Rasmin stilled.
Hagan smiled, all teeth. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of this rebel group—this legion. You might be surprised what I coax from my slaves in the privacy of my chambers.” He cocked his head. “Though I’m a little disappointed I didn’t hear it from you first.”
Rasmin regarded him, his face stone. “I haven’t yet gathered enough evidence to form a conclusion. I, too, have heard rumors of a legion of rebels, but we still don’t know who, or what, they are, considering how we found those unfortunate people at the two villages within Stovichshold.”
“Does it matter?” Hagan seethed. “I have an enemy within my borders, slaughtering my people. The jarls already doubt my ability to protect Corinth… How in the gods have my best men failed to locate entire legion?” Hagan slammed his fist into a candelabra. It crashed to the floor with a clang, candles toppled and rolled, and flames sputtered out.
“I am… working on that, Your Grace,” Rasmin said at last.
“And you will bring me the weapon Corinth understands. You will bring me the Wolf. I need his rutting nose. Let him sniff out this legion, since he’s, apparently, the only one in this godsdamned kingdom who knows how to hunt.”
Rasmin’s cool expression did not waver. “Your Grace, retrieving the Wolf now would expose him, and his mission, to—”
“Your Grace,” a new voice interrupted.
Commander Anaton stood in the archway and bent sharply at the waist.
Hagan wondered how much the commander had heard, but he never would’ve interrupted if something weren’t terribly wrong.
Commander Anaton stood straight, boots together, but unease chipped at his granite eyes.
“What is it, Commander?” Hagan asked.
Commander Anaton’s gaze settled on Rasmin, and then he said, “It’s better that you see for yourself, Head Inquisitor.”
Hagan stood in the temple courtyard, staring down at the body.
An inquisitor lay there, embedded in stone as if he’d fallen from the heavens. Fissures cracked the stones around his body, and his arms and legs twisted unnaturally. Around him, scrawled in a perfect ring of blood, were symbols. It was the language of the Liagé—those few Sol Velorians born with unnatural power. Hagan didn’t know it, couldn’t read it—not many could—but he recognized the shapes from their histories. Lines crossed inside the circle, beneath the body, as if the gods had drawn a target on the ground and thrown the inquisitor at it.
“I secured the courtyard immediately,” Commander Anaton said quietly, his expression grim.
Hagan spotted guards stationed at every channel leading into this courtyard. Even now, townsfolk passed by, their path diverted, though they strained to see whatever sight they’d been forbidden. Hagan was glad for the commander’s prudence. His throne was brittle enough; if the people caught glimpse of this, it might shatter what remained.
Rasmin crouched at the circle’s edge and gazed upon his inquisitor’s face. His eyes strained. “Iza.”
Iza was one of Corinth’s oldest inquisitors. Hagan had heard him teach a number of times, and out of all inquisitors, Iza hated Liagé the most. He had a particular talent for prolonging death, and his methods of torture were often studied and taught for their unique cruelty.
Rasmin’s gaze moved over Iza’s body. The Head Inquisitor looked troubled, and Hagan understood why.
Moonlight made Iza’s white skin almost luminous, though his scarred face was marred by a strange web of black veins. Iza’s eyes were missing, as though they’d been ripped from their sockets, leaving only grotesque black pits behind.
“Lina’s Mercy…” Hagan gasped.
Rasmin met his gaze, his expression grim.
“Did anyone see this happen?” Hagan asked the commander.
“None that we’ve questioned, Your Grace,” the commander replied. “Two of my men heard a scream and found him, but the square was empty when they arrived. A handful of citizens were inside the temple, praying. We have them in custody, but I don’t believe they’re responsible for this.”
“No, they did not do this.” Rasmin stood, dusting his hands. His voice was unusually heavy.
Hagan and Commander Anaton looked to the Head Inquisitor.
“You speak as if already you know who did,” Hagan said, eyes narrowed.
