North Star Guide Me Home (21 page)

Isidro let him dab it on, and then gingerly probed the damage. A few gashes and grazes, and a scattering of blisters. ‘Thanks.’

‘Anytime, brother. Well, Sirri will be glad to have you back. Perhaps … perhaps she can help —’ He broke off as Isidro shook his head. ‘No?’

‘She’s a Sympath. We couldn’t learn from each other in the Spire, and we’re no closer now.’

‘Ah. Well, then, maybe Delphine —’

‘By the Black Sun,’ Isidro spat. ‘No. Not her.’

Cam was startled. ‘But —’

‘It’s not safe! Her little one … I can feel it, Cam. I can feel the little heart beating inside her. It’s so small … I don’t trust my power around her. Sierra can handle it if I lose control, but Delphine and the baby … I can’t risk it.’

Cam considered it, and nodded, slowly. ‘Alright. That’s fair enough. I’ll talk to her.’

‘I know I’m letting her down. By all the Gods, she’s having my child and I ought to be there for her.’

‘I’ll look after her,’ Cam said. ‘Do what you need to do.’

Isidro raked his hand through his wet hair. ‘You’ve looked after her for this long, haven’t you? Cam —’

‘You’d do the same for me and Mira. You cursed near did, after I left the Spire.’

Isidro sighed and let his head hang. ‘Alright. What about the Akharians? Are we riding after them?’

Cam pursed his lips, and shook his head. ‘It’d take a week or more, and that’s more time for the eastern farmsteads to get their harvest out of our path. We need those supplies if we’re ever to see home again, and I’ve had word that our folk ranging eastwards have found some Akharian spies trying to infiltrate our ranks. Seems they’re claiming to have word from Ricalan, and I mean to deal with them before they have all their plans set in stone. We’ll stay the course.’

‘Seems a good call,’ Isidro said. ‘So, we’re moving out?’

‘First thing in the morning. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.’

‘I ought to have something to eat. You too, unless they fed you at the command tent while delivering the report.’

‘I could stand to have more. But before we go, Issey, there’s something I need to tell you …’

Isidro was preparing to rise, but at that he settled back onto the narrow beam.

Cam stared down at his feet before forcing himself to look up again. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s … I’ve …’ He sighed. ‘Sirri and I. We’ve grown … close, and last night …’

Isidro marvelled at how Cam’s tone, so steady and assured before, had grown swiftly uncertain. He’d gone from commander to his little brother in the space of a few heartbeats. He bowed his head, and scrubbed a hand over his scalp. ‘Sierra … by all the Gods, she doesn’t waste any time, does she?’

‘No,’ Cam said, ‘but I can see why she snatches at comfort whenever it’s offered. She was right enough, the way things can change in a heartbeat. Issey, I swear I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known …’

‘Known what?’

‘If I’d known you’d come back like this. I’d been thinking along these lines ever since last spring. I was going to wait, but … you were ill for months. Even when you were awake and talking, you were never quite there. Not like you are now. I suppose I’m just so weary of doing this on my own. And Sirri … well, you know what she’s like.’ Cam turned away, rubbing at his bristling chin, his mouth troubled.

‘Yes,’ Isidro said, ‘I know what she’s like.’ He remembered their first night, the tingling power in her touch, the way she’d clung to him with desperate hunger. The way she’d made him feel like a man again, not some broken, spent husk. What promise had Cam found in her arms? It couldn’t be the same thing she’d given to him in midwinter, she’d changed too much from the woman he’d known.

‘I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known. I never meant to spring it on you like this, but now … I need to be honest with you. I care for her, a lot. When we find Mira again, I want Sierra to be part of our family.’

Isidro leant forward, propping his elbows on his knees and covering his face with his hand.

Cam stayed where he was, unmoving. ‘Do you … ah, ye gods, I know this is no time to ask, but I have to … Can you love her like you once did?’

The touch set the cuts stinging once again. ‘Fires Below, Cam. I barely know whether the sun’s rising or setting. It was bad enough back in the Spire after she ripped me open … now I feel like I’ve been lost in a blizzard and only just beginning to see clearly again. By the Black Sun, I don’t even know what I am anymore.’

