“Mirei, the whole damned point of me bleeding out was that I refused to be responsible for you dying!”
She managed a wavering smile. “Both of us trying to trade ourselves in for the other. Looks like some part of the Goddess took pity on a pair of fools.”
He finally let go of her wrists, then, but only so that he could enfold her in a bone-crunching hug. Mirei gasped in pain. He released her. “Sorry. Crone’s teeth. I feel better; you don’t look like you do.”
Mirei shook her head. “The Warrior didn’t heal anything else.” She reached for him again, and this time he held her in a gentler embrace. She could feel his heart beating, its pace rapid. Alive. She’d saved him.
Assuming they could escape from here.
Eclipse helped her to her feet. “Can you do that magic thing and get us out of here?”
She fought the urge to crack up at “that magic thing.” Shock had made her giddy. She shook her head in response to his question. “I’ll fall apart if I do.” Maybe literally. She felt like her body was coming apart at the seams.
He grinned down at her, though there was worry in those blue eyes. “Then I guess it’s up to me to get us out of the giant mess you made of this place. Has becoming a witch made you forget what subtlety is?”
ECLIPSE’S REFLEXES saved them before they’d gone a hundred paces; when they were about to step out the door of the building, he dragged Mirei back into the shadows as figures rushed by outside. They were indistinct in the darkness: witches or Cousins or soldiers, Mirei didn’t know. He waited until the lane was clear, then led her across to the shadows of another building.
“Good diversion,” he muttered, peering around a corner at the chaos enveloping much of the town. “A little too good—they’ve stirred the whole place up.”
Mirei’s tongue felt slow and thick when she spoke. “I asked for a distraction.”
He grinned at her, a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “So did I.”
It explained the scale. Mirei wanted to ask how he’d gotten help from the Cousins, but she had to focus on keeping her feet in the snow. Eclipse led her from one bit of cover to another, his hand locked in hers. Anyone else, Mirei would not have been able to trust to get her out of there. Eclipse, she let work without interference. Even back when she was a doppelganger, her Warrior-blessed gifts hadn’t helped her much with stealth. He’d always been better at it than she was.
She almost cried when they reached the slope of the valley. Eclipse helped her scramble up the broken, icy ground, but the climb took what remained of her energy; by the time they reached the top, she wanted nothing more than to lie down in the snow.
Eclipse growled a curse. She felt his arm wrap around her hips, and then she was swinging through the air, up and onto his shoulders. I should argue, but Goddess, I’m so tired. . . .
But a short time later, he stopped and put her down. “This isn’t going to work—I’m leaving a trail a blind man could follow and I’m going to smack your head into a tree if I don’t watch out. Come on, Mirei. On your feet.”
She mumbled something incoherent even to herself.
There was a brief silence. When he spoke again, it was not with the voice of a friend; he sounded like their training-masters from Silverfire.
“Get up. What are you, weak? I’m not asking you to run laps with a pack on; you just have to walk through the snow. On your feet, already. Mother’s tits—did you lose all your strength when you turned into Mirei? The Mirage part of you’s got to be crying in shame. Move your ass. It isn’t time to collapse yet. Are you a Hunter or not?”
He got uglier before she got to her feet, and uglier still by the time they were able to stop. Mirei was soon snarling half-articulated death threats back at him. But it worked; it kept her awake and moving. She no longer had a separate half to call on for strength, but she did have stubbornness and pride, and he knew how to wake them both up.
Refuge was a cave where he’d left his pack, and getting down to it was the last straw for Mirei. Her foot slipped on an icy stone and she slid the rest of the way into the ravine where it lay, adding bruises to her other pains. But once there, Eclipse’s harsh, goading tone vanished as if it had never been; he spoke soothingly to her while he built up the tiny fire that was all they dared risk.
“I didn’t expect to be coming back here,” he admitted while he coaxed the flames to grow. “Rode a horse to death on my way north—we’ll have to try and get another one. I just figured to come here, on the off chance that I might be able to find and kill the witch who made me swear the oath.”
