Sunbolt (The Sunbolt Chronicles) (16 page)

“Awake?” he says without looking at me.
 

“Yes,” I respond, my voice scratchy.
 

“There is a stream below, if you need it.”
 

I sit up, pulling my knees to my chin, my gaze on the ground between us. I hadn’t really expected to wake up this morning.
 

“You,” I begin and stop. Perhaps I shouldn’t ask.

“Yes?”

I clear my throat. “Why did you help me?”
Why did you carry me when you could have taken my breath as your own?

I can feel his eyes on me, studying me. “I gave you my word.”

“You said otherwise when we were walking.”

He laughs, a quiet patter of amusement. “I was trying to frighten you. I needed you to walk as long as you could.”

Well, it had certainly worked. I drop a hand to the dirt, trace a circle in it. “You left that guard alive, too,” I finally say.

“I left him a few years,” Val admits. “Though I suspect Kol will take them from him anyhow.”

“He didn’t scream,” I say, my mind still on the fight.

“No.”

“Not like James.”

Val smiles. “Not like James,” he agrees. A chill creeps up my spine, runs cold fingers over my arms.
 

He sits up and draws his dagger. He begins to clean it with a scrap of cloth, his fingers moving in smooth, sure strokes. I watch him work, noting the line of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes. There is something left he means to say, and it has nothing to do with how James died. I could go down to the stream now, but he would be waiting for me when I returned. So I wait.
 

It doesn’t take him long. He shifts, turning the dagger over to inspect it, and says, “Your father was Rasheed Coldeye, Arch Mage of Falinor.”

“Before he died,” I agree. I wonder how he knows this, why a breather would care what rank a mage held. But I’m not about to ask.

“And your mother was a mage as well?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are trained.” The words are hard, his voice cold. He knows I lied to him in the tower, just as I have lied to anyone who has come near me. My whole life has been built on falsehoods, but each was rooted in truth. At least I can give him the truth behind this.

“I was never formally apprenticed. My parents … didn’t want that. So they taught me in secret, every night after their own apprentices left.” I lift a hand, then let it fall. “In the eyes of the High Council of Mages, I’m no more than a wild Promise.”

He studies me, weighing my words. “Why would your parents hide you?”

“I suppose,” I say slowly, “because they did not want me to learn to kill.”

For a long moment, his eyes hold mine.

“Do you not know what a breather’s gaze can do?” he asks abruptly.
 

“It’s a bit like a fang’s, isn’t it?”

“It is nothing like,” Val says, his voice soft. “A fang mesmerizes. He holds his victims still; if he is strong, he might beckon them closer, might leave them standing motionless after he turns away.”

I know this, have seen it happen far too recently to forget it. “And a breather?” I ask.

“If we wish, we can take your will, your thoughts, and shape them to our own.”

I shake my head as if to clear it. Surely I misunderstood. “You—
what?
”

“One of the guards at Kol’s fortress realized you were alive.”

“One—” I stumble, further confused.

“He knew you were alive,” Val repeats. “He saw something—an eyelid twitch, your pulse, I don’t know. But I took that thought from him before he could share it. I am not very strong just now, and there is a chance he’ll recover the memory soon, but it gave us enough time to get this far without being caught.”

I stare at him, wondering how what he claims can be possible. He stole a man’s memory—and not a faded one, half-forgotten beneath the weight of newer experiences, but a critical discovery of a moment before.
 

“No wonder mages hate breathers,” I murmur.

Val tilts his head, as if he cannot quite follow me. Perhaps it is the wrong reaction, but his words help me fit together the pieces of an old puzzle, one I’d almost forgotten about: the true reason for the deep hatred between mages and breathers.
 

The High Council was formed to regulate the use of magic in the aftermath of the Great Burning—a terrifying war in which mages unleashed calamity upon calamity on the Kingdoms as factions fought for supremacy. To the High Council, control is everything. “You could look a mage in the eye and control him, couldn’t you? You could take his will from him, use him as you wish. And that would be …”

“Any more terrible than a man without morals or conscience becoming a mage?”

