by R. K. Thorne
Once clean, she tucked the dagger into its sheath on her calf, hidden by her boot. Then she strode as silently as she could to the door, took a deep breath, and twisted her body into the shape of a small black spider.
Creeping under the bottom of the doorframe, she peered out as best she could with her strange arachnid eyes. There—one guard lay on the ground just ahead of her. She pushed the rising dread aside and stalked slowly forward, trying to survey the room as best she could, first with her eyes, then her mind.
No, it was not the guard, it was only the guard’s clothing. Nine points of energy remained in the room. Eight were clustered near the door, entirely too close together.
One was sitting near the hearth. And now her odd eyes could see the ninth—a woman. A creature mage had been helping Sorin.
She stopped. Where were the guards? She spotted a wooden box by the door. Tiny squeaks issued from it. Mice. The creature mage had changed them all into mice and deliberately neglected to transform their clothes with the spell. That was one way to get a person naked.
Miara turned her focus toward the mage. Should she confront the intruder? Continue forward and sneak away? If this mage was here, then it was unlikely more were attacking Aven. If she could capture them, she could prove her innocence. Or could she? If assassins had disguised themselves as Miara, she had no way to prove it had been this mage specifically that had impersonated her and not someone else. Indeed, it was technically possible this was an entirely different mage. In fact, Sorin could have lied to this mage, and they might not even know his nefarious purpose. That meant Miara didn’t feel justified in killing this mage too, if she could even accomplish such a thing.
The idea hit her all at once. The soul chain, that spell she’d bound Aven with not so long ago. She could trap this mage here and let the guards and whoever found Sorin’s body in the morning sort it out.
First, Miara crept as close as she could to the door. Then, she plucked a bit of energy and twisted. Done. She’d spun a chain around the mage’s wrists and then looped it through the workings of a heavy, ornate iron candelabra. That should take her a while to figure out.
The mage did not seem to sense the spell or react. Good. Sorin hadn’t noticed it the first time she’d tested it on him either. Until it held its captive in place, it was a quiet little invocation. Preparations for her mission to kidnap Aven just kept paying off. She had never learned such a spell in any class; indeed, it probably ought to be on the questionable list, if not outright forbidden. But it had been there in the tomes, if you knew where to look and looked hard enough. She would have to remember to tell Wunik about it. Assuming she ever saw him again.
She inched her way out the door and toward the main entrance. Time to put her plan and Aven’s maps into action.
Chapter 12
The Road
Jaena awoke to a glorious sunrise. Bands of purple and pink hues danced across the horizon before them. So they were indeed heading east. Toward Akaria. Toward freedom.
“Are we close yet?” she croaked, voice groggy with sleep.
“No. Unfortunately, it’s probably a half day’s ride away,” he said. “We’re not the fastest, two to a horse like this.”
She nodded and realized suddenly she was nuzzled against his neck. How long had she spent like this? How uninvited, and she’d dozed off and left him to do all the work of getting them there. That said, he was enough larger than her that it was unlikely he could sleep resting on her shoulder.
“We need to stop and rest,” he said. “Let’s camp out in these woods for a few hours and then get back on the road when there are more people on it.”
She only nodded.
“You can sleep some more or watch for trouble. Or a bit of both.”
He led them off the edge of the road and dismounted, leading Yada by the reins into a forest of tall oaks and ash and low ferns and other leafy things. The forest was thinner here but grew denser up ahead. But if they could get through it, it would also help to hide them from the road.
He found his way around it easily. Though he’d grown up on the streets, he seemed to know the forest well enough too. He helped her down, watered the horse, set down two bedrolls, and promptly went to sleep.
Why had he insisted on coming with her? She had a lot of questions for him when they were back on the road.
She lay beside him and considered trying to rest or listening for trouble. They were fairly concealed from the road, and the Devoted would have little reason to look for anyone at this particular spot. She and Tharomar had tried to leave no trail, but even if they had, any two lovers could have made a path back behind these brambles, not just a renegade mage and her—what was he, even? She had no idea.
She found herself blushing at the thought of two lovers hiding back behind these trees. Her imagination flirted with the idea for a moment before she brushed the heated thoughts aside. As if he could ever love a mage, with all he believed. Even if he was one, she seriously doubted he would ever consider someone like her. He was probably betrothed to some temple priestess anyway.
Besides, she could never love someone who could be convinced that something as beautiful and natural as magic was evil. Never, ever, ever.
Could she?
It was probably best if she didn’t tell him of his powers. He didn’t need to know, did he? It’d be best if he remained ignorant. She had seen self-hate do terrible things to mages in Mage Hall, her sister included, although for different reasons. She didn’t wish such a fate on someone as good and kind as him.
Her sister had been good and kind once too. Gentle, until the Masters had gotten their hooks in her. She had still been a gentle person, but not when doing their bidding. For a while, Dekana had told her sister of her missions. They’d started as petty theft or eavesdropping, then slowly built up to more. One day, she’d come home and refused to tell Jaena where she’d been. What she’d done. No news reliably reached Mage Hall, so Jaena had never been sure what had been the deed that broke her, but her sister had never been the same after that.