“Shimi,” Mirei whispered; she lacked the energy to speak more loudly.
Her year-mate glanced at her sideways. “The Air Prime?”
“Cast the oath spell on you.”
He fed more pine needles into the fire. “You killed her.”
“Yeah.”
His face was still in the shifting illumination; then he shrugged. “Saves us having to Hunt her.”
Might have come to that, Mirei thought sleepily, curling herself around the fire while Eclipse warmed broth from what was left of his supplies. If they couldn’t get her back to Starfall. He’d lost weight while they were apart, and it made his cheekbones stand out sharply in his face. What did Shimi mean about Arinei? Why isn’t Starfall safe?
She whispered that last question to Eclipse. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Traitors among you?”
“Found one already.”
“There might be more. Or some way to get past the defenses.” He bit his lip, then looked down at Mirei. “Shimi hated Hunters, right?”
“Hated the Warrior.”
“So you don’t think she would have hired any.”
Shimi, no. But what had she said? “Arinei has seen to that.”
He must have seen the shift in her expression, because he grew even more serious. “Mirei—someone hired a whole lot of Wolfstars recently.”
Assassins. “Didn’t hear about that.”
“I got it from Silverfire contacts. And I—” He hesitated, looking unexpectedly guilty. “I didn’t pass it along. To be honest . . . the most logical explanation seemed to be that Satomi hired them. She’s done it before, and that would be one way to take out the opposition.”
Mirei shook her head, feeling her neck muscles creak as she did. “No. Won’t do that—won’t murder them. But Arinei . . .”
Eclipse swore softly and creatively. “We have to warn them.”
“Already did.” As much as she could. When was the attack planned for, and what form would it take? Mirei’s mind was too slow to work through it in her current state. She would have to wait for the morning, and pray it wouldn’t be too late. “Girls are at Silverfire, though. The doppelgangers. And Urishin.” She managed a smile. “Guess I was thinking more like Mirage than Miryo, when I sent them.” So at least they were safe.
He placed the cup of broth on a stone by her head and sat looking down at her. The right side of his face was lit by the fire, but the left side lay in shadow, turning his expression into an unreadable mask. “Mirei—what you did—”
She had to sit up, though every inch of her body protested when she did. But what she had to say couldn’t be mumbled into the fire.
“Eclipse,” she said. When had she stopped thinking of him as Kerestel, his old name? When she became Mirei. When she saw him as much with Miryo’s eyes as Mirage’s. “Everyone keeps treating me like I’m irreplaceable—but I’m not. Valuable, yes. But they know what to do, now. And I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror—much less accept the responsibilities they want to give me—if I let you bleed out in front of me.”
He bit his lip, showing more uncertainty than she’d seen from him in a long time. “But you didn’t know it would work.”
A variety of painfully serious answers suggested themselves, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice any of them. Instead, she gave him a wry smile. “Story of my life. I’m making it up as I go along.”
>
SHE WOKE the next morning feeling like one very large sore muscle with a headache on top.
Eclipse said, “I think this is for you,” and placed a message scroll on the ground in front of her face.
Mirei jerked upright, muscles screaming in protest. The blocking spell she’d cast before leaving Starfall must have worn off in the night, for anyone to send her anything—or had they targeted Eclipse? Paranoia made her clear her throat and hum, but there was no spell on the scroll, so she unrolled it and read.
THERE YOU ARE. We’ve been trying to find you since last night. Attack on Starfall—Hunters and Kalistyin soldiers, led by Arinei. They tried to poison us. How did you know? How is Shimi dead? Get back here at once.
Mirei fetched a charred splinter from the fire and wrote on the back of the scroll in clumsy characters, Can’t come yet, unless you want me dead on the other side. With Eclipse. Oath gone. Will return to Silverfire, check on girls, come back when I can.
Eclipse peered over her shoulder as she wrote. “She’s not going to like that.”