I laugh, the sound startled out of me before I can help it. “Perhaps not. But certainly a terrifying prospect to the average mage, used to being his own master.”

“To
anyone
,
” Val says, enunciating his words carefully, “used to being her own master.”

I’d have to be an idiot not to understand his warning. But I don’t know how to respond. For some reason, I don’t want to be the one to look away from him. He hasn’t used his breather’s gaze on me yet, and he didn’t just warn because he intends to betray my trust. It’s that he doesn’t want my trust. Too bad for him.

Shaking his head, Val returns his attention to his dagger.
 

I push myself to my feet. “I’m going to see about that stream,” I say, my words suddenly awkward. He doesn’t respond.

Our cave is set in a sandy bluff that rises above the stream. The opposite side is wooded, the trees tall and lovely. They are mostly bare now, their branches sweeping the sky in elegant curves. Interspersed among their ranks stand solitary pines, showing tall but heavyset, sheathed in their armor of needles. The moon hangs low; dawn brightens the far reaches of the horizon.
 

I kneel at the stream bank and drink until my head spins. Then I shove my sleeves past my elbows, washing as much of my arms as I can as well as my face and neck. I scrub hard, trying not to think about the dead woman’s blood that may still be dried on me. Once I’m satisfied, I push myself to my feet, ignoring the ache in my legs. Now that I’ve quenched my thirst, I find that I’m hungry as well. Today promises another long trek, not something I’m looking forward to on an empty stomach.

I glance around hopefully, assessing the nearby bushes. Perhaps I can find some late berries along the banks, or a handful of nuts. I start forward, stretching out the kinks in my legs and back as I walk. I’m not quite sure what I’m seeking. I’ve never picked my own berries or foraged in a forest, but surely it can’t be that hard? And if it comes to that, I can whistle a question to the birds.
 

Fifty paces on, I come to a bush heavy with blue-black berries. I kneel beside it, studying the fruit uncertainly. I know that some varieties are poisonous, but how does one tell them apart? Plucking a particularly plump one, I roll it between my fingers, then pick it apart and smell it. It bleeds a sweet-scented black juice over the tips of my fingers.
 

Nearby, a dog growls.
 

I look up, the berry dropping to the ground. Further downstream on the opposite bank, four dogs crouch, their teeth bared. Behind them, holding tight to their leads, stands a guard. He doesn’t move, his eyes scanning the low bushes and sparse tree cover. Four soldiers ride up behind him, and then I see more behind them.
 

The man’s eyes meet mine. “There!” he shouts.
 

I bolt, the sound of shouts and the thunder of hooves echoing in my ears. If I can just reach Val before they catch me—then what? They’ll kill him, too. He might be able to stop three or four, but a dozen?
 

I swerve away even as I see him crouched at the mouth of the cave, his dark
eyes watching me. I splash through the streambed and plunge into the forest, weaving through the trees. A horse pounds past me, and I skid to the side, trying to avoid it. A boot catches me from behind, throwing me forward. I sprawl on my hands and knees.
 

I blink to clear my eyes, stumbling to my feet as the horses surround me. They snort and stamp at the ground, reined in tight by their riders. I swallow hard, turning to face their leader, and find Kol’s blue-eyed gaze trained on me.
 

“You just don’t want to die, do you?” he says, and though he appears calm, his words are steeped in fear and fury. I keep my eyes on his shoulder. “How is it Val let you go?”

I shake my head. He drops from the saddle, sauntering over to me with predatory intent. Every instinct I have screams at me to run, but I’ve already tried that. I won’t give him the satisfaction of chasing me the three paces it will take him to bring me down on foot.
 

My breath rattles in my lungs. Kol comes closer and closer, until he towers over me. I stare straight ahead at his chest. He bends his face down and murmurs in my ear, “Perhaps I should have kept you for myself.”

I jerk back. He laughs, his hands closing on my arms, and then he twists my right arm behind me. My back arches, and it is all I can do to keep from baring my neck to him. I clench my eyes shut.
 

“Do you think you can fight me?” His long-fingered hand tightens its hold on my right arm and then—tearing pain. My body spasms, a ragged cry spilling from my lips. His eyes pin me, horrific in their blueness.
 

