“Shimi’s departure will not stop our work,” Satomi continued, putting more confidence into her tone than she felt. Half of keeping life normal was convincing people it was normal. Though that would be a lost cause with Eikyo, in a minute. “We’ll appoint one of her Keys to stand for her—without an illusion, though, since everyone’s well aware that Shimi’s not here. You’ll be tested in two days.” She smiled at the student. “I hope you’ve been studying.”
Eikyo turned pale, but she nodded.
The smile faded from Satomi’s face almost immediately. “This, then, is where the chance for you to help comes in.
“You said to me yesterday that you’re a student, and not as much use as a witch. Well, I have witches who support me—not enough, but some. And one new witch, her pendant still warm from the silversmith’s workshop, won’t tip the balance much. But you stand at a crossroads where—if you are willing—you may take a path that no one else can.”
Eikyo’s lips went suddenly white as she pressed them together.
“I am asking you,” Satomi said quietly, “to participate in a lie . . . and become a Cousin.”
She thought she saw Eikyo sway. What were the odds that the girl would agree to it? Satomi hastened to offer an explanation. She did not expect it to do much good, but she offered it anyway. “The Cousins are a vital part of Starfall, yet we know terrifyingly little about them. They do not confide in us. They do their jobs; they clean our rooms and halls, prepare our food, defend us when we need it. Such has been their lot nearly since our line began.
“It was a few generations after Misetsu that the first woman lost her memory and her chance at magic in the test. One by one, others followed. What should be done with such women? We must either send them out into the world, or keep them among us. In the world, they would be alone, with no kin or friends to help them. Among us, at least, they need not start from scratch.”
Eikyo was swaying on her feet. Satomi took her by the arm and guided her to a chair; the student sat without any sign of awareness that she was moving. The Void Prime went on, softly. “We don’t mistreat them. You know that. The ones who fail their tests pick what jobs interest them, and learn their trades; how many people in other domains have that much choice? Many of them have children, and then those children either follow their mothers’ trades, or choose something else. They stay here because we are their people.”
At her own words, she laughed softly. “Or so we tell ourselves. We don’t really know why they stay.
“And there are more things we don’t know. Doppelgangers have survived in the past; they had to have had a Cousin’s help. The Cousins themselves claim not to know anything about that—but can we believe them?” Satomi cast a glance at one of the books on a shelf behind her desk. It was a history she had read shortly after her ascension to the position of Head Key in the Void Ray gave her access to it; she had never touched it again until Miryo’s test showed that her doppelganger was alive. It detailed the efforts Tokaga, Void Prime in those days, had made to discover how Orezha had survived.
“We have ways of determining whether someone is telling the truth,” Satomi said. “You’ve studied those spells. But we can’t place every Cousin under the lens like that; there are too many of them. And taking such extreme actions . . . does not help our relations with them.” There had been some unpleasant repercussions to Tokaga’s efforts.
Eikyo showed some sign of life at last; she turned and looked at Satomi, eyes still very wide.
Satomi spoke quietly, meeting her gaze. “We must know more about the Cousins. About what they do, and how, and why, when we are not watching them. There’s a whole society around us we know almost nothing about. They won’t talk if we ask them to; the only way I can think of to learn about them is to place someone among them who will talk. But no current witch could do that. Even with an illusion to hide who she is, they’d wonder who this newcomer is, when there’s no word of anyone failing her test. It has to be a student, ready for the test—but who has not failed. Someone who retains her memory, who knows she has a task. And you are in a perfect position to do that.”
And then she fell silent, because she could think of nothing else to say. She simply had to wait.
Finally Eikyo stirred, and spoke. “I . . . would not be tested?”
“You would go through the questioning of the Keys. But for the ritual itself—no. Everyone else would believe it had happened, but it would not have.”
“Then I wouldn’t be a witch.”
Satomi had considered testing the girl, and then simply lying about the result. The odds of passing were substantially in Eikyo’s favor; those who died or became Cousins for real were in the minority. But magic was hard to resist, once you had it; the masquerade would be far more plausible without it. “Not yet,” she told the girl reassuringly. “Afterward, we would test you for real. I would not leave you among the Cousins forever.”
The young woman’s hands were trembling in her lap. She looked down and clasped them hard together. “I . . .” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she was silent. Then she turned back up to face Satomi, and her eyes were full of tears. “Aken, I—I’ve been afraid of this for years. Afraid that I would be a Cousin. I’d rather die than have that happen to me. If I’m not going to be a witch, then I’d rather the Goddess kill me, than take away my mind.”
Satomi reached out and took the student’s hands in her own. “You won’t lose your mind. That’s the point. You’ll know exactly who you are, and why you’re there.”
“But—” Eikyo’s breath was coming rapidly, though she was clearly fighting to maintain her composure. “Why now? If this is so important, why haven’t you done anything about it before?”
The Void Prime pressed her lips together. The young woman had a point. She should have worried about this before now. But Cousins are Cousins; they’ve always been there, since the day you were born, keeping your world in good working order. Who ever stops to think about what they do when out of sight?
