Feast of Souls (49 page)

“Go home,” he was saying. “This kind of place is not for you.”

But she didn’t move. The small eyes were filled with tears. “They would have paid for me,” she protested. The words were voiced in a tone of desperation that twisted like a knife in Kamala’s gut. It seemed to have a similar affect upon the stranger. For a moment he shut his eyes, and his jaw clenched visibly as he struggled to rein in his emotions. “You want to be paid?” he said. “Is that the only problem? You weren’t paid? Here.” He fumbled for his purse. “Here. I’m paying for you. Is that good enough?” He spilled out a handful of coins into his palm and held it out to her; his hand was trembling. “Take it,” he urged, and when she still did not respond he cried out, “Take it all!”

He cast the money out from him, in the direction of the road. The girl stared at him for a moment, then ran to where the coins had fallen and got down on her hands and knees to gather them up. He turned from her, too pained to watch. Kamala saw him waver slightly as he did so, and he reached out to a nearby tree to steady himself. So he was not nearly as strong as he seemed. That was interesting. The scene in the great room must have been a bluff, albeit a fierce one. The man Kamala was looking at now could not hold his own in a brawl against so many. Which spoke eloquently for his courage in confronting them, she thought. Or else his lunacy.

She waited until the girl had collected her prize and run off toward the road to Bandoa, then stepped quietly out of the shadows. She waited until the stranger saw her there before speaking. It was a long moment of waiting, for his thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

When at last he noticed her standing there she asked him quietly, “Why did you do that?”

“Do what? With the child?”

She nodded.

He suddenly looked very weary. “What business is it of yours, boy?”

“Few men care about such things.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. “Well then, I suppose I am not like most men.”

Kamala took a few steps closer. “You can’t help her, you know. She will just come back here tomorrow. Or find another place like it.”

The truth of her words seemed to settle like a weight upon his shoulders. He sighed heavily. “I know. The words of one man mean very little in this world, don’t they?”

Something about the tone of his voice made Kamala catch her breath.
He is accustomed to his words having more weight than this
, she thought.
Accustomed to having the power to change things
.

Intrigued, she reached out to touch the fabric of his sleeve. He looked at her curiously but did not move away. The fabric was fine and smooth to the touch, such as only master weavers could produce, and clinging to it were echoes of its owner’s past history. She tasted status, wealth, and a fierce independence.
He has argued with someone in authority while wearing this
, she observed.
Often
. Beyond that were more subtle traces, unfamiliar to her, that she had to work to unravel. When she finally realized their source, the breath caught in her throat. Not even Ravi’s possessions had hinted at such a birthright of authority. There was only one possible explanation for it, and that one so outlandish, given the circumstances, she was hard pressed to believe it.

“You are not what you seem,” she said at last.

“Nor you,” he said quietly. He had been studying her while she did him, she realized. And she had been too preoccupied to take her usual precautions. Her heart skipped a beat as he reached up to the woolen cap she wore, but she made no move to stop him. He removed it. Wild red hair fell out into a fiery cloud about her face, not the long feminine locks he had expected, perhaps, but still not a boy’s style by any means.

“Now perhaps it is my turn for questions,” he said. “I shall begin with… what gives you such interest in the girl’s fate?” When she did not answer he said, “On the other hand, a woman traveling in boy’s attire… shall I guess?

She flushed. It was something she had never done in response to any man other than Ethanus, and she raged at herself for letting her guard down that much. “Guessing is a dangerous pastime.”

“Is it?” The blue eyes were no longer icy, but warm, like a mountain lake in summer. “The deer in the forest that has never known man does not fear the crossbow. While the one that has been hunted before, and wounded, warns young ones to flee at the first sign of human presence.” Again a faint smile flickered across his lips; not a leering expression, or a cruel one, but oddly compassionate. “Am I wrong?”

For a moment she was speechless. “Are you likening me to a deer?”

“A wolf, then.” He chuckled. “The observation is still valid, yes? Even though in the latter case the mother would also rip out the throat of anyone trying to hunt her.”

Regaining something of her composure, she raised an eyebrow. “Am I a deer then, or a wolf? Make up your mind.”

“Women can be both at once.” He grinned. “That is why men go mad trying to understand them.”

She was about to respond when the door to the inn swung open. She saw the stranger’s expression harden and she turned around quickly to see what new trouble was looming.

It was the owner of the place. He looked about himself nervously, as if expecting trouble, which at least confirmed that her spell was working. In one hand he held a travel pack, woolen blankets bound around a bundle of supplies that had clearly been hurriedly and inexpertly tied; in the other was a small leather purse.

He glared at the stranger, then cleared his throat and spat upon the ground. “I think it best you leave now.” He hefted the bundle and threw it toward them; it raised a small cloud of dust as it fell to the ground just short of the blond man’s feet. “I pride myself on maintaining a peaceful establishment; remember that if you come here again in the future.” He threw the purse to him as well, and this time it made the distance. “Your money, minus last night’s room and board. And a small commission for my trouble this afternoon.”

His eyes narrowed in warning as he glanced at Kamala, then he went back inside the inn. The traveler hefted the purse in his hand as the door slammed shut, as if remarking upon its light weight. “I suppose it is just as well I have this back, given that I threw most of what I had at that girl.” He looked at Kamala. “I do hope I haven’t gotten you in trouble here.”

She shrugged. “If so, I can deal with it.” The owner could not fail to offer her hospitality, with her sorcery wrapped around his heart, any more than the sun could fail to rise in the morning. But she was not about to tell him that.

“My name is Talesin,” he offered.

