“She’s very organized,” Satomi said. Traits like that didn’t always survive the transition, but—with a jolt of startlement she hoped Nae did not see, Satomi remembered that Eikyo was not a Cousin, and would retain everything of who she had been. It was easy to forget that this was a charade.
All the better. I’m less likely to give the truth away.
“Very organized,” Satomi went on, gathering her wits. “And she has a good memory—that is, she will learn things easily. Some kind of administrative position, perhaps.” She conveniently left out Eikyo’s talent with plants and animals. If the young woman was to tell her anything useful about the Cousins, she’d have to be among them, not out in the wilderness.
Nae gazed down at the sleeping girl, expression unreadable. Satomi wondered how she felt about these occasions, when she took charge of someone Starfall would no longer keep. Did she mourn their failure? Rejoice at the addition? Was she bitter at the witches, and glad to see one of their number fail?
Questions like these were why Eikyo was asleep on the bed.
Satomi drew herself together, putting speculation aside. “I’ll have a cart waiting outside before dawn,” she said. “Notify me if there’s anything you need.”
She said it every time and, every time, she heard not another word from Nae on the subject. Just a brief message from wherever the new Cousin was sent, informing her that the woman had arrived safely. The former students vanished into their ranks without a ripple.
But not this time.
Satomi left Nae there, and returned back to the main building—but not to her room, nor her office.
THE PRIMES’ OFFICES were all within a short distance of a high, open-air patio that extended across the roof of one of the lower parts of the building. The door to this space was not locked, but ironclad protocol meant that only the Primes ever spent time outside on its flagstones; others came there just to deliver messages, and then only when the messages were important.
There had to be one place in Starfall where the Primes could have some peace and quiet.
Satomi went there now to pray. There were chapels for that, but tonight she preferred to be beneath the stars. She felt the witches had done wrong to lock themselves farther and farther away from the Goddess’s eyes, behind stone walls. When she stepped out onto the patio, though, she found herself not alone. Arinei was there.
The other Prime’s expressive face was drawn and weary. Satomi came up to her, but did not reach out; the two had been colleagues for years, but never close. She would have touched Rana, or Koika. But Arinei’s pride was too sensitive.
“I wonder if we made a mistake,” Arinei said. She had her arms braced against the carved stone of the railing. Her eyes roved restlessly across the late-night landscape of Starfall, the treetops rustling softly in the breeze.
“Mistake?”
“Testing Eikyo the way we did. Without Shimi. With Naji in her place.”
Satomi’s apprehension faded. Arinei was not referring to what they’d actually done. “It’s hardly the first time. Primes have been sick or absent before.”
“But what if that caused her failure?”
This was very much a conversation Satomi did not want to be having, with the knowledge bottled up behind the false front she had constructed. “Other students have failed, Arinei, and we’ve never known why. But they’ve failed with all five Primes there, and students tested with a Key present have passed. It was simply coincidence this time.”
Arinei did not seem reassured. Bickering with her since Mirei’s arrival had made Satomi’s patience with the volatile Prime wear thin, but the woman’s expression now reminded her that, for all her faults, Arinei was dedicated to Starfall and the well-being of its people. Her heart was in the right place, even if she did not always agree with Satomi on the right course of action.
“I do wonder, though,” Satomi went on before she could stop herself, “why those failures happen.”
The Fire Prime looked toward her for the first time. The starlight was not strong enough to show her expression. “The question has been asked before.”
“And never answered. But Mirei has me wondering about all manner of things that we take for granted, or have stopped asking about. Why do some students lose their memories? Why do others die?”
“Because the Goddess judges them,” Arinei said, her tone taking on a harsh edge. Or was that just tiredness? “The qualities necessary to be a witch are not in them.”
Satomi sighed. Now she looked away, at the shadowed flanks of the mountains. “It wouldn’t concern me as much if this was something our daughters all chose. But it isn’t. We choose it for them. We train them from the cradle for this life.”
“We can’t afford to delay it. Preparation requires years of study.”
“And yet still some of them fail, even with study.” And they hadn’t always done it this way, though Satomi kept that thought to herself. The elaborate, codified course of study their daughters followed hadn’t been some divine revelation from the Goddess to Misetsu. It had been built up over centuries of work. Yet she remembered, from her days in the Path of the Head, how small a difference it had made in the number of women who passed the final test. Some, but not enough. As long as women failed, it was not enough.
A faint breeze flowed across the patio, briefly ruffling her hair. “How did we begin doing things this way?” Satomi murmured, half to herself. “And what might happen if we did them differently?”
“What do you mean?” Arinei asked, warily.
“If a witch didn’t conduct the connection ritual, then her daughter would be ordinary. Yes? The ability to touch power is not inborn. But we always choose to pass it on.” Satomi pondered this. “I wonder what would happen if we conducted that ritual on a child who wasn’t one of ours.”
No response from the Fire Prime. Misetsu had only done it to her own daughters, and had taught them to do the same; from that decision had come their tradition, their people. But Misetsu had made errors out of pride; they knew that now. What if this was one of them?
