Three Coins for Confession (45 page)

They would find him. He felt his scattered thoughts spinning past
him, but they all circled around that point of final understanding. No chance
to doubt or deny it. They could capture him. Would torture him, most likely.
The Ilvani sorcerers would have truth magic. They would have the magic of the
black arrow, consuming his will. And then what?

He knew things, he realized. An idle thought, drifting in from
the darkness where all Chriani’s past days were hidden away. He was of rank and
commission now, had ridden with the rangers. He knew the movements of troops
along the Brandishear frontier. Knew the defenses of Konaugo Post and other
camps. He’d finally been trusted with that knowledge, had proved to Barien, to
Kathlan, to himself that he had what it took to be part of the prince’s guard.
He had been granted a position of power at long last, and now all Chriani could
think about was whether he’d give all that away.

If he were dead, would that protect him? He didn’t know, wanted
to know. He felt the thought sharp in his mind, digging in like the spike of
pain at his shoulders as he hauled himself up a ladder, not knowing where he
was going anymore. He was climbing with his arms alone, using his good leg to
support himself but unable to bend the other enough to reach the rungs.

The Ilvani hated the healing magic of the Ilmari, feared the
raising of the dead. An abomination of the spirit, they called it. Chriani knew
this, had learned it. But would they use such magic on their enemies? Bring the
dead back to speak again, or to endure more of the torture that had killed them
in the first place?

Kathlan would have known. Her love of lore. She would be able to
tell him. Chriani wondered where she was.

He knew about Lauresa. A sudden thought, stark in his mind,
pushing all else away. He knew where the blade of Caradar was hidden, knew who
held it. If the Ilvani caught him, they would know.

He landed hard on an empty platform, slipped on a patch of black
mold and had to stop to right himself. A silence hung around him as he looked
down to see the black tree looming close. He could see the platform, could see
the white stair below him. He was running the wrong way.

The platform shook beneath his feet, Chriani turning to see an
Ilvani sentry crouched where he had dropped from above. A hiss of warning
sounded out, the sentry’s teeth set in a feral display, golden eyes blazing as
he launched himself toward Chriani at a run.

He shifted in time, but just barely. The Ilvani was attacking by
instinct, by whatever sense told him where the invisible Chriani had been
standing an instant before. Dargana’s bloodblade was in his hand, but Chriani
couldn’t remember drawing it. He drove in hard, one chance to strike unseen. He
stabbed up below the ribs but the Ilvani rolled with it, took the blade across
his stomach. A flash of blood and steel against his leather. Barely a wound.

Chriani was visible. He felt the shadow fall, saw the Ilvani’s
golden eyes focus on him as his leg gave way. He pitched over onto his good
knee, felt a flare of pain that held him immobile. The Ilvani loomed over him,
ready to strike.

He wanted to throw Dargana’s blade, wanted to send it into the
shadows, see it fall to the forest floor.
Don’t let the lóechari claim it,
she had said, but he didn’t have the strength to lift it.

He waited for the Ilvani to end it. Felt a shifting uncertainty
in the corner of his mind that was still watching, conscious of his vision
narrowing, turning to shadow at the edges. But the sentry turned away suddenly,
spinning as if hearing something behind him.

Chriani watched the sentry stand there for what seemed a long
while. Then the long-knife dropped from his hand as he crumpled slowly to the
platform floor.

A bloody gash crossed the warrior’s abdomen where his armor had
been laid open. Not the scratch Chriani had made, but a rough wound, up and
under the ribs. A small dagger, a jagged blade.

He saw the Uissa assassin standing over the fallen Ilvani, the
knife still in her hand. Bright red streaked her arm to the elbow, contrasting
the darker stain of blood dried on her tunic and leggings, though the arrows
Chriani had left in her were gone. She was watching him, thoughtful.

“Each time we meet, warrior, you look surprised.”

Chriani was prone on the ground, couldn’t remember falling. The
assassin had moved, was on top of him now. Her fingers were at his lips and
chest, warm.

“Wait,” she whispered. Tician, she had called herself. He
remembered that.

