North Star Guide Me Home (15 page)

Isidro shook himself and opened his eyes to find himself standing with his nose an inch away from the tent’s canvas wall. He turned to find Delphine watching him. Behind her, two attendants lurked near the doorway — the women who saw to the upkeep of Cam’s tent, tending the fire and cooking meals. They watched impassively, used to his antics.

Delphine started towards him, but as the beast within him reared up, battering against the wall he’d built to enclose it, Isidro stumbled back.

Her belly made a large mound, the cloth of her jacket stretched taut to wrap across it. It always surprised him how much it had grown, and he had to remind himself that of all the weeks that had passed he’d spent only a small fraction lucid and alert.

Delphine froze with one hand reaching towards him. She let the hand slowly fall, folding her arms across her chest instead. The gesture made her look very small and defensive. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Where’s Cam?’ he said. ‘I need to talk to him.’

‘He’s not here. He rode out yesterday morning with Sierra, don’t you remember? You wished him farewell.’

Now that she mentioned it, he did recall — but he could have sworn it happened weeks ago. ‘Where … where did he go?’

‘Southeast, to see about that legion. Issey, what’s wrong?’

The direction meant nothing to him. The way his head was spinning, he wasn’t sure he could point up from down.

‘There’s something out there,’ he said. ‘Soldiers. Mages. Coming for us. You have to warn them, Delphi.’

Delphine’s heart had barely slowed when Commander Rouldin answered her summons. She met him in the vestibule, leaving Isidro behind in the interior, pacing and muttering to himself.

Rouldin made her a bow. ‘How may I be of service, my lady?’

Perhaps it was discourteous to receive him out here, but Delphine didn’t want him to see Isidro in this state.
But would it truly make any difference?
she asked herself.
All they know of him is this halfwit shell.

In Cam’s absence, Rouldin was in command. Cam’s commanders treated her with deference, but if the camp came under attack, Delphine knew Cam expected her to obey their orders.
I only wish some of my wretched students understood how these things work,
she thought with a touch of sourness.

‘Commander,’ she said, ‘this may seem odd, but please humour me. The patrols to the west … have they seen anything of note?’

Rouldin raised his eyebrows, but there was no hesitation in his reply. ‘No, my lady, nothing at all.’

‘How far do they reach?’

‘Our long-range sentries set a course two miles beyond the camp boundaries, my lady. May I ask the reason for your concern?’

Delphine glanced back towards the tent. ‘The prince’s brother believes there is a threat to our west.’

For a moment Rouldin was silent. His expression did not change. ‘I see. Has he given any reason, my lady?’

A hunch,
Delphine thought.
But Isidro’s hunches are worth listening to.
‘Rouldin, all I ask is that you humour me.’

She laid her hand on her swollen belly, feeling the babe shift within her. Rouldin started to reply, but Delphine saw a movement behind him, a figure hurrying through the muddy avenue of tents. It was one of the Mage Corps, a young fellow whose name escaped her. It was so hard to remember them all, when there were so many and they stayed with her just a few short weeks before setting off again.

Rouldin noted the shift in her attention and turned. ‘Please excuse me, my lady, this may be important —’

‘Of course,’ Delphine said.

At Rouldin’s gesture the young fellow came close. ‘Sir, we’ve had word from Lady Sierra. Prince Cam has broken off the chase, they were worried the Akharians were trying to lead them away. The prince orders the camp placed on alert, increased sentries and patrols and additional scouts sent out.’

Rouldin lifted his chin sharply, and threw a glance at Delphine. ‘Well, my lady,’ he said, ‘perhaps Lord Isidro is more aware of his surroundings than we thought.’

Delphine pressed her lips together, forcing down the urge to snap at the man.
He doesn’t know any different,
she told herself.
He’s never seen him at his best.

Then, something occurred to her — if Sierra suspected a threat, perhaps Isidro had picked up on her thoughts. Perhaps he was finally reestablishing his connection with her, regaining some of his old self.

Rouldin had noticed her expression change as she followed the thought. ‘My lady, is there something else?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s all. I won’t keep you from your duty. Please keep me informed.’

