by Cara Witter
Perchaya was out of their hands; now it was time to go. He turned and bolted after the wagon, which had wound its way drunkenly down the street and around the corner. Kenton wove through a blacksmith’s yard, keeping to the shadows, hearing a few sets of boots following after him.
Cutting through the block, Kenton was fairly certain he’d lost the soldiers in the shadows. When he emerged on the street again to find Perchaya sitting back in the wagon, he looked her over. She was busy trying to quiet the blustering and stomping of the horses, though it was made difficult as she was still stuck in the back of the wagon.
Gods, was he glad to see her unharmed. Or at least mostly unharmed—one of her fingers and most of the back of her hand was smeared with blood.
He looked around for Sayvil, who came running up a side street. Kenton didn’t see anyone following her, so he waved for her to join him at the wagon.
“If that was Diamis’ finest, we’re in better shape than I thought,” Kenton said, keeping his voice down. He hurried to the wagon and stroked the noses of the horses, calming their whickering and shaking.
“Yes, Diamis is an easy mark,” Sayvil responded. “As long as you have a daughter of his willing to sacrifice her life for you.”
“You do?” Perchaya asked from the wagon. “Really?”
“Really,” Kenton said. He turned to Sayvil and jerked his head in the direction of the wagon. “Get in. We need to get farther away and then ditch it. They’ll be following.”
Sayvil climbed into the back of the wagon with Perchaya and cut her free from the remaining ropes, then began checking her over for injuries. Kenton climbed onto the driver’s bench and flicked the reins, steering the still-skittish horses down the block, clicking his tongue to urge them faster.
“How did this happen?” Sayvil asked, and Kenton looked over his shoulder and down at Perchaya. Sayvil had Perchaya’s arm in both her hands, surveying a wound on the inside of her wrist.
A deep puncture, the kind that might be made by a bloodletter—favorite tool of the bolder blood mages.
Kenton froze, letting the horses charge forward on their own for a moment. “Did they get your blood?”
“Yes,” Perchaya said.
Kenton felt a cold hand grip him, as if by the throat. He’d known this was possible. Hells, he’d known it was likely, even. But to hear her say it, to think about what she’d been subjected to—Diamis had her blood, the blood of a Drim. If it was as easy as that for Diamis to get what he needed, surely he wouldn’t have killed all of Kenton’s kinsmen—especially not in the way Daniella had killed his father, where the blood sprung from his body into the air.
But Diamis could follow them anywhere now, and unlike Daniella, Kenton couldn’t leave Perchaya behind.
“It’s going to be okay,” Kenton found himself saying, though he had no idea how.
“It is,” Perchaya said. “Because of the ring.”
Kenton turned to her. That bloody ring had caused so much of this. “What?”
“The ring protects me from blood magic. They tried to control me, but they couldn’t. I’m outside their reach, Kenton. They can’t use their magic on me.”
Kenton sat for a moment, stunned. And then he laughed, ignoring the two women, who were both staring at him as if he’d lost his ever-bleeding mind.
The ring. The runes of protection. They protected from more than its removal—and blood magic made sense, as it was the primary tool the enemy would use in their quest to release Maldorath.
Kenton nodded to himself. At least something had gone right. He steered the wagon near the outside wall of the city, down the block from a sewage tunnel that they could use to reach the wagon with Daniella. He called the horses to a stop, secured the reins, then turned, putting a hand on each of Perchaya’s shoulders. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. But are you hurt?”
Perchaya’s body was shaking, but she looked up into his eyes. “Not really. Are you all right?”
Kenton faltered. Several of his wounds hurt like all hells and they were still in terrible danger. He wasn’t sure he could keep Diamis from tracking them, especially until they got away from Daniella. Surely Diamis would realize that Sayvil was the bearer of Arkista, given how closely he would interview all the guards about what they had seen.
