Through the Veil (28 page)

Lee lifted her head and stared at the limb that had damn near turned her into an ugly little smear on the ground. “I need a few minutes, pal.”

He hesitated and then looked off to his left. Lee didn’t bother turning her head. She just closed her eyes and concentrated on getting her breathing back to normal. If they wanted her to move before she was ready, they could damn well just carry her. But all Morne said was “You continue the search, Lothen, Dais. We’ll be with you in a minute.”

Dais argued with Morne. “It isn’t wise to split up, not for any reason. If she isn’t hurt, she needs to get up and get moving. Staying in one place is dangerous.”

“I’ll stay with her. She will be in no danger, Dais,” Morne said, his voice dismissive.

Dais opened his mouth and Lee wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but instead, she took a deep breath and braced herself to stand up. She wasn’t in the mood to listen to the two arrogant warriors argue—well, Dais would argue. Morne would simply do whatever in the hell he wished and Dais could just go screw himself for all the healer cared. But Dais closed his mouth without saying anything and turned on his heel.

He made no sound as he departed, and she closed her eyes. Leaves rustled on the ground as people headed out, and Lee heard a few twigs snap as she shifted around a little. There was a rock digging into the back of her shoulder, and the smell of fresh wood and crushed leaves filled her head. Lee cracked an eye open and looked up at Morne. “I need a minute.”

“So you said,” he murmured. He glanced up and looked around as though he heard something. “Take your minute. Or a few more if you need them.” He turned around and walked off. As he disappeared from her field of vision, Lee shifted her gaze upward, once more staring at the sullen gray sky.

Slowly, her erratic heartbeat settled down as she reaffirmed that she wasn’t trapped under the tree bough—or dead. Her hands were shaky and she had a feeling shock was moving in, so she tried to find something else to think of besides what had almost happened.

The forest here was strange. Back home when she went on a hike, she heard the call of birds and insects, but here, it was silent. She could hear the wind whispering through the branches above but little else. Just silence.

No . . . not silence. There was music. Her ears pricked and she cocked her head, trying to hear it better. It was faint, at first. So faint she almost didn’t even hear it. But as Lee lay there on the damp, cool ground, she realized there was music—like the music she’d heard before, coming from the Veil.

Enticing. Enchanting. Slowly, she opened her eyes and pushed herself upright. Without even realizing that she had done so, she climbed to her feet and started to move around the fallen limb. The music grew just a little louder, beckoning to her. Her skin felt tight and hot. She pressed her back to one of the huge trees and circled around. She glanced around it and saw something glowing, just faintly, off in the distance.

What the ...

It was a soft blue light, kind of pretty, really. Something inside her leaped at the sight of that light and she stepped forward. Her body didn’t feel like her own as she placed each step with slow, precise care, never once making a sound. Her breathing was shallow and her gaze focused.
Closer
—
closer,
a dry, cynical bitch in her head murmured.
Somebody is up to no good and we’ll find out who it is, then we’ll kill him
.

All the while, there was a saner part of her mind that was screaming at her to run. Run very far, very fast. That pretty blue light spelled destruction, and no smart witch went near it.

As if all of that wasn’t confusing enough, there was a third voice clamoring in the mix, the one that Lee recognized as her self, the self she knew. That voice was telling Lee she really did need to run, and she needed to keep running until she managed to wake up from this bizarre nightmare she had found herself in.

When she finally managed to do that, she was going to get herself some serious, serious therapy. No more sleep studies, either, but actual, honest-to-God, psychiatric help. The kind that came with a couch and a fifty-minute hour. Therapy was the key. Antidepressants or something would surely stop these bizarre dreams that felt so damned real.

That cynical bitch in her head seemed to laugh.
This is no dream, babe
.
This is real life
—
this is your life, and it’s about time you opened your eyes and dealt with it. Deal with me. Now get your ass closer, because we have a job to do.

