Two people awaited her on the far side. One, a young trainee, took her horse to a nearby stable. The other was an adult Hunter, who checked Mirei swiftly but thoroughly for weapons, then indicated she should follow him.
Never before had she set foot in another school’s compound. She kept her eyes mostly on her guide’s back, so as not to seem unduly curious, but noted down details out of her peripheral vision. Windblade’s buildings were packed more closely together than Silverfire’s, limited by the walls that demarcated the compound; she saw few open spaces, and surmised those must be toward the back. After all, the trainees would need somewhere to ride, and to practice the archery their school was famous for. The structures, though, were built more of wood than of stone, and had larger windows with shutters thrown open in hopes of a cooling breeze. Winters were kinder here.
The building she was led to looked more defensible. The Hunter leading her knocked on the outside door in what sounded like a specific pattern, waited for a call from within, and then opened it with a wave for Mirei to precede him.
There were three people inside, two men and a woman, all in Hunter clothes. Both of the men stared at Mirei in startlement. “What are you doing here?” the younger of the two snapped, voice harsh with suspicion.
Mirei saluted the whole group. The older man, wide as a barn door and twice as thick, was probably the Grandmaster, but she wasn’t sure. Better to be polite, in a situation like this. “I’m Mirage of Silverfire. Jaguar, I believe, has sent a message about one of your trainees.”
The younger man dropped the papers he was holding and walked up to her where she stood, just inside the room. Her guide had closed the door and was standing behind her; without looking, Mirei knew his posture had shifted to readiness. This might be about to go very bad.
The man spoke with sharp, hostile clarity. “You took her with you yesterday.”
Damn it. I hate being right.
Mirei made an instant decision not to try and control her expression. It helped; the clear shock and dismay on her face sent some of the tension out of the man’s shoulders. “A witch,” she whispered through her clenched teeth. Shimi, or an ally of hers? “Damn it to Void!”
“How do we know you’re not the witch?” the woman said, rising from her seat. She did not come near, and her hand hovered in a way that told Mirei there was a knife sheathed at the small of her back.
“Did the other one mention Jaguar’s note?” Mirei asked.
The Windblades exchanged glances. “No,” the woman said softly. “And we should have been suspicious of that.”
“But we weren’t,” the younger man said, and that told Mirei everything she needed to know about what had happened the previous day.
“I have to go,” she said into the silence. She fixed her eyes on the older man, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, but whose manner as he listened to the others identified him as the one in charge. Which would make him Wall, the Grandmaster of the school. “Sir, I’m sorry. If I’d been here sooner—” She tried not to curse the softness of her two charges, and only partially succeeded. “I’ll get her back, I swear. But right now, I need to go and make sure someone else is safe.” She probably isn’t.
The older man spoke at last, and his deep, resonant voice confirmed his identity. “Why does a witch want Naspeth? And why did Jaguar send you to take her to safety?”
Mirei did not have the time to give him the explanation. Not with one doppelganger stolen, two others vulnerable in a bolt-hole east of the city, and a fourth yet to be secured. She went for the quick and dirty version, hoping it would divert their anger away from Starfall. “There’s a religious fanatic among the witches, a renegade who’s gone off on her own. She thinks people like Naspeth are an abomination.”
“People like you,” the younger man said.
Wall spoke again before Mirei had to decide how to answer that. “So she’s going to kill Naspeth.”
“Not yet,” Mirei said. “She thinks it has to be done in a special way, and setting that up will take a while. I told you: I’ll get Naspeth back.”
“Who is this fanatic?”
Mirei looked the Grandmaster of Windblade in the eye and lied with every fiber of her being. “I don’t know. The Primes who warned me about her didn’t say.”
Wall approached her at last, and the others melted out of his path, all except the Hunter still standing guard at her back. Up close, he was truly enormous. “That’s not good enough.”
“I’ll tell you more as soon as I know anything,” Mirei said, not betraying her deception with so much as a flicker of eyelash. She’d tell him more as soon as she thought it was safe to do so. Which might be never. “Now I have to leave.”
“The Thornblood,” the woman Hunter said.
