An eerie silence hung in the air for a few seconds. Kesari and Lucian exchanged a glance, and Mitul looked back over his shoulder anxiously, as if he expected Jameson and Valkyra to come bursting out of the trees at any moment. For all Aleida knew, that was a very real possibility.
“Where did they go?” Amar asked.
“That way, back toward the river,” she said, pointing. “We’d subdued Jameson’s magic with daravak. Until it wears off, there’s probably not much they can do, but I know she was still planning to find you.”
The scowl in Lucian’s flames grew darker. “If she can sever a Bond and force a new one on someone else—even another Tarja—she has terrible power indeed.”
Saya crossed her arms, casting a doubtful look at Aleida. “Is such a thing even possible?”
“I know what I saw,” she snapped back.
“Jameson found a way to break our Bond,” Lucian said, “and based on what he learned, Aleida’s account is certainly within the realm of possibility. Especially given that Nandini Kumar was said to be the most brilliant Tarja in generations.”
Amar frowned. “Well, there’s a comforting thought.”
“We should leave before they come back looking for you,” Aleida said. It wasn’t her place to tell them what to do—far from it—but she didn’t want to stay here just waiting for Valkyra to find them. If the Spirit Tarja could control Jameson’s magic the way she’d controlled his body, they were in for a serious fight.
“I hate to agree with her, but she’s right,” Saya said. “This is an easy spot for her to find us. We should go somewhere we can lie low for a while.”
“Or better yet,” Aleida said, “go after her and put an end to this while Jameson’s still weak.”
“Put an end to this?” Kesari echoed. “You mean kill him.”
“It’s the best way to make sure she never comes after you again.” It was also the simplest way to repay her for her betrayal. Killing Jameson would mean killing Valkyra at the same time. “She’s controlling him. He’s not himself anymore. We’d be putting him out of his misery.”
“How can you say that?” Kesari scoffed. She seemed personally offended by Aleida’s callousness.
“And what do you mean by we?” Mitul asked.
She took a few moments to formulate a response. She needed them far more than they needed her. She was still so weak, and without her magic, she’d be useless in a fight. But that didn’t change the fact that she wanted Valkyra to pay for everything she’d done.
“Let me help you,” she pleaded, softening her voice. “At least let me come with you. She took everything from me. I need to make sure she doesn’t get away with it.”
Amar’s eyes narrowed as he considered her proposal, and he cast a glance back at Mitul. An unspoken conversation seemed to pass between them. The musician shrugged, and Amar turned back to Aleida. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let you come along, as long as you don’t cause any trouble.”
“I promise.” Tentatively, she held her bound wrists out to him. He sighed, slid his sword from its sheath, and cut through the ropes at her wrists and ankles.
“We’re not killing anyone,” he said firmly. “Not if we don’t have to. We’ll lie low and defend ourselves if it comes to that, but Jameson helped us, and I won’t throw his life away so casually.”
She opened her mouth to tell him how stupid that was, but he raised an eyebrow, and she stopped herself. No trouble—that had been her promise. She would keep her word.
At least, until a better opportunity presented itself.
50
Amar
Before they left Shavhalla behind for good, they ate a quick meal, and Saya insisted on showing Amar the journal she’d taken from the palace. She wanted to make sure it was what she needed. Creating an immortal Sularan army was still a bad idea as far as he was concerned, but he’d promised to help her, so he skimmed over the pages anyway. He recognized Ranjan’s handwriting immediately.
The contents were meager. Only a few dozen of the pages had been completely filled up, and half of them had hand-drawn diagrams which took up more space than the words. A quick scan of the text indicated that Ranjan had been studying Amar’s curse, but whether that was due to a desire to break it or to replicate it, he couldn’t tell. The last several pages seemed to have detailed instructions on how one might go about creating an immortality curse but, much to his disappointment, gave no further specifics on breaking his own.
“Well?” Saya asked, leaning forward when he reached the last page. She hadn’t yet taken a single bite of her meal.
“It’s exactly what you’re looking for,” he replied. “These last few pages tell how my curse might have been created. Some of it doesn’t make sense to me, but with Lucian’s help, I should be able to translate it for you.”
She blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t sure you would. You still don’t approve of what I’m doing.”
He shrugged. “No, but you were right. I owe you a lot, and it isn’t my place to decide what’s right for anyone else. I don’t want to be the kind of man who stands in his friend’s way.”
She lunged forward to throw her arms around his shoulders, squeezing so tight she threatened to crush him. “Thank you.”
“All right, all right,” he grumbled breathlessly, patting her on the back. “That’s enough. I said I’d translate it for you, but I still hope you don’t decide to go down this road.”
She let him go, still grinning, and tucked the journal into her satchel.
They left the path, hoping to reduce their chances of running into Valkyra should she happen to be skulking nearby. Lucian flew ahead of the group periodically to look for trouble and make sure they were still headed the right way, but aside from his directions, the travelers remained silent. Amar was grateful for the quiet. His thoughts were a jumbled mess after talking to Aleida, and he needed time to sort out all the new information he’d been given.
