The Whitefire Crossing (12 page)

Dev shoved away from the wagon. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” he growled, and advanced on Pello.

Cara sprang to her feet. “Enough!” She pointed at Dev. “You, back off. I’ll have no fighting here.” Dev grimaced and slouched back against the wagon. Cara turned to Pello. “You, out. I didn’t invite you to our fire so you could provoke my riders.”

“My apologies if I offended.” Pello dipped in an ironic bow. “I’ll leave you to your dinner.” He vanished into the darkness.

Cara broke the awkward silence. “Whatever bad blood’s between you and Pello, Dev, that’s the last I want to see of it on this trip.”

Dev didn’t answer. He was scowling after Pello, but to Kiran’s surprise, his eyes looked more thoughtful than angry. Kiran nudged him.

Dev blinked and bared his teeth in a grin at Cara. “I’ll keep out of his way, if you keep him out of mine.”

“Food’s ready,” Harken announced, leaning over to look in the pot. Kiran wasn’t the only one who let out a sigh of relief. As Jerik set out bowls and Harken ladled portions, Kiran edged closer to Dev. Under the rattling of Harken’s spoon in the pot, he whispered, “Why did—”

“Later,” Dev muttered sharply. Kiran sat back in frustration. Later, when? Dev had warned him earlier the other tarps would be too close that night for safe conversation.

Cara handed round the filled bowls. When Dev took his, she leaned down and spoke quietly. “If that little sand adder ripped her fangs out of you, I get you’re still working out the poison. Must be tough, leaving someone after so long. But for Khalmet’s sake, don’t fuck up the rest of your life over it.”

For a moment, Dev looked weary beyond bearing. Then his face smoothed out, all expression vanishing. “Are we scouting tomorrow morning?” he asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Cara shook her head and muttered something under her breath. She raised her own voice. “Yeah. First thing, too, so nobody stay out too late.” She glanced at Kiran. “Kid, you’ll join us. We’ll be scouting avalanche conditions before the convoy crosses Broken Hand Pass—one of the most important parts of the job. You stick close to Dev tomorrow and pay attention.”

As Cara retreated to the far side of the fire, Dev whispered, “Wait for the scout.”

Kiran nodded, grudgingly. If Dev thought it necessary to be so cautious, Kiran would choke back his questions until morning. But he didn’t see why they couldn’t simply return to the stream and depend on the noise of the water to cover their conversation. Perhaps Dev thought Pello would anticipate such a move, and follow them? Kiran stabbed his spoon into his bowl. For the hundredth time, he regretted the necessity to hold his barriers. Without them, he’d sense Pello’s presence no matter how well he hid, the man’s living
ikilhia
energy burning bright as magefire flame in Kiran’s inner sight. As it was, he could hardly feel the flicker of Dev’s
ikilhia
, and Dev was sitting right beside him.

No one seemed eager to restart the conversation. Spoons scraped bowls, punctuating the rush of the stream in the distance. Kiran ate mechanically, barely tasting Harken’s concoction. Cara’s soft words echoed in his ears:
Must be tough, leaving someone after so long.
The truth of it intensified the ache in his heart. He’d spent his entire life with Ruslan and Mikail. Despite the horror of Ruslan’s true nature, and Mikail’s betrayal...a part of him missed them, badly. Childhood memories ran through his head, bright as sunlight. He bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. The life he remembered was nothing more than a lie.

CHAPTER SIX

(Dev)

I
sat cross-legged on a flat topped chunk of talus and soaked in the view. Below me sprawled the broad rock strewn basin at the head of the canyon. Dawn’s light painted the surrounding peaks a vivid gold and softened the contours of the icy snowfields that spilled from their heights. To the west, between two rugged peaks lay the saddle of Broken Hand Pass, blown clear of snow by the high winds of spring. Out eastward, beyond the jagged pinnacles surrounding the deep gash of Silverlode canyon, the pale white rock of the ridges dwindled into steep gray and brown slopes and leveled out in the low sandy expanse of the Painted Valley. Ninavel was visible on the desert plain, tiny and toy-like at this distance, the firefly radiance of magelights sparkling in the valley’s shadow. The splendor of the scene and the bite of the chill morning air helped to clear the cobwebs from my head.

Gods, I was tired. Though Kiran looked far worse. I eyed him as he struggled over the wagon-sized boulder below mine, his chest heaving in great gasps. Bluish circles stained the skin beneath his eyes, and his cheekbones stood out sharp as the ridgeline above us.