Rasmin gazed at Iza’s body, at the bloodied inscriptions under and around it. “I’ve seen many manifestations of Liagé power, but this…” He looked to the commander. “He bears the same appearance as those you found in Reichen, yes?”
“Yes,” the commander confirmed. “But we didn’t find any Liagé writing.”
A guard jogged over and spoke quietly to the commander.
“Have you seen this before?” Hagan asked Rasmin.
“No.”
Something in Rasmin’s voice made Hagan uneasy. “But you know what it is.”
“I know we’re dealing with an enemy far more powerful than anything I’ve encountered within the temple.”
“Do you think this enemy is working with the rebel legion?” Hagan asked.
Rasmin hesitated. “It seems likely.”
Suddenly, the air pulsed cold. It ripped through Hagan’s robes and his hair, and all the lights in the courtyard flickered out, bathing them in darkness. Something snarled. It was a vicious sound, gurgling and animal, and in the next instant, Iza was on his feet, clamping inhumanly strong hands around Hagan’s throat.
Hagan squeaked in horror as his breath sputtered out, his throat constricted by Iza’s hands. He grabbed at Iza’s wrists, but Iza’s grip was rock solid.
“Jenui che’Ziyan, mol daré,” Iza hissed, but it wasn’t his voice. This came from another world, grinding like a rusted hinge in the night, and his breath stank of rot. “Jenui che’Ziyan, mol—”
Silver flashed.
Iza’s words died. His head slid from his shoulders and bounced to the cobblestones. Hagan clawed Iza’s hands from his neck, and Iza’s headless body crumpled to the stones. An inky black vapor seeped from Iza’s severed neck. It twisted violently with a keening wail, then dissipated, diluting into a silent night.
Hagan staggered back with a curse and dragged the back of his hand across his sweaty brow.
Rasmin stood over Iza’s headless body, Hagan’s sword in his hands. The blood on the blade glistened black. Hagan couldn’t tell if it was the color of Iza’s blood or because of the moonlight.
Rasmin knelt beside the dead inquisitor, then touched his forehead and his heart in blessing. “May Lina’s grace rest upon you.” Rasmin wiped the blade on Iza’s robes, then stood and held the sword out to Hagan with a look that said will you listen now?
Hagan ground his teeth and took the sword. “What was he saying?”
Rasmin’s gaze drifted Iza. “Free the Sol Velor. Or die.”
“There is no hiding from the Maker when he calls, for He made the universe, and everything in it, and the universe will deliver you to Him when He has need, to serve His great purpose.”
Excerpt from Il Tonté, As recorded in the Fourth Verses by Vesuin, lesser prophet of the Sol Velor.
15
Sable stood at the edge of a butte, gazing out over the desert sands. A great wall of indigo clouds obscured the horizon, churning and swelling like the sea, casting shadow over the golden waves. A cold wind ripped through her, and with it came the scent of rain. Thunder shook the ground beneath her feet, but Sable did not fear. She gazed confidently on while the storm transformed this barren wasteland of brown into a pride of terrifying color.
Lightning speared; rain fell. It came in a torrent, blurring the world in a canvas of gray, soaking Sable’s thin silks within seconds. Her hair stuck to her face and neck, and she hooded her eyes with her hand as the ground shuddered with thunder.
Be strong and courageous, Imari Masai.
The voice came from everywhere, from outside and within. It wasn’t a voice Sable had ever heard before, and every string inside of her rang out as thoug
h called—a harmonic responding to a fundamental tone. It beckoned her in a way nothing else had. It plucked at her soul.
Do not fear the path ahead, it said. I will be with you.
The rain relented. A bolt of lightning struck, scorching the sands.
You’re in danger. You must wake.
Thunder exploded, deafening.
Wake, child.
Sable’s eyes snapped open to glowing embers. A warm and muscular arm draped over her, holding her against an even warmer body, and the slow and steady rhythm of breathing brushed her ear.
Jos.
Maker’s Mercy. They’d survived.
