Marten said, “Dev’s connections in the city should prove quite useful to us, Stevan. And Dev, Stevan’s skill with defensive magic is unrivaled in the Arcanum. It’s thanks to his efforts that we can block Kiran’s mark-bond.” He surveyed them, sternly. “If we’re to work together as closely as we must in Ninavel, I think it best to apply the rules I’ve set for the officers in my own Watch. If you have a complaint of anyone’s behavior, you bring it to me first; and we’ll use informal names. All of us.” He directed a pointed look at Stevannes, whose mouth pinched like he’d eaten a rotten thornapple.
Marten went on. “Speaking of your mark-bond, Kiran, there’s one issue we must discuss further. You recall the amulet requires active casting to protect you properly. To ensure your safety, Stevan recommends not just one, but a team of mages work together in shifts for the casting. Three of us should be sufficient. The mages stationed at the embassy can help out as shift members, but the shifts must be led by either me or Stevan, and it’s vital that you stay close to the shift leader. I can’t stress that enough. Do not get more than a few feet away.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve yet heard,” Dev said sharply. “He’ll have to drag an entire gang of you around wherever he goes?”
“Until we are certain of Sechaveh’s protection, yes,” Marten said. “Perhaps even afterward, during times Kiran travels outside the embassy’s wards. I want to be assured of his safety.”
Kiran exchanged a worried glance with Dev, whose frown had deepened. Kiran knew Dev’s fear: how would they carry out their plan for Melly with a constant entourage of Alathians in tow? Kiran’s concern ran deeper. He trusted Marten, but Stevannes was another matter. If all it took was one moment of inattention on Stevannes’s part, deliberate or otherwise, to leave him exposed to Ruslan…
“Must the other shift leader be Stevannes—Stevan, I mean?” he asked Marten.
Stevan turned a look of cold disgust on him. Marten sighed. “Stevan and I are the only ones qualified for this type of spellwork. Kiran, I vow to you on my honor as Watch captain that Stevan will execute his duty regardless of his personal feelings.”
Stevan said, “As a blood mage, doubtless you can’t conceive of loyalty to anything beyond your own selfish desires. But you may rest assured: I obey the Council’s orders. Always.”
It was difficult to feel reassured when Stevan’s tone was more reminiscent of a threat than a promise.
Dev leaned toward Kiran and muttered, “You can still change your mind.”
Cowardice whispered that Kiran should seize the excuse. Yet if he wanted the chance to seek true freedom from Ruslan, he had to earn the Council’s trust. More, during that long night after his trial, he’d promised Dev: should you ever need my help, you’ll have it. The restriction on Kiran’s movements needn’t stop them from helping Melly, particularly if he could convince Dev to explain the problem to Marten. Working with Marten as closely as they must, surely Dev would see that his distrust of Marten was unfounded.
Fear is the most insidious of weaknesses, Ruslan had once said. You must learn to raze it from your soul, or risk defeat in all you do.
“I understand,” Kiran said to Marten. The words felt heavy as stones. Once said, they left his chest hollow.
Marten awarded him a smile as warm as the midsummer sun. “Excellent. We’ve set aside some supplies for you and Dev, clothes and the like—Talm can show you, while Stevan, Lena, and I make a few last preparations.”
Kiran nodded, not trusting himself to speak again. The closer their departure came, the more impossible mastering his fear seemed.
* * *
Kiran followed Marten and Dev into the cavernous space of the Council chamber on legs that felt like a stranger’s. Moonrise was mere moments away. He risked a glance upward at the stacked circular galleries rising above the chamber floor. A chill prickled his skin at the sight of the ranks of uniformed mages lining the rails.
He’d stood on this sigil-marked floor once before, locked within wards as the Watch dug through his memories and forced a binding onto his magic. His chest cramped with remembered agony, but he forced himself to walk steadily after Marten.
A scattering of sigils had been incised outside a set of four interlocking circles at the floor’s center. The sigils must help the Alathians direct the power into their desired spell pattern, in place of the channel lines Kiran was accustomed to working with. But the Alathians’ techniques were so different from those he’d been taught, he couldn’t tell a thing about the spell. The sigils’ complex black scrawls held no meaning he could read, and their sparse, seemingly random placement looked nothing like the dense channel diagram Ruslan had once shown him for a translocation spell.