He couldn’t be certain that they wouldn’t be captured again, that they wouldn’t all die gruesome deaths at the hands of the tyrant before they could even find the rest of the chosen, let alone the godstones.
But Kenton wasn’t going to give up now.
Kenton smiled, pulling her to a stand in the back of the wagon. “I’m fine.” Perchaya teetered a little, but got her feet under her, supporting her own weight, which Kenton took for a sign that Diamis hadn’t damaged her too irreparably. “Now let’s get out of this bleeding city before something else goes wrong.”
He lifted Perchaya out of the wagon and stole down the block, keeping a tight grip on Perchaya’s hand, Sayvil close on his heels. And neither of them complained when he led them through the narrow sewer tunnel, which stank of urine and decay, of things growing and things long dead.
Perchaya huddled close, and Kenton could feel her shaking. All the way back to the wagon where they’d left Daniella and their supplies for the road, Kenton kept hold of her hand.
Finnian Diamis stood in the center of the Chamber of Binding, looking down at the shallow dish of blood resting on the stone pedestal before him. He didn’t need Maldorath’s help to perform simple acts of blood magic, but in this room, he wouldn’t be disturbed.
On the other side of the chamber, the voice of the boy-corpse spoke. “My lord,” it said.
“Not now,” Diamis replied. So much for a lack of interruptions. Still, this was the safest place in the castle—and he certainly wasn’t fool enough to keep the bloody thing in a wardrobe in his own chambers, as if he might have a bad dream and need to call on it in the middle of the night.
Tehlran needed to take better care of his toys, especially those Diamis had gone to such pains to acquire. Diamis himself had stumbled across the secret two decades ago, when he had been deep in his library, doing research. A short passage about the biological similarities in the blood of identical twins had set his mind racing with possibility, and when he had noticed the triplet sons of the mayor of Gort on a state visit, he had begun planning in earnest. The next winter, when the three disappeared on a hunting expedition, he had sent his most earnest condolences. He found it interesting that in the fifteen years since, the three boys had not aged. Theoretically, they should have; their bodies were alive.
But still, there were annoyances. The thing could sense his presence and would have awoken the others. Clearly one of his men thought this meant Diamis was available to converse.
Whichever it was, he thought wrong.
Diamis turned his attention to the dish before him, moving his hand over the surface of the blood. Whenever there was a sensitive operation to run, Diamis always sent a certain guard. The soldier was obviously proud of the special attention, and Diamis had heard reports of him boasting of the good work he’d done and how well-rewarded he’d been for it.
Diamis let this go on because it served his purposes. The soldier didn’t need to know that the only truly important thing he’d done in his career was get stabbed by a street thief the year prior and bleed enough in the infirmary for Lukos to gather vials of his blood.
One of those vials lay on the stone before him, now empty, the blood poured out in the etched, fired-clay dish. Diamis bent over it, chanting in the old language, holding his hand over the pool of liquid that in the dimly lit chamber appeared black. He watched through the guard’s eyes as Kenton—once a soldier in Diamis’ own army—ran down the street toward the wagon containing the Drim woman.
Diamis tightened his grip on the guard, pushing him to run faster, following Kenton as he ducke
d through the work yard at the back of the blacksmith’s shop. If he maneuvered the soldier close enough, he could attack, and likely do a better job of it than the soldier would on his own. Diamis’ own fighting skills had become rusty over time, but he was once renowned for his use of a blade.
He’d watched as the Vorgalian charm failed, watched Erich be run over like a fool by the Drim girl in the wagon, watched as Kenton freed himself and his hostage. Until he’d taken full control of the soldier, he’d heard nothing, only seen. Now he watched and listened as Kenton ran. He didn’t know where Lukos had gone, but this much was clear: he’d sent his two best men, and they’d failed him.
Ahead of the guard, Kenton moved into the street. Diamis pulled at the soldier, and, like a horse whose reins had been drawn back, he stopped in the shadows, watching as Kenton reached the wagon.