The two schools hated each other, but it was too obvious to lie about. They would know there was a girl there like Naspeth. “Yes. I’d rather chase down one missing trainee, not two.”
After a moment in which the only sound Mirei could hear was her own pulse, Wall nodded. “Then go.”
SHE RODE HARD for the city, knowing her progress was being noted, and not caring.
Mirei didn’t know if the last doppelganger was still within Thornblood’s walls, and had no idea what to do if she was. There was no friendly introduction smoothing her way there. Nothing but a compound full of people who would kill her on sight. But she had to try.
She got to Angrim’s walls and had to slow. Mounted traffic was only permitted on a few of the major streets; the rest were too narrow and twisted. If I ride straight for Thornblood, I’ll never make it; someone will get nervous and take me down. Warrior’s teeth and toenails. Got to move more subtly, but be ready to run like fire if I have to, and get back to the other two. There were Silverfire agents in Angrim, but she couldn’t stop long enough to contact one. She had to improvise.
She left her horse in a hostelry toward the eastern side of the city and took to the streets on foot. Avoiding the places where she knew there were spies, she made her way through alleys, courtyards, shops with doors on multiple streets. Soon the Askavyan peasant disguise was gone, replaced by shirt, trousers, and cap that probably belonged to a clerk. Her Hunter uniform went into a bundle on her back. She also swiped a knife. Mirei melded in with the crowds, then slipped out again and nicked a cleaning woman’s drab rags. She was nearly to the north edge of the city now, and paused to find a good place to hide and change a second time. The neighborhood here was more run-down; with a change of clothes, she could be a servant returning home at the end of the day. Then she’d have to decide what to do about breaking into the school.
Or I could bypass that bit entirely, because she’s not in the bloody school.
Mirei faded back into the evening shadows, rags forgotten in her hands, as two figures emerged from a side street. In the dim light, the woman’s pale, short hair glimmered, almost ghostly, and her rangy silhouette was unpleasantly familiar. The smaller figure behind her had her head covered, but it didn’t take a genius to guess who it was.
Mirei had not seen Ice since the Thornblood had smashed her head into the floor of an Angrim inn, knocking her out for transportation to Miryo—well, she sort of had, when Miryo watched the arrival of the Hunters through an enchanted mirror. The overlap of the two memories was briefly disorienting. Nevermind, that’s not the point, Mirei growled at herself. Stop picking daisies and follow her.
Ice had vanished into another alleyway, girl in tow. Mirei sauntered across the street, doing her best to look like an ordinary clerk, no one to be suspicious of. How many spies would there be, in this quarter? Ah, Void it, just get the girl and worry about the spies later. The only attention that mattered right now was Ice’s, and once again, Mirei had cause to be glad that the Thornblood was not as good a Hunter as she liked to believe.
They were headed toward the northeastern edge of the city. Should she jump Ice now? No, because the trainee would probably run at the first sign of trouble, and then Mirei would n
ever chase her down. Besides, she wanted to know where Ice was going. Judging by the Hunter’s furtiveness, this trip was not one she was supposed to be taking.
The shadows were deepening into twilight, making the two figures harder to follow. Mirei closed up the gap, afraid of losing them. And then, blessedly, Ice stopped at a building, and pushed the trainee through the door ahead of her.
Mirei slipped up to the door the moment it closed. Ear to the wood, she heard footsteps, the creak of stairs, Ice saying “Go on up.” Two sets of feet; good. Mirei forced herself to wait a few heartbeats more, until the sounds had faded, before she tried the handle.
The door was unlocked, and she glided through.
She found herself in what looked like a clerk’s small office. Pity, she thought wryly, that disguises won’t do much good now. There was a desk, a wall of cubbies filled with paper, a staircase. And from the floor above, voices.
Mirei eyed the staircase. She’d heard it creak under the weight of the others. Getting up it silently would take forever, if it was even possible. The flash powder she’d brought from Silverfire was uselessly safe with her supplies in the bolt-hole. Was it worth the risk to just charge?
Ice, according to one of Silverfire’s agents in town, had sold information about Mirage to the Primes. The animosity between them went above even the standard rivalry between their two schools. Ice had hated Mirage before they even met, because of Mirage’s inborn talents.