Finding a way to break his curse remained his first priority, but that could be a lot more complicated if Valkyra continued to hunt him. He hadn’t spent much time or effort keeping up with Kavoran politics over the last few decades, but Nandini Kumar was infamous. And by all accounts, a force to be reckoned with. Clever. Powerful. Skilled.
Dangerous.
But what did she want with him? There had to be more to it than the desire for immortality. Someone like her wouldn’t be content with simply living forever. She must have some other plan, something she wanted to do with her life once she Bonded to him. And it likely wasn’t anything as innocent as growing the world’s largest flower garden around a cozy little cottage in the woods.
He couldn’t stop her from coming after him, but if he broke his curse, she wouldn’t have any reason to seek him out anymore. She didn’t care about him, only what he could give her. Once that was gone, she wouldn’t be a threat to him.
Of course, he still wasn’t sure how to break his curse. It could take years, and he didn’t relish the idea of trying to accomplish his own goals while evading a dangerous Spirit Tarja. All of which would become doubly complicated if he died and forgot everything all over again.
On that note, he really needed to record everything that had happened over the last few days in his journal.
When they stopped for the night, however, Saya immediately put him to a different task—translating Ranjan’s writings. While Mitul and Kesari prepared their supper, he sat next to her under the light of Lucian’s flame, meticulously copying everything Ranjan had written onto the blank pages in the back of the journal, translating them from Shavhallan to Kavoran as he went.
Occasionally, he had to stop and ask Lucian about the correct magical term for something Ranjan had written, and Kesari helped by copying the diagrams so that he only had to label them. Aleida listened to all of it with a blank expression. Once, she wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her tunic, but she said nothing.
It took him a few hours to translate and copy everything d
own. By that time, it was very late, and Mitul and Kesari had already gone to bed. He returned his quill and ink to his pack, fingers stiff and cramped from so much writing. Recording his memories of Shavhalla in his own journal would have to wait until tomorrow.
Saya took Ranjan’s book from him and put it back in her satchel. “Thank you,” she said. “Truly. For that and for everything else you’ve done to get me here.”
He nodded. “I should be thanking you, too.”
She fell silent, and Amar was about to go to bed himself when she spoke again. “It’s not as complex as I thought it would be. Creating a curse, I mean. It doesn’t seem that much different from any other kind of magic.”
Lucian let out a sound that was a bit like a snort. “Except for the part where you have to channel altma directly from your own blood or someone else’s. It all sounds similar in theory, but in practice, there’s a lot that can go wrong. And when things go wrong with magic on this scale, they go very wrong. Look at Amar with his memories.”
Ranjan’s journal had made no mention of memory loss. He would have had no way of knowing about it, and it was difficult to say whether it was supposed to be a part of Amar’s curse at all. Lucian had speculated that the recurrent amnesia may have been an unintentional side effect created by the complexities of using such powerful magic, or a mistake resulting from the pressure Mahati had been under when she’d performed the curse. After all, what was the point of condemning someone to experience an eternity of loss and suffering if they simply forgot it all each time they died?
“Only the most skilled and powerful Tarja would dare attempt a curse like that,” Lucian went on. “I wouldn’t, if I were still alive. Someone like Jameson might be able to pull it off, but I doubt he’d risk it either. How many Tarja like him do you have in the desert?”
“None as renowned as him, but I can think of a few who might be powerful enough. That’s all we need.”
Amar frowned. “That, and enough people willing to put their own lives on the line to conduct this little experiment.”
“My people are not afraid of risk,” Saya said resolutely. “Especially if it means giving ourselves an advantage over enemies who could destroy our entire way of life.”
There was another, potentially bigger problem with her plan. Nandini. Creating an entire army of immortal Sularan warriors would give her plenty of people to form an eternal Bond with, and then it wouldn’t matter if he broke his own curse. She’d have other opportunities to get whatever it was she wanted with immortality.
He didn’t say this, though. It wouldn’t sway Saya, and she’d likely only see it as him trying to dissuade her from her chosen course of action.
From her spot on the ground, Aleida muttered something. She’d been so quiet Amar had almost forgotten she was there.
“What was that?” he asked.
She kept her eyes downcast. “It wouldn’t have worked.”
“What wouldn’t have worked?”
“Valkyra said if we found you, we could transfer your curse to Tyrus so he wouldn’t die. But based on what was in that journal, that was never going to work, was it?”
There was a moment’s pause before Lucian answered. “No, it wasn’t. You might have been able to give your brother the same curse, but in the time it would have taken you to learn how to do that, his illness would have claimed his life anyway.”
“I’m so stupid,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “I never should have left him.”
She looked so small, hunched over like that with her head drooping, eyes fixed on the ground. Barely more than a girl, and certainly not the formidable Tarja who’d fought and killed him three months ago. Pity swallowed up all the lingering animosity Amar held for her. She’d lost everything, and now even the assurance that she’d made the best choices she could for her brother had been tainted.
