“On the contrary,” Draevenus said. “You’re a splash of paint on an otherwise-dull canvas. A fair treat for our deadened eyes.”
She frowned. “Do I smell?”
“Near two days on the trail, and we’ve yet to come across running water. None of us are as fresh as we’d like to be.”
Her eyes narrowed, cutting into the mierothi like thorns. “There’s something holding you back. If I could only . . .” Her gaze shot open. “You haven’t been with a woman in ages, have you?”
Draevenus flinched, then went still as a statue.
Mevon pondered the reaction. He’d thought he’d known the reason for his friend’s standoffishness—that he wanted to keep his mierothi nature hidden from her—but now he wasn’t sure. He’d never heard the assassin talk about any kind of love life, past or present. Mevon contained a smile. She must speak too close to the truth for his comfort.
Draevenus turned his head away, gazing out over the ocean beyond the Shelf and the sun now setting where even the waters faded away. “It will be dark soon,” he said. “I’ll go gather some firewood.”
Mevon stepped forward. “I’ll go with you.”
The mierothi held up a hand. “No. Thank you. I’ll be fine. You’re not the only one who needs the exercise, Mevon.”
He swung away and began marching through the trees.
“Exercise?” Zorvanya called after him. “You’re just trying to escape me. Admit it!”
“I admit nothing!” he called back.
She laughed at the dark, retreating form, and Mevon allowed himself to join in. He gestured at a log he’d drawn up to their hasty encampment, and the two of them sat down. Mevon leaned forward and began preparing the ground for a fire.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said. “How exactly did you know what we were—regarding magic, I mean?”
“Finally worked up the nerve to ask, huh?” She sighed. “I’m afraid there’s no big mystery. Draevenus flashed into my yurt faster than a blink, then held up a man twice his size without appearing to strain. He was the easy part.”
“And me?”
“You were more difficult, but I figured you out all the same.” She tapped her ear. Mevon could see a bead-like earring tucked just inside. “This tells me when someone is in or near my home. It is linked to other beads, enchanted as this one, that are woven into the skin of my entrance flap. It emits a low, ringing sound, alerting me whenever I have company, as it was when Hakel and his friends were visiting.
“The ringing stopped when you came in.”
“Trinkets? Where did you get those?”
“The friend of mine, the one we are on our way to see, she gave them to me. Though how she obtained them I’ve never been told.”
Mevon nodded. He’d have to remember to ask the other shaman when they reached her. They’d encountered no casters of any kind since crossing the mountains, so the story behind how such devices came to be here would be an interesting one to hear. “Still, I am impressed that you noticed with all the commotion.”
“I make it my business to notice things most others would miss. I like having insight into people’s lives.”
“Is that so? What have you discovered about the two of us, then?”
Zorvanya folded her hands in her lap and cleared her throat. “You’ve been traveling together for a while. There’s an easy camaraderie about you, a cohesion of your movements that only comes to those who’ve shed blood side by side. You’re both killers. Draevenus is stoic about it. He seems to have accepted that death is sometimes necessary, even inevitable, but he takes no pleasure in it. You, on the other hand, grow excited at the prospect of violence though you are trying to suppress that part of you.”
Mevon realized he had grown still and forced himself back into motion, placing more stones around the edge of the growing fire pit.
“That,” Zorvanya continued, “is why I tease your friend so. He looks like he could use a good jabbing now and then. But my flirtations with him are just that, a tease.” She leaned forward, daring to caress his arm. “I prefer men who exude a certain . . . passion.”
He felt a flush rising within him at her touch, and her words. There was no denying he welcomed both. Yet a twinge of guilt invaded his thoughts all the same. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the freedom to be with whom he wanted. But that freedom, he knew, only existed because he yet lived, while Jasside was dead. And while there had been no vows taken, no promises to her made . . .
He ground his teeth, willing the feeling away, so he could revel in the delightful possibilities of this encounter.
Mevon turned his head, gazing into her eyes with the full force of his attention. Her lips parted with an almost imperceptible gasp, which transformed her natural beauty into something far greater. He thought it might be called desire.
He smiled.
She edged closer.
They both jumped as a pile of logs dropped to the ground just beside them. Draevenus brushed his hands together, clearing off dirt and flakes of bark. “That should be enough to get us through the night,” he said.
“Yes, thank you,” Zorvanya said. She withdrew her hand from Mevon’s arm with a sigh. But her gaze lingered a moment longer, a moment filled with promise.
Mevon grabbed a log and cluster of twigs and began arranging them in the fire pit. His mind wandered, pleasantly. He didn’t know how much longer Zorvanya would travel with them, but he couldn’t help but entertain thoughts on how best to use the time.
He felt Draevenus arrive at his side. The mierothi slapped something into Mevon’s chest. “You forgot these.”
Mevon reached for the two daggers, which he had left embedded in the tree. “Thanks.”
He pulled back his cloak and inserted one into its sheath on his left side. As he repeated the movement on his right, something on the blade caught his eye. He brought it up to his face to inspect it.