“Or an adult,” Satomi added, as the thought came to her. “We’ve always performed it on infants because we had to do it before they had souls. But if the soul is no longer a problem, then why infants? Would it work the same on an adult? Our daughters don’t touch power until the test; they could study just as well without the channel inside them. Of course, then you wouldn’t have the doppelgangers to raise separately. The witches who resulted wouldn’t be like Mirei, with both magic and battle in her background.” There might be reasons for working the ritual on infants. Benefits to be gained by seeing yourself from the outside for a time.
“I wonder, too, what will happen when Mirei has children.” A faint smile touched Satomi’s lips as she said that, the first real one in a while. “I suspect some of our Heads may order her to take up with some man, just to see if she has sons. And if she does—what about them? Can they learn to use magic, too? Misetsu only ever had daughters, but that could be chance. And her descendants, the ones who survived, lacked a part of themselves. We’ve never had an opportunity to see if men might be part of this.”
Continued silence from Arinei. Satomi sighed. Too many questions with too few answers, and she was not at all sure she wanted to experiment with such things. “I doubt I would live to see the full result, even if I started trying out these ideas. I think the only reason we test our daughters at twenty-five is because it’s five fives, a sacred number; we could do it at a different point. But you’re right: They do need study. Quite a lot of it. And I am old enough that I don’t expect to see Obura’s daughter tested, much less any children Mirei might have.”
Smiling at that thought, Satomi turned back to face the other woman. “Especially since I doubt we could pin her down to have children just yet.” Would Mirei consider taking that year-mate of hers for a father? She seemed very close to him. Of course, they would have to find him first.
Arinei did not seem amused
. The Fire Prime’s face was closed and unreadable; she presented certain emotions to the world when it suited her purpose, but she could also lock them away. Satomi wondered what was going on behind the mask.
“It’s late,” the other woman said. “And I am weary. I believe it’s time for me to seek my bed.”
Satomi nodded, but didn’t move toward the door. “As you will. I’m going to stay out here for a while longer yet. I’d like to pray for Eikyo—Kyou, as she’ll be known from now on.”
Walking away, the Fire Prime answered under her breath. “If you think the Goddess will hear you.”
Chapter Seven
GETTING OUT OF ANGRIM unseen could be done. Getting out of Angrim unseen with an unconscious body could also be done, but it was harder.
Mirei thought she had managed it, but she wasn’t sure. She missed surety. Hadn’t there been a time when things seemed clear and she didn’t have a lot to worry about? It couldn’t have been that long ago, but it felt like ages.
The comatose doppelganger jounced in the saddle in front of her as they rode through the darkness toward the bolt-hole. Mirei hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with her once she woke up. Herding two eleven-year-old girls was hassle enough; adding in a third with no reason to like her didn’t appeal.
And what about Naspeth?
Mirei hadn’t the first damn clue what to do about the missing Windblade doppelganger. If the witch in that room had been behind that disappearance, Mirei had lost her chance to find out when she put a knife in the woman’s throat. Naspeth might be somewhere in Angrim right now, tied up, waiting for a kidnapper who would never return. It was probably the best-case scenario: if that were true, then sooner or later someone would find her or she would get loose.
Pretty sad, when that’s your best-case scenario. Do you think the Windblades will be nice enough to notify you if she comes back?
And a corner of her mind wondered with sick curiosity just how a doppelganger’s ability to come back to life would work in the event of death by dehydration. How many times might it happen, before Naspeth got free? What would an experience like that do to a young girl’s mind?
Mirei growled such thoughts away. She would do something about Naspeth. She didn’t know what, but she’d do it. Just as soon as she dealt with the three she currently had.
Once she got them moved from their current hiding spot—she wasn’t about to believe the Silverfire bolt-hole was safe anymore, not after today’s adventures—she would contact Satomi. Through the paper or, if possible, through a mirror. The Void Prime could direct her to witches or Cousins who could be trusted. The loyalty of the witches in Angrim was a dangerous unknown.
So. It was a simple plan, partly because complicated plans tended to fail more, and partly because she couldn’t think of anything brilliant to do. Get to the bolt-hole, bring Amas and Indera somewhere safer, contact Satomi. Explain things to them. Get them back to Starfall.
Find Naspeth. Somehow.
Because she’d meant that promise to the Windblades.
She reached the abandoned farmhouse. Mirei pulled her gelding to a halt, slid off carefully with her burden. No sense beating the girl up any more than necessary. She whistled a soft birdcall to announce her presence, then carried the doppelganger through the doorway and laid her on the uneven floor.
The house was quiet. Mirei put her face close to the trapdoor that led beneath the house and said softly, “Amas? Indera?”
No answer.
Please tell me they’re just being careful.
Mirei pulled open the trapdoor and dropped into the cramped space below the house. The bags were there, but otherwise it was sickeningly empty.
She was out into the main room again faster than thought, knife in hand, checking on the Thornblood. Not awake yet, and not likely to wake in the near future. Mirei pulled her to one side, out of sight of the door, and risked leaving her there as she slipped around back to where the other horses were tethered, in the faint hope that they were just seeing to their mounts.
No such luck—though the horses were there—and she felt a rising panic in her throat.
