you are never blind.
Magic blasts from me in a cutting ring. It slices through the converging Bulokai, tossing them backward. I unleash a seventh intermediate among them in its aftermath. Smoke rises from the hulking figures on the ground. Stubbornly forcing my projection, I stalk through the area in search of enemies I may have overlooked and finish any who yet show signs of life.
Low cages dot the encampment. Frightened captives cringe from my spectral image, whimpering as I pass—and little can I blame them.
Their tormentors lie dead, but a greater monster prowls among them.
My senses shudder. I release my projection and surface in my own body with a gasp. My head reels, overwrought in the wake of so much power expended. Demetrios kneels beside me, his hands clasping my shoulders as he examines me for e
vidence of trauma.
“The camp should be clear,” I say, my tongue thick and clumsy, as though I am drunk. “They have people in cages.”
On that final word, my eyes roll back in my head and I pitch into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rhythm of the galloping horse beneath me rouses my senses. Gradually I focus. My head, weighted like a ball of lead, rests against Demetrios’s shoulder. He holds me tucked close, his body hunched and one arm tight around my waist as he rides like a demon through the night.
My heart lurches. Sideways in the saddle as I am, one false move might send both of us pitching from the horse to our deaths. Instinctively I tighten feeble fingers around the leather strap that fastens his armor at his chest. He glances downward, meeting my gaze in the darkness. I can just make out the shadow of his stubbled beard.
He says nothing, but the hand at my waist draws me a fraction closer as he returns his attention to the path we follow.
A second horseman keeps pace behind us, one of the other warriors. My still-muted senses heighten by degrees as we travel, but my limbs have scant strength. I entrust myself to the care of my guard, certain that he will keep me from harm. Rain begins to fall, a light and quiet distillation. Demetrios hunches further inward to better shield me from the wet.
Exhausted, I close my eyes, indulging in his proximity and the sense of security it brings.
How did it come to this? Am I injured more than I realize, that we ride like this through the night?
I was supposed to help liberate the other border encampments, not become a liability to the cause.
We return to the city by a back pass, skirting along the river until dots of lamplight pepper the darkness. Demetrios calls a command to his underling. “Fetch Baba or Tora, quickly, and come to Cosi’s tent.” The second horseman separates, headed toward a cluster of lights to the left. Demetrios plunges ahead, through the dirt roads of the sleeping city.
Why are we headed to Etricos’s tent? A feeble protest rumbles in my throat. My tongue won’t cooperate enough to form words.
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