“I suppose,” she said at last, her words coming slowly, “that it’s because of Mirei. Her arrival here was like an earthquake, and this is one of its many aftershocks. I find myself questioning many things I took for granted, and wondering what else we have missed. What else has become habit, that should be changed. The way we relate to the Cousins may be one of those things.”
“And—you can’t just ask them?”
Satomi’s breath came out in a short, soundless laugh. “My rank carries a certain amount of weight with them, and no more. They do what I tell them to, and politely stonewall anything else. I cannot get more out of them except by force—or subterfuge.”
Eikyo took her hands out of Satomi’s, picking at the cotton of her skirt. Satomi let her sit in silence for several long moments and tried not to show how desperately she waited for an answer.
“You need me to do this,” Eikyo said, almost inaudibly.
“I need someone to. You’re the best candidate.”
Another silence.
“All right,” Eikyo whispered. “I will do it, Aken.”
Chapter Five
MIREI FORGOT to allow for saddle sores.
She’d spent the last five years of her life on the road, moving from place to place as an itinerant Hunter, usually alone. So she made her usual calculations of travel time: four days to Angrim from Silverfire, and then nine days or so to Starfall, barring weather.
She forgot to allow for eleven-year-old girls.
To be fair, Amas and Indera did their best, and didn’t complain. But what Mirei thought of as a solid traveling pace was brutal to them, and they simply couldn’t last an entire day on horseback. Their training included daily trail-riding to toughen them up, but they weren’t anywhere near ready for Mirei’s pace. She had to slow down, take breaks, stop early, and try not to worry about how long it was taking them to reach Angrim.
Mindful of her promise to Jaguar, Mirei worked on teaching them things as they rod
e. Unfortunately, she hadn’t the faintest idea what first-year trainees were supposed to learn.
Jaguar had decided, back when Tari-nakana convinced him to take Mirage in at the ripe old age of thirteen, to throw her in with the trainees who were of an age to be her year-mates, rather than putting her with the first-years. It had been a grueling experience for her, trying to catch up on everything she had not learned in her apprenticeship as a Temple Dancer, but that had been the point: the way Jaguar saw it, if she survived that, she was tough enough that she deserved to stay.
But at the age Amas and Indera were now, Mirei had been in the Great Temple in Eriot, spending her days in far different lessons. Now she had no idea what to do with her miniature doppelganger flock.
Horse care, certainly, because she wasn’t going to handle all three mounts herself. How to sleep outside as comfortably as could be arranged; Mirei had some coin, but Askavyan peasant women did not, and she wasn’t about to abandon the disguise that so usefully hid their red heads and cropped hair. Edible wildlife, coupled with the things that one would not want to eat oneself, but which might be useful against others. Indera already knew some of those from helping her mother. Other elements of surviving the traveling life.
And, of course, fighting.
Even raw from riding, Indera was wild to learn from her hero. Her young face showed echoes of her true mother’s high-boned features; when she set herself to practice, some of Ashin’s intensity came through. Amas was less vocal than her year-mate, but the wiry girl took everything Mirei cared to give her without a hint of reluctance. Which left Mirei having to figure out just how to teach something that had always come very naturally to her.
It came naturally to the doppelgangers, as well. That was part of being a doppelganger, being the Warrior aspect of a soul. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from a systematic method of learning. Mirei had to delve back into her memories of her earliest days at Silverfire to figure out what they should do.
She gave them this much credit: they didn’t complain. Much. “Slowly,” Mirei said late one afternoon, in the daisy-strewn meadow where she’d taken them to practice. If they couldn’t use all the hours riding, then she would use them for something else. “Slow makes you work on your balance as well as your form. Start in stance—pivot—tuck your leg—slow!” she barked as Indera began to kick outward at speed. Amas had a talent for kicks, with her long legs, but Indera needed work. “Slow extension means you’ll think about your line, your aim, whether or not you’re keeping your guard up. Again. Pivot—tuck— extend—now bring your leg back in, your body back up. Now the other side.”
Indera lurched slightly on the next kick. Out of stance, she scuffed at the grass with one toe. “Sorry. The ground’s rough here.”
“You think you’re going to be doing all your fights on the practice room floor?”
The trainee flinched at the snap in Mirei’s voice. “No.” Without another word, she went back to the exercise.
It was good for them, making them think about form and precision, even when their butts and thighs had been pounded into jelly by hours in the saddle. And it saved Mirei from having to do anything other than watch and critique, which meant they had no chance to find out that their reflexes were better than hers. Mirei could beat them easily, even both together, but her reflexes had been legend; she didn’t want the questions that would arise from her slower movements.
So many pitfalls she had to avoid. And so many things she would rather be doing—like finding out what had happened to Eclipse.
When she wasn’t teaching, she asked questions about them both. Subtle ones, wandering to many side topics she didn’t much care about, but she got the information she wanted in the end. Neither of the girls had the slightest real clue that their supposed parents were not their own. However Tari and Ashin and the rest had gone about placing the doppelgangers with false families, they’d done a much more delicate job of it than whoever had spirited the infant Mirage out of Starfall. Seniade, as her foster parents had named her, had known from a very young age that she was a foundling, and not just because of her flaming red hair. Amas and Indera believed in the lies they’d lived.