“She can live with it,” Mirei said, and dredged up the energy to send the scroll back.
She renewed the blocking spell right afterward, and that was the sum total of the magic she felt up to working that day. “I think we’re on our own,” Eclipse said when she was done. “I ran afoul of a patrol of Cousins when I got into the area, but turned out they were on the side of Starfall, and recognized me; they’re the ones who arranged my diversion. But I don’t particularly want to go back to that valley and look for them. Do you?”
They made their way on foot until they reached a farm where, with misgivings, Eclipse stole a horse. He hadn’t taken coin with him when he left Silverfire, so it was that or walk the entire distance. Mirei marked the location of the farm in her mind, and vowed to repay the farmer later.
By the time they reached Silverfire, she had more energy, and so she didn’t fall over when a patrol from the school descended on them and grilled them extensively at sword point before letting them pass. Mirei learned the reason for the caution when they got inside the compound.
Jaguar stood outside the stable, arms crossed over his chest and an unamused look on his face.
“Sir,” Mirei said, and hastily dismounted to salute him.
“As I recall,” the Grandmaster said in a cool, level tone, “I told you to bring Amas and Indera back to me. Not to send me a flock of girls I’ve never seen before.”
She winced. “Sir, they—”
“I know who they are. The Void Prime sent a message.” He regarded her for a moment longer. “Are they leaving soon?”
“As soon as I can get them a proper escort.”
He nodded. “Good. Keeping up the patrols has interfered with our usual schedule.” And with no more statement on the matter, he turned to Eclipse. “You look good, for a dead man.”
In her peripheral vision, Mirei saw Eclipse grin. “Thank you, sir.”
“However you broke that oath, I don’t want to know.” Jaguar turned away as Briar came out to take the horse. “My office, five minutes,” the Grandmaster called over his shoulder. “You’re still half mine, Mirei, and I expect a report.”
Epilogue
YOU READY?” Eclipse asked from the door of Mirei’s office.
She glanced up from a list of reports she’d received that morning from Kimeko. Though her work for the Void Heart Key made her into something of a glorified secretary, she’d settled into it better than she expected to. Helping rebuild Starfall’s traditions to be stronger was not a bad way to spend her time.
At least they hadn’t made her a Key yet. There had been plenty of vacancies at that rank once Hyoka pieced together the ritual that released the Primes from their positions; Satomi and Koika were reinstated, but Shimi was dead, Arinei was awaiting trial, and Rana had stepped down. Kekkai, despite rumblings, had taken Arinei’s place. She was more qualified than Onomita, and her return to Starfall made her a better candidate than Mejiki, who was imprisoned along with Arinei and the two other Keys who had left. Paere of the Water Heart replaced Rana, and Naji replaced Shimi. All told, seven Key positions were vacant at the moment—but none of them in the Void Ray.
Satomi, when asked, made no bones about it. She wanted Mirei in her Ray, but wasn’t so eager to get her into an administrative position—yet—that she would force one of her current Keys out. They both agreed that she needed experience first.
But the work Mirei was doing was Void work anyway, and so she didn’t mind as much as she might have. Dealing with the Cousins, the Primes had decided, was the responsibility of the Void Ray, and she and Eikyo had been tapped as liaisons. Then there were the children to deal with: the doppelgangers to train in the fledgling school, and the witch-students to prepare for their tests. Only a few now, but there would be more, once the changes really started taking hold. For the time being at least, it seemed best to go on conducting the ritual of connection in infancy, and to let the doppelgangers and witch-halves grow up separately. Mirei was grateful that Eclipse had been allowed to stay at Starfall, to help her with the school, since in a few years they would have quite a lot of children to train.
Including those the Cousins had sent to them. The connection rituals for those five were coming up very, very soon, and Mirei prayed they would go well.
She wasn’t the only one praying for it, either, and that was a good sign, too.
Eclipse snapped his fingers. “Message for Mirei. They want you downstairs.”