Would that hatred go away just because this time the one with the gifts was a Thornblood?
Can I apologize after the fact if whoever’s up there isn’t on Shimi’s side?
Yes.
Mirei threw herself up the staircase.
They heard her coming; a deaf man would have heard her coming. Mirei had a heartbeat, when she reached the top, to thank the Goddess and all her stars that there were only three people in the room: Ice, the trainee, and a witch. A heartbeat only: Ice had drawn a blade, and the witch was singing a spell.
Mirei cleared the remainder of the steps in a dive-roll that took her straight past Ice and into the room. Behind her, there was an explosion of splinters as the spell hit where she had been. Okay, so we’re not playing nice. Ice swore in shock and flinched back from the detonation, and then Mirei was on her feet, knife in hand.
The witch was closer, standing next to a small desk and chair that were nearly the only furniture in the room. She was about to begin another spell. Mirei didn’t give her time. She bull-rushed the woman, knocking her to the floor, and vaulted on top of the desk as Ice lunged for her. A kick sent the Hunter reeling backward. The trainee dodged out of Ice’s path with snakelike grace, even while staring in confusion at the scene that had erupted with so little warning.
Mirei spun down off the desk. Ice had recovered and was coming for her; Mirei had to retreat, cursing the disguises that put her here with only a knife against the Thornblood’s sword. The witch was singing again, voice ragged with stress, but she maintained her tone well enough that the spell was going to work. Mirei dodged inside Ice’s guard, slammed her elbow into the Hunter’s face, and in the brief space she bought for herself gasped out the syllables and pitches that would cancel the witch’s spell dead.
Both of her opponents stopped and stared. The witch has never seen magic canceled. Ice . . . Ice just saw me cast a spell.
Then the trainee tackled her from the side.
Mirei crashed to the floor, the girl tangled around her legs. Ice was moving in to attack. Mirei had no time to be gentle; she kicked the girl solidly in the head, then pivoted and swept Ice’s feet out from under her. But the witch’s voice was filling the air again—
She didn’t even think about it. She just threw.
Her knife took the witch in the throat. The woman’s spell died into choking silence; the energy it had built hovered, on the edge of manifesting but cut off before completion. One more syllable, and it would be done—but the witch collapsed to her knees, hands clawing weakly at the blade, unable to finish.
Ice hurled herself on top of Mirei, hands scrabbling for her throat. Mirei dug her fingers into the other Hunter’s wrists, seeking pressure points, her legs fighting for leverage beneath Ice’s weight. Finally she got a lock around one leg, and applied force; Ice gasped with pain as her knee tried to bend the wrong way. Her grip slackened. Mirei forced Ice’s hands back, took a good breath, and sang a holding spell.
It almost didn’t work. Her tone was rough with the strain of the physical struggle; there had to be a way to make her fighting work as a focus, but she had yet to figure it out. The unevenness of her voice almost sent the spell awry, especially with the unfinished remnants of the other witch’s spell still hanging in the air. But it worked, just barely, and Ice went rigid and still.
Mirei shoved her off and climbed to her feet. She went first to the witch, but it was far too late; the woman lay unmoving on the bare floorboards in a pool of blood. Mirei pulled the knife from her throat and laid her out on her back. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
A rustle behind her made her turn. Ice had not broken the spell; the trainee was stirring where she lay. Mirei tried to remember how hard she’d kicked. Weirdly, she almost hoped it had been very hard. Judging by her own experience, if the girl had died of it, then she would come back without the headache she’d have otherwise.
Assuming this was the Thornblood doppelganger.
She stepped over Ice’s frozen body. The Hunter snarled as she did, and thereby discovered that she could still make noise; the spell held her jaw in place, but it didn’t stop her vocal cords. A stream of badly enunciated invective was delivered at Mirei’s back as she knelt to examine the girl on the floor.
The trainee seemed roughly the right age—eleven, or twelve at the most. Her oval face and delicate features didn’t remind Mirei of any particular witch, but that didn’t mean anything. The hair would be the telling point. When Mirei slipped off the kerchief tied to her head, though, the scalp beneath was shaven bald.