He felt his mind clear. He felt the pain at his leg flare for an
instant to white-hot fire, then fade just as quickly to the dull ache that
healing magic left behind.

“Now move.”

The assassin hauled him to his feet with a strength that belied
her size, her slender frame. A surge of strength pushed through Chriani as he
rose. He had Dargana’s bloodblade still in hand, clenched it tightly as he
followed Tician to the edge of the platform. His pace was unsteady, his leg
still aching even after the healing magic she’d given him. Not a draught, but
something else. Spellcraft, Chriani thought. The wound had closed, though. His
step was erratic, but he could feel it at least.

Footsteps were pressing in around them as she went over and down,
latching onto one of the rope cables connecting the platform to a larger
terrace below. A roof of branches covered them as they passed through it,
Chriani tensing as he fell into green shadow, no way to see the terrace as he
dropped.

He hit hard and stumbled forward, the healing magic leaving a
sense of fragility behind that hadn’t yet passed. Tician was waiting for him,
her knife in hand as she reached out to grab him. He responded by instinct,
twisted around to block her, the bloodblade at her throat.

The assassin smiled. Her own knife was at his leg, Chriani
realized. She ignored the bloodblade as she cut through the ruined cloth he had
used to bind the cut, grabbing it up and throwing it over the edge of the
terrace to a dark platform below.

“Something for them to find,” she said. “So they’re not looking
too closely here.”

Movement sounded out above and around them. Bridges stretched off
to right and left, but the platform’s edge where Tician stepped up to it was
open to the air. No way up or down that Chriani could see.

The assassin stood there for a long moment, not moving. One hand
held up before her as if in warning.

The platform shivered faintly beneath Chriani’s feet. Movement on
one of the bridges, someone approaching. But as he shifted close to Tician, all
the questions he meant to speak died on his lips as a pulse of silver light
opened up before her. She spread her arms wide, the light expanding in
response. Shimmering as a circle beyond the platform’s edge.

The assassin leaned back to grab Chriani’s hand. She pulled him
forward, leaping into empty air. Chriani fought the urge to break away, forced
himself to follow. He made the moonsign as he went.

His feet struck something solid, his legs buckling where they’d
been pulled up in the reflex of a jump. The silver light was a globe around
them, wrapping them like a shimmering wall. Tician twisted around, drew her
hands together as the portal faded.

Chriani looked down to see darkness below them. He had to fight
back the instinctual panic that told him they were floating in empty air. “What
is this?” he whispered.

“Sanctuary,” the assassin said. “Escape.”

Chriani made the moonsign in response. “You were dead,” he said.
There were more pressing questions, he knew, but this one was at the fore of
his mind.

“Not as much as you might think. And thank you for intervening
when the Ilvani captain tried to make it certain. Stilling the blood was
difficult enough in the moment. I’m not sure I could have started it again in
time to kill him.”

Chriani felt the steel-sharp calm Tician exhibited now. He
remembered the helplessness she had shown when Dargana captured her near the
edge of the Ghostwood. A trace of fear in her then that Chriani understood had
never been real.

“I’m sorry for what happened to him,” the assassin said. No real
emotion in her voice, though. “And for the exile. I lost you when you vanished
with the body. I’m sorry it took so long to find you.”

“And how much is you being sorry for anything worth?”

The assassin said nothing as Chriani’s gaze caught movement
beyond her shoulder. Lóechari sentries were hitting the platform at a run. Two
ran to the edge, dropping alongside it in a way that made him sure they were
set to leap out into the air after them. But then both fell back after scanning
the shadows below and around them, their gazes slipping past Chriani and the
assassin where they floated two paces away.

“They don’t see us because we’re here now,” the assassin said.
“No longer there. This space is set aside from the world for a time. They can’t
reach us.”

“You’re a spellcaster,” Chriani said. “Faking your death in the
forest, passing into Sylonna and pursuing us unseen. Healing me.”

Tician smiled like his assessment pleased her somehow, but she
shook her head. “Spellcraft takes a dedication I don’t have time for. My magic
is a deeper part of me.”