“Khalmet’s bones,” Dev said, as they halted within the circles. He dropped his pack and eyed the surrounding sigils uneasily. “What happens if they screw this up?”
“Then our worries will be over,” Kiran said. Even with an anchor point ready and waiting in Ninavel, the amount of power needed for the translocation would be massive enough to make any mistakes fatal.
“What a comforting thought.” Dev glanced at Marten, who stood conferring with two other captains. “I wish they’d hurry up.”
The chamber’s side door opened, and the other members of their little group entered. Stevan still clutched the rosewood box, which Kiran had learned contained the link-blocking amulet. Talm lugged a much larger sigil-marked chest, and Lena carried a satchel stamped with the green tree of the Sanitorium.
Kiran couldn’t take his eyes from Stevan’s box. Marten had warned him no charms could be worn during the translocation spell’s casting, lest spell patterns interfere with each other to catastrophic effect. We’ll put the amulet on you the instant we reach Ninavel, he’d assured Kiran. At the time, that had sounded reasonable. Now Kiran’s nerves screamed otherwise. The defenses he’d woven from his own ikilhia felt horribly frail, limited as he’d been by the Council’s binding.
“Hey. You’ll be fine.” Dev’s voice was low but firm. His neck was bare, his snapthroat charm removed by Marten before they’d entered the chamber.
Kiran realized he’d been rubbing at the left side of his chest, where Ruslan’s akhelsya sigil lay hidden beneath his shirt. He dropped his hand. “I hope so,” he said, and tried to smile at Dev. It felt more like a rictus.
The two Watch captains bowed to Marten and backed away as Councilor Varellian descended the stairway from the galleries above. Varellian’s face was as stern as Kiran remembered it from his trial, the folds of her blue and gray uniform starched to knife-blade sharpness.
Marten bowed, arms crossed over his chest. “We are ready. Have you word from Ambassador Halassian?”
Varellian nodded. “Lord Sechaveh is open to granting sanction and protection, but he insists on seeing you first. Ambassador Halassian has arranged an audience for you upon your arrival.” She paused, studying Marten with piercing intensity. “The future of our country depends on your team’s efforts, Captain. I pray our faith in your talents is justified.”
For once, Marten’s expression was perfectly grave. “We will not fail you.”
Kiran’s nerves shrieked louder yet. He’d hoped Sechaveh’s edict would be in place before they left Alathia. His muscles trembled with the urge to flee from the sigils, to tell Marten, I cannot do this, the risk is too great. The awareness of Dev at his side steadied him. Dev must have felt this same fear when he came to Simon’s valley to seek Kiran, yet he hadn’t let it stop him. Kiran wouldn’t either.
Varellian strode for the gallery stairway, the two captains at her heels. Marten turned to Kiran and Dev. “You two, stand here…” He positioned them in the precise center of the pattern, as Lena, Talm, and Stevan moved to stand within the surrounding circles. “I’d suggest closing your eyes,” Marten added, as he backed to the final circle. “When the spell takes effect, the transition will be a bit disorienting.”
The chamber doors boomed shut. Kiran wiped sweat fr
om his palms and concentrated on breathing through a throat that felt as tight as a reed. No turning back now. The mages in the galleries started a low, droning chant, first in unison, then diverging into interweaving harmonies. The sigils on the floor lit with the strange, soft glow so different than the harsh fire of activated channel lines. Power rose with the slow inevitability of water trickling into a cistern.
The mages’ song patterned the magic into a fascinatingly elegant structure formed of shifting pulses and currents. The power peaked, held. The song took on a subtle dissonance, like the muttering of thunder before a storm. A trio of voices called out in a wild, keening descant, and Kiran gasped, hands flying up in an involuntary warding gesture, as a soundless concussion slammed against his inner barriers.
An immense rush of magic howled through the Alathians’ pattern. The sigils’ glow heightened to blinding intensity. Kiran shut his eyes against the glare and felt a sudden dizzying wrench in his stomach, as if he’d stepped off a cliff. Power crashed over him, and he bit back a cry, his senses reeling.
Deep in his mind, a shock of connection. An echo of surprise shifted into fierce triumph, and Ruslan’s voice whispered with dark, delighted promise:
Welcome home, Kiran.
