As they approached the first of these travelers, Ashin began humming a jaunty tune, fortunately choosing one that Mirei thought was Askavyan, and therefore not too foreign. Her timing might have been coincidence, but she stopped almost immediately after he was past, and then did it again when they came upon a slow-moving ox-drawn wagon on its way to town.
Once the wagon was well behind them, Mirei glanced sidelong at Ashin. “And I thought I was paranoid.”
The answering grin was thin-lipped. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I lived in fear of being killed. Even before Tari died, we were all on edge. I got in the habit of checking everyone for spells.”
“So you’re going to be humming nonstop the entire time we’re in Tungral?”
“Maybe,” Ashin said, and smiled with more feeling.
They stopped briefly around noon to eat from the meager supply in their bundle; then Mirei stood guard while Ashin hid behind a bush and quietly sang a healing spell over her feet. “I’m used to walking,” the Key said when she returned, “but with actual shoes on.” She gave her rag-wrapped foot a sour look.
The air grew colder as they walked on, and the threatened snow began to fall, thickly enough that there was soon a smooth layer carpeting the frozen ground. It muffled sound enough that the hoofbeats of the next travelers didn’t catch their attention nearly as quickly. Ashin jerked in startlement and started belatedly humming as four riders came around a bend and began trotting uphill past them.
With four spells in such close proximity, the resonance was strong enough to vibrate in Mirei’s bones.
It shouldn’t have been a problem. Any on-pitch vocalization would alert any witch within hearing to nearby magic, but there were no spells on Mirei and Ashin; nothing pointed a guilty finger at them.
But in the stress of the moment, unaccustomed as she was to ordinary methods of disguise, Ashin forgot that, and responded as if she had been caught.
The Air witch began a song of force, probably intended to send the nearby slope of dirt and rock tumbling down on the riders. Before she was more than two notes into it, one of the riders, disguised as a heavyset man, spurred his horse directly at her. Ashin held her ground as long as she could, trying to finish the spell as two of the others began to sing, but she didn’t make it; she had to dive out of the way to avoid a swipe of the man’s sword. The power she’d summoned hung in the air, tense and incomplete.
Mirei didn’t waste breath swearing. She couldn’t sort out the spells the other two were building; they overlapped each other, muddling the words. Mirei went for something simple: a burst of light, shocking in the gray dimness of the snowfall.
The horses panicked and reared, interrupting both spells and sending those riders to the ground. Behind her, Mirei heard hoofbeats; the man had reined in and was headed her way. She dropped into a side roll, and he trampled past harmlessly.
Ashin was up and singing again. So was one of the other witches, a skinny woman who had disentangled herself from her horse. Mirei had fetched up against a boulder at the side of the road. She fumbled for a moment at the pack of their supplies, trying to get her blades out, but her fingers were cold and the knots weren’t moving and she didn’t have the time to waste. Mirei flung the pack at the rider and hit him in the back, knocking him askew in the saddle. Forget weapons. She’d use her voice.
Small explosions detonated underneath both Ashin and the skinny witch; they stumbled back from each other’s spells. One of the other women was still on the ground. Her leg looked broken, but she was tough; with her face twisted in pain, she nevertheless began to sing. And this spell, Mirei realized, was aimed at her.
Air and Water and Earth—going to choke me—won’t be able to sing—Everything had gone weirdly quiet and distant as adrenaline kicked in. Heard this one before—Shimi, attacking me in Star Hall—canceled it then—but HOW—
Syllables and pitches surfaced in her memory. Mirei rattled them out, as fast as she could, and felt the Void power cancel the building spell, cutting through the strands of energy and dissipating them.
Ashin and the skinny woman were still fighting. The other two weren’t singing—why not? Both looked like men; both had swords. Cousins. Right. Worry about them later. She focused on the woman with the broken leg. Better if I don’t kill her—She began a spell to knock the other woman out.
Pain flared in her left shoulder. Mirei looked down and found a knife hilt protruding from her rags, a spreading stain around it. The unmounted Cousin had thrown it, and the one still on his horse was riding right at her.