‘Of course, my lady,’ Rouldin said, bowing again. ‘With your leave …’ and he marched away, the messenger following.

Back inside, she found Isidro standing by the doorway, as though he’d been listening. It was unlike him to eavesdrop. Actually no, Delphine corrected herself … her Isidro would have no compunctions listening to a conversation like that. It was just unlike him to be
caught
. ‘Did you hear enough?’

He gave her a blank look. ‘Hear what?’

‘What Commander Rouldin and I were saying.’

He made no reply, but just kept staring at the tent’s western wall with a blank gaze that made her uneasy.

Delphine cleared her throat. ‘There’s been word from Cam and Sirri.’

That earned her the briefest of glances. ‘Oh?’

‘They broke off the chase. They’re worried the Akharians were drawing them away from us.’

‘They know they can’t fight Sirri,’ Isidro said. ‘Best attack the den when the pack leaders are away.’

‘Issey … do you think you took this from Sierra? Can you really sense something out there? Or could Sirri be trying to reach you?’

Isidro studied her for a long moment before his eyes screwed shut and he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. ‘I … I don’t know. Nothing makes sense anymore, Delphi. Where are they? Are they coming back? There’s something out there, my head just won’t shut up about it. If we lose the training mages, the women and children, the wounded … it won’t be the end of us, but it’ll be a hard blow to bear, and if they take hostages …’

Delphine bit her lip. Was that him talking? Or was he merely giving voice to the thoughts running through Sierra’s head? As much as she wished it could be his own wit and strength returning, she wasn’t sure she dared believe it.

She took him by the arm, tugging him towards the fire. ‘It’ll be alright,’ she said. ‘Commander Rouldin will send out more patrols. If there’s any danger we’ll learn of it. You’ve done what you can, now come sit down and rest.’

Try as she might, she couldn’t convince him to settle by the fire, and in the end she gave up and left him where he was, still muttering under his breath as he scowled at the western wall.

To tide her over until the evening meal came, and to take her mind off the unintelligible muttering behind her back, Delphine made herself a pot of coffee and nibbled on a piece of fruit cake as the fragrant stuff brewed. There was an abundance of the dark, aromatic beans in the camp at the moment. Delphine hoped it would help wake her up — the bone-deep aching weariness of the early months of her pregnancy had passed by, but she didn’t feel the same as she had before her womb had quickened. She’d left the training mages in the hands of her assistants when she’d found herself nodding off during meditation.

She offered cake and coffee to Isidro, but after a long, studious gaze at her pot and the gilded cups, looted from the same Akharian general who’d supplied their tent, he turned away again with a shake of his head.

A nap was a bad idea, Delphine considered. Still, it would not be long now before the evening meal and hopefully not much longer until Rouldin’s scouts reported. As she sipped her coffee, Delphine arranged herself on the pillows so she could watch the man pacing along the western wall, and willed herself to stay awake.

Isidro pulled the hood over his head and slouched low to disguise his height. It didn’t truly seem necessary. No one in the camp gave him a second glance.

A soft rain was falling — the drops hung in the air as though weightless, only beading on his coat when he brushed against them, breaking the spell that kept them suspended.

It was the hour for the evening meal, and around him folk were huddling in damp tents to share out bannock and bowls of stew. Everywhere he turned he heard children squabbling, a woman soothing her babe in arms, or an old, cracked voice singing to tired and hungry little ones.

These folk weren’t the target, Isidro knew that. The Akharians had to know there was only one person in Cam’s army with the knowledge and skill to teach the new mages, even if what they learnt were little more than a few tricks and rote responses. Even so, these folk would not be spared. Those who resisted would be slaughtered, those who surrendered would be enslaved once again.

An attack here wouldn’t break the back of Cam’s army. It wouldn’t halt the roving bands in the east, and it would only serve to strengthen Sierra’s fury. No, what it would do is break the heart of the freed slaves, delivering a blow every bit as gut-wrenching as the original raids. For these folk to have come so far and survived so much, only to fall again when it seemed they were finally heading home …

A strange sensation washed over Isidro then, and he stopped in his tracks in surprise.