Hell. She was this close to arguing with herself again, and this time, her other self wasn’t going to shut up, either. This was the same cool, collected bitch that had killed the Ikacado that day when Eira stroked out. The warrior that Kalen insisted she was. She didn’t feel like that woman—

Because you won’t let yourself. Open your eyes. You’re here. This is your reality now
—
accept it. Accept me. Or you will die.
The last part seemed to burn through her mind, demanding that she either accept it, once and for all, or run away before she got herself, and everybody around her, killed.

Run away.
Part of her longed to do just that. But Lee had already acknowledged that running away wasn’t an option. She couldn’t run from Kalen. Even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. Leaving him was just unthinkable. She’d just met him—at least it partly seemed that way to her, but in other ways, she felt like she had known him her whole life. Had been waiting for him her whole life.

She supposed that in a way, she had. Kalen claimed that she had been slipping in and out of his life since she was a child, and heaven knew that she had dreamed about him often. All those sketchbooks back home were evidence of that.

Besides, where would she run to? Even if she tried, there was no place on this world that was truly safe. Eventually that destruction and death that lingered around the gate would find every last safe solace. If such places even existed here anymore.

Accept it. Accept me.

Silently, Lee said,
Like you’re giving me any choice
—

She had no sooner thought that than that illusive curtain in her mind was destroyed. It didn’t disappear. That was too silent a word to even begin to describe what happened. More, it was like an avalanche struck and that curtain was decimated under the power of it. That cool, cynical bitch wasn’t just a voice murmuring inside her head. She was that cool, cynical bitch. She was the witch that stood there staring at the blue nimbus with fear in her heart, because she knew what it was.

The Veil. It wasn’t just the flickering glimpse that Lee had managed on her own, either. It had been raised, completely and fully, so perfectly done that Lee could see the stark, desert landscape of Anqar and feel the whisper of hot winds that managed to blow through.

Somebody on her side of the Veil was speaking to another person through it. More—she understood them. It wasn’t English they spoke, or the more lyrical version of English that seemed to be the dominant language in this world. It was alien, consisting of an odd mix of guttural phrases and musical trills that didn’t seem like speech at all.

Yet, it was, and she understood it. Understood it—she who had barely managed a C in Spanish could understand these men as well as if they had been speaking English.

“This is a dangerous game, brother.”

“I’m aware of that.”

There was a long pause and then the first speaker, the one on Lee’s side of the Veil, said, “Are you certain it’s worth it? All of this for vengeance?”

A soft, sad laugh and then the man in Anqar spoke. “It isn’t for vengeance. It is for her memory—and for a promise I made. I will keep that promise. The question is will you keep yours to me?”

Lee edged just a little forward and peeked around the girth of the tree, staring toward the men speaking. She couldn’t see the man on her side of the Veil without exposing herself, but she could see the other man. The sight of him turned her blood to ice, and terror arced through her. Sirvani—

He wore the traditional, stark garb of the Sirvani: black pants, bare-chested, leather crisscrossing over the naked expanse of muscle there. She saw the hilts of two swords, one over each shoulder. His head was bald, but she suspected that was by design, rather than nature. His left ear was pierced with a series of multicolored gems, and her newfound knowledge whispered to her that those earrings marked him as a Sirvani of significant rank.

At the center of his chest, where the straps of leather formed an X, there was another stone, larger and glowing the same shade of blue as the Veil. It pulsed, and something about the rhythm of it made her think that it was pulsing in tandem with the Sirvani’s heartbeat.

The man she couldn’t see sighed, and Lee heard a world of weariness in that single sound. “I do not make a vow lightly, Arnon. I give it, I give it for always. But are you so certain that your love would want your death?”

“My love,” the Sirvani muttered, his voice bitter. He turned away from the Veil, and Lee could see him as he lowered his head. “She has been lost to me for so many years, I do not know what she would want—other than keeping the promise I made her. I cannot do that without you.”

Lee heard a rush of noise, and she retreated a little more, pressing her back to the rough bark of the tree. A long string of words she didn’t understand, although she did comprehend the meaning behind them. Cussing was pretty much cussing, it seemed, no matter what world you were in or what language was spoken. A brief pause followed by “Do you understand what it is you’re asking of me? You ask me to stand by and watch while you all but commit suicide.”