She jerked out of her reverie. “Oh. Right.” She rose and went to where he stood in the door, pausing long enough to touch his arm and smile. Their relationship, like so many things at Starfall, was still being sorted out, but she was grateful every day for the chance to do so.
As she went through the halls, Eclipse at her side, Mirei could still feel the uncertainty in the air. Nothing but time would make the new ways feel comfortable; witches and Cousins alike were walking gingerly, unsure of what the changes would mean. Urishin’s experience meant that no more witches would become Cousins, but what of the Cousins already in the world, those descended from the failed witches of the past? So much hinged on the five children they had given to Starfall.
Problems in the future, problems in the present. She wasn’t looking forward to Arinei’s trial. The Fire Prime had sold her people in multiple directions, spending coin she didn’t have in a gamble to take Starfall. If anything saved her from execution, it would be that the poison put in the soup hadn’t been intended as lethal; she’d asked the Hunters to prevent the women who ate it from singing. It would have killed them if left untreated, but she had intended to heal them.
Still, the fact remained that she’d made extravagant promises to Lady Chaha of Kalistyi, spread damaging rumors about Satomi and Mirei in other domains, arranged for Ice’s murder to anger the Thornbloods, and then hired Thornbloods and Wolfstars alike to help her attack Starfall. She’d built a fragile house of political cards, and clearing the wreckage would take awhile.
But that was Kekkai’s problem now, not Mirei’s. At least until she finished recovering from translocation enough for Satomi to send her out as an emissary to the Hunter schools.
She’d already had an uncomfortable conversation with Jaguar about Amas and Indera.
“No one’s sure whether Indera’s still . . . well, still a doppelganger,” Mirei told him when she was recuperating at Silverfire, waiting to escort the girls south. “In the physical sense. The theory witches are arguing about it.” They’d gotten right back to their intellectual debates before the smoke had even cleared from Starfall, to hear Satomi tell it.
“Can’t they tell?” the Grandmaster asked.
“Not by looking at her,” Mirei said. “And if she’s still strong and fast, she isn’t showing it. She won’t train anymore. They’re trying to decide what to do with her.”
He bypassed the unspoken question for the moment. “Amas?”
“She and Hoseki are going
to wait until they’re older to go through the tests—though Satomi has ideas about how to change those, to make them safer. They might start before they’re twenty-five. But Amas wants to go on training while she can.”
Jaguar steepled his fingers, face lined with thought. “Given what’s happened, I’m not sure she can return here. Or Indera.”
Mirei nodded; she’d half-expected that. Too many people knew what the doppelgangers were, now. And, though Jaguar didn’t mention it and probably didn’t care, Lehant could never go back to Thornblood. Especially once they found out about the Thornblood involvement in the attack.
Today, though, Lehant was not her concern, nor was Amas.
Eclipse left her when they reached the downstairs room where the others waited. Satomi had decided to let him stay at Starfall, and he’d become the theory witches’ favorite new object of study since Mirei saved him from the blood-oath, but there were some things they would not let him witness yet.
Satomi was there, along with Koika, Paere, Kekkai, and Naji. And, a little distance away from the changed circle of Primes, were Urishin and Naspeth.
Together, the eight of them went across the nighttime courtyards and into Star Hall, to conduct a ritual performed only once before.
Beneath the shattered crossing and the eyes of the Goddess, Urishin sang and Naspeth danced, and strands of visible power wove around them, lifting them up. The four Elements of the world, coruscating with light, and only Mirei and the two girls could see the fifth one among them, defining their existence by opposition: the Void.
The light flared beyond Mirei’s ability to watch, and then when it cleared a single, trembling figure knelt on the dais.
Smiling through her tears, Mirei went forward to welcome her sister witch into the world.
Glossary
Ai—the honorific used for an unranked witch of the Void Ray.
Air—one of the five Elements. Air is associated with the Bride. Among the witches, the Air Ray is itinerant, and serves anyone in need.
Akara—the honorific used for a Key of the Void Ray.
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