Three months later, she’d been dead. They all said committing suicide was impossible, that someone must have killed her. Many eyed the Dark Master with suspicion when his back was turned, and he certainly deserved that. Jaena did not know which story she preferred to believe.
She hated her sister sometimes, for leaving her. For caring more about death than about surviving this hell with her little sister. For wanting to get out more than she loved Jaena.
She hated Dekana a little because deep down, Jaena knew. She knew that no one had killed Dekana. They’d had no incentive to; she’d been a valuable tool. She was of no use to them dead. She had just been strong and beautiful and fragile in her own way, and the Masters had pushed her beyond what she could take. And in many ways, Jaena liked to think that her sister had beaten them. Found a way out. That when it had seemed impossible to escape their torture, Dekana had figured out her own way.
Of course, if only she had held on. Just a little longer. Perhaps she, too, would be free. Jaena tried to blink hot tears out of her eyes and thanked the gods Tharomar seemed to be quite sound asleep. Why was she letting herself think about this now, as the morning light played cheerily through the trees? It must be the exhaustion.
None of it mattered. Nothing could be done now. She had to focus on what she could control. She couldn’t save Dekana or stop the Masters from what they did.
But she could get revenge. And if the gods were willing, she would.
Without really intending to, exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally, she drifted off to sleep.
Aven eyed the circling crows as he rode with the procession toward Panar. A month ago, he might not have thought anything of them. Knowing what he’d learned in the last few weeks, he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been sent by mages to watch him. Or perhaps were mages themselves.
Miara could have sent them. Wunik, his mother, or Siliana could be keeping watch via these frie
nds from within the carriage.
Or they could not be friends, but enemies.
He sidled his way forward and to the center of the group, where the carriage bounced along, to ask if they had noticed the crows too. An annoying, icy rain fell over the group as they made their way. Too bad that it was against the Balance to twist the weather for his own convenience. It was one thing to tolerate an icy mist flying into your face with each gust of wind; it was another to know you could do something about it but probably shouldn’t.
Aven had been riding toward the back of the procession, and his father toward the front. Thel swayed on his mount toward the middle of the pack, trying to read a small book even in the rain. Dom had stayed behind, as it was pure folly to have all three heirs on the road together at the same time. He would join them in a week or so, when the cave-in repairs were complete. Their mother rode with Siliana and Wunik in a carriage, but what kind of leaders would he and his father be if they relaxed in relative comfort while their men slogged along in this shit?
That said, he was regretting his “leadership” at this point. This far into the fall—almost winter—the cold of the wind and the rain combined could seep into your bones. He’d slept barely three hours, and most of that had been filled with feverish dreams, stoked to greater intensity by recently holding Miara in his arms. On top of it all, his boot would not stop rubbing his calf raw.
If Miara had been with them, she’d have figured out what the damn crows were about five minutes ago. He’d better get on that.
He finally reached the side of the carriage. “Any of you notice those… overhead visitors?” he called.
His mother leaned toward the window, peered up, and frowned.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Aven muttered.
She didn’t reply to him but turned toward the other mages, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
He ran his eyes along the mountaintops on either side of them. Three roads led out of Estun, and all of them took rather risky paths through the valleys and passes, curving their way down into the somewhat flatter forests. Following the riverbeds down the valleys was often easier riding, and it was also easier to keep the roads travel worthy, even this late into the year, when the rain turned them muddy but they hadn’t yet frozen.
But what Estun gained in security in its mountain home, the roads gave up in exchange. They were not the safest way to travel. This was not a position any of them would have picked for a battle.
Since his mother hadn’t yet replied, he extended his senses outward, as Miara and Wunik had begun to show him, to sense for mages. Not toward the crows, as his carriage-bound companions were already concerned with them, but rather toward the ridges above and down the hills on the other side.
His father had sent scouts ahead, of course. But they were ordinary soldiers. All their scouts needed to be mages from now on, Aven realized, or there could be forces in hiding that an average soldier was simply unable to sense. Unless they could find some kind of stone like those Devoted used to repress magic, but one that would detect it instead… He pushed the idea aside for now. He needed to deal with the task at hand.
On the range to his right, he felt nothing but the usual wind sweeping over the crags. But on the left one… What was it? Was something there? He couldn’t specifically identify what he felt, but he caught a whiff of something… wormy, maggot-like, squirming. Could it be that peculiar yet familiar taint?
Slaves.
He couldn’t feel them for certain, but he didn’t need to to know they were there.
“Those crows are mages, aren’t they.” Gods, he hoped they were coming up with something.
His mother reappeared, face white. “At least three creature mages overhead—not animals under their control, mages shifted into crows. We think there are more—”
“Over that ridge?” he pointed.
She frowned. “We’re not sure—there’s something odd about their location. There are definitely more not far away.”