“I’ve been dead inside for years, brother, and we both know it. Besides, there is no way of knowing that the . . .” Lee couldn’t make out those words. It sounded like “Ashni Mirn,” but she had no way of knowing what that meant. “. . . will know I am the one behind the failures.”

“He is no fool, brother.” It was said on a snarl, and there was so much helpless fury in that voice that Lee winced. “How many are aware of his most secret plans?”

“I will do as I must. As will you.” Lee felt a ripple in the air, and the blue light of the Veil slowly started to fade. “Keep her safe,” the Sirvani whispered. And then he was gone.

Lee froze, uncertain if she should run or risk discovery.

A howl, almost inhuman, full of anguish and outrage, ripped through the silence of the forest, and Lee bolted. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that she wasn’t being followed, and she ran as quickly, as silently, as she could, retracing her steps until she reached the spot where the tree had damned near turned her into roadkill.

She ran headlong into Dais, and his war-scarred hands caught her shoulders. He peered down into her face with concerned eyes. “Are you well? Something has frightened you.”

Uncertain of what to say, she just shook her head and lied. “I got lost.”

Dais watched her face with a scrutiny that was very unsettling. Lee fought the urge to squirm and pull away from him as he started to stroke his hands up and down her arms. “You are too new here, Lelia. Too new indeed. Wandering through the forest could bring you to a world of harm. Where is Morne? He was to keep you safe, not get it in his fey head to go off by himself.”

Forcing herself to smile, she glanced at the tree limb just behind Dais and replied, “Even not wandering can bring me to a world of harm.”

His voice—was it him she’d heard? And more . . . what exactly had she heard? She wasn’t sure of anything other than that a Sirvani had been speaking across the Veil to somebody in Ishtan. It didn’t bode well for them at all. Suddenly afraid, Lee looked around and realized they were alone. Completely alone. That knowledge filled her with terror. She wasn’t sure why. Dais hadn’t ever bothered her before, but right now he made her skin crawl.

“Morne . . . where is . . .”

“I am here.” She looked over and watched as Morne separated himself from the trees. “I wished only to give you some privacy.” His gaze lowered to where Dais held Lee’s arms. There was an odd sense of reaction from the older man. Lee felt it in the way his hands tightened oh so slightly. His body held an odd tension, and she realized that Dais was afraid of Morne.

Terrified.

“She was running through the forest, Morne. She’s pale as a ghost, you see. I was concerned.” Dais looked down at her, and a reassuring smile came and went. “Looking better now though.” His hands fell away.

“What were you running from?”

Lee looked at Morne and wished she could have five minutes, just five minutes, to try and clear her head. It was too busy in there, her mind working away at the puzzle of who the Sirvani had been speaking with and what they were speaking about. Dais—had it been him?

No. It couldn’t be. Dais had been Kalen’s right-hand man ever since Kalen had stepped up to lead this small ragtag resistance. Before Kalen, Dais had worked with Kalen’s father. He was loyal to the resistance. He had to be. That certainty came swimming to the fore of the chaotic thoughts, and Lee stopped trying to imagine Dais speaking in the weird, harsh language of Anqar. It wasn’t him; it just didn’t make sense otherwise.

How could he have gotten here before she did if she’d left him behind her when she fled? But he looked sort of tense. Disturbed about something. Then there was the weird way he was watching her.

“Lelia?”

Lee lifted her gaze and stared at Morne. His eyes, nearly black in his face, were emotionless, and she couldn’t sense anything coming off him now that Dais was no longer touching her.

Keep her safe
—keep who safe? Who in the hell had the Sirvani been talking about?
Why didn’t you drop that piece of information into my head with all this other crap?
she thought sourly. There wasn’t a response this time, but she hadn’t expected one, not now that she had stopped fighting the weird inner knowledge. It was like she had been split into a bunch of little pieces that operated independent of one another, but now she was intact and whole.