Of course if she had not been with them, if they had stayed on the road, they would have ignored all signs of danger up until the minute their throats were cut. No matter how skilled they were.
Lightning flashed across the sky overhead, and thunder rumbled hard enough to shake the ground as the small company of guards moved into position surrounding their targets. The ambush site the brigands had chosen was a steep slope spotted with ancient pines and tangled brush that offered a combination of excellent cover and clear access to the road below. Granite ridges shouldered through the earth here and there, and it was behind such barriers that the thieves crouched now, waiting for their quarry to come into range. On the far side of the road the ground dropped away precipitously, disappearing into the mists of a narrow ravine; if the route were blockaded up ahead, the travelers would have nowhere to run. With a chill, Andovan realized that these thieves did not merely intend to drive off the merchants and claim their goods, but to kill off the whole of the company so that no one might report their fate.
Little wonder the hostels in the area were so well fortified.
Black-faced, dressed in garments the color of the surrounding forest, Netando’s men were all but invisible as they took up their positions surrounding the brigands. The latter were clearly focused upon the coming caravan now, no doubt trusting to their sentries to warn them if there was trouble. A fatal mistake. One could hear the horses approaching in the distance, and Ursti’s men were making the kind of noise that men did when they had no reason to be quiet. With a lurching feeling in his gut, Andovan realized that Lianna was probably still with them on the road, riding into the ambush even now.
She is a witch, he told himself. She can take care of herself.
The rain was growing heavier now, with gusts of wind that threatened to throw off Andovan’s aim. He breathed in deeply as he focused his eye upon the targets before him, telling himself that at this close range he should be able to take down a thief as easily as he had once felled deer. But these were not deer, were they? Andovan wondered if the thought of killing men as casually as he had once hunted game should bother him, but he did not allow his aim to waver. What was it his father had taught him, back when he was a boy? Being born to royal blood means having the power of life or death over other men. Being worthy of royal blood means accepting that burden.
Are you proud of me now, my father? he wondered, with a sudden pang of homesickness. Is this how you would wish me tested?
Lightning flashed again, so close this time he could feel it tingle along his scalp. Andovan watched as one brigand raised up a hand to warn his fellows back, maybe giving them some kind of instruction, and chose him for his target. He was a tall man, black-haired, dressed in a loose woolen shirt that might be layered over some kind of armor. Not a problem. Andovan fixed his aim upon the back of the man’s head, confident in his ability to make the shot even under these conditions. Now there was only the captain’s signal to wait for, and he would take his first human life.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The voices from the caravan below were closer now.
A brigand raised his hand to signal his men to begin their fire—
—and a quarrel flew from out of the trees, taking that man squarely in the back. A dozen more shots followed. Andovan let fly his own quarrel, clean into his chosen target, with enough force to crack open bone and pierce the brain beneath.
Or so he thought. But instead the wooden bolt shattered as it touched the man, as if it had impacted against some impenetrable armor. The man whipped about even before the last splinters of it had fallen to the ground, seeking the source of the assault, and as Andovan crouched behind his cover, he realized that the eyes that were seeking him out in the rain-dimmed light were something more than human.
He had found the brigands’ witch.
Most of the thieves had been hit hard by the first volley, and two were lying facedown in the mud. A few whipped about and fired into the brush behind them, but the majority of the ones that still had their mobility bolted for cover amid the surrounding trees. It was a fatal choice. As soon as they moved from their hiding place they were visible to the caravan below, and Ursti’s men, ready and waiting, opened fire upon them. Andovan saw one man spin about as a quarrel took him square in the chest, clean through the heart. But the one Andovan had fired at stood safely in the midst of all that, uninjured. His black eyes burned with hatred as he scanned the surrounding brush, as quarrel after quarrel dashed itself to pieces against the spell that protected him. Each time that happened, Andovan realized, it cost him a moment of life. Little wonder he was seeking out the assailant that had brought such trouble to him.
And then he saw Andovan. It was as if the bushes between them did not even exist. Lightning filled the clearing with molten light, but still those black and terrible eyes remained fixed upon him. The prince could see the man whispering, now, and with a sinking feeling in his gut he realized the witch was gathering his power for an assault. How could he stand up to such a thing, in his weakened state? In better days he might have hurtled toward the man in a desperate attempt to bring him down before his spell was completed, but that was not an option in his current state. He backed away, looking desperately for cover—
And then she appeared.