It was odd, very odd, to suddenly realise that he was thinking clearly, when for weeks and months he’d felt like his skull was stuffed to bursting with unspun wool.

He raised a hand to his forehead, and shuffled to the side of the path so as not to block the road. Where was he going? Why was he out here alone? Delphine must be back in the tent — probably asleep if he’d left without fuss. He should go back.

But as soon as he turned on his heel a feeling of wrongness struck him, so forceful that he wheeled back to face the last hints of the setting sun streaking through the clouds. No, he’d come out here for a reason. If only he could remember what it was.

He started walking again, skirting around patches of mud as he thought back to what Delphine had said. He was not the only one who sensed a threat. Sierra had raised the alarm as well.

What if he
had
merely picked up her thought? And why was his mind working again, after so long hobbling around in circles like a beast caught in a snare?

Sirri,
Isidro thought.
Maybe Sirri can help me understand.

He reached for her — or at least, he tried to. He knew he’d done it in the past, for a time it had come to him as naturally as breathing, but this time … nothing.

When he realised why, he wanted to curse himself for his lack of wits. Hadn’t he spent long hours walling her off? Why did he think he could block off her power without blocking off the connection that bound them as well?

He veered from the path, and once he was shrouded in the darkness between the tents, Isidro closed his eyes to concentrate. There had to be
something
he could do.

The connection always felt to him like a trail beaten through scrub. When Kell first forged the connection, it was little more than a single set of prints, soon erased by the passage of time. But once they met again and Sierra had pulled him down into her furs, it had grown to a well-worn trail, the sort he could follow in his sleep.

But now, the trail was … gone. Just gone, with only a sheer wall in its place.

But there had to be some way through. He searched for anything that seemed familiar in this wild and overgrown corner of his mind, a landscape that seemed changed forever by the ritual Kell had tricked him into.

After a few moments, he found another sheer, blank wall, but this one felt … different. This wasn’t his work. Was Sierra walling
him
out? She’d done it before, to spare him from what Rasten and Kell did to her. It hadn’t always worked, but she’d tried her best.

Isidro reached for the barrier, only to freeze the moment he made contact. It wasn’t a wall, at all. It seemed, on first glance, to be so solid that a sledgehammer wouldn’t chip the stone. But on closer inspection, it was an illusion. Not a wall, just the appearance of one, spun out of light and power.

Not quite believing, and understanding even less, Isidro pushed himself through.

He found himself wearing someone else’s skin, in a body heavy with sleep, lying on a narrow platform with his back against a wall.

Something was wrong. Sierra would be sharing a tent with Cam, not sleeping on a hard wooden bench with a solid wall behind her. Still trying to make sense of where he’d found himself, Isidro turned the head, pillowed on a folded arm, and opened the eyes to reveal a small chamber lit by a guttering lamp on the bare stone floor.

There was a half-second of peace … and then the body he wore convulsed and Isidro found himself wrenched away.

Within a bare instant he knew whose body he’d found himself in. It was no woman’s form wrapped in blankets, and it wasn’t Sierra’s sharp, prickling fear that wrapped around him. This one was tinged with red and smelled like hot iron. Rasten.

It seemed that Rasten identified Isidro in the same moment. He froze, and a heartbeat later, released him, though Isidro could feel his heart beating hard. Rasten’s power was rising, a seething column of energy that wrapped around his spine.

Isidro?
Rasten said. He was angry — no, furious, but struggling to control it, along with his panic at finding himself invaded. Isidro could sympathise. The few times Rasten had invaded him like this, he hadn’t taken it nearly so well.
What in the hells are you doing here?

I … I’m not sure. I was trying to reach Sierra. Somehow I wound up here instead.

He felt Rasten go still.
Wait,
Rasten said, and pulled away. For a moment, he was gone, utterly, and Isidro found himself alone in Rasten’s body.

Then, Rasten returned, as swiftly as he’d left.
She’s fine,
he said.
She’s with the prince. What do you mean, you couldn’t find her? And how in the hells did you get to me? How did you get past my shield?