Chapter Six
(Dev)
Glaring afterimages blocked my vision, my ears ringing as if they’d been boxed. Retching, I doubled over, lost my balance and fell to my knees. I planted my hands on cold stone and cursed Marten. A little disorienting? Khalmet’s bloodsoaked hand! My stomach was trying to crawl out my throat.
Dimly, I registered shouting, tinny through the whine in my ears.
“Hurry, get it on him!”
“Stevan, now—”
Oh gods, Kiran and the amulet! I dragged an arm across my eyes and squinted through fading swathes of green.
Kiran was hunched on his knees with his fists pressed to his temples. Marten knelt before him, one palm braced against the amulet glinting on Kiran’s chest, his other hand gripping Kiran’s shoulder so tightly his fingers showed white. Stevan, Talm and Lena stood rigid behind Marten. Concentration hazed their eyes, Stevan’s teeth bared in a grimace of effort. Beyond was a wall of white stone streaked with silver ward lines, the room far smaller than the high-ceilinged expanse of the Council chamber. Sigils glowed on the floor, their light slowly fading. On the far side of the sigil pattern, a pair of uniformed mages watched us with wary intensity.
I staggered to my feet, careful to avoid the sigils. Mother of maidens, if the amulet didn’t work, and Ruslan got hold of Kiran…my legs twitched with the urge to run.
Kiran shuddered. His hands fell from his temples to clutch at Marten’s arms. “He knows. Marten, he knows I’m here…”
“The link,” Marten said, voice urgent. “Can you feel him, Kiran?”
Kiran let out a long, wavering breath. “No. Not now.”
Oh, thank Khalmet. Though if Ruslan knew Kiran had come, he’d already be scheming another way to get at him. I eyed the ward patterns on the wall. Ninavel-made, not Alathian, and deadly as any I’d ever seen. Somebody in the embassy wasn’t so dumb as to hold to the Alathian legal standard. I took another look at the silent mages watching us. Both had the olive skin and straight dark hair so common to Alathians, but that was where their similarities ended. One was a muscled plug of a man who looked more suited to ore hauling than spellcasting. The other was a rail-thin, hawk-nosed woman in her forties.
“Have a care, Marten.” The slow, cold precision of Stevan’s speech signaled the effort he continued to make with Kiran’s amulet. “I don’t know how deeply Ruslan might have read the boy before I blocked the link. He may know far more than the mere fact of our arrival.”
“Kiran?” Marten helped Kiran to his feet. “What did you sense?”
Kiran’s face was as white as the stone surrounding us, his blue eyes distant and dark.
Haltingly, he said, “I felt Ruslan’s thoughts. He was surprised. Then…pleased.” The last word snagged in his throat like it’d been caught on a thorn. “He would have felt mine. But I’d woven defenses—they still stand, I don’t think he penetrated deeper than the surface.” His fingers clawed into Marten’s shirt. “Marten, the binding—please, you must release it, if he’s coming for me I have to fight—”
My fists clenched in sympathy. Nothing worse than facing a threat helpless.
“Soon as we can prepare the ritual, I promise you.” Gently, Marten disengaged Kiran’s grip. “Stevan is leading this first shift. Remember to stay close to him.” He looked past me and bent in a deep, formal bow. “Ambassador Halassian. Forgive my delay in greeting you, but this matter was too important to wait.”
I turned. Standing in an archway was a short, plump woman whose granite-gray hair was bound up in a knotwork of braids even more complex than Councilor Varellian’s. She wore a long, billowing Sulanian-style dress, but the fabric was in subtle shades of blue and gray, the Council seal plain on her left shoulder.
“Yes, yes.” She flapped a hand at Marten. “Welcome to Ninavel, Captain. Good to see the translocation spell didn’t turn you to jelly. Better yet to see that trinket of yours actually managed to keep a snake like Ruslan Khaveirin at bay.” She glanced at the mismatched pair of uniformed mages. “Jenoviann, Kessaravil, go recheck the main wards. Tell me if you feel the slightest hint of that sly bastard testing them.”