‘You said that before,’ Cam said. ‘Perhaps you don’t know, but I do. You’re my brother. You’ve been at my side from the worst day of my life to the best. You’re the one who’s turned disaster into triumph, more than once. And you’re the man who’s going to help us take these people home, and take our land back from the cursed Slavers. I know you’re still trying to find your feet, Issey, but you’ll get your bearings, sooner than you think. And as for Sirri … I know she had little choice but to leave us, but I understand why you’d be wary of grasping a hot coal after you were burned the first time. She was yours first … do you want me to back off?’

Isidro tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky, clear blue now and as cold as frost. He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

He gave a bitter sigh. ‘I’m not sure of anything these days. I just know that if you turn away she’ll take it as a punishment, and I don’t want that. She’s suffered enough. I … I want her to be happy. She deserves it, after all she’s been through.’

‘And if it’s not me she truly wants?’ Cam said.

Isidro shrugged. ‘I know her, Cam. She’ll take her pleasure where she can find it and be grateful.’ He fought the urge to hide his face in his hand again, and instead forced himself to stare out across the tents. ‘Back in the ranges I wanted her back. But so much has happened since then … right now I’m too cursed broken to know one way or another. You’re right enough about grasping a hot coal … but you know her as well as I do. You know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

‘You were good together,’ Cam said, his voice sad and soft. ‘I hope you’ll find that again. She misses you, Issey.’

And I miss her
, Isidro thought.
But neither of us are the same people we once were.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you marry her and Mira, does it really matter what I think?’

‘Of course it does,’ Cam snapped. ‘Do you think I’d hold you to it if you didn’t want it? I wouldn’t expect it anymore than I’d expect you to give up Delphine.’

Delphine. That was another question he couldn’t even begin to answer.

‘I always thought it would be for the best that we weren’t likely to marry,’ Cam said. ‘But the last year settled a lot of things …’ He broke off with a shake of his head. ‘Look, I don’t mean to push you. I know you’re still reeling with all that’s happened, I just didn’t want to keep it from you.’

Isidro nodded. ‘And you haven’t. But now, just let me be. Please. I can’t tell you any more than I already have.’

Cam bowed his head. ‘Alright then. Let’s get something to eat.’

Isidro nodded. ‘I’ll follow you in in a moment,’ he said. ‘I just … I need some time to think.’

For a moment Cam seemed uncertain, but then he nodded and walked away.

Isidro ran a hand over his face again. All this talk of the future seemed abstract, irrelevant. It was a moot point unless he could master this twisted, tainted power, and he didn’t even know where to begin.

Sierra couldn’t help him. Delphine, either. But perhaps … he drew a sharp breath, feeling empty and echoing. There was one man who had been where Isidro now stood.

Isidro closed his eyes and reached inward, creeping along the pathways in his mind once again.

The connection to Sierra was there once again, as solid and real as if it had never been gone. But Isidro passed it by, and reached for the other doorway instead.

Rasten had strengthened his shields. Isidro noted how they had been shored up, made taller and more dense, but then he slipped through them just as he had before, slick and noiseless like a snake through grass.

He found himself in Rasten’s head, looking down on a bound and naked man, hanging by his wrists in a darkened room with blood dripping in rivulets over his skin.

The moment Rasten sensed his presence he closed his eyes, blocking off the vision.
I’m in the middle of something here
, he said.

So I see. Another crop of mages?
Isidro asked.

There’re always more. I don’t advise you to watch, you won’t like what you see. What do you want?

To call in a debt
, Isidro said.

Rhia rested her head against the chair back, listening to the rain beat on the shuttered windows. The cottage turned prison was small, with dark, heavy beams hanging low overhead, but a fire burned bright in the fireplace.

At the table, Makaio’s agent Sukaro cackled softly to himself as he wiped the carved figures from the game-board. ‘Another game, Karom?’

‘Why, so you can wipe the floor with me again, sir? I’m surprised you find any sport in it.’

‘What else is there to do? If you’d apply yourself, lad, you might learn to mount a proper defence and hold out a little longer.’

‘I know my strengths, sir. With your leave, I’d rather step away for a turn or two.’