After all the yelling and thrashing he’d done in his sleep last night, I thought it a miracle he had the energy to walk at all. Tonight I meant to go buy some yeleran leaf extract off Merryn, the convoy’s healer. If Kiran refused to swallow it, by Khalmet, I’d pour it down his throat. Yeleran would knock him out for sure, and gain us both some much-needed sleep.

Kiran collapsed beside me with a groan. “
Now
can we talk?” he panted.

I turned to check on Cara and Jerik. High above on the slope, two dark forms squatted on the outflung arm of a snowfield. Sun winked off metal as they swung their ice axes. I had to admit, this apprentice thing had its benefits. Without Kiran, I’d be up there chopping a pit deep enough to check layers in snow still frozen from the cold of night. But Kiran couldn’t match our pace on talus, even when he wasn’t dragging from lack of sleep, and Cara had given me leave to hang back and watch out for him. Of course, I’d had to promise that I’d do all the heavy work on the next snow pit, when the sun would be high enough I’d be sweating like a rock bear on a sand flat.

“Yeah, we can talk,” I told Kiran. “So long as you keep your voice down. Sound carries more than you’d think up here.”

Kiran didn’t waste another second. He blurted, “Pello was angry with you—did you search his wagon? If so, why would you do that? You can’t have found his wards without the carcabon stone. Now he’ll be suspicious of you, so how can you get to his charm? If he tells the Alathians about us—”

“Whoa, hold on! Take a breath before you pass out.”

He sucked in a huge draught of air, and promptly doubled over in a coughing fit. I thumped him on the back and handed him a waterskin.

“Yeah, I searched Pello’s wagon while he was working the rockfall. For two reasons. First, imagine you’re Pello, and you come back and realize someone’s pawed through the very place where you’ve hidden a warded charm stash. What’s your first move?”

Kiran blinked at me, still red-faced. “I’d...make sure the wards remained intact and none of the charms had been taken.”

“So, Pello checks his charms, finds them all still there, and then reactivates his wards. Which means they’re nice and fresh and fully powered.”

Kiran’s mouth rounded into an “oh” of understanding. “A recently activated ward should react more strongly to the look-away charm.”

“Exactly.” Even with the carcabon to boost it, the look-away was such a minor charm that I wasn’t entirely sure it could flash the ward. I wanted all the advantage I could get.

“What was your second reason, then?”

“Insurance, in case the carcabon’s not enough to find his stash. A man’s reaction to a threat can tell you a lot about what he’s protecting. You saw how he tried to twist my tail after I poked him about the Alathians. If he only carried personal charms, he would’ve been a hell of a lot more subtle about his warning. Nope, he’s carrying contraband meant for profit. Good news: it means he’s got to keep clear of the Alathians, same as us. Better yet, now he knows that if he sells me out to the border guards, I’ll happily return the favor the instant they put me under truth spell.”

Kiran pulled off his woolen cap. He turned it over in his hands, thoughtfully. A tiny, dry smile pulled at his mouth. “What did he learn from your reaction?”

I snorted. “Nothing he didn’t know already.” Hell, Pello’d even done me a good turn. Now that Cara thought I’d climbed Kinslayer out of some misguided desire to lift my mood after Jylla, she might thaw a bit. Much as I hated the prospect of her lecturing me all the way to Kost, that had to be better than frozen, awkward silence.

The only part that bothered me was how Pello knew a bit too much about me and Jylla for a man who hailed from Gitailan district, not Acaltar. He must’ve checked up on me before the convoy left Ninavel. Maybe he’d only done it out of a shadow man’s natural caution, since he knew I worked the route as Bren’s courier. Or maybe it was a clue he really had signed on to sniff out our plans. All the more reason to take care of that damn message charm.

As if reading my thoughts, Kiran said, “But what about the message charm? Won’t he be even more careful, now?”

“Probably.” Too bad Pello wasn’t the sort of man who’d assume himself safe after an apparent failure on my part to cross his wards. “But he’s on repair crew again day after tomorrow. Past Broken Hand Pass, the trail will need a lot of work; and Goranant House’s lead stonemason owes me a favor. I’ll get Gaven to claim Pello for rocksplitting duty—that should keep him away from the convoy long enough for me to flash and break his wards.”

“Two days...” Kiran’s fingers dug into the wool of his cap. “Isn’t there a way you can search sooner?”

“Not a good way,” I said.

Kiran’s head tilted. “But there
is
another way.”