She was not looking forward to destroying those lies.
She couldn’t put it off forever, of course. She would tell them the truth as soon as the two doppelgangers in Angrim were secured. And then she could get an escort of witches and Cousins, take them to Starfall, and go back to helping Satomi figure out how Void magic worked and what repercussions this would have on the witches’ way of life. While Amas and Indera and the other two met, for the first time, the other halves of their souls.
Once she was done in Angrim.
TAKING THE DOPPELGANGERS into Angrim would be idiocy. There were two Hunter schools on the outskirts of Abern’s capital, Windblade and Thornblood, and they didn’t like each other much; the city, lying between them as it did, was a hornet’s nest of spies. They kept an eye on each other—several legions of eyes, actually—and then others kept eyes on them. Other Hunter schools; Lady Linea, Abern’s ruler; even the witches had some people there.
Mirei met with substantial resistance, though, when she tried to tell Amas and Indera to stay behind.
“We’re Hunters, too,” Indera said stubbornly. “We know how to be subtle. We won’t cause trouble.”
“You’re trainees, and you’re staying here.” Mirei silenced further protests with a glare. “This isn’t negotiable. You do what I tell you to, when I tell you, or you regret it. Understand?”
Indera nodded unwillingly. Amas merely watched the whole exchange. I’m going to have to be careful of that one, Mirei thought, casting a swift glance at the silent trainee. She’s been watching me this whole trip, all seven Void-damned days of it. Keeping her own counsel. Weighing what I say. Got to be careful of her, when I finally tell them what’s going on. She may not take it well.
She stashed the two girls in a Silverfire bolt-hole east of the sprawling edge of Angrim. It wasn’t exactly a secret place—she had no doubt both Windblade and Thornblood knew of its existence—but for a short stay, it should be all right. She had every intention of getting in and getting out as fast as humanly possible.
Nevermind that she still hadn’t decided what to do about kidnapping someone out of Thornblood.
Mirei got Amas and Indera settled, then went out to where her borrowed gelding was tethered. “Don’t even think about it,” she said as she checked over her tack, not bothering to look back at the door of the “abandoned” farmhouse. The startled scuffling noise she heard was answer enough. “Follow me, and I’ll flay the skin off your back. Understand me?”
“Yes,” Indera called back, half-meekly, half-sullenly.
“If I’m not back by nightfall, feed yourselves. Bread and jerky only. Don’t go scrounging, don’t light a fire. If I’m not back by morning—” Mirei hesitated. What should they do, if this went wrong? “Then ride back to Silverfire, as hard as you can. I don’t care if your legs are bleeding pieces of meat by the end, just get there as fast as possible. Got it?”
“Yes,” came the answer again, this time in a chorus of Amas and Indera.
Mirei mounted up and rode west without another word.
The day was barely half spent, and alone, Mirei could set as hard a pace as she wanted. She didn’t gallop; that would only draw attention. But she rode fast, wanting to finish this and get back to the bolt-hole before her charges found something stupid to do.
Windblade was on the southern side of the city. Mirei went there first. Jaguar had promised to send pigeons ahead; Silverfire and Windblade were friendly with each other, as Hunter schools went, and in particular he had a good relationship with the Grandmaster of Windblade, with whom he had once cooperated on a major commission. If all had gone well, he had smoothed the way for her.
Unlike Silverfire, half a day’s ride from the small town of Elensk and therefore protected by isolation, Windblade was heavily fortified. Jaguar
had guaranteed that he could at least get them to let her in. Which was good, since Mirei was not going to attempt to translocate blindly into an unfamiliar place. If she ended up needing to sneak into Thornblood, she’d have to do it more slowly.
The main gate of the compound was a massive thing, two iron-banded oak doors wide enough to allow a large cart through. The guard kept watch from the allure above, and challenged Mirei as she rode close. “Halt. State your name and business.”
Mirei pulled off her head scarf. She wore her Hunter’s uniform underneath the disguise, and she was sweltering in the heat; a part of her hoped the guard would demand more evidence, so she could remove a few layers. “Mirage of Silverfire,” she said, remembering at the last instant not to give the wrong name, and to disguise her trained witch’s tones. “My Grandmaster should have sent a message in advance. I have business with your Grandmaster.”
Red hair came in handy for once. To his credit, though, the guard didn’t take it as sufficient proof. He delved about for a moment in a case clipped to his belt, then produced a piece of thin rice paper that looked, from what Mirei could see of it, like a sketch. Clearly they, like Silverfire, kept information on other Hunters, and had informed the gate guards she would be coming. After a moment of comparing the sketch to her face, he nodded. “Right. Wait there.”
He turned and gestured to someone on the other side of the wall, then took up his post again, eyes on the road, but keeping peripheral watch on Mirei. A few minutes later, a small side gate swung open. The opening ran at an awkward angle through the wall, and was narrow and low enough that Mirei had to dismount and lead her reluctant horse through. If it ever came to an outright attack against Windblade’s compound, no one would find this a convenient entrance.
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