North Star Guide Me Home (9 page)

Voices drifted across the rocks. Rasten flinched away from the sound, moving as though to duck around behind the shelter and out of sight, but then he stopped, tense and vibrating with the energy Delphine could sense beneath his skin.

When the other two came into sight, it took Delphine a moment to identify the burden slung across Cam’s shoulder — a naked woman, as limp and boneless as a discarded doll.

Both of them stopped, but after only a brief hesitation Cam came forward. ‘Delphi, get a blanket, please. Lay it out beside the shelter.’

Hastily she obeyed, grabbing a spare folded by Isidro’s feet. It was clean and soft, which seemed profoundly strange when there was not one thing in her packs that wasn’t stiff with sweat and coated in dust.

Cam set the woman down, and Delphine swiftly covered her, feeling herself flush on the poor girl’s behalf. She couldn’t imagine how she would feel if strangers had come upon her in such a state — but perhaps the poor soul had more pressing concerns.

‘Rasten,’ Sierra said. Her voice was soft, gentle, as though she was speaking to soothe a frightened beast. ‘What happened?’

‘By all the Gods, Sirri, do you even need to ask? Isn’t it obvious? He knows you won’t let him use you as he wishes, so he found another way to satisfy his cravings. Tigers take you,’ he snarled at Rasten. ‘You’re nothing more than a savage beast.’

Rasten took a step back, glancing from Cam to Sierra. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘Cam, hold your tongue,’ Sierra said.

He ignored her. ‘Isn’t it? Save your stinking breath, I don’t believe a word. Just couldn’t help yourself, could you? The moment Sirri left you alone you snatched the first woman you found and went right back to your old tricks —’

‘Shut up, Cam!’ Sierra snapped, and with her words Delphine felt her power swell in a thunderclap and a flash of light. ‘He didn’t rape her.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘Yes. I do.’ She cut him a hard glare, while Delphine felt power throb against her skin. At her feet, the girl seemed about to stir — she breathed a sigh, and shifted her head against the blanket. Delphine crouched down beside her, but the girl settled. ‘I’d feel it if he had,’ Sierra said, ‘or have you forgotten?’ She turned back to Rasten. ‘It’s alright, it’ll be alright. Just tell me what happened.’

Delphine saw a tremor ripple through his shoulders, and his hands trembled as he scrubbed them through his tangled hair. ‘I had to do it, Sirri. I
had
to. There was no other way.’

‘Had to do
what
? I don’t understand. Why would you do this
now
, when you’ve come so far?’

‘I had to! We’ll need her! There’s not … Sirri, there’s not enough! By all the Gods, I didn’t want to, but she … she …’

‘Fires Below, are you trying to tell us that she made you do it?’ Cam spat. ‘By the Black Sun, Sirri, he’s a mad dog —’

With a wordless snarl Rasten flung out his hand and a cord of fire burst from his fingers, moving as swiftly as a striking snake to wrap around Cam’s throat and choke his voice to silence.

‘Rasten, no!’ Sierra bunched a fist to strike him in the chest. It wasn’t much of a blow, but Rasten flinched away. Sierra followed him, shaking her fist. ‘Don’t you dare threaten my friends — don’t you DARE! Let him go, now!’

The choking band pulled Cam to his knees, and with a curse Delphine scrambled over the woman’s body and hurried to his side. She found Rasten’s gaze upon them, his eyes dark with fury and as wide as a madman’s. He held the strand of power a moment longer, and then with steady deliberation, he wound it back in. Cam drew a gasping breath and began to pant, hands at his reddened throat. Delphine wrapped an arm across his shoulders. ‘Cam, dearest,’ she murmured, ‘I think you’d best listen to the girl and shut your wretched mouth!’

Rasten backed away further as he looked around with wide, crazed eyes. Raised voices were coming from the makeshift camp, and Rasten flinched away.

Sierra drew a sharp breath and then raised her hands in a gesture of peace. ‘Alright. Rasten, it’s alright. We just need to calm down — let’s not scare these folk any more than we already have.’

Rasten shook his head. He was breathing hard, panting to match Cam. Delphine felt power pulsing within him, and where it skimmed against her it felt like a brush made of needles dragging over her skin. ‘No. No, Sirri, I can’t do this. Not now. I can’t.’

As he turned away Sierra started to reach after him, but she caught herself and pulled her hand back. ‘Rasten …’

He reached into his sash, and the air around him rippled, like heat rising from a fire. He vanished, leaving Sierra cursing on the rocks. ‘What in the Black Sun’s name?’