‘As you wish, then.’ Sukaro glanced at Rhia. ‘Madame, can I tempt you?’

‘I’m afraid not, emissary,’ Rhia said, rubbing a hand over her eyes, weary from reading in the dim light. The Tomoan emissary was a consummate diplomat. Even with their captors convinced they were enemy spies, he’d talked them into providing books and other amusements to break up the long hours. ‘I don’t have the stomach for such things.’

Cam had once tried to teach her, but she’d found no enjoyment in it, only an anxious kind of strain from pitting herself against her friends, even if just in fun.

Sukaro cast a glance at the fourth of their number, Brekya, who lounged in a padded chair. She had one hand across her brow while the other plucked restlessly at the fabric covering the chair, pulling wisps of lamb’s wool through a hole in the cloth.

With a shrug, Sukaro pushed the game-board aside and pulled out a stack of thin cards, each one painted with bright colours. He began to lay them out, plain faces upwards.

Rhia covered a yawn as the shutters rattled again. It was a drowsy sound, but not enough to lull her to sleep. There’d been little to do but sleep, and she’d had a glut of it. Instead, she found herself thinking of those she’d left behind. Even after all these weeks, she still felt the hot flush of resentment that Mira had ordered her into the company of strangers travelling into a land to which she’d vowed to herself she would never return.

Oh, she understood
why
Mira chose her to carry the message, but she still resented being forced to take part in this game of politics and war.
I don’t want to be here,
Rhia thought with a hot flush of anger.
I don’t want to hear that Isidro died at Kell’s hand, so far from the snow. I don’t want to hear Cam weep as he tells me the tale. And I don’t want to bring news of his son when I haven’t seen the lad in a month or more, and don’t even know if the babe still lives …

Then, through the rattling shutters and the moan of the wind, Rhia heard hoofbeats thudding through the mud.

At the table, Sukaro paused, and Brekya lifted her head. ‘Sounds like a messenger,’ she said.

‘Indeed. An important one,’ Sukaro said, ‘to be approaching at that pace.’

Karom grunted in reply. ‘The question is, will we learn of it?’

Sukaro smiled at that. ‘Just wait, lad.’

He never showed annoyance, Rhia noted, unless it served his purpose.

It didn’t take long. Not ten minutes later, Rhia heard footsteps coming along the path to the cottage door.

Swiftly, Karom and Brekya went to their assigned positions, Karom at Sukaro’s right shoulder and Brekya at Rhia’s back.

The door opened and Commander Tanric stepped in, shaking rain from his oiled wool coat.

‘Commander,’ Sukaro said, ‘so nice to see you. May I offer you something to drink?’

‘Thank you, emissary, but no.’ At first, Tanric had been confounded by his prisoner’s manner, but he’d adapted to it in time. ‘Your request for an audience with the king has been granted. We’ll set out at first light.’

Sukaro clapped his hands together. ‘Excellent news, commander. You have my gratitude. We’ll be ready to depart at your call.’

Tanric nodded, turning to Rhia and reaching inside his coat. At her shoulder, Rhia felt Brekya bristle. Had she cast a shield? All three of Makaio’s agents were mages.

Tanric produced a letter, sealed with a dab of wax. Still, Brekya did not relax until Tanric came close enough to press it into Rhia’s hand. ‘Miss Rhia, this came for you.’

Her name was written on the front in a familiar scrawl. She broke the seal and unfolded the letter with shaking hands, her eyes suddenly blurring with tears. Cam was her oldest friend, the one who had convinced her the world was not a hateful place populated by predators and the weak who were their prey. He was alive, he was nearby, he knew she was coming … and he’d take her home again, home to the life she’d made for herself.

Eyes swimming, she could make out nothing but the last line above where he’d signed his name, not the one his mother had given him but the one she knew him by, those three simple letters. It read,
see you soon.

Cam leant over the table, scowling down at the maps spread over the scarred wood. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Somehow we have to get these folk across the fens, which will be frozen for a few months yet, so we have some time … but once we get there, it will still be the tail of winter, and we won’t have tents or stoves fit for the snow, or sleds to haul our gear and supplies.