Standard procedure for Thornbloods? Mirei wondered. Or special treatment for a red-haired girl? If her hair even is red. Won’t necessarily be. Is this the doppelganger, or not? Misetsu and Menukyo, I hope so.
The girl was alive, at least. Mirei turned her attention to Ice, and could not keep the anger out of her voice. “This is her, isn’t it? How much were you being paid, Ice? To betray someone of your own damned school to a witch?”
Ice mumbled something virtually unintelligible; the only word Mirei picked out was “hypocrite.” “Slowly and clearly, Ice,” Mirei said mockingly. “Otherwise I won’t be able to understand all your finely crafted insults.”
“Void-damned witch,” Ice snarled, with admirable clarity.
Mirei had never been more aware of the newfound irony of using the Void for cursing. She couldn’t deny the words, though; she was a witch. After years of hating Ice for calling her that. “They were going to kill her, Ice,” she said, gesturing at the girl. “Did you know that? Or didn’t you bother to ask? Was the chance to get rid of someone like me too good a bargain to pass up?” Fury made her tremble. “She could have been the pride of your school. Surely that means something to you, even if you don’t care that she’s an eleven-year-old girl. Hate me, fine; I’m a Silverfire. But she’s one of your own.”
Ice said something that came out mostly vowels. She growled in frustration, then tried a different word. “Freak.”
Mirei regarded her in silence, wondering what to do. She’d used magic in front of Ice. Given the chance, the Thornblood would tell the world. Witches had long neglected the Aspect of the Warrior in their theology; Hunter schools were descended from Warrior cults. The two groups had never gotten along. And now she—a Silverfire, and a witch—was about to steal a Thornblood trainee.
She had the knife in her hand, still wet with the witch’s blood.
If she killed Ice, someone would find the bodies of a murdered Hunter and witch in this room. There would be an investigation. So
meone might remember seeing Mirei; this was Angrim, after all. The Thornbloods, and Shimi, might learn what she had done.
If she left Ice alive, they’d know who killed the witch. And Ice would put the worst spin on it she could.
Mirage would have killed Ice. It was the logical solution. But the part of her that had been Miryo could not be so cold-blooded about it. The woman was a Thornblood, but also a human being. Could Mirei just pass judgment on her, here and now, and end her life?
Her hand tensed on the knife—and then a small foot hit her in the kidneys.
“Mother’s tits,” Mirei swore, and spun around just in time to grab the fist headed for her face.
The trainee struggled, and the contact with her was enough to tell Mirei she did indeed have the Thornblood doppelganger on her hands. Fortunately, even Warrior-blessed strength wasn’t enough to overpower her, not when the body it rested in was a mere eleven years old. Mirei got the girl pinned, then snapped, “Will you bloody well stop that? I’m on your side.”
“Silverfire,” the girl hissed, as if the word were the foulest insult she could think of.
Great. So they’ve indoctrinated her already. “Try to forget about that for a moment, and concentrate on the fact that I’m the only woman in this room who didn’t want you dead.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Ice said, and went on from there, her clarity rapidly degenerating into unintelligible mush.
“Ice, for the love of the Warrior, shut up before I cut your throat.”
Mirei’s careless threat hit the girl she held like a blow. The doppelganger froze, staring at her, then began to fight all the more wildly. “Murdering witch! You touch her and I’ll—”
“Look,” Mirei said, and hauled the girl to her feet. “You’ll get more of an explanation later. For now, what you get is this. That witch”—she pointed at the body on the floor—“wanted to kill you. Ice”—she pointed at the Thornblood, who had ignored the order to shut up—“sold you out to the witch who wanted to kill you. They both think you’re an unnatural abomination who should be destroyed. Or something like that: I won’t go so far as to assume Ice thought much past the ‘jealousy’ stage. The point is, you’ve probably noticed that you’re faster and stronger and better at fighting than any of your year-mates. As it happens, that’s why certain people want you dead. I, by contrast, want you to live a long happy life with flowers and puppies, and can—as a side benefit—tell you why you are the way you are.”
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