‘Camouflage enchantment,’ Cam croaked. ‘Issey had one when Kell captured him. The beast must have found it. Didn’t he tell you he had it?’

Sierra kicked at the rocks, and stalked back to the fire. ‘What in the Fires Below is wrong with you? Have you lost all your sense? When a grizzly bear threatens to charge you don’t go throwing rocks at it! Don’t you know what he is?’

‘I know perfectly well. I think you’re the one who’s forgotten, Sirri.’

‘Cam, he’s not a monster. He’s just broken. Broken and lost.’ She sat heavily beside the fire, and sank her head into her hands.

‘Sirri —’ he began, but Delphine squeezed his shoulder, hard.

‘Cam, let the poor girl be,’ she hissed. ‘Can’t you see she’s exhausted?’ She stood, a little unsteadily, for her own legs were trembling after the day’s exertions. ‘Now, how about a nice cup of tea. If we have any, that is, otherwise some hot water will do. Let’s just catch our breaths.’

‘We have some,’ Sierra said, her voice muffled. ‘I was saving it, for when we were all back together …’ Her breath hitched then, and Delphine had the sense she was fighting to keep from breaking into sobs.

Delphine nudged Cam with her foot and made a pointed nod towards the packs laid out on the far side of the fire. He returned her gaze with a sullen look, but then he heaved himself up.

While he busied himself searching for the packet of herbs, Delphine settled awkwardly beside Sierra, and offered her her last clean handkerchief. Sierra regarded it steadily before reaching for the square of cloth.

For months, Delphine had been thinking of the day she’d meet up again with the woman she couldn’t help but see as her rival. But this was not the same girl who’d stolen away from Demon’s Spire in the middle of the night. She’d grown harder and colder, tempered by battle and fire. But at the same time Delphine could see shades of that sweet-hearted girl clinging to her like mist. Perhaps she was Delphine’s rival for Isidro’s heart, but part of her saw only a lonely, exhausted young woman in need of mothering.

Sierra dabbed at her eyes, and crumpled the cloth in one grimy hand. ‘He … he wanted to leave that life behind. That’s what he said, and he’s never lied to me. Never.’

Across the fire, Cam lifted his head. Delphine caught his eye and curtly gestured him to silence. ‘It doesn’t mean he lied,’ she said. ‘People sometimes act against their best judgement, against what they truly want. People make mistakes. It doesn’t excuse what he did, but it doesn’t mean he lied.’

‘I thought he was doing better,’ Sierra said. ‘He … he was trying so hard.’ She caught Delphine’s gaze with hardened eyes. ‘You must think me a fool. One of those girls who defends a man who’s free with his fists, saying he only has a hot temper. I know what he is, I know better than most. I just … I thought he deserved a chance to show what he could be without Kell forcing his hand.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Delphine said. ‘He made his own choices. It’s just a blessing the girl isn’t hurt worse.’

Cam brought the bowls over and settled stiffly on the rocks beside them.

Sierra wrapped her hands around the bowl to take a slow sip of the tea, but then she twisted around to look at the girl. ‘I still … I can’t work out exactly what he did.’

‘That blood had to come from somewhere,’ Cam muttered.

‘But there’s not a scratch on her.’

Delphine turned as well, but after a moment her gaze drifted past her to the man beyond.

Exactly what gave her the idea, Delphine was never sure. She closed her eyes, hands still wrapped around the comforting warmth of the bowl, and when she opened them she let her gaze drift out of focus and reached into her store of power. It was very small, depleted by the exertions of the day, but it took little to open her mage-sight and see the currents of power in the bodies of those around her.

The young woman blazed like iron fresh from a forge. She glowed with energy tinted a deep and gory red, seeping from her like blood from a wound.

Delphine broke her mage-sight with a shake of her head. She set the bowl aside and scrambled towards the girl, crawling over the rattling stones.

‘What is it?’ Cam said. ‘Delphi, what’s the matter?’

‘I’ve seen this before,’ Delphine said. ‘I think … oh, dear Gods, what has he done? It shouldn’t be possible …’ But he’d done it before, hadn’t he? She’d seen the results first-hand.

Delphine laid her fingertips on the girl’s forehead. Then she placed her hands on the girl’s chest, beneath her collarbones. She could feel it now, a distant echo at the edge of her senses. Delphine was no Sympath, but her father had been, and she had enough kinship with that class to sense the power that fed them. The girl felt raw, burned — as though someone had sanded her skin away with coarse grit. She’d felt it before, but long after the fact, once the rawness had healed and only the lingering memory of the burns remained.