She went at a half jog back toward the front of the house, and nearly put her blade into a nearby tree when a voice said from it, “So who’s she?”
Mirei kept hold of the knife—though she nearly dropped it on her own foot, aborting the throw—and let out a lengthy, vicious curse. When it was done, she said, “Where’s Amas?”
“Over here,” a soft voice said, and the taller doppelganger dropped from a tree to the ground.
“We just wanted to see if we could hide well enough that you wouldn’t see us there,” Indera said, climbing down from her own perch. “I guess we did.” She looked disgustingly proud of herself.
Mirei fought the urge to plant a fist right on that self-satisfied expression. “I told you to stay inside,” she snarled. Her jaw creaked with barely contained fury.
“We were hidden,” Indera said, as if that justified everything.
“You were outside, in a place that isn’t nearly as bloody safe as I’d like it to be, within spitting distance of a city crawling with spies who certainly know this bolt-hole is here. I’m riding myself to rags trying to keep you children safe, and one of you’s missing, and another one tried to kill me, and I get back here to find you two playing training games?” Mirei cut herself off, not because she’d run out of things to say, but because her own voice was rising dangerously high. When it was back under control, she growled, “Get the horses saddled. Now.”
Indera had the sense not to say anything; she was no doubt the one who had suggested the exercise. Amas, though, spoke quietly from the side. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m damned well ready. Get the horses.”
But Amas stood her ground. “There’s more than the two of us. You just said so. The girl in there is one, I guess, and there’s another one missing. But those two weren’t at Silverfire; they must have been at Thornblood or Windblade. Why are you collecting all of us? Is this all of us?”
Two swift strides brought Mirei up to Amas’s face. The girl flinched back—she could hardly do otherwise—but she met Mirei’s eyes in the darkness.
“What are we?” Amas whispered.
Mirei clenched her jaw, trying to keep herself from saying something she might regret. Finally she snapped, voice low, “I will tell you later.”
“You keep promising answers later,” Amas said. “Do you mean those promises? Or are you just putting us off until you can herd us safely into whatever it is you have planned for us?”
In a moment of unexpected honesty, Mirei admitted to herself that she wouldn’t be nearly so irritated by Amas’s insistent questions if they hadn’t been the kind of thing she would have asked, in the trainee’s place. That realization allowed her to swallow down her anger and respond levelly. She spoke both to Amas, still fighting not to retreat in front of her, and Indera, watching from behind.
“I mean them,” she said. “I’m not going to lead you blindfolded into this. But I wanted to have all of you—there’s only four—so I could explain it just the once, and now that I have all it looks like I’m going to get, I want to wait at least until we’re somewhere that I don’t have to worry quite so much about Thornbloods or city guards breathing down our necks. There was trouble in Angrim, and I’d like to get away from it right about now.”
Amas accepted that, after a moment, with a cool nod that reinforced Mirei’s wariness of her. She didn’t accept anything just because someone in authority told it to her; she had to weigh it, consider it, and then decide how best to respond to it. Mirei turned to Indera, and found her nodding, too. But she probably hadn’t taken the time to think before doing so.
“For the last time, then,” Mirei said, “get the horses.”
THE RIDING WENT FINE for about an hour, and then the Thornblood woke up.
Mirei, engrossed in mental calculations of where to go and how long it would ta
ke to get there and what the best course of action would be once they did, didn’t notice as quickly as she should have. By the time she realized the movement in the body she held wasn’t just caused by the horse’s stride, the girl was wrenching herself out of Mirei’s grip and crashing hard to the ground below.
Amas’s horse nearly trampled her. The Thornblood rolled to her feet, disoriented, but alert enough to set off at a lurching run for the nearest trees, as if she could somehow escape three mounted pursuers. She might have, had it just been the trainees; their horses were spooked by the sudden commotion, and the girls were having trouble getting them back under control. Mirei, though, brought her gelding around, and was soon alongside the running girl. A quick stunt brought her out of her saddle and took the girl down in one clean move.
The Thornblood was screaming again and flailing wildly; the flailing turned out to be less panic and more a cover for a sudden, snakelike blow at Mirei’s throat. Mirei knocked it aside, cursed the fading of her own reflexes, and finally got the trainee pinned.
“Bloody witch!” the Thornblood was screaming. She’d caught sight of Amas and Indera, now, and seemed to recognize them as fellow Hunter trainees, though not Silverfires. They had taken off the scarves while hiding at the bolt-hole; uncovered, their cropped hair was visible in the light of the newly risen moon. Both had dismounted, and were watching in startlement. “Don’t trust her! She’s a witch! She’s going to take us and kill us—”
“I already told you, I’m the one who doesn’t want to kill you,” Mirei snapped, tightening her grip on the girl’s wrists. “Will you shut up already, or will I have to spell you to sleep again?”
And then she heard her own words, and looked up, and saw the other two staring at her.
The Thornblood saw it, too. “I told you! She’s a witch! She killed a Hunter, she casts spells—”
“I didn’t kill Ice,” Mirei said reflexively, and saw the Silverfires notice that she hadn’t denied the rest.
Amas backed a step away. “You—”
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