A single sniff told him what it was. Nothing but tree sap. He pinched the dagger, sliding his fingers up the edge to clean it off. But something stopped him. In the day’s dying light, it did not look like sap at all.
It looked like blood.
He closed his eyes as memories sprang forth, unbidden.
The Shelf on one side, a cliff on the other, and the day on the edge of darkness and light. Blood stained the end of a blade. This blade.
An encounter with a beautiful woman.
Mevon shook.
It was not excitement that set him to trembling, nor—as the memory recalled—fear, but something else new in his life.
Longing.
Longing for a dead woman.
But, more than that, longing for the effect she’d had on him. For awakening the realization that he could be something else. Something other than a killer. Something . . . good.
Her influence, more than any other, had set him upon the path he now trod. He had promised himself to do right by her, to see this path through, to make of his remaining days a worthy tale to tell. A worthy life.
He knew he had yet to succeed. Perhaps there would be time for his own happiness later, for . . . pleasant distractions. But not yet.
Mevon wiped the blade clean and slammed it home in its sheath. He dared the barest glance at Zorvanya’s lounging form before shifting his eyes away.
Not yet.
Vashodia peeked over the edge of the boulder as she scanned the valley. She’d left the caravan soon after Jasside, but while her apprentice drove eastward into the swamp, Vashodia had gone south, ascending a section of the Nether Mountains that curled through the lower part of Weskara. A gust of wind fluttered her robe as it passed. It was cold, this high up, but the garment protected her from the worst of the chill. She was more than glad to be free of the hot, dank marshes.
Thoughts of the swamp turned to thoughts of Jasside. She was
slow in coming back. The girl must have gone and injured herself. My, what a foolish thing to do. Vashodia smiled. A little pain, now and then, was good for keeping one humble. She knew she had at least a day before Jasside made it back to their little troupe.
Time to end the hunt. On the real quarry, that is.
She didn’t feel bad for the deception. Those shadow beasts were, after all, a nuisance that needed to be dealt with eventually. A test for the girl and a peace offering to the Weskarans were merely pleasant bonuses. She herself had a bigger mountain to crumble.
Vashodia energized. Her eyes swept over the whole of the valley below her. Thin droplets of her power spread out over the expanse, a million strong. None was large enough to warrant attention by itself, even from the most sensitive of wards. Her prey was vastly more intelligent than most others she had hunted. She would have to play it terribly careful to avoid falling into any unwanted traps, which was simply no fun at all.
The droplets reached the limits of her vision having found nothing. She had expected as much. The initial gathering of such power would have notified other casters in the area, so she’d started her search where she was sure none would be. She eyed a ledge a league distant, closer to where she thought her target might be found, and shadow-dashed to it. Once there, she simply pulled the existing droplets to her.
This valley proved empty as well. A second and third jump to new areas revealed identical results. On the fourth, however, one of the droplets, then another—then dozens, performed an action unattributable to her direct control: They bounced away from their path. The fact was, their function was not to find anything. Rather, it was to avoid. A much less obtrusive method of seeking out places soaked in manipulated energy. This trick was one she’d kept for herself.
Vashodia watched another mark, but the lone anomaly had been the only place to disturb her little pets. She chuckled. Eying the spot carefully, she shadow-dashed down towards it, landing in a clearing three hundred paces from a thick stand of evergreens, where she now knew her prey dwelled. She gathered her robe about her and skipped forward over a thin layer of pine needles and twigs. It wasn’t long before she pranced past the trees, stopping just outside the wardnet.
She peered closely, examining the casting. A simple enough design, used to alert the maker whenever an unwelcome guest came traipsing in. She had ways of disarming it, but it would take a rather long time to do so. And besides: This close, she actually wanted her prey to know she was coming.
Vashodia gave one last command to her droplets of power and stepped forward. The ward quivered, releasing a strand of energy. She watch it snake along the ground, disappearing around the corner of a low mound. She followed. No doubt it would lead her right where she wanted to go. She was delighted to find an entrance cut into the side of the mound, hidden by folds of earth so that only someone who knew where to look would find it. She descended into the hole without hesitation. Into darkness. She couldn’t help but smile.
A tunnel opened up before her, not damp or musty as one might expect. Vashodia scraped her claws across smooth, hardened walls, ravaging the passage with the shrill sound it made. The ground she walked was as level as a palace floor. She sniffed, inhaling what could easily be described as sterility. Her prey always was a bit obsessive about cleanliness. I’m so very glad that some things never change.
She strolled, following in the wake of the snaking strand, letting it guide her through several branches of the tunnel. She had no intention of beating the thing to its maker. Let the poor creature twist in the trap. Let him sweat. It would not change his fate. She sensed a snap of expelled energy as the strand reached its destination and delivered its fell message.
Reckoning has come.
Vashodia began to run, unable to refrain a moment longer from seeing the look on the man’s face. Two more turns, and she broke into an open chamber, lit only by lightglobes that pulsed with a purple glow. Charts scribbled with complex formulae adorned the perimeter, and the floor space was cramped by half a dozen tables littered with alchemical tools—flasks and vials, clamps and droppers, clear amphorae holding a hundred body parts from as many different species, humans included. In the center rested a high-backed chair, facing away from her.