She carried no ring. He saw that much. No chain or amulet at her
wrist or neck. He had searched her body in the forest, found nothing on her. He
didn’t understand, but he had no time to wonder at it. “They can read your
magic, though. Spell or no spell.”

“Indeed. They know you’re passing unseen with magic. They’ll be
looking for you that way. So we need to keep moving.”

Chriani saw the platform receding even as the sentries left it,
disappearing along both bridges, lost to the shadows. He made the moonsign
again, ignored how the assassin’s smile broke briefly to a smirk. Her hands
were close together, thumbs and forefingers touching as she let them trace
across the interior of the silver sphere. Its course changed as she did so, as
if under her direction. Chriani felt no sense of motion, though. Just a feeling
like the silver space around them held stock-still while the dark shapes of trees
and platforms swept slowly past.

“You saved my life,” Chriani said. “Why?”

“You saved mine, more than once. I owed you that much.” Tician’s
pale blue eyes held a playful light that made the straight-line scars beneath
them seem even more sinister.

“You’re a mercenary. An assassin. You don’t act for what you owe,
you act for what you can earn.” Chriani saw the assassin smile. “Why?”

“Fate and magic are intertwined,” she said in response. “The
power of magic can warp reality. Bend time and understanding. That’s why Ilmari
fear it so much during their short lives. Why the Ilvani live longer than us.”

As the silver sphere rose, it shifted through a screen of
branches. Chriani lurched back instinctively as they appeared to push in
through the shimmering wall, but they turned translucent as they did, passing
through him where he stood. A sensation like vertigo shunted through him, his
feet slipping to send him a step down toward Tician. He pushed himself back
quickly, tried to focus as the ghostly branches passed behind them.

“Answer the question. Why did you save me?” Chriani felt a faint
trace of anger twist through him. The last and unlooked for sign that he was
returning to normal.

“I am, warrior. I’m interested in your fate, and the lines that
magic weaves within it…”

“No,” Chriani said coldly. “I’m done with pretending to go along
with any talk of fate.”

“Strange words to come from the heir of the exile’s blade.” The
assassin smiled again.

Chriani slipped farther down toward her, forced himself back once
more. He was conscious of the fact that he would slide inexorably toward Tician
if he didn’t hold on, but his legs were cramping from the awkwardness of
keeping himself pushed back and up along the silver sphere’s sloping floor. The
assassin’s bare feet seemed to offer a better grip along that surface of light,
her hands still locked together as she swung them slowly around.

“The heir is a figure of mystery,” Tician said. “The legends are
fascinating.”

“That seems a strange sideline for someone like you.”

Tician laughed. “The Order of Uissa is about power, warrior.
Knowledge is a key to power, as is the manner in which the past drives the
present and the future to come. Like the way the destinies of Ilvani and Ilmari
alike are centered in the lines of fate that mark a single warrior’s life.”

“I held the blade for two weeks,” Chriani said darkly. “Chanist
held it for years. Tell the Ilvani to go to him for their salvation.”

“But it’s not about time, warrior. It’s about destiny. During the
Incursions, Caradar was named as heir by the Ilvani, but the blade was his
mother’s before him, and her father’s before her. Caradar was the one touched
by fate, though. Meant to fix the conflict between Ilmari and Ilvani, by
drowning the Ilmari in their own blood.”

In days of war, one will arise to stand between between
Ilvanghlira and Ilmari in struggle. One who will forge the final fate of both
peoples.

Tician smiled as if she could sense Chriani’s thought. “All the
best prophecies leave themselves open to interpretation.”

“A good enough reason to ignore them.”

“A good reason to try to figure out which interpretation holds
true. The Calala named you the heir, Chriani. I don’t doubt that you surviving
two attempts on your life and singlehandedly taking out a war-band in Rheran
have made them believe it even more now than they did at the start. I suspect
that’s why they set a shadow on you in Aerach rather than arranging another
assault when I led them to you. Why they sent their blind agents, as you called
them.”

Chriani felt a chill slip through his mind. A brief surge of
anger that turned to something sharper, tracing along his spine. “I don’t even
hold the blade.”