Yeah, there was. One I’d considered during my sleepless night, and rejected as too dangerous. “Trust me, safest to wait for his next work shift.”

Kiran gave me an urgent, pleading look. “Two days is too long! If you have another option, at least tell me what it is.”

No question he was scared shitless of that enemy of his in Ninavel. I sighed. “Fine. What’s the one thing guaranteed to pry Pello away from his wagon and hold his attention?” I poked Kiran’s shoulder. “You. If he saw you wander off alone, he’d slink right after you, in hopes of cornering you into a conversation.”

Kiran brightened. “So I would draw him away, while you disabled the charm...what’s wrong with that idea?”

I scowled at him. “Shadow men are clever bastards. The moment you open your mouth, Pello will mark you for a highsider. And the longer you talk, the more he’ll learn. He’ll twist the conversation on you, make you reveal things without even realizing it. It’s too risky.”

“I’ll answer him with nods and shrugs. He can’t learn much from that.” Eager determination shone in Kiran’s eyes. “If he can’t send any messages, and he’s wary of Alathian interest...then even if he does realize I’m not from a lower district, the harm should be minimal.”

Yeah, right. Kiran had no idea of a shadow man’s wiles. Then again, a full inventory of Pello’s contraband in my hands would go far towards ensuring his silence. And if Kiran’s fear of his mystery enemy back in Ninavel was so strong he jumped at the chance to play bait, that was a warning I shouldn’t ignore.

I’d scouted Pello’s wagon already, which saved me time. Assuming the carcabon could boost the look-away enough, I figured on twenty minutes to flash and break his wards, disable the charm, and cover my tracks. Pello could find out far too much in twenty minutes. Unless...maybe I could arrange it so he’d waste time chasing Kiran down, first. Make sure the conversation was so short Kiran might have a chance of keeping his mouth shut. I thought for a moment, then fixed Kiran with a forbidding stare.

“You want me to disable that charm so bad, then listen close. If we cross the pass today, we’ll camp at Ice Lake tonight. Nobody’ll think it odd for a city boy like you to run straight to the lake the instant you’re done with chores. If you go alone, Pello’s sure to follow. You keep moving around the lake, and stay ahead of him best as you can. When he does catch up, no matter what he says, you keep your mouth shut, hear me?”

Kiran nodded, emphatically. “That won’t be a problem.”

“I’ll come interrupt the moment I’m done with his wagon. If he starts pushing you too hard before then, then you leave, straight off. Don’t worry about holding him there.” Even if Kiran never said a word, Pello would read in his body language that he had something to hide—but he’d surely guessed that already.

“If you can disable that charm tonight, the risk is worthwhile,” Kiran said softly.

“I hope so,” I muttered. If he was wrong, I knew who’d have to handle the mess.

Cara and Jerik had left the snow pit and begun kicking their way up the snow slope, toward the broken rock tower resembling a man’s upright hand that gave the pass its name. The summit of the Hand would give us an excellent view of the avalanche chutes beyond the pass. If we ever reached it.

“We gotta get moving,” I told Kiran. “Snow climbing’s easy to learn, but it’s exhausting work.”

A hint of the same fascination he’d shown at the stream joined the determination in his eyes. “Snow...does it truly freeze your skin if you touch it barehanded, like the stories say?

“You’re about to find out.”

***

Cara clapped when I helped Kiran onto the tilted blocks of stone forming the Hand’s broad summit. “Congratulations, kid.” She gave him a companionable whack on the back that nearly knocked him to his knees. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it, after all your hollering last night. Did you decide the mountains were too quiet?”

I suppressed a sigh. I hadn’t realized how much I’d miss Cara’s cheerful mockery until none of it was directed at me. Even if Pello’s tale-telling had spared me any more icy glares, the laughter still died out of her eyes whenever she glanced my way.

For once, Kiran didn’t stiffen or blush at her teasing. He probably hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He was gaping with eyes wide as kenet coins at the frozen sea of sharp peaks that stretched to the horizon. Immediately in front of us, the rock slabs dropped away in a thousand-foot cliff to another barren high basin full of boulders and snow. Once we crossed Broken Hand Pass, we’d have several days travel over an alpine plateau full of sharp ridges, subpeaks, and cirques before the trail plunged into the deep trench of Garnet Canyon and then made the long climb up the canyon’s western wall to Arathel Pass. Beyond Arathel Pass waited the heavily forested western slopes of the Whitefires, and eventually, the Alathian border
.