Ripping the knife out, Mirei spun and took a running dive at the boulder, crashing to the snow-covered needles on the other side in a wash of screaming pain. Damn me blind, should’ve worried about them—She was temporarily hidden behind the boulder, and most of the things the enemy witches could do to attack her required them to see her. Mirei gasped in breaths of the freezing air and tried to think how to get out of this alive.
Cut down on their numbers.
Mirei lurched up to her knees and risked a quick glance over the boulder. No clear shot on either of the witches; their horses were still trampling around. The Cousin who had thrown the knife, though, was in the middle of climbing back into his saddle. Mirei returned the blade to him, and pinned the man’s right hand to his thigh.
The other rider was an irritation she’d been avoiding long enough. He’d veered off from his course to intercept Mirei when she dived behind the rock; an explosion of power near Ashin had made his horse bolt down the path, back in the direction the attackers had come from. Now he was returning to the fray. Crouching so that she was hidden from the witches, but could still see the horse, Mirei gathered her strength and sang a spell of levitation.
The boulder at her side shuddered, rose, and hurtled through the air to smash into rider and horse alike.
Cover gone, she had to move. Ashin was holding her own against the skinny witch; the other Cousin had fallen from his saddle again and was trying to pull the knife free. Mirei turned to deal with the woman still lying on the ground with a broken leg—and felt a wash of sudden heat, blasting through the cold.
Ashin screamed.
The Air witch’s clothes were on fire. She had sufficient presence of mind, fortunately, to drop to the ground and begin rolling through the deepening snow. Steam hissed into the air in thick clouds. Mirei didn’t know how badly the Key was hurt, and she didn’t have time to find out. The two enemy witches were turning their attention to her.
Mirei reached for the most obvious counterattack: fire of her own. But a bare three syllables into the spell, she knew something was dangerously wrong.
For one moment, she felt like Miryo again, able to call on power but not to control it. Then she realized the problem was outside her. Too many disrupted spells, cut off before completion; too much power drawn into the area without being resolved. The air rippled invisibly with it. As she drew in energy for her own spell, it roiled dangerously, like a drunken man juggling knives.
The other witches were briefly forgotten as she fought not to destroy herself. Seamlessly, not even letting herself question whether she could change midstream, Mirei wove her attacking spell into a canceling one, slicing through and dissipating the energy she’d called. It melted away, to her relief, and the immediate danger passed.
But she wasn’t the only one who could set it off.
The witch with the broken leg was gasping in the snow, temporarily overcome by pain. The other one, though, was preparing more fire for Mirei.
Get out of sight! Mirei ran for the trees, just behind where the boulder had been, and felt a surge of heat, but nothing ignited. “Stop, you stupid bitch; we’ll all be killed!” she bellowed as she ran, but doubted it would stop her.
It didn’t. The witch began again, this time using force to rip at the trees Mirei had taken shelter in. Can’t she feel it? Like trying to sword fight on top of water—Crouching out of sight, Mirei wondered desperately if she could try to ca
ncel the unused power. I could try—
But failure could be even worse.
Fury and fear decided her. It’s them, or all of us. And, snatching up a pair of rocks, Mirei threw herself back out into the open just as the trees shattered into wooden spears behind her.
The leap was part of the movement; the pitches were already pouring from her mouth. The rocks were foci, and more than that. Spinning in the snow, Mirei flung them at the two witches.
The power in the air followed the path she’d given it, and recoiled explosively upon the singer and her injured friend.
MIREI WASN’T SURE if she was temporarily deafened, or if it was just the muffling effect of the softly falling snow.
She clapped her numb hands, and heard only a distant smack. Deafened. All right.
The air was clear of summoned power. The landscape was a wreck. Several pine trees behind Mirei had been reduced to kindling. Debris from the slope on the other side of the path was strewn everywhere, half-buried in the snow. A boulder blocked part of the path downhill; the blood crusted on it was rapidly freezing. In its wake lay the shattered remains of a horse and a red-haired woman, no longer covered by an illusion.