As much as he wanted to press her for details—how many more, what type?—he urged his horse forward instead, weaving through the procession till he reached his father.
“We may have a problem,” he told the king.
Samul raised an eyebrow.
Aven glanced pointedly up at the crows overhead, then bent to adjust where his boot rubbed his calf. Damn thing. “Mages. At least three overhead, more maybe beyond the next range. They haven’t been able to—”
He never finished his words. A sudden bolt of lightning cracked somewhere close by. Aven’s horse flung his head back, slamming her neck into Aven’s forehead, knocking him backward off the saddle. Another loud crack sounded behind him.
Aven hit the ground with a thud, left shoulder first, his breath flying out of him.
Bloody hell. What was that?
He blinked, but all he could see was white. Another blink, then another, and the world came back into view, although the world seemed muffled and dimmed. The deafening sound left his thoughts and hearing cloudy.
He struggled to sit up. Another sharp crack, then another accompanied by a roll of thunder. Aven cursed, a sharp pain diving into his left side as he tried to right himself. Broken rib? Broken shoulder? Damn it, this was not the time for an injury to slow him down.
His mind raced as his pulse quickened. Lightning. Way too late in the year for storms with lightning. The storm—it must be unnatural. Damn it, he should have tried to sense for such a thing.
He may have only been trying to use his magic for a few days, but he needed to get better at this, and in a damn hurry.
He finally made it to sitting. His horse lay on the ground before him, convulsing. To his right, his father readied his weapon. Thel and three more soldiers to his left drew their swords and readied their shields, swinging their mounts outward to face the ridges surrounding them.
What good was that going to do?
The thunk of an arrow bouncing off a shield made him eat his words. He should get to his horse—get his shield, or at least roll behind it for some shelter. He twisted onto his hands and knees with a groan as pain shot through him, and he had to stop for a moment and catch his breath.
“My lord—take my shield!”
Words finally cut through to his mind, and he looked up in time to catch the shield tossed by a lieutenant, who dismounted and came toward him.
“You’re hurt?”
“Rib, maybe. Hell.”
The soldier heaved him to his feet as Aven let out something between a growl and a cry. He gritted his teeth, but glancing at the horse, he knew it could have been worse.
That lightning had probably been meant for him but had struck the horse instead.
“You six, Asten—with me, up that range,” Samul shouted. “Dyon—with Aven, Thel, and the rear platoon, secure the carriage and the far side. Go!”
Dyon trotted up on his horse, ushering them back. Aven let the stream of curses come, if it helped him get there faster.
“At least a dozen mages,” his mother was calling as they ambled up. “We just found them. Mostly creature and earth. Just one air.”
“One was enough, apparently,” Aven grunted. “Can Wunik—”
“He’s out cold, Aven. Derk too. The other bolt hit them both.”
Aven winced. Those targets were not accidental. Someone had sought to take out all the air mages before the battle had even begun. “Can you save my horse?”
“I’m sorry, Aven. Wunik may be all right, Derk is breathing, but I don’t think I can help—”
May be all right? Gods damn those mages, they would pay for this. “Get me inside the carriage,” he barked.
He would be no good for fighting now. But he had a better idea.
Another stream of cursing later, and he was collapsed inside. Siliana leapt toward him. “Don’t heal me,” he said. “Keep it for the fight. It’s just a broken rib.”
She froze for a moment as if checking if his claims were true. Which
, come to think of it, was probably a good idea. Every breath ached, so perhaps the rib was too close to a lung. But if the earth mages that had filled Estun with rock could also fill this canyon, Aven would much prefer Siliana and the rest save their energies for battling their enemies. If they even could.
Aven had something else to do.
Siliana turned back to the carriage window. Outside, vines thick as his torso shot from the ground and clenched around the carriage, then suddenly froze. Did his mother and Siliana have a way to stop their attackers? He had to trust that they did.
He slumped against the back carriage wall and closed his eyes. He had no idea if this would work, but there was no time like the present to find out. He drew himself out and up, toward the sky and the storm that the air mage had probably wrought. Even if the mage hadn’t, it didn’t matter.
He reached the rumbling energy of the clouds and the pattering energy of the rain, nearly turning to ice at this temperature. Outward, upward, a little farther and…
It was his.
He pushed the storm back, away from the carriage and his warriors and toward the mages. He poured energy into the cloud, stealing it as quickly as he could from what wind and sun he could find, rolling and tumbling the storm larger, the rain heavier, into a downpour.
The mountain floated by underneath him. A handful of archers were perched at the top, but he ignored them. He drifted along as the land fell away. There, at the edge of the forest—a dozen people hunkered down behind boulders and fallen trees.
Could he find the air mage?
A collision with the carriage snapped him back into his body. He was flung to the side—his left, of course—and groaned at the fresh agony. The carriage seemed to have slid several feet, and light peeked in from the corner up and behind his right side.
“Damn it,” his mother snapped. “We’ve got to stop that, or we’ve got to get out.”
“Weave a protective barrier. They’re not the only ones with vines.”
“No—trees.”