Diamis sighed as the wagon bolted across the city. A man on foot wasn’t going to catch up with those horses. Erich, or his second, would give the order to secure the gates. Diamis would block them in, keep them in the city. He’d have Kenton in his dungeon before dawn.
The most important thing now was to secure his weapon. Though he could barely stand the girl, she was his. His seed. His creation. He had sacrificed hundreds to make her. She belonged to him, and no one took from Diamis what was his.
If she’d left with them willingly, then apparently he’d failed her in recent months. After the imprisonment debacle years ago, he’d learned the importance of keeping his weapon mentally stable. He would find her, placate her.
And then find Kenton and use her again.
For now, he turned his soldier around, running back to the house to ensure that they’d found Daniella. He pushed past the soldiers who gathered around Erich, the general laying on the ground, clutching his arm.
Diamis found the others searching the empty house.
“Where is she?” he said in the guard’s voice. “The princess?”
One of the other soldiers shrugged. “There’s no one here. Looks like it was empty all along.”
Diamis threw the dish of blood against the far wall, leaving shards of pottery and splatters of blood across the stone floor. Some of the droplets splashed over the seal, and in his gut, Diamis felt the god stir.
Diamis clenched and unclenched his fists, fury simmering under his skin.
My lord, he thought in the direction of the seal. If only you could help with your might. There was no reason to speak the words aloud. The god remained within the stone, bound, unable to intervene except with those who stood directly above his resting place.
Still, this should have been easier. Even with the attacks now underway in other parts of the city, Erich and Lukos should have been able to handle them. It hadn’t worked, and now the Drim had Daniella, who he couldn’t control, except through more conventional, non-magical means.
Diamis breathed slowly, forcing himself to still. The cause was too important. In the years when Diamis was a young recruit, when Andronim had tried to invade Sevairn, he’d spent long weeks at the front on the river Trace. He’d seen his friends slaughtered, seen his commanders cut down. He’d been promoted in the field again and again as death rained around him, paying no mind to creed or country. But one day his regiment had been called to a disturbance in a town east of Telvanir along the Trace. That day he’d stood over the bodies of women and children who’d been accused by the local leaders of blood magic, seen the burned feet of toddlers, barely able to talk, who’d been tortured to rat out their parents.
And he’d found his older sister there among the dead, stabbed where she’d been lying over her own children to protect them. Their bodies, too, still lying beneath her, where they’d been pierced through with the sword that killed their mother.
It was then he’d known that Maldorath—who even to Diamis wouldn’t reveal his true name—had it right. People were awful to each other. Left to their own devices, all they would do was destroy.
He might cause a bit of destruction himself on his path to restore Maldorath to his rightful place, and he’d certainly learned how to turn prejudice and hatred to his own ends. But when it was finished, all would fall into line. All would bow down.
The sacrifices would be more than worth it, to at last heal the world of its agony. Even if his own life was lost for the cause, it would be well worth it. The least he could do for the many who had died before him.
Diamis steadied himself and strode out of the chamber, through the passageway which led to his office. His weapon had escaped—and if the reports from his men could be believed, she’d done so with Arkista’s own bearer. In a washbasin near his desk, Diamis cleaned his hands and made sure the entrance to the passageway was secure.
He might not be able to track Daniella, but if the prophecy could be trusted, one bearer would lead him to another.
And Diamis knew where one was expected to be.
Thirty
Daniella waited in the dark coffin for an uncomfortable length of time as the wagon rolled along the road away from Peldenar. Whether her eyes were open or closed, she saw nothing but darkness, and her mind ran rampant with thoughts of the wagon having been stolen and the things ruffians might do to her when they opened the coffin and realized it contained a living, breathing girl.
Too late, she realized she should have demanded that a dagger be hidden in the coffin with her, somewhere she would be able to reach.
Still better than being in the castle with Erich, she told herself.