Uphill, there was a patch of ground bare of snow. The falling flakes melted away on contact, from the heat.
Not much was left of the witches, the second Cousin, or their horses. The skinny witch had been singing Fire; that had been the catalyst and shaping force for the power that annihilated her.
Mirei stood alone in the quiet, shoulder throbbing—and then remembered Ashin.
She walked past the bloody pulp that had been a horse, stumbling with weariness, moving in the direction she had seen the Air witch roll. Ashin wasn’t hard to find; her clothes made a blackened stain in the white of the snow.
The Key smiled weakly at her. “Next time, give a little warning.”
Mirei’s knees gave out. She sat down with a thump. “Mother’s mercy. I thought you’d be dead.”
“Thank the snow. But I’m feeling rather worse for the wear.” Ashin struggled to a sitting position, wincing. Charred fragments of cloth fluttered loose, but it looked like the outer layers had been the ones to catch fire; she’d put it out before it burned all the way through to her skin. “For a moment there, I thought I’d go up with the rest of them. We nearly all went out in flames.”
“I’ve never felt that before,” Mirei whispered, still shaking. “Not on that scale.”
“Doesn’t happen often. Witches going at each other with spells—not common. We discussed it, though, me and the others, before we guessed the Primes were hiring Hunters to kill us. If you can’t back off and let it dissipate, aiming it’s about the best you can do.” Ashin touched the reddened skin of her face and hissed in pain.
Mirei tried to evaluate her condition, through the snow and char. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Nothing that’ll stop me, once—” Ashin caught her breath sharply as she tried to get up. “Once I heal this. Couldn’t you have left a horse or two alive, though?”
Glancing around at the wreckage, Mirei felt herself go suddenly cold, and not from the temperature. “Wait.”
“I’m hardly going anywhere fast,” the Key said with some asperity.
Mirei chopped one hand through the air, cutting her levity off. “These women. Two witches, two Cousins, all of them disguised, riding this way with a purpose. Why? What’s up in these mountains that they’d be interested in?”
Ashin shrugged, winced, and switched to a verbal response. “Just passing through? On their way somewhere else?”
“But there isn’t anywhere else. Villages up the slopes, then nothing. There’s no pass. You can’t get through to the other side.” Mirei rose to her feet, scanning the remains of the bodies in the snow. Only one answer made sense, and it chilled her deeply. “They were looking for us.”
After an ugly silence, Ashin said, “But who knew we were coming? Kekkai told us to come to Tungral, not Lyonakh. The only people—” Her breath caught again; then she scrambled upright, fear overriding the pain of her scorched skin. “The only people who knew we’d be on this road were Onomita and the Primes.”
It was a sickening thought. A traitor that highly placed—how many plans had been leaked?
Then one blessed memory returned to Mirei, not exactly soothing, but at least less frightening than the alternative. “No. You said it in the room. Remember? When we were testing the spell. You said we were going from Lyonakh to Tungral. There were other witches present.”
Ashin thought it over, swaying on her feet, then nodded slowly. “Yes. I did. But we don’t have any proof it was one of them.”
“They’re more likely suspects,” Mirei said. “It isn’t Satomi, and I don’t believe it’s Koika, either. Rana—”
“Has been very quiet lately,” Ashin said grimly. “Could be she’s rethinking her allegiance. And then there’s Onomita.”
“Who didn’t leave when Arinei and her fellow Keys did.”
“Maybe they left her behind on purpose. As a plant.”
Mirei pressed one hand to her shoulder against the pain there, mind racing over the possible permutations. “If it’s one of the theory witches, then I don’t think they know anything more. Just that we were going to Lyonakh for some reason, and from there to Tungral. Enough to point at a location where we could be found. And we’re targets worth hitting.”
“You are,” Ashin said. “In that equation, I don’t even matter.”
