The Whitefire Crossing (38 page)

So long as he didn’t realize he’d been marked. I squinted at Pello, searching for any sign of wariness or suspicion.

None showed. He only laughed at Cara’s apology, shook his head in wry dismissal at her attempt to blot his jacket, and with a flourish offered her a waterskin. She drank, said something, and they both laughed. He moved closer, laid a hand on her arm, murmured in her ear.

Come on, Cara, get rid of him. Gods knew she had plenty of practice in gracefully fending off eager suitors.

Cara raised her hand to his face. Leaned in, and kissed him. I nearly bit through my tongue. What the fuck did she think she was doing? This was no part of our plan.

The kiss deepened, lingered. She stroked a hand through his curls, while his hands slid down her back, pressing her close against him. I resisted the urge to rip off a shingle and hurl it at the window. Gods all damn it, Pello wasn’t some gullible trader. Jylla might’ve fooled a shadow man with a honey trap, but Cara? He’d see right through her if she kept this up. I lifted to a crouch, ready to rush over at the first sign of trouble.

Cara broke the kiss and pulled away. He moved to draw her back, but she put a hand on his chest and spoke, her expression teasing but regretful. Pello traced a finger down her cheek, his brows angled in appeal as he spoke. She replied, firmly. He made a rueful face, and inclined his head. He laced on his boots, collected his dampened coat, and let her usher him out.

Shit. He was too good an actor for me to tell at this distance if she’d roused his suspicion. Though I didn’t think it was a good sign he’d agreed to leave so easily. If he’d marked her, his first move would be to pull back to observe from a distance.

Cara locked and warded the door. She snatched up the
hekavi
bottle and downed a healthy mouthful, this time without coughing, then spat in the washbasin. After a glance out the window in my direction, she moved out of my line of sight. I counted out minutes, my teeth clenched. I didn’t dare rush straight to her room, in case Pello tried coming back. We’d agreed I’d give the bastard a good hour to clear the area. After that kiss, doubly important to make sure he didn’t spot me sneaking in for a visit.

Finally, Cara reappeared and swung open her window. I skulked across the roof and made a full survey of all possible vantage points before I slung myself down and in.

She beamed at me in pleased satisfaction. “Not bad for a first timer, huh?”

I rammed home the latch and jerked the curtains shut. “What the fuck were you playing at with that kiss? He’s a shadow man, for Khalmet’s sake! They know how to mark a honey trap. He’d have read you didn’t mean it.”

“Who said I didn’t? Spy or no, he’s not bad looking. Those bedroom eyes, and that tight ass...” She burst into laughter, as outrage blocked my tongue. “Oh, gods, you should see the look on your face. Relax, all right? I figured one kiss was worth this...” Triumphantly, she held out a hand. Wound around her fingers were a few dark curls of hair. “A little insurance, in case he dumps the jacket.”

Clever, yeah, but verging on too clever. I picked the hairs free with a growl. “If he marked what you did, he’ll shadow you to learn your game. You’re supposed to be switching off shifts with me in that cursed drain hole to watch Simon’s house, remember? If he shadows you there, we’re fucked.”

Cara’s eyes widened, but she shook her head. “He didn’t notice, I’m sure of it.”

“Yet he hardly protested when you shoved him right out the door, after.”

“I told him drink had crossed my judgment, but much as I enjoyed the lapse, I had to hold to my rule. No dallying with convoy men, so my head stays clear on jobs.”

I nodded, grudgingly. Cara’s rule was well known amongst Ninavel drovers and outriders. If Pello asked around, he’d get confirmation. “Got a strip of cloth I can use?”

Cara dug in her pack and handed me a threadbare square of linen covered in old, yellowed salve stains. I rolled the hairs in the linen and tucked the packet away in an inner pocket. “You might think he didn’t notice, but we’ll have to—”

A rap on the door silenced me. We stared at each other. I mouthed, “Stall them,” and rushed to the window. Damn it, not only did the latch squeak like an angry hopmouse, now it’d stuck shut. I’d have to ease it free. I squeezed a fingertip between the metal edges and tugged, keeping one eye on the door.

“Who’s there?” Cara called.