She blinked away the fog, wondering at the dream’s meaning, but then Jos shifted against her, and her thoughts turned away from the dream and toward the fact that she lay naked with a man. It hadn’t bothered her before, while trembling at death’s precarious edge, but she no longer walked that edge.
Careful, so as not to wake him, she slipped out of his arms and leaned over to grab her shirt. It was still damp, but not sopping, and she pushed her arms through the sleeves and pulled it over her head. A few of the buttons snagged on her hair, but she managed them free, then pulled on her pants and gazed at the canopy above, where lines of daylight shone.
You’re in danger…
Anxious, she climbed to her knees and gently pushed one of the branches aside. Bright light made her wince, and without Jos’s warmth, the wintry air shocked her. She scanned their surroundings, blinking back the unfiltered light, but the forest lay quiet, empty. A few inches of snow had fallen, dressing the pines in white, throwing a soft blanket over everything. It’d probably just saved their lives.
Still, the voice was right. They needed to get moving. Sable didn’t know how much time remained before sunset, and even if the shades had moved on, they’d return in full force at dusk.
“See anything?” Jos asked, startling her.
She glanced down at him, then promptly looked back outside. Sable was no stranger to the human body, but after the unexpected closeness they’d shared, his nakedness made her blush.
“Snow,” she answered, clearing her throat. “It covered our tracks.”
A beat. “We’re fortunate.”
“I know.”
Without another word, Jos picked his clothes off the ground, and Sable reached for her boots. They were still wet, but not soggy, and she tugged them on, feeling suddenly… awkward. She’d never been so vulnerable with anyone, and there was something strange about being near death with another person. It knit pieces of her soul with his whether she meant it to or not. She wondered if Jos felt it too, and when he reached for his boots, carefully avoiding contact with her (which wasn’t easily done in their cramped space), Sable thought he probably did feel it, and this brought her some consolation.
“Any signs of shades?” Jos asked, lacing his boots. His motions were swift, and his chin-length hair shielded his face.
“Not that I can see,” Sable replied.
“They won’t cross the river?”
“They shouldn’t.”
He glanced up at her, perturbed. “Shouldn’t, or won’t?”
She glared back at him. “They shouldn’t be out during the day, but apparently they’re not following normal behavioral patterns. I don’t see them now, so whatever Ventus did to make them come out, it didn’t magically turn them into swimmers.”
He regarded her, his expression flat.
“But there are bridges,” she continued. “So depending on how determined they are, they could still track us. Anyway, it won’t matter which side of the river we’re on once the sun sets. They’ll come from all directions.”
His nostrils flared with a sharp inhale, and he glanced away. He pulled back his hair as if to tie it, but then he remembered he’d lost his tie, and, with a flicker of irritation, he let go. His hair fell about his face again. Despite the tangles, he had nice hair, Sable noticed. Warm brown, streaked with sunlight.
“At some point we’ll need to cross,” he said.
Yes, they would. Sable wondered if she was okay with his use of we. She still didn’t know what she was going to do, not that she’d had time to consider a plan, but one thing was certain: She couldn’t stay in The Wilds. Tolya was gone; there was nothing left for her here.
Thinking of Tolya made her chest squeeze.
Regardless of her future plans, she could use Jos’s skill on her side—at least until they reached the border. Ventus might still be alive, and if he was, he’d be hunting her. And Jos had already proven himself a remarkable fighter. In fact, she’d never seen his equal. Jos’s proposal could be her way out—a way to start over. Southbridge was closer to Corinth than she liked, but she didn’t exactly have any other options. Not that she’d tell Jos that.
“How far is Craven from White Rock?” Jos asked.
“Two days on horseback. Why?”
He rolled his shoulder, testing it. “White Rock is our rendezvous.”
He was referring to his men.
“Jos…”
“We survived,” he said sharply. “There’s a chance they did too. Don’t underestimate my men.”
“Don’t underestimate these woods.”
His lips pressed together, and then he climbed to his knees and squinted at the gray sky mottled by trees. Sable could tell he was having a difficult time determining the hour. It was always so, in these woods, as if the trees played tricks with the light to trap its victims inside.