They bowed and hurried out. Marten said to her, “You’ll remember Talmaddis from his time stationed here, but let me introduce the rest of my team…” He pointed out Lena and Stevan, and introduced me as “Devan na soliin, of Ninavel,” using the old Arkennlander form that politely indicated I lacked a family name. Halassian studied me with keen interest; an interest that sharpened further when Marten got to Kiran.
“So this is Khaveirin’s wayward apprentice,” she said. “Well, he’s pretty enough, but aside from that I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
She said it in just the right tone of dry irony. Kiran blinked, a hint of color staining his cheeks, and lost some of his snared-roundtail look. Nice to know the Council had better sense than to send a typical Alathian prig as their ambassador to Ninavel. Halassian was the first Alathian I’d met who spoke direct as any streetsider, and thank Khalmet for that. I’d take bluntness any day over evasions and polite lies.
Marten’s grin held only a shadow of his usual cheer. “You wouldn’t dismiss Kiran so readily if you’d helped bind his power. Speaking of which, I need supplies and assistance in incising the sigils for the release of that binding…but first, I must know: how soon may I speak with Sechaveh?”
Good question. I didn’t hold much confidence even the strongest of wards would stop Ruslan for long. As for the amulet, it might be working, but from the strain on Stevan, Talm, and Lena’s faces, keeping Kiran safe was no easy task.
“Sechaveh’s granted you audience in Kelante Tower at dawn,” Halassian said. “It’s not just you he wants to see, Captain. He insists on meeting everyone for whom you want sanction and protection. No exceptions.” She glanced at me and Kiran.
Dawn was a mere two hours away. That part sounded good, but the rest…“We have to leave the wards to see him? That’s an ambush waiting to happen.”
Halassian chuckled, a surprisingly hearty sound for such a short woman. “Direct as a magefire strike, aren’t you? And from Acaltar district, unless I miss my guess.” She turned to Marten. “Good thinking bringing him. Ninavel’s not like Tamanath. Important business here is all backroom deals and viper’s games, and if you want to track down the source of these deaths and disturbances to Alathia’s wards, you’ll need eyes and ears streetside.”
She sobered and met my gaze. “It’s a risk to leave the wards, young Devan, but not so high as you fear. Even a mage as powerful as Ruslan will be hard-pressed to cast against you with so short a time to prepare.”
“It’s Dev, not Devan.” Only the Alathian Council used my full name, and hearing it made me think of trials and sent
encings. “Don’t be so sure Ruslan hasn’t time to cast. Kiran thought that in the Whitefires, right before Ruslan hammered us with a spell-made snowstorm that almost did us in.”
Kiran nodded. “It’s a terrible mistake to underestimate him,” he said softly.
“We all know it,” Marten said. “Yet we need the protection against Ruslan’s casting that Sechaveh can provide. The embassy’s wards won’t hold forever against him if he chooses to launch a sustained assault. Ambassador, how far to Kelante Tower?”
“A half hour’s brisk walk to Kelante’s warded gate if you use the Tourmaline Bridge and climb the Blackstar Stair,” Halassian said. “I can send Kessaravil with you if you’d like an extra mage on hand who’s not tied up pouring power into that amulet. I’d send Jenoviann too, but I want her here on the wards.”
“The help would be appreciated,” Marten agreed.
From Halassian’s description of the route, the embassy must be high in the spires of Seltonis District. I grimaced, thinking of half an hour spent walking the steep, airy causeways that spiraled around highside towers and spanned the gaps between them. Maybe the mages could survive the fall if Ruslan shattered a bridge from under us, but I wouldn’t.
Kiran lifted his chin, his jaw set. “When will you unbind my magic?”
“I’ll start the sigils as soon as I may,” Marten said. “If Halassian can spare someone to help me complete them after our audience with Sechaveh, we should be ready to perform the ritual by evening.”
“You can’t work faster and do it before dawn?” I asked. If I were Kiran, hell if I’d want to waltz over to Kelante Tower without the means to defend myself.
Behind Kiran, Stevan said, “Magic isn’t as simple as scratching a few sigils on the floor.” Despite the labored pace of his words, the contempt came through plain as day.
Halassian said sternly to me, “One mistake in lifting this binding and your friend could be mentally crippled or even killed. Any casting that happens in this embassy is my responsibility, and I say it’s done right, with full precautions, or not at all.”
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