Faint and muffled came the very voice I’d feared. “Pello. I apologize for the lateness of the hour—I’d thought to leave a message, but I saw your light...” The doorhandle rattled. A ghostly flicker raced over the lock, so fast and faint most wouldn’t notice. Gods all damn it, the lock wouldn’t hold against a snap-charm, but the ward should—

The door ward spat a few sparks, then darkened. Shaikar take the Alathians and their half-assed wards! I hammered open the window latch, uncaring of the noise.

The door cracked open. Pello peeked around, still talking. “...was wondering if—” He stopped short, his eyes widening.

Fuck! I might escape if I ran now, but Cara never would. I aborted my reach for the window ledge, and turned to face Pello. Behind my back, I eased a hand toward my belt. My boneshatter charm was powerful enough to trigger the detection spells and bring the Council’s mages running. If that was the only way left to protect Cara and stop Simon, I’d do it, no matter the cost for me and Kiran.

Cara strode to the door and yanked it all the way open. “Thank Khalmet,” she announced to Pello. “Get in here and help me get rid of this asshole.” She turned a vicious glare on me. “Fuck if I’ll give you your job back, you sneaking, lying little gutter rat! After what you brought down on the convoy, I’ll see you in Shaikar’s darkest hell first.”

Damn, not bad. I folded my arms and scowled right back. “If you’d just fucking listen! Kellan was a mage, and he cast against me, before we ever left Ninavel! I had no choice but to help him!”

Pello’s eyes darted between the two of us. The surprise on his face was now only a mask, but I couldn’t tell what thoughts lurked beneath.

Cara stomped toward me. “You think I’ll believe one word out of your lying mouth? Go on, crawl back out before I throw you!” She stabbed a finger at the open window. Her pale eyes locked on mine, full of urgency.

I couldn’t leave, not without some sign of Pello’s intent. She’d stand no chance against him if he decided to strike her down and drag her back to Simon. “The hell I will,” I told her. “That bastard Kellan made me abandon you and the convoy. I won’t leave until you understand I won’t ever do it again.”

Cara grimaced in very real frustration. “I said, get out!”

I was so busy concentrating on Pello that her rough shove caught me by surprise. I overbalanced, caught my heel on a loose floorboard, fell. My head cracked into the sharp corner of the window ledge hard enough to send stars bursting over my vision.

An iron-hard grip on my wrist dragged me upright. “Ow,” I said, thickly, and reached a hand to my throbbing skull. My fingers came away sticky with blood.

Pello slung my arm over his shoulder and wrapped his own arm tight around my waist. Low at my side, I felt the unmistakable cold prick of a blade. “I’ll take him off your hands,” he said to Cara.

Cara reached for me, her face white beneath her tan. “You shouldn’t trouble—it was me who—”

Pello hauled me toward the door. “Oh, no trouble. I’m most eager to hear Dev’s tale. Perhaps you judge him too harshly for actions beyond his control, as Meldon did with me.”

Cara started another protest. I struggled to focus my blurred vision, and managed to catch her eye.
Don’t
, I willed her, and looked pointedly at the smear of my blood on the window ledge. Blood was the best key for a find-me, and she knew where I’d stashed my charms.

Her eyes narrowed, and she subsided. Thank Khalmet, she hadn’t remembered I wore Kiran’s magic-blocking amulet, powerful enough to obscure not only me, but Pello’s dyed clothing while he stayed close. I didn’t want her tracking me. I didn’t want her to get anywhere near Pello, or worse, Simon. I stumbled out the door under Pello’s guidance, relief easing the pounding hammers in my head. If he brought me to Simon’s house, I’d use the boneshatter charm, on myself if necessary. Until then, I’d happily let Pello take me if it meant he left Cara safely behind.

***

(Kiran)

Kiran started awake with a cry. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’d thought he’d grown accustomed to nightmares, but the dreams since Simon’s spell were worse than any since the first terrible nights after Alisa’s death.

He’d spent hours forcing himself to study his memory of the
akhelashva
ritual. Ruslan hadn’t cast any defensive spells during the ritual or otherwise exposed his protections...but the mark-binding spell he’d cast on Kiran had been designed to dismantle all Kiran’s innate defenses, in order to anchor the bond.

Kiran’s best theory was that Simon meant to use Ruslan’s channel pattern from the ritual to deduce the weak points in Kiran’s barriers. Simon might intend to take Kiran back into Arkennland, damage his barriers just enough to give Ruslan a foothold, and then strike while Ruslan was focused on subduing the last of Kiran’s defenses. Hard to believe that Simon would think distraction a sufficient advantage to overcome Ruslan’s protections, but Kiran had come up with no better ideas.

