The White Dragon (19 page)

And Mirabar, he wondered with sudden, confused urgency. Was she safe? Was she even alive?
 

His mind reeled as all of his fears now assailed him. How long before news of Josarian's death spread through the mountains and into the lowlands? How soon would panic seize people? Would the Valdani honor their secret treaty with the Alliance and withdraw from Sileria now that Josarian was dead? Could Elelar convince them to abandon Shaljir before they discovered that Sileria was about to descend into the inferno of civil war?

Before they realize all they have to do is hold onto Shaljir long enough for us to destroy ourselves, and then—

"
Siran?
This wound..." Zarien lifted a saturated bandage away from Tansen's side. He vaguely realized that the cloth was what was left of the boy's tunic. The lad continued, "If my mother were here, I think she would cauterize it. So perhaps I should try to build a fire, and—"

"You can't cauterize it," Tansen interrupted, his vision swimming blackly. "It's a
shir
wound."

"An assassin did this to you?"

"No, a Valdan."

"I thought only assa—"

"It doesn't matter now."

"No."

With monumental effort, Tansen spoke again. "I want y—"

"But if we cauterized it—"

"
Shir
wound," Tansen repeated. He explained to the sea-born boy what any
shallah
knew. "Water magic. Put a hot poker to the wound, all you get is steam. Doesn't close or heal or stop bleeding."

"The winds take me." Zarien's voice came from very far away. "What do we do?"

"You've got to go—"

"Go? No!"

"Go to—"

"I can't leave you."

"Yes, you must. Go to—"

"No!"

He was too weak to argue. "Zarien..."

"No, I won't." The stubbornness Tansen heard in the boy's voice made his heart sink.

If assassins find you with me...

"I've come all this way to find you," Zarien said. "I won't let you out of my sight now."

This startled him enough to open his eyes. "Me?"

"I thought it was Josarian, but now I know it must be you."

"Me?" he repeated stupidly, falling through the dark night of death, barely able to hear the tattooed boy's desperate voice.

"Yes. Don't you see? You're the sea king!"

After three days of the Sister's care, Armian climbed out of the depths of his weakness and recovered with great speed.

However, he remained adamant about not going to Mount Darshon to embrace Dar.

"I've got to get to Shaljir," he told Tansen, in a voice which allowed no further debate.
 

Tansen had never been west of Darshon in his life, let alone as far away as the capital city. "I will take you back to Gamalan," he offered. "My grandfather will know what to do."

Armian decided not to wear his
jashar
while they traveled through Sileria. Both his mission and Tansen, he said, would be safer if no one recognized him. "So don't tell anyone. Understood?"

"No
, sira...
No, Armian," Tansen corrected himself, for the Firebringer had insisted he accept the privilege of using his name. "I will die to protect your secret!"

"You don't need to go that far," Armian said dryly. "Just use that blank-faced discretion the
shallaheen
are known for.
Lirtahar?"

"Yes." Tansen smiled, pleased that Armian was becoming more Silerian with every day he spent here.
"Lirtahar."

Armian let him look at the
shir
which had been concealed in one of his well-made boots the night he had washed ashore; but, of course, Tansen couldn't touch it. A
shir
could never harm its owner, which was why neither Armian nor any other assassin needed a sheath for his water-born dagger. If a
shir
belonged to you, you could even sleep with it tucked inside your clothes, its deadly blade as harmless as a kiss against your skin. However, just the whisper of its touch was terribly painful to anyone else. Even the waterlord who made a
shir
was vulnerable if the weapon was wielded against him. When Tansen tried to touch Armian's
shir,
it burned cruelly with the cold fire instilled in it by Kiloran, the great waterlord who had made it as a gift—a sign of trust, a mark of good faith—when Armian had been born to Harlon's woman.

"I've come to find him," Armian said.

"To find Kiloran?" Tansen breathed in awe.

"Yes."

"He lives in hiding, like all the waterlords, ever since the Valdani Emperor swore he would destroy the Honored Society in his lifetime." He bit his lip when he realized Armian would already know this, since his own father, Harlon, had died after battling the Outlookers for years.

"There are people who can help me find Kiloran," Armian said. "People who can make arrangements."

"In Shaljir?"

"It's called the Alliance. Have you ever heard of it?"

"No."

"Maybe your grandfather has."

"I don't think so, Armian."

"We'll ask him when we reach Gamalan."