After what felt like hours—and might have been, as far as Daniella knew—the wagon bumped to a stop and Daniella heard muffled voices. The lid shifted aside, and even the night sky above seemed bright compared to the total darkness of the wooden box.
She must have stared up a moment too long, because Kenton reached in, grabbing her arm to pull her out.
“Let me go,” she said.
“Gladly,” he said, dropping his hold, and Daniella fell back against the coarse wood of the coffin.
A woman with pale blond hair looked back at them from the front of the wagon. “Kenton—”
Kenton only smirked down at Daniella, and she noticed a large bruise swelling up on the side of his forehead. “Be sure to let me know how else I can oblige.”
Sayvil boosted herself up on the side of the wagon, looking down at Daniella. “Are you all right?”
Daniella gave a shaky nod, relieved to see a familiar face, and—unlike Kenton’s—a friendly one. “Where are we?” she asked, looking out over the side of the wagon at a large stretch of wheat field, the long stalks waving under the light of the moon.
“Don’t try to figure it out,” Kenton said. “The more you look, the more information you’re giving to Diamis.” He slung a cloak in her direction, possibly the same one he’d made her wear earlier after killing the guard wearing it. Or maybe another blood-stained cloak from another dead guard? Daniella fought the urge to shudder.
“Put this on and climb out of there,” Kenton continued. “We’re leaving the wagon.”
“Should we blindfold her?” Sayvil asked.
Kenton shrugged. “She’ll just hold us up if we do. Better that we get in the brush, where she can’t see anything identifying.”
Daniella averted her eyes from the field. Even if Diamis could watch through her eyes—which she doubted—surely he couldn’t identify the road by a glimpse of the scenery. Besides, if he could control her, he would have already.
“Now, Princess,” Kenton said. And he climbed out of the wagon and walked around the front to unhitch the horses.
Sayvil gave her an apologetic glance and helped Daniella to stand. Her muscles were stiff and her body bruised from the ride in the rough wooden box.
The blond woman—presumably Kenton’s friend, Perchaya—climbed into the back of the wagon and stood beside her. “Here, let me help you,” she said. “Kenton
means well, but he can be a bit of an oaf.” She wrapped the cloak around Daniella’s shoulders. The woman had some ripped fabric tied around her wrist and one of her fingers, with dots of blood showing through. Something Diamis had done to her? Daniella avoided Perchaya’s eyes, staring down at the pattern of deep ruts etched into the well-traveled dirt road. She was glad to see that whether or not Kenton’s friend was really as important as he said she was, at least she seemed to have very little in common with him.
After they’d climbed from the wagon, Kenton slapped the horses, goading them off down the road, and they obliged, taking off at a gallop.
“We aren’t going to ride?” Daniella asked.
Sayvil shook her head as she lifted Daniella’s arms, checking over her body as if for injuries. “Harder to track us if we head in a different direction than the horses.” She gave Daniella a nervous glance, and Daniella surmised what she must be thinking.
Unless Diamis was watching her, even now, through Daniella’s own eyes.
And as much as Daniella wanted to be sure that Lukos had been right about her immunity from blood control, the truth was, she couldn’t be. Perhaps the best thing she could do was to part ways with them. That was obviously what Kenton wanted—Daniella was honestly surprised he’d gone through with the plan to come back for her. She’d been half afraid she was going to have to beat herself out of that coffin come morning—if she wasn’t discovered by the guard in the meantime and dragged back to Castle Peldenar.
But the plan had worked, which meant she was free. She could leave them here, head in a different direction. Daniella looked out over the field again, even though Kenton had specifically told her not to. She could pick a direction, run, and never return.
But her body felt weak, her stomach hollow with hunger. They might be nearing morning now, and when the sun rose, what would she do? She’d barely ever been out of the castle, and while she’d read books about wilderness survival, she’d never had to fend for herself, much less with soldiers looking for her, as they inevitably would be.