One thing was certain: regardless of his exact intentions, Simon had to leave Alathia. Whatever spells he meant to cast against Ruslan, he wouldn’t want interference from the Council’s mages, or disruption of his own magic from the powerful border wards. He’d cross the border, and whatever his trap, he surely intended to bring Kiran as the bait.

After so many days without a return visit from Pello, Kiran had to consider the attempt to subvert him a failure; and Iannis remained obdurate. His last hope was to draw the attention of the Alathian mage at the border. A fight with the Alathians might distract Simon for long enough that Kiran might escape. More likely, the Alathians would arrest him along with Simon. But captivity and eventual execution at the Council’s hands was a better fate than becoming Simon’s mind-burned slave.

Kiran crossed to the door and leaned his ear as close as he dared to the warded wood. No sounds came from outside. He returned to the bed and knelt on the quilt, next to one of the thick carved posts of the frame. Partway down, the carving was inset with flecks of red garnet.

After another glance at the door, Kiran bent and retrieved a wooden splinter from its hiding place between the bed frame and the wall. He’d gouged out the splinter from the underside of the table, using the edge of the silver banding on one arm. The splinter wasn’t long, but the wood was hard and it tapered to a blunt point. Not the most ideal of tools, but with enough patient effort, he hoped to work one of the gems free.

Binding power within objects is a skill even the basest of mages may learn,
Ruslan had said, long ago when Kiran was first beginning his lessons.
But to bind the power tightly, so it will not react against other magic, and to store it efficiently, so the vessel holds the maximum possible amount without shattering—this requires not only talent, but much practice.

Kiran and Mikail had spent weeks in Ruslan’s practice room attempting to bind magical energies in all types of objects. Ruslan had let them discover for themselves that metals and gemstones could hold far more than other materials, but required delicacy and careful gauging of capacity, lest they shatter.

They’d spent one afternoon deliberately storing power badly and tossing the flawed stones against the warded walls of the practice room. Even the smallest had vanished in violent flares of light as the stored magic reacted against Ruslan’s wards. They’d laughed and shouted as they competed to see who could get the brightest flash. Ruslan had reprimanded them both for wasting power and shirking their real practice, but not as harshly as he might have.
A mage should never be afraid to experiment,
Kiran had heard him say to Lizaveta later that evening.

The tiny gemstones in the bed carvings could only hold a correspondingly tiny amount of power, hardly a trickle. Yet even that trickle would be enough to react against the Alathian border wards if Kiran bound it poorly to the stone. Although Simon’s charms blocked him from casting magic, they couldn’t prevent him from using his blood as a conduit to the stone and passively storing a thread of his own
ikilhia
.

All he need do was keep the gemstone hidden on his person. When Simon tried to bring him across the border, the Alathian wards would do the rest. The border mage would be sure to notice the magical reaction.

Kiran smiled bitterly as he worked on freeing a thin shard of garnet. After all Ruslan’s insistence on working magic with perfect accuracy, who would have thought that shoddy casting might be his salvation?

***

(Dev)

Pello herded me through the Silver Strike’s common room, his knife still pricking its warning under my ribs. This late, the room held only a few traders nursing final beers. None of them glanced up, but the bartender spotted the blood matting my hair and bustled over, his face creased in concern. Pello fended him off with quick assurances of how I’d only slipped and he was taking me straight to a healer.

Gods, I could use one. My vision had cleared, but the vicious throbbing of my head kept my thoughts dangerously sluggish. I clung to my plan: get Pello as far away from Cara as possible, then ignore his blade and spark the boneshatter charm before we reached Simon’s house.

I’d expected him to drag me up to the wealthy southwest quarter, but instead he guided me eastward toward the docks. His blade never left my side, and his grip on my arm was clamped over a nerve that’d send me to my knees with a hairsbreadth more pressure. I moved along quiet and obedient as a pack horse, using the time to gather my fragmented wits. The chill damp of the night air soaked through my bloodstained collar and sent painful shivers chasing along my neck. Overhead, a fat moon drifted between ragged-edged clouds. The river fog hadn’t yet spread into the streets, but it would soon.