“Where is he?”

I fight the hypnotic power of his gaze, knowing what he is, what he will do to me. To Val. “Gone,” I spit.
 

His eyes narrow. I can feel my senses slipping, the wider reality of horses and armed men fading into an indistinct blur. There is only the overwhelming truth of his eyes. “Liar,” he says lovingly. “How did you two escape?”

Liar
, I think back at him, hating this: the deep wide calm of his eyes, the sweetness they promise. I twist in his grip, welcoming the pain that washes through me, giving me some focus other than his eyes.
 

I give him the simplest truth I have. “I picked the locks.”

He throws his head back with a shout of laughter. The horses shy away in alarm. He tosses me down, and as I land his boot drives into my stomach. I curl around it, hearing myself scream. Darkness edges my vision. His boot drives into me again and again, and then he is crouching over me, yanking my head up by my hair.

“Where is he?” Kol roars. I have no breath to answer him with. “
Where is he?
”

“We … parted,” I wheeze. “Last night.”

“The dogs were following his scent,” Kol says. “He’s still here somewhere.”

“They must have … followed mine.” I close my eyes, trying to think. He transfers his grip to my throat, lifting me to my knees. His face is perilously close.

“Where is he?” His fingers tighten around my throat.

“I don’t know!” I choke out. “We parted. I kept walking till I came to the stream. My scent,” I cry as his grip turns vicious, “it must be stronger than his.”

He drops me. I lie on the ground, watching the way the dead leaves stir in the faint breeze. The horses move, breaking the ring that circles me. Kol’s hand reaches down and closes on my shoulder, lifting me up as easily as if he plucks a flower. He drops me over his saddlebow, my head knocking against his knee. The saddle bites into my stomach. I turn my face away, vomiting water over the horse’s leg.
 

I don’t know how long we ride. I know only the digging of the saddle into my stomach, the shrieking pain of my arm as it swings against the horse’s flank. Finally, Kol lifts me, turning my head to face the trail. He has pulled up the hood of his cloak, and donned thick gloves against the burgeoning sunlight. He is well prepared to stay out, which means I can’t hope for him to take shelter any time soon.
 

“You left him how far from here?”

“I … don’t know.” I stare at the path blankly. I had slept through this part of the journey. I have no landmarks to describe to Kol.

“Do you think if I take a sip or two from you, you might remember?”
 

“I don’t know!”

“Let’s try,” he suggests, turning my head towards him. He smiles, his fangs bared.

“If the girl says she doesn’t know, then she probably doesn’t,” a voice says from behind us. Kol drops me and wheels his horse around.
 

I manage to break my fall, landing hard on my knees and my good arm. My other arm hangs uselessly from my shoulder.
 

“Val,” Kol says, his voice strangely uncertain.
 

Mounted on horseback, Val appears completely at ease, one hand holding the reins, the other resting on his thigh. His horse, a sleek gray mare, waits patiently where he has stopped her, a good twenty paces back.
 

His horse? I look around and count only six of the guards that came with Kol. I blink, count again, wondering if the pain has affected my vision. Hadn’t there been near a dozen?

The two closest to Val shout and charge him. His horse rears. He yanks the reins, turning the mare in time to bring his sword around. It flickers like a ghost, something there and gone, passing between the soldier’s helmet and chain vest. The man flies from his saddle, blood spurting from his throat. Val meets the other soldier head on, kneeing his horse forward. His dagger flashes, deflecting the guard’s blow as his sword plunges into the man’s midriff. His movements are swift and lethally precise. The second guard slides sideways off his horse with a shriek, landing on his back with a sickening thud.
 

The remaining guards back their mounts away, glancing wide-eyed towards Kol. I wonder if they recognize the horse Val rides as one of their own, stolen from a fallen comrade. He wears the clothes he had taken last night, though he has foregone the helmet. His hair hangs down in a thick, dark mane, his eyes flashing in the growing light. They are not quite as dark as I remember. Nor does he look as old as he was.

“Waste of blood,” Kol observes.