‘Otherwise, we wait until the seasons turn … only then everyone’ll be slogging through mud and snowmelt, carrying their gear instead of hauling it. Except by that point there won’t be much to carry, as we’ll have eaten through the supplies.

‘Either way, we’ll have to fight through the Akharians, who will be bedded in with ample defences and plenty of notice that we’re coming.’

‘I can deal with the Akharians,’ Sierra said.

‘I know, Sirri, but there’s only one of you, and still a lot of them.’

‘We need to find another way,’ Isidro said.

‘What other way?’ Cam growled, still glaring at the maps. ‘Negotiate? It could take years. I know they’re hurting from the loss of their harvest, but Akhara’s a big place, and they’ve got wealth enough to buy food from elsewhere. If they drag this out into summer, we’ll have gone from owning their richest land to starving in it. You know they’d rather destroy us than let us go home.’

‘If they try that, we’ll just head south,’ Sierra said, lounging in a chair with one foot on the battered table. ‘I’d wager they know it, too.’

‘It’d keep us from starving,’ Cam said, ‘but it’ll take us away from home. I don’t want to spend the next year roaming around this cursed continent while the Slavers dig in deeper in the north. We need to bring our folk home.’

‘We need to make contact with the Akharian leadership,’ Isidro said. ‘We want the north, they want us gone from their lands. Perhaps they can buy their way out of famine, for a time … but the war in Ricalan cost them dearly, and they’re feeling the bite of all we’ve done here. We can force them to parley.’

There was a noise from the next chamber and Cam turned towards it as a young lad stepped through the entrance and ducked his head in a bow. ‘Sir, the woman you sent for has arrived. She’s at the perimeter with Commander Tanric and the other prisoners, sir.’

‘The woman …?’ For a moment Cam was mystified. What woman had he sent for? Then, with a shock like one of Sierra’s bolts, he realised who the lad was talking about. He glanced around to Isidro, who was already rising to his feet. ‘You mean … Rhia?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Bring them here,’ Cam said. ‘Send a runner to tell Madame Delphine, as well.’

The lad bowed again. ‘Yessir,’ he said, and scrambled away.

Sierra exhaled in a rush of breath. ‘Are you sure it’s truly her?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Isidro murmured.

Cam nodded. ‘I think it is. The handwriting was hers, the turn of phrase, too. Tanric separated her from the others to write the message, so if she was under duress she could have told us … but the Gods only know what’s happened since we left. If the Akharians got hold of her, somehow … but as Issey says, we’ll soon know.’

‘Let’s go meet them,’ Isidro said, snagging his coat off the back of his chair.

Now that they owned the eastern edge of the empire, Cam’s army had broken into smaller chunks to forage and loot. A smaller contingent still travelled with the king’s household, aiming for a larger village to the east where they meant to decide on a strategy for the coming days.

They met the escort at the edge of the village and Cam felt himself grinning as he spotted a slight, tawny-haired figure amid the cluster of mounted folk.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Cam let Isidro draw him back. ‘There are mages among them,’ he murmured in Cam’s ear. ‘Stay close to Sirri, and let me look them over.’

He gritted his teeth in irritation, but Cam knew the sense in it — it wouldn’t be the first time the Akharians had sent assassins after him. He hooked his thumbs into his belt as Isidro went to meet the newcomers. ‘Is he shielded?’ he asked Sierra in an undertone.

‘Yes. I’ll back him up if need be,’ she replied in a murmur.

Tanric was at the head of the party, and Cam caught his eye and nodded in welcome. The three folk riding in the centre of the escort were all dark-skinned, except for the tawny-haired one he’d taken for Rhia. As the guards let Isidro through, she turned to him with a low cry, ‘Issey!’

‘Rhia? Fires Below, it truly is you!’

She flung herself down from the saddle, half laughing and half crying. ‘By all the Gods,’ she said in her accented Ricalani. ‘You’re alive! After everything we’d heard, I was afraid to hope!’

Cam started forward, but after half a step he felt the air around him grow as thick as treacle, and Sierra reached for his arm. ‘Stay back until we can see what the others will do,’ she said.

Suppressing a growl, Cam obeyed, and already Isidro was steering Rhia towards him. ‘No devices on her,’ he said to Sierra. ‘The others have a hoard of them, though, and they’re powerful mages to boot.’