Her cap had fallen off and her red hair spread out like a fiery corona, despite the rain. She walked amid the fallen thieves as if they did not even exist, and when one of them tried to strike out at her, the sharp crack of breaking bone was so loud that Andovan could hear it from where he stood. The man cried out and fell back, clutching his arm in agony. Unexpectedly, Andovan felt her witchery in his own gut, as if a red-hot knife had rent open his stomach at the same moment. For a moment he doubled over, and the world rushed dizzily around him as he struggled not to vomit. Was her power so strong that it was affecting more than her targets? Fighting to focus upon the scene before him, Andovan saw that the black-haired man had summoned his power, which swirled like a maelstrom about his fingertips, and was about to strike—
—and her eyes burned as she raised her hand, reaching upward toward the stormy skies as if directing some greater power to assist—
—and lightning crashed down into the clearing with deafening force, throwing Andovan back upon the muddy earth. The whole of the world blazed white-hot for an instant, and the ground shook beneath him as he discovered he could no longer move; the last of his strength had finally left him. For one brief and terrible moment images flashed before him, seared into his brain: the brigands’ witch reduced to a pile of charred flesh. Lianna’s eyes fixed upon him with a terrible intensity. Netando’s men rushing forward, swords drawn, to finish the job they had started.
But the feeling faded from his limbs even as the light faded from his eyes, and despite his best efforts to hold onto consciousness, he could sense the world losing substance about him and a cold, nameless darkness taking its place. What if this was the last time? What if he never awakened?
Lianna!
“Bring him over here.”
The guard who was carrying Talesin down the hill almost lost his footing in the blood-slicked mud, but Kamala did not use her power to help him. She stood like a statue, watching in silence. She would not use sorcery again until she was sure what had just happened.
A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the look in Talesin’s eyes. The way his strength had left his body at the exact moment she had drawn upon her power. Surely she was wrong about what had caused it. Surely it was . . . something else.
“Is that all of them?” Netando asked her. The guards had been hunting down the last of the thieves; bodies were being piled up beside the road.
She nodded without looking, not wishing to be distracted. Let him assume that she had divined the answer, as opposed to merely guessing. They were still awed by the magnitude of power she had unleashed on their behalf, and not likely to question her. Foolish morati! The lightning had already been in the ma
king, thanks to the weather; the only “witchery” required was to attune one man to it, so that the coming bolt chose him for a target.
Darkness flickered about the boundaries of her soul as she remembered Talesin’s collapse. She recognized that darkness from her dreams, and the blood ran cold in her veins. It was the touch of the abyss. Hungry for her, as it was for all Magisters. Waiting to devour her the moment she doubted her chosen path.
You should help search for any thieves who escaped this trap. Focus on the future. Let him die.
But she was only guessing what had felled him. She needed to know for sure. Even if that brought her to the very edge of the abyss, even if it threatened to push her over the edge . . . she needed to know.
“I see no blood on him,” said one of the guards. The whole of Talesin’s body was dripping with mud, but there was but no red in it that Kamala could see either. “But he’s out cold, that’s for sure.”
“I will see to him,” Kamala said. She looked around for a place to have him put the body down, so that she could inspect it. But there was nothing surrounding her except a chaos of men cleaning their weapons, tending to the wounded, stripping the enemy dead. No private corner in which to seek enlightenment.
“Over there.” It was Ursti. “You can use the last wagon, there’s some room in it.”
She looked to where he was pointing, then nodded for the guard carrying Talesin to follow her. The wagon was far down the line, indistinguishable from half a dozen others piled high with Ursti’s trade goods. She loosened the back of the oilcloth cover and lifted it up, revealing an open channel between tightly bound stacks of wooden crates. The smell of saffron and cassia was strong in the confined space.
“Put him in there,” she said. It was a narrow area, but large enough to shelter two people so long as no one tried to stand up. She watched as the guard slid Talesin’s body gently inside, between the crates, then climbed in after him, affixing the oilcloth cover back in place so that the rain would not splash in on them. There was little light coming in once she had done that . . . but the Sight she needed now did not depend on earthly light.
There were no visible wounds on him, not anywhere. She felt in his mud-soaked hair for the warmth of flowing blood and found none. His limbs were whole and uninjured. No matter how she searched, she could find no sign of what had struck him down.
Only one thing was possible.