“You said a half day’s walk to Craven?” he asked.
“Yes, and we should hurry,” Sable said. “I don’t know how long we’ve been here.”
Jos’s gaze swept left to right. Methodical, calculating. “Three hours. Maybe four.”
She wondered how he knew that with such certainty. “When did you intercept me?”
“An hour after sunrise.”
She thought about this. “Then we have roughly four hours of daylight to travel a distance that usually takes five without snow.”
Their gazes met. Unspoken urgency passed between them, and Sable stomped on the embers. They sizzled and hissed, and Jos pushed the remaining branches aside, dusting them both with snowflakes.
“Anything else I should know before we go?” Jos asked.
Sable stood. “Yes, your tunic’s on backward.”
He glanced down at his tunic, which was, in fact, on backward. He looked back at her, eyes flecked with irritation. She didn’t know why this satisfied her, but it did. She winked at him, pressed her palms to the opposing rocks, and hoisted herself through, clambering out of their hideaway and into the cold. She stood, wiped her hands on her pants, and glanced around. The forest lay quiet as though in a deep slumber, the waterfall an artery pumping life into a frozen world, its mist one long exhale.
“Which way?” Jos asked beside her, his breath leaving his lips in a cloud.
He’d turned his tunic back around.
“We follow the Kjürda until it veers west.” She nodded in the direction they needed to go. “And then we head the other way, along a feeder.”
He looked to the opposite side of the river. “You lead. Stick to the bank. We can’t leave tracks.”
She gave him a withering look that very clearly said I’m not an idiot, then trudged on ahead. Jos followed close behind. The cold persisted, but it wasn’t debilitating like before, and Sable found that the pits of her arms were toasty enough to keep her fingers from going numb. Though she did struggle to pluck some berries for them to eat, because her fingers couldn’t grip very well. After a few frustrating attempts, Jos just cut the clusters free.
Sable found an unexpected comfort in Jos’s steady presence, and if it weren’t for the situation, she might have felt a peacefulness in it all. The hum of moving water, the stillness of the forest, and the soft palette of slates. As a child, she’d loved the snow and romanticized it. How it transformed a wild land into a dreamscape of white, smoothing rough patches, burying its scars. How it morphe
d hard surfaces into something soft and forgiving. How it dusted her black hair like diamonds. But that was before she’d known cold. That was before she’d known how it burned.
She thought of Tolya. Recent events had made it impossible to dwell on what had transpired. Sable thought of Tolya’s warning, and the timing and circumstances. Not once had Tolya eluded to knowing where Sable had come from or who she truly was.
“I take people as they are,” Tolya had always said. “Not who they’ve been or who they want to be. The past and future are for the Maker. The present is for us.”
Why the old woman had taken her in, Sable couldn’t answer. It seemed fortuitous that Sable had shown an aptitude for the healing arts, but neither of them had had any way of knowing that the day Sable had arrived. Tolya hadn’t asked questions. She’d simply wrapped Sable in an overly large cloak and ushered her inside. It was one of the rare times Tolya had shown gentleness in all of Sable’s years knowing her.
Wind whistled through the pines, and Sable remembered her flute. It hadn’t reappeared, and, unlike every other time she’d tried ridding herself of it, she didn’t feel pain from its absence. Maybe it was finally gone for good. She hoped so, because if it appeared out of thin air and started glowing in her hands, she’d have a hard time explaining that one to Jos.
“Sable.”
Sable stopped and glanced back to find Jos studying her. She had the feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d called her name.
And then she remembered she’d never given him her name. “I never told you my name.”
He arched a dark brow. “If you meant to live a life of anonymity, perhaps you shouldn’t be one of two healers in a small village.” His gaze slid pointedly to the river, which, Sable realized, was bending west as a wide stream fed into it. This was their marker to change course, and she hadn’t noticed.
“Right.” Sable cleared her throat, then turned east and started walking along the feeder stream.
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