The Whitefire Crossing (28 page)

“You little fool!” Mikail’s voice was sharp as a slap. “Even in his worst rage, Ruslan would never kill you. But if you keep provoking him, you’ll drive him to destroy your will—is that what you want?”

“Better that, than living every moment with the knowledge Alisa died in agony because of me!” Kiran pounded a fist against a flagstone. Ward lines flared crimson with warning, and he snatched his hand back with a hiss of frustrated anger. “I’d thought I was so careful. But I must have slipped somehow, made a mistake. He’d never have known of her, otherwise. But I can’t think what I did, and it tears at me so badly I can hardly breathe—” His voice cracked, and he broke into a racking set of coughs, his throat burning.

Mikail stood silent, watching him. When he spoke again, his voice was so low it was barely audible. “You
were
careful. It was I who told Ruslan you had a
nathahlen
lover.”

“What?” Kiran’s ears buzzed with shock. Mikail had vowed his silence. Had covered for Kiran for years, without a single protest. Had always been the one Kiran could turn to for help, for protection.

“I thought your
nathahlen
girl a harmless infatuation that you’d outgrow. But years passed, and you only became more entangled. When you started to parrot her ridiculous ideas about the worth of
nathahlen
lives, I feared a simple case of childish rebellion might turn into something more dangerous.” Mikail shook his head, his eyes hooded and dark. “I was right. Look what’s come of this—it’s nearly destroyed you! I should never have waited so long. Better if I’d told Ruslan years ago.”

Horror combined with fury to darken Kiran’s vision. “You told him, knowing what he would do?” He shoved to his feet, his body trembling.

“I knew he’d put a stop to it. I didn’t know your reaction would be so...extreme.” Mikail wore the slight frown of one who had made a minor but annoying miscalculation in a spell exercise.

“You’re not even sorry...” Kiran whispered, staring at Mikail. His rage grew to a searing blaze so bright he could no longer contain it. Blind to everything else, he struck at his mage-brother with every ounce of magic born of fury and betrayal.

Only to collapse, gasping, as the wards encircling him blazed to life and reflected the strike in a burning backlash.

“You see?” Mikail said softly, as Kiran writhed in pain. “You’re no
nathahlen
. The sooner you accept that, the better.”

Kiran jerked his head off his knees. The dim light of morning filtered through cracks in the cabin walls. He must have slept, though he didn’t feel rested. Anguish and grief still lanced his heart, Mikail’s face alternating with Alisa’s in his mind. He forced the images away, and reached for the blindfold lying in a tangle at his side.

Distant but approaching, a heavy clomping of hooves. Kiran sprang to his feet, the blindfold dangling forgotten from a hand. Awful certainty gripped him. Dev had betrayed him, exactly as Kiran had feared, and now the Alathians had come to arrest him.

The maddening itch deep within checked his instinct to draw power. Ruslan would pounce on even the slightest opening; and if forced to the choice, Kiran would prefer captivity in Alathian hands to Ruslan’s.

Kiran hurried to the cabin door, braced to run for the forest in a last desperate bid for escape. But when he yanked the door open on squealing hinges, he saw not the uniformed Alathian riders he expected, but Dev, perched on the frontboard of a dilapidated wooden cart drawn by a sway-backed draft horse with a shaggy gray mane and legs thick as pine trunks.

Amazed, joyous relief sent Kiran racing across the clearing with an ear-to-ear grin. Dev had kept his word, and safety remained within Kiran’s grasp—it felt too good to be true. “You came back,” he blurted.

Dev swung down off the cart with a bemused grunt. “I said I would, didn’t I?” A fleeting, shadowed expression crossed his face. “Khalmet’s hand, you look like you spent all night fending off bears.” His eyes narrowed. “Turn and face the trees, not the cart. How close is Ruslan to breaking through?”

“The block yet holds,” Kiran said, hastily obeying. “But we shouldn’t delay.” He frowned, thinking of the cart behind him. It was far smaller than the convoy wagons had been, with low sides and large wheels. He didn’t see how he could remain hidden from the Alathian guards, let alone a mage.

“Turns out it’s Sulanians, not Alathians, who make the right drug for the task.” Dev held up a vial filled with an unpleasant-looking green paste. “Hennanwort. Word is, it’ll suppress your magic, no problem. But will it mess with that block of yours against Ruslan?”