As soon as she was within reach Cam threw his arms around Rhia. ‘Rhia, it’s good to see you! But what in the Fires Below are you doing here? Do you have word of Mira and the others?’

‘She’s well, they all are, Ardamon and the others. These folk are our allies, Cam. They’re Tomoans who gave us shelter after the Wolf Clan and Akharians hunted us out of Ricalan. Mira’s a guest of their king. She’s on a ship with his nephew, Prince Makaio, in the southern ocean. But that’s not all I have to tell you, Cam — you have a son. Mira delivered the little lad … oh, must be near two months ago now. He was strong and hale when I left them, and Mira, too.’

For a moment Cam was speechless. ‘I … what? How? She … no, it can’t have been that long … can it?’

At his side, Isidro was scanning the village street, and his gaze settled on someone approaching. ‘Long enough,’ he said, ‘especially if she was a little ahead of Delphine. Haven’t the midwives said her time is due soon?’

Cam looked up to see Delphine heading towards them. Rhia followed his gaze and her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Oh …’ she said, and then, ‘Oh!’ She turned to Isidro then, one eyebrow raised, and cut a glance at Sierra.

Cam felt rooted to the spot.
A son. Dear gods …

He’d known Mira hoped to have his child. The idea always made him smile — back in those days it had seemed certain he and Isidro had no more than a few years left before Severian’s men caught up with them, and it had given him comfort to think part of him would live on. Last winter, when the bonds between them grew deeper and Sierra’s power offered a hope he’d never dared feel before, he’d started to imagine what it would be like to live with the woman he loved, to have a real home, a family at last. Cam had vowed to be a father to Delphine’s little one if Isidro couldn’t … and though Isidro had healed a great deal, he wasn’t yet back to his old self. Still, he’d had months and months to think on that matter as he watched Delphine’s belly grow vast and round. Mira had gone through that same journey without him … the guilt hit him like a punch to the gut.

Rhia lay a hand on his arm. ‘Cam, all is well, I swear it. Mira has sent letters for you — for all of you. You’ll see her and the babe soon. Prince Makaio truly means to help.’

‘Help?’ Sierra said, her eyes hard and cold. ‘Why would he help us? What’s in it for him? From what I know of the world, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.’

‘Mm,’ Isidro murmured. ‘But if they have Mira and the others, we’ll play along until we get them back. Let’s find out what they want in return.’

Cam shook himself. ‘I want to hear everything, Rhia, but first, introduce me to your companions. Let’s hear what they have to say.’

He looked past her to the strangers, now dismounted and waiting patiently. The one Cam took for the leader was very tall, easily as tall as Isidro, with a scatter of silver at his temples.

As Cam started forward, the man made an elegant bow. ‘Do I have the honour of addressing Prince Cammarian of Ricalan?’

Cam caught himself short of a scowl. After all these years, the title seemed more a slur than an honour. But he was still the heir to Ricalan, whatever state the kingdom was currently in. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s me.’

‘Your grace, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Sukaro Galestril, and my master, Prince Makaio Jemacar Trestrail, beloved nephew of His Excellency, King of Tomoa, has sent me as his emissary. It is my master’s most earnest wish to reunite you with Lady Mirasada and your son, and, should you wish his assistance, to offer his service in the matter of returning your brave folk to your homeland and reclaiming Ricalan from the empire.’

For the second time in what felt like as many minutes, Cam felt like he’d taken a punch to the gut. ‘You … your master means to help us get home? How? Why?’

Sukaro made another small bow. ‘Forgive me, your grace, I am only a servant and cannot speak to my master’s plans. But I am instructed to tell you that he offers his services as mediator with the Akharians to find terms for a mutual, peaceful withdrawal and transfer from occupied lands. He also wishes to see you reunited with your kin as soon as it can be arranged. I have a letter from the prince outlining his proposal.’ At that, Sukaro reached into his coat to produce a document case set with polished stones. Cam felt Isidro go tense as the emissary opened it with a touch and withdrew a bundle of papers, sealed with a green cord and a splash of emerald-coloured wax. He offered it to Cam with a bow, and made no other expression as Sierra took it from his hands.