“You matter to a zealot, and Shimi fits that description. But that’s not the point. I’m thinking risk. If it was one of Hyoka’s people, then they know where we’re going, but not what we’re doing there. If it’s Rana or Onomita—”
“Then they know exactly what we’re doing,” Ashin finished for her, voice bleak. “They know the inn, the timing, who we’re looking for. And they know to look for her, too.”
“And to stop her from ever getting there.”
“Unless it was a setup to begin with.”
Mirei shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why ambush us on the road, sloppily, if they could have a nice, well-planned ambush in Tungral?”
Ashin cocked her head to the side as a replacement for a shrug. “Fewer bystanders?”
“Could be.” Mirei went hunting for their pack. Ashin took out the battered feather and placed a healing spell on her blistered skin. By the time Mirei found the bundle and returned to her, the damage had faded to a manageable level; the rest would have to heal over time, sped along by the energy Ashin had fed into it.
“So,” Mirei said, when Ashin was done placing a spell on the knife wound in her shoulder. “If the traitor’s one of Hyoka’s people, we’ve put ourselves in mild danger by going to Tungral. If it’s Onomita or a Prime, we’re walking into a death trap. Do we press on, or go home?”
“You’re asking me?” Ashin said.
Mirei smiled wryly. “You do outrank me, remember?”
“Right, and I care so much about that, in a situation like this.” Ashin glanced around at the bodies as if they could provide some hint of what lay ahead. “Here’s my opinion. We go on—as long as you make me one promise first.”
“And what’s that?”
“If it is a trap—or even if it isn’t, but we run into serious trouble anyway—then you get out of there immediately. No hesitation. No waiting for me.”
Mirei stared at her. “You mean leave you there.”
Ashin met her gaze without flinching. “Yes.”
“I’m not leaving you to die.”
A tight grin answered that. “Don’t you have any confidence in me? The point is, I’m replaceable. You’re not. Not for another ten or fifteen years. Satomi made me promise before I left that I would give up my own life to get you out alive. I would have done it even without her telling me. If we get in trouble, then you jump clear and don’t wait to grab me. Make that promise, or we don’t go anywhere.”
The demand raised a mutinous feeling in
Mirei. I’m sick of being treated like I’m irreplaceable. And I’m doubly sick of abandoning friends to death. Because Ashin had become a friend, though not as close as Eclipse.
“I’ve got my own tricks,” Ashin said. “Don’t assume that leaving me means I’m going to die. I’ve been at this game longer than you have. Not to mention that I knew when I started helping Tari that I was putting my life at risk. To see you succeed—to see you find the answer we’d all been looking for—and then to turn around and have my own Prime undermine that before it even gets started . . .” The Key shook her head; there was surprising heat in her dark eyes. “I’m still fighting for that cause. I never stopped. If there’s danger, then I’ll deal with it. But I don’t need you to protect me.”
She’s a grown woman, Mirei thought, looking Ashin over. Scorched, exhausted, the witch still held herself with a determined air. Not some child you need to look after.
“All right,” she said at last. “I promise.”
There was nothing else for them there on the road, and they needed to get away from the disaster, fast. But more important than that, they needed to at least try to hide some of what had happened there.
“Let’s deal with this,” Mirei said, flicking a finger at the remains because nodding her head made her shoulder hurt. Cremation was one of three appropriate treatments for the dead, and the one witches preferred. The air was clear, so she could create fire without fear. “Then we move on and find a place to set up camp for the night. I have an idea that may keep us safer in Tungral, though.”
“Oh?” Ashin said.
Mirei smiled mirthlessly. “It requires trusting Satomi. But if she’s not on our side, we’re dead anyway.”
Chapter Seventeen
PLEASE, ALLOW US to demonstrate our talents for you,” Mirei said to the pockmarked man, who was giving her a suspicious look.
Had she had an option, she wouldn’t have chosen the Bear’s Claw as the place to carry out this charade. Packed with benches under its low ceiling, the common room of the inn was a place for raucous drinking, not other kinds of entertainment. But Kekkai had chosen to meet here, and she had to work around that. Fortunately, it happened that Ashin knew quite a collection of vulgar drinking songs.
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