Kiran traced a cautious finger down the vial. He sensed no magical residue; a drug for the body only, then. “Does it truly suppress magic, or merely a mage’s aura?”

Dev shrugged. “The herbalist I talked to wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. She said it’s grown by a religious sect in Sulania for their rituals. Apparently it distorts the senses for ordinary folk that take it, gives ’em weird visions the way gosha berries do. She said it alters the body’s flow of energies, whatever that means. I figure that’s good news for sneaking past wards. But she also said when mages take it, they can’t do magic while the effects last.”

“Magic is an act of will,” Kiran said. “Any drug that affects the mind’s ability to focus will interfere with active spellcasting.” He poked the vial again. To release barriers was also an act of will, even if sometimes driven by instinct. Everything he knew said a physical drug shouldn’t affect them...but then, he’d been wrong about the safety of drawing power by touch. “I think it’s safe, but I can’t be certain.”

“Why’d I know you’d say that?” Dev muttered, looking grim. “There’s a second part to this. I’m gonna fix up a hiding space for you within the driver’s box of the cart. You’ll be out of sight, but it won’t be soundproof. Which means you can’t make even the slightest noise.” He pulled out a second vial containing a dark, sludgy liquid.

“A large enough dose of yeleran leaf extract will put you in a deep sleep and slow your heart and breathing to the point a casual observer might think you dead. It’ll prevent you making any accidental noise, and it’ll make you doubly hard for the mage to detect.”

Kiran looked unhappily at the vial. He supposed he’d expected something of this nature, but it didn’t make the prospect any more appealing. The thought of being so completely helpless during the border crossing brought his fear of betrayal roaring back to life. Then again, perhaps he could ensure the hennanwort didn’t cause disaster—Ruslan couldn’t use the link if Kiran were so deeply unconscious. “Can you give me the hennanwort after I’m asleep?”

Dev shook his head. “That’s the thing—the herbalist said you’ve got to take the hennanwort first and wait for it to take effect before you can take the yeleran. Otherwise the hennanwort won’t get absorbed right.”

“There must be another way.” One in which he wouldn’t be so vulnerable.

Dev’s brows lowered. “You want to get through the border, or not? Trust me, I’m not thrilled about this either. But these drugs are the only way I know for a mage to pass that gate.”

After a long, silent struggle between competing fears, Kiran gave a reluctant nod. Though he’d had no more visions, the mental itch had swelled into a sharper, straining pull. The certainty of Ruslan’s triumph outweighed all other worries.

The sharp line between Dev’s brows eased. He pocketed the vials and thrust an armload of empty burlap sacks at Kiran. “Never mind that blindfold; better for us to pass the gate sooner than later, which means I need your help. I’m gonna work on the cart; you go somewhere out of sight of the clearing and fill these up with rocks. Any type, doesn’t matter, but aim for stones about the size of your fist.”

Kiran started off with the sacks, but called over his shoulder, “Why do we need rocks?”

“I’m playing prospector, so I need sacks of ore. Most ores don’t look like much until they’re refined, so those bastards at the gate won’t be able to tell the difference.”

The stony ground under the cinnabar pines yielded an abundance of loose rocks, but many were too large or too small to fit Dev’s criteria. Kiran scrambled about searching while a racket of hammering and sawing disturbed the cool morning air.

Sunlight slanted through the cinnabar trees to pool golden on the forest floor by the time Dev called for him to return. Kiran staggered back to the clearing with a laden sack gripped in his arms.

Sweat stained the back and sides of Dev’s shirt and piles of sawdust lay scattered on the matted pine needles, but when Kiran risked a quick glance at the cart, it looked no different. He said as much to Dev, diffidently.

“That’s kind of the idea,” Dev said. “No point in having a hidden compartment if it’s obvious. Here, take a quick look.” He handed Kiran up into the cart bed, and pointed at the boxy front section beneath the driver’s seat.

“Looks like a standard driver’s box, right?” Dev tapped the corner of a board sharply with his hammer. The back side of the driver’s box fell outward, revealing a dark rectangular space. “That’s where you’ll be.”

Dev pointed with the hammer at the forest. Kiran obediently turned to face the trees again. The hiding space hadn’t looked very big. “How will I breathe?”

“It’s not air tight,” Dev said. “That’s why you have to be so quiet.” He jumped down from the cart. Kiran followed, slowly. Now that the moment of truth was fast approaching, his nerves shrieked louder than ever. His imagination cast up one dismal scenario after another. The hennanwort, dissolving his barriers...Dev, handing him helpless to the Alathians...