She mused upon that for a moment, wondering just how much she wished to reveal to him, then said, “I am called Kovan.”

“A boy’s name.”

She took her cap back from him and put it back on, tucking her wild red hair back into it. “Well, I am a boy, yes?”

His blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight. “And what would you call yourself if you masqueraded as a girl, Kovan?”

She hesitated. The open warmth of his manner was hard to resist, but not so intoxicating that she forgot the position she was in. Magisters were hunting her, probably the nobles of Gansang were as well, and then there were her dreams to consider. Might this pleasant young man, so far out of his accustomed noble element, perhaps connected to one of those forces? It was a chilling thought.

“I cannot decide,” she said, masking her unease with a flirtatious tone. “Choose something for me, Talesin.”

“Well, then.” He made a show of considering the question. While he did so, she reached out with a tendril of sorcery to take the measure of his soul. If he had secrets she would know them soon enough.

But the moment she touched him she knew that something was wrong. It was not just that there was sorcery wrapped around him like a cocoon, though there was. Men of rank often had Magisters’ spells cast upon them for one purpose or another, and the fact that this man had one only confirmed her suspicions about his true social station. But beneath that… beneath that was a soul like nothing she had ever known before. Touching it with her power was like grasping hot embers. The moment she made contact with him a searing magical heat shot up her arm and into her flesh, and she could no more analyze it in that moment than she could have kept her hand in a blazing fire to count the embers.

It took every ounce of strength in her soul to keep her surprise from showing on her face, and to fight the instinct to step back from him. Was his soulfire so much stronger than that of other men? Or was it simply so unfettered that it roared like wildfire along any magical conduit she gave it? In all her years with Ethanus he had never even hinted at such a phenomenon. She did not know what to make of it.

“Lianna,” he said, bringing her back to the present moment. “In the land of my ancestors is it the name of a goddess of great beauty, with a spirit like fire. Her touch shatters the ice on the great rivers, so that spring can come again. Will you bear that name, when you pretend to be a woman?”

She managed to smile calmly, though her heart was pounding fiercely. “A fine name. I will try to do it justice.” Gently she drew her hand from his grasp; his warm fingers were like velvet to her touch.

“So where are you from, most lovely pretender?” His tone was casual, but she sensed with instinctive certainty the question was anything but that. “If you do not wish to share your origins, then perhaps… tales of recent travels?” The answer mattered to him, she realized. It mattered very much.

He is connected to my nightmares somehow. He must be
. The thought chilled her, especially as she was afraid to try to read him again with sorcery. Instead she reached out with a tendril of power—carefully, this time, oh so carefully—and wound the strands of a new spell about him. Not trying to break through the spells that were already there, simply adding one more to the cocoon.
If you are searching for someone, I am not her
.

If you seek the answer to a mystery, I will not provide it
. It was a simple safeguard, but it would suffice. Unless he was a Magister himself he would not be able to think past it… and she knew from the touch of his soul that he was not that. Magisters were chill in their soul’s essence, more like a corpse than the fire of a living man. Stolen life might fuel a Magister’s power, but it could not warm the ice which was at his core.

Once that precaution was taken, she found she could breathe again.

What are you
? she wondered.
Born to wealth but lacking more than a handful of coins, born to power but traveling like a mendicant, born to a bloodline of great renown yet unwilling to use your own name for fear it would be recognized… or am I misreading all those signs? Are you something else entirely, that sorcery has obscured
?

She wished she dared use her power to investigate the matter. But she feared establishing any sorcerous contact that would make her vulnerable to his heat again. Not because she thought it would hurt her. It was clearly not a malign power. But because even the memory of it now stirred a strange longing in her, almost a hunger, and that frightened her. This was surely what a moth must feel like, she thought, just before it cast itself into a flame. Fluttering about the dancing light, feeling that blissful warmth upon its wings, an ecstasy of heat… and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, consumed.

“My past travels are of little interest,” she told him.

“And the future ones?”

I could lie to you. I could weave a spell that would convince you you’d heard my answer and found it of no interest. I could drive you away from me with a thought, and make you forget we had ever met
.

Perhaps the last option would be wisest. Ethanus would certainly counsel her in that direction. But then she would never have a chance to learn what this stranger’s true purpose was, or why the touch of his soul was like fire to her. And besides, if he was truly connected to the presence that haunted her nightmares, might he not be more dangerous to her lost in the shadows, where she could not watch over him, than in plain sight nearby?

“I have taken up with a caravan,” she said. “Tomorrow we head south and east, toward the Free Lands. And yourself?”

His blue eyes fixed on hers. What depths they guarded, what mysteries! With enough time she could surely unravel them.

Careful, Kamala. This mystery can burn you.

“I have not yet chosen my next road,” he answered her.

“Indeed?” Kamala’s own eyes sparkled. “I hear the shores of the Inner Sea are quite temperate this season.”

“Are they?” He reached out toward her—she drew back, startled—but it was only to tuck a loose strand of hair up into her cap. His hand was warm against her skin, and lingered for a moment before withdrawing. “Do you suppose such a caravan might have need of an additional escort?”

Ethanus would say she was being foolish. Ethanus would advise that no mystery was worth this kind of risk, especially when unknown powers were involved.

And that, my master, is why I could not learn about the world by your side.

“Come on the morrow, at daybreak,” she said. “I will see what I can do about getting you hired.”

She left him then, in body at least. But it was a long, long time before the memory of his soul’s heat faded from her flesh… or from her spirit.

* * *

That night, for the first time in many days, Prince Andovan’s sleep was peaceful. Kamala dreamed of moths.