“Hello, Lekrigar,” she said. “So sorry I couldn’t visit sooner.”
The chair swiveled, revealing the pinched face of the high regnosist, the last festering pustule of the regime she had destroyed. He sat, one foot propped on the opposite knee, fingertips of each hand resting together in a contemplative pose. He peered at her, fully lacking in the anticipated fear.
“Vashodia,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“And how might that be?” she asked, surprised yet unconcerned with his show of confidence. “I’ve been masking my signal for a week.”
“Yet I still knew you were coming. I bet you’re just dying to find out how.”
“Seeking to impress me with your knowledge?” She giggled. “How pitiful. There are as many mysteries to solve as there are stars in the sky. I don’t waste time on trifles.”
“So besting you is merely a trifle now?”
She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. The student has clearly surpassed the master. I’m sure it didn’t even take a century for you to develop this one lamentable skill you think would grant you an advantage over me.”
She watched, in exquisite satisfaction, as his right eye began to twitch.
Lekrigar cleared his throat, gripping the arms of his chair. “Why should I need an advantage? Surely you just came here to talk. I can’t imagine you’d saunter in here, alone and deenergized, if you had something else in mind.”
“Talk. Of course. How is your life these days, my oldest and dearest friend? Having fun unleashing my creations on the countryside?”
“They are my creations. Mine! You inflate your own involvement in their development, as you do in anything else you touch. Your idea was simple, childish. I took it and turned it into something beautiful.”
“Beautiful? Even you can’t believe that about such monstrosities.”
Lekrigar cackled. “To some, power is the only true beauty.”
“Oh, stop it. I’m blushing! You can’t possibly think me the prettiest girl in the world.”
His face scrunched in confusion for a moment. When it passed, a snarl took its place. He rose to his feet, pushing the chair back in his haste to stand. “I’m done with your games, Vashodia. Tell me why you’re here.”
She shrugged. “But we were having such a lovely chat . . .”
Lekrigar’s fists bunched up as a growl rumbled from his throat.
“Fine. If you’re going to get all pouty on me, I’ll cut right to the point. I came to ask you one question. Depending on your answer, I will kill you.”
He waited in silence four whole beats. “Or what?”
“Hmm? Oh, right. That statement requires another possible resolution, doesn’t it? To be honest, I hadn’t bothered to think of the alternative. I already know what you’re going to say.”
He sneered. “Out with it then.”
Vashodia narrowed her gaze on him. “Are you willing to be civilized?”
He laughed, shoulders shaking like a slow shiver. “Are you talking about that pathetic colony of yours? You are, aren’t you? Ruul’s light, girl, you must be desperate indeed if you’ve come to beg my help. What’s wrong? Is it too taxing playing nice with the inferior life-forms of this world? Negotiating? Treating them like equals?” His laughter continued, becoming more unhinged by the beat.
She exhaled, shaking her head. “I thought as much.”
“Just what is it you hope to accomplish with this show of civility anyway? Our people are conquerors, Vashodia. Or have you forgotten? You seem in the business of toppling rulers of late.”
“What else do you think I’d be doing? I’m saving the
world.”
“From what?”
“Things they can’t see.” She smiled. “Things like you.”
Lekrigar stilled, the sudden silence like a hammer strike. “You won’t kill me, Vashodia. You can’t. I figured out your weakness, you see. I know exactly why you didn’t fight Rekaj yourself. His advantage over you in combat meant that you would always be too cowardly to face him.” He stepped forward, pushing his hands to each side. “That advantage is one he and I shared.”
Vashodia rolled her eyes, adopting the most bored-looking stance she could think of. She yawned.
Lekrigar’s forward momentum wavered, then stopped.
Slowly, so he’d be sure to hear every word, she said, “I’ve devoted myself to the observance of things most people aren’t even aware of. Almost two thousand years of it. Did you really think, in all that time, I would never once turn that gaze upon myself? I know all about my own weaknesses, Lekrigar. More importantly, I know how to counteract them.”
“I . . . don’t—”
“You feel it now, don’t you?” she said. “And perhaps you finally remember the most important thing there is to know about me.”
He grew rigid, unmoving, unblinking, as shadows slowly crept up his legs like a black mass of ants. The sweat she had expected at the start, and the fear in his face, finally deigned to show themselves.
She crossed her arms. “I plan for everything.”
The shadows swelled, converging on his torso, sweeping up his neck, clawing across his face to darken bulging, frantic eyes. They continued to the top of his scaled head as a formality. Finally, with a single constriction, like the twisting of a wet towel, the shadows consumed him.
Vashodia energized at last, but only for half a beat. She gave the order, and the shadows dispelled once more into the million droplets of power she’d conjured nearly a toll ago. At her command, they’d been seeping in through the cracks and pores in the earth, surrounding this very chamber. Only her staying hand would have saved him, but she’d known the outcome of this encounter before she’d even left the colony. Not that there was much left to save. Neither bone, nor scrap of cloth, nor a single drop of blood remained.
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