Yet if Dev had intended to tell the Alathians, he’d surely have done so during his night in Kost, and returned with them in force rather than alone. Instead of focusing on fears, Kiran ought to consider the future after a successful border crossing.

“Once we reach Kost, you’ll take me to Gerran? Bren said Gerran would provide me the paperwork and supplies I need to travel onward.”

Dev jerked his head in a nod. “I’ll take you straight there. He’ll stash you someplace safe to sleep off the yeleran. And once you wake up—whatever Bren arranged, Gerran will do.” He spoke with an odd intensity that made Kiran wonder if Dev found it equally difficult to imagine a successful end to their journey.

Strange indeed, to think of traveling on without Dev as a guide. “When I wake up...will I see you, again?”

“No. I told you, once we cross, you’re on your own.” Dev’s clipped tone and dark expression reminded Kiran all too well of their conversation in the cave. Regret seized him with surprising strength. He hadn’t realized how badly he’d wanted Dev’s black opinion of him to improve. Kiran told himself it didn’t matter, not so long as Dev kept his word.

Besides, Dev’s brusque manner might be merely from nerves. His surely rivaled Kiran’s. After all, it was Dev who would die if Kiran was wrong about the hennanwort, and Dev who had to undergo the scrutiny of the guards and the mage at the border. Kiran was struck again by how much Dev was sacrificing and risking, to get him safely into Alathia.

“Dev. Um. I just wanted to say thank you. For everything.”

Dev shifted, uncomfortably. “I’m sure as hell not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.” He ran a hand over his face and turned away. “I’ll load up the sacks, and then we’ll go. Take a rest, and have something to eat. You won’t want to take the yeleran on an empty stomach.” Dev tossed a parcel to Kiran. “Got this in Kost for you.”

Kiran untied the parcel to find a loaf of spiced bread, a small tin of jam, and an almond pastry. His mouth watered with painful force. He hadn’t eaten anything since Dev had left the day before, too distracted by his fears. And before that, he’d had only jerky, hardtack, and dried fruit for days on end.

Dev flashed a wry grin as he strode past with another bulging sack. “Worst comes to worst, at least you’ll have had a proper meal, right?”

Kiran bit into the pastry. He tried to focus only on the sweetness bursting on his tongue. If these were his last minutes of freedom, he wanted to savor them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

(Dev)

I
let Kiran ride in the open cart bed until we were a quarter mile short of the settlement trail. When I pulled the cart to a halt, he stood with the grim intensity of a man waiting to be sentenced. I broke open the hennanwort vial and smeared the green gunk on a piece of seeded bread I’d saved. Khalmet’s hand, I couldn’t believe those crazy Sulanians ate hennanwort willingly. It looked like years-old mold and smelled like rancid oil. I handed the green-slimed bread chunk to Kiran, with a sympathetic grimace.

He stared at it long enough that I stirred, wondering if I ought to prompt him. But his mouth firmed, and he resolutely took a bite. “It doesn’t taste quite as bad as it smells,” he said, after a convulsive swallow.

“Thank Suliyya for small favors.” I handed him a waterskin. He forced down the rest of the bread, coughed, made a face, and hastily gulped from the waterskin.

My own throat felt dry as a sandflat. If Kiran was wrong, and the hennanwort let Ruslan through his protections...what would it feel like, to die the way Harken had?

Ruthlessly, I buried the thought. No going back now. I’d made my play, and the outcome was in Khalmet’s hands, not mine.

“How long until it takes effect?” Kiran was trying not to sound nervous, but his blue eyes were huge in his pale face, and his hands had locked in a death grip on the cart’s side.

“Shouldn’t be long.” Or so the herbalist had claimed. “Why don’t you get down and stretch your legs some while we wait?” Nothing for settling nerves like a little movement.

He scrambled off the cart and paced between cinnabar trees, his shoulders rigid as iron. I tied and re-tied idle knots in the reins, trying to ignore the rapid thudding of my heart.

Kiran stopped short and put a hand up to his head. “I feel dizzy.” He swayed on his feet. I jumped down and crossed to his side.

“Come back to the cart and sit down.” I reached for his arm, hesitated, then forced myself to take it. If Ruslan got hold of him, I’d die whether I was touching him or not.