"Yes, of course," said Tansen. "He will know the best way to reach Shaljir."

"Good."

And after Armian found Kiloran, Tansen thought, perhaps then he would go to Darshon.

It was late morning when Mirabar awoke, still groggy from the violent and restless night, but feeling considerably better than she had when Najdan and Rahilar had found her lying unconscious in the morning dew.

Just once, couldn't I have visions in my own bedroll?

With wakefulness came the weight of worry again. Where was Tansen? She knew he still hadn't arrived, because someone would have awakened her—

She sat bolt upright when heard the shrill whistle of a sentry. Someone was coming up the southern path, identity still unknown. The southern path—the way Tansen would come, journeying here from Chandar.

She leaped out of her worn bedroll, pulled on her shoes, and went outside. Lann was there, larger than life, his long Moorlander sword unsheathed as he waited in readiness for whatever would happen now. He was bearded, an unusual trait in Sileria, and now his head was wrapped in the bandage Rahilar had used on the injury he'd gotten while sleeping—of all things!—through the earthquake. He was from Emeldar, Josarian's native village, and had known Josarian his whole life. A boisterous, openly emotional man, he had wept piteously upon seeing the Firebringer die at the Zilar River. Lann always wept when his friends died.

"Someone is coming," Najdan said, trying to force Mirabar back into her cave.

She resisted, "Yes, I heard. It might be—"

"It might be anyone," he interrupted.

She was about to argue when another signal from the sentry riveted her attention. "A friend," she said, praying to Dar that it was Tansen.

Mirabar rushed across the clearing and to the edge of the plateau, then ran sure-footed down the path watched over by the sentries. She felt the sharp edge of something cutting across her inner senses and mistook it for excitement. Only when she rounded a bend in the steep trail and saw him did she realize it was sorcery, the echo of power she always sensed in his presence.

"Cheylan," she said in disappointment.

His handsome, aristocratic features were made all the more arresting by the fiery glow of his golden eyes. His long hair was braided in the intricate style of a
toren
. Like her, he wore the broach of a Guardian pinned to his tunic, a single flame in a circle of fire. But Cheylan had been born to a wealthy family, and so his was made of silver, whereas Mirabar's was only copper.

"Mirabar! I didn't know you'd be here."
 

He smiled and held out his hands, no doubt expecting a warm welcome. Though his hair was black rather than the fiery red of her own, he had the Dar-blessed—or Dar-cursed, depending on your point of view—fire-golden eyes which had once been common among the Guardians of Sileria long ago, before the Society had begun slaughtering them and encouraging others to do the same. A sign of the great power which was feared and persecuted by the Society, those eyes had made Cheylan, too, an outcast, despite his aristocratic birth and wealthy upbringing.

This similarity had created a common bond between the two of them when they met during the rebellion. It was even a source of attraction between them. Cheylan was the first man who had ever looked at Mirabar as a woman, rather than as a demon girl or a sorceress, and certainly the first who had ever touched her as a man touched a woman. She had tumbled willingly into the fiery warmth of the few stolen embraces they had shared.

So he seemed understandably perturbed when she brushed past him now without even a nod and gazed down the path behind him. "You came alone?" she asked, turning back to him.

He lifted a dark brow at her tone. "Yes."

"You saw no one else?"

"Such as?"

"Tansen."

"Ah." Cheylan studied her for a moment before saying, "Then he's not here? I thought he might be."

"Why?"

"I thought that mess lower down the mountain might have been his doing. But evidently—"

"What mess?" she pounced.

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"There are half a dozen assassins lying dead down there," said Cheylan. "All in one place. All killed with a sword. Or two swords, perhaps."

Mirabar's heart leaped with panic. "Fresh?"

"A day old, I'd say."

"Yesterday. He would have..." Her voice gave out for a moment. "He would have been there yesterday." She whirled and raced back up the path, heedless of Cheylan's puzzled voice behind her. "Najdan!" she called urgently. "
Najdan!"

He appeared,
shir
in hand, before she had finished crying his name a second time. His face darkened when he saw Cheylan, whom he didn't like, and he moved toward him with open menace. "What has he done t—"

"No, no," she said impatiently. "It's about Tansen."

The rebels crowded around her, full of questions. She made Cheylan repeat what he had just told her.

"You think Tansen walked into a trap?" Lann asked her.

"And survived," Mirabar said. "Cheylan didn't see his body."