“You didn’t know,” he said.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes watery with tears. “You have to kill her.”
“I don’t want to hurt Jameson.”
“He’s already beyond saving, and you don’t owe him anything. He helped us, you know. He told us everything about you, said he didn’t care what we did to you as long as we spared him.”
“I can’t fault him for trying to save his own skin.”
Hatred burned in Aleida’s eyes. “If you don’t kill her, she’ll keep coming after you. She’ll kill all your friends to get to you if she has to.” Her voice was sharp, almost frenzied.
“Are you saying that because you really believe it, or only because you want her dead?”
“Both.”
Amar sighed. She had a point, and the last thing he wanted was to put his friends at risk. He could try to convince them to leave, to let him do the rest of this on his own, but Mitul would never agree to that. And if his hunch about Valkyra’s future plans was correct, maybe putting an end to her was the best option—not only for him, but for everyone. Before she could wreak any havoc on the world.
But that was only a hunch. He didn’t know anything for certain, and he couldn’t sacrifice an innocent man’s life so easily.
“It’s late,” he said to Aleida. “Get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”
“But—”
He cut off her protest. “You’re not wrong, but we need to have a plan. If we don’t find her first, she’ll find us, and either way, I want to make sure we’re prepared when that happens.”
51
Kesari
"We can’t hurt Jameson,” Kesari said, slamming a fist into her palm for emphasis. All morning, they’d been debating the best way to handle a fight with Valkyra and the wizard. It seemed inevitable that they would run into each other at some point, and Amar had decided killing her was the only way to make sure she didn’t come after him again and threaten all their lives. It was a fair point, but Kesari had been much more comfortable with their previous plan of simply running away and lying low. Even if it was unsustainable.
“I don’t want to hurt Jameson,” Amar said. “If we can figure out a way to save him, that would—”
“Not if,” she said. “We have to find a way to save him.”
“There isn’t much left to save,” Aleida countered.
“You don’t know that,” Kesari snapped back. She was becoming increasingly annoyed by the young woman’s presence, not so much that she regretted saving her life, but definitely enough to make her wish they’d left her there on the road afterward.
Aleida looked like she was about to say something else, but Amar cut in. “Look, if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. But my main priority is keeping the rest of you alive. And that should be your priority, too.”
Kesari said nothing. She didn’t know how to save Jameson, and that hurt. The only reason he was caught up in this was because of them, and she was the one who’d led the others to Deveaural to find him.
“I might know a way,” Aleida said. “It’s not a permanent solution, but it could buy us time to figure out something else.”
Amar nodded. “Let’s hear it.”
“I still have some daravak. If we can capture them and use that to disable Jameson’s magic, they won’t be able to hurt us.”
“Can’t she just sever her Bond with him and force one on me?”
“I don’t think so. When she Bonded to Jameson, she had to touch him to do it. If we can trap her inside a barrier, she won’t be able to do that, and if Jameson’s magic is suppressed, he won’t be able to break free.”
“A barrier,” Kesari said, recalling how Aleida had trapped Amar inside one the night she killed him. “Like the one you used when you attacked us before.”
“Yes. They’re typically used as protection, to keep things out, but you can create one to keep something in instead.”
Kesari looked at Lucian. “Do you know how to do that?”
“I do,” Lucian said. “I was reasonably skilled in creating defensive barriers when I was alive, so you sho
uld pick it up quickly, with a little practice.”
“Practice while we walk,” Amar said. “We need to keep moving.”
They were all anxious to find the river again and have a guide out of the forest. Lucian gave Kesari some quick instructions and observed her practice for a few minutes, then left to scout ahead. They started walking, and Kesari experimented with making barriers as they travelled. At first, they were small and weak. They fizzled out after a few seconds and were immediately burst by the pebbles Amar and the others tossed through them. She kept working at it. Aleida offered a few suggestions of her own, and by noon, her barriers were deflecting fist-sized rocks, Saya’s arrows, and even the heavy blows of Amar’s sword.
After that, she moved on to trapping things inside a barrier. She put them around butterflies, beetles, frogs, and birds as they crawled, hopped, and flew across her path. This made her more nervous, knowing she had the potential to hurt the creatures if she got something wrong, and her magic destabilized. Most of the animals she trapped escaped in a matter of seconds. The more she practiced, the easier it became, and by the time they stopped to rest for the night, she was creating barriers that could hold her friends and Lucian. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d be ready to contain Valkyra and Jameson when the time came, but she had no other choice. It was the only way to save Jameson.
She found herself sitting beside Aleida while they ate. “Thanks for your help today,” she said. “You taught me a lot.”
Aleida shrugged and kept her focus on her food. Her hands shook as she raised a slice of dried apple to her mouth. It slipped out of her fingers and fell onto the ground, and she frowned at her hands as if they’d betrayed her before reaching for another piece. “They won’t stop shaking,” she muttered.
“I could try to see if there’s anything more I can do to heal them,” Kesari suggested.
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