‘Delphine!’ Cam said, and she realised then that he’d said her name several times. ‘What is it?’

‘He’s burned her out,’ Delphine said. ‘It … it shouldn’t be possible.’ No, that was rubbish. She knew it was possible. This was why the Blood-Mages had a rule of never letting any subject with talent live after completing their rituals.

The girl stirred, shifting her head against the blanket. After a moment she raised her hands, trying to free them from the tangling folds of cloth.

‘Delphi, back up,’ Cam said. ‘She was a slave, she might not be pleased to wake and find an Akharian leaning over her.’

He was right. She hastily backed away, retreating to pick up her tea-bowl while Cam and Sierra huddled over the girl.

The girl moaned, a sound of such pain that Delphine winced in sympathy, but it was followed by a gasp, and an insubstantial stream of cool wind as Sierra drew the pain away with a touch. ‘Wh-who in the Fires Below are you?’ the girl said in Ricalani, her voice tinged with panic. ‘How did I get here?’

‘Someone attacked the slave train,’ Cam said. ‘He set you free. Don’t you remember?’

He and Sierra helped her sit up with the blanket around her shoulders, and Cam brought her a bowl of water, which she drank in heaving gulps. ‘I … I don’t remember,’ the girl said, frowning. ‘I escaped. I think we slipped away in the night. Some of us fled into the gorges, and I … I don’t remember what happened next.’ She drained the bowl, and when Cam took it from her to refill, she noticed the dried blood that streaked her hands. She gazed at them in horror, and then opened the blanket to look down at her naked form, striped with blood and dirt in equal parts. ‘What … what in the Black Sun’s name happened to me?’

‘You don’t remember at all?’ Cam said. ‘That may be for the best.’

‘But … whose blood is this? It can’t be mine, I’m not … I’m not bleeding …’ The girl shivered, her eyes darting around the camp. When her gaze fell on Delphine, she flinched.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ Sierra said. ‘Delphine’s one of us. You’re safe now. What’s your name?’

‘G-Greska,’ the girl said, still trembling.

‘I’m Sierra, and this is Cam.’ Greska reached for the bowl, and Sierra passed it to her. As the girl took it, her fingers brushed against Sierra’s and a rippling blue bolt of lightning sprang up between them, arcing between their hands like a dancing thread of light. The girl gasped and flinched back, but as she pulled away the bolt remained, twining around her fingers and flitting across her skin before slowly dying away. Greska stared at it, entranced. Only once it died away did she lift her gaze from her fingertips. ‘By the Black Sun …’ she whispered. ‘He did it.’

‘Rasten did this?’ Cam demanded. ‘Do you remember it?’

She flinched back from his name. ‘I … I don’t want to remember. Oh Gods, it hurt. I begged him to stop, but he just kept going.’ She flung up her arms and wrapped them around her head. ‘I thought I was being burned alive! Bright Sun, don’t ask me, please. I don’t want to remember!’

‘Hush,’ Sierra told her. ‘You don’t have to speak of it. Just lie down, take deep breaths. You’ll feel better once it’s not so raw. Close your eyes, and try to get some rest.’

Sierra slept. She drained her tea and then lay down on the sun-warmed rocks where she sat. Sheer exhaustion made them a comfortable bed.

When she woke it was dark and the stars were out. Someone had laid a blanket over her, and it smelled of horses and the yellow dust of the plains.

She lay there for some time, drifting between wakefulness and sleep. It was only when she heard footsteps moving across the rocks that she heaved herself up. Cam was coming towards her. In one hand, he held a cord with a glowing stone hanging from the end, and he carried a crude wooden plate bearing something that had a delicious scent.

‘Ah, you’re awake,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d sleep clear through ’til morning. Are you hungry?’

It was a piece of bark peeled from a tree, piled with slices of roast meat. Her mouth began watering at the sight of it.

He handed it to her and Sierra snatched up a slice, heedless of her still-dirty fingers. She offered the plate back to him, but he waved it away. ‘That’s for you. I realised you hadn’t had much to eat today.’

He took a seat beside her, scraping dusty hair back from his face.

‘Have the men you sent out returned?’ she asked.

Cam shook his head. ‘Not yet, but if things go well I wouldn’t expect them for a few hours.’

As she ate another slice, Sierra twisted around to glance at Isidro. ‘Has he roused at all?’