She remembered him standing there, when she had summoned the lightning. He’d been watching her. She remembered the look on his face as the color had drained from him suddenly, as his eyes went blank and then fell shut . . . as the very life in his veins had been squeezed out of him by some giant fist, and then what was left had crumpled to the ground, an empty shell.
Carefully, fearfully, she summoned her sorcerous senses again, begrudging herself the power it took to do even that much. Then she looked inside him: past his blood, past his flesh, past all the organs that were laboring to sustain his life . . . into the heart of his soul. The place where his spirit should be blazing. The core of his mortal strength.
Dying embers.
Darkness swirled about her soul as she saw the truth before her. She took a moment to still her heart, to catch her breath, to try to think. He is a consort, she told herself. That does not mean he is necessarily my consort.
But no words could make the truth go away. She had seen the life go out of him when she had conjured her power. She knew.
Tentatively, fearfully, she looked within him again. The soulfire that was barely strong enough to sustain a morati life was still hot to her sorcerous touch, and it drew her in like a fire drew in fresh fuel. His living heat flowed into her . . . and she knew in that moment that if she wished to devour him, if she wished to drink in every last bit of his heat in one vast, indulgent, bloody feast, that nothing could stop her. She had that power.
“Lianna?”
His eyes were open now, and fixed on her with an intensity that made her shiver. “What happened?” His voice was a whisper, hardly louder than the pattering of rain on the oilcloth overhead. “Are we . . . did we . . .”
“They’re all dead. No casualties on our side, though a few were wounded. Netando’s men are cleaning up now.”
He tried to sit up. He was weak, very weak. But there was no visible cause for such weakness.
No cause, save that for a short while I drew upon more of his strength than he could spare.
He looked about the small space, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Ursti’s wagon,” she said.
“Ah. I should have guessed from the smell.” He looked up at her again. “Am I wounded?” He said it as if he feared to hear the answer.
Slowly she shook her head. “No.” Not wounded, not by mortal weapons.
The answer did not seem to comfort him. He laid back his head with a sigh of resignation. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “I should have told you. . . .”
She said nothing. It seemed she could hear his heart pounding . . . or perhaps that was her own.
“I suppose I should have told Netando, too, back at the Third Moon . . . but then he would not have let me come with you.” He sighed again. “You should know the truth, Lianna, since you saved me. The reason I fell—”
She put a finger to his lips to silence him. “Quiet,” she whispered. “Do not say it. I know.”
His lips were warm to her touch, so very warm. Was that because of the living soulfire inside him, or did he simply seem warm in contrast to the chill of the abyss that had taken root in her own soul? One wrong thought, one moment of regret over his dying, and she would plummet down into that darkness forever. A terrifying thought.
Her heart was pounding. His life fueled every beat. She could feel it inside her, his strength rushing through her veins, warming her flesh, supporting each breath. She could feel it inside him as well.
His reached up to take her hand from his lips, and whispered, “Were you a woman to the others, as well?”
For a moment she did not realize what he meant. Then she glanced down and saw that the wrappings which normally constrained her breasts had come loose during the battle. The neck of her doublet was open, and as she leaned down over him the natural curves of her body were undisguised. “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “I use spells . . .”
. . . born of your life force. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
He reached with his free hand to the edge of her doublet, and ran a finger along the inner curve of her breast. His rain-drenched touch was cold against the warmth of her skin . . . but that was surely not why she shivered. “Yet you use no spells with me.”
“No,” she whispered. Mesmerized by his voice, his touch. “Not with you.”
His hand slipped inside the neck of her doublet, stroking the fullness of her breast. She should have protested—wanted to protest—but she couldn’t. It was his heat rushing through her veins now. His desire making her legs feel weak. His hand caressed her lightly, suggestively, and then, when she offered no resistance, more firmly; he slid his other arm around her and pulled her close to him.
And then he kissed her. She had never allowed a man that liberty before. With all the indignities she had suffered to satisfy male passions, all the manners of degrading services she had sold at various prices, she had never given any man that. How could she explain what such an intimacy meant to her, or why she guarded it so fiercely? For a moment, as his lips touched hers, she stiffened, and she almost drew back from him . . . but then she heard him sigh softly in pleasure, and she tasted the sweat and the sweetness on his lips, and she knew that this was different than anything which men had asked of her before.
“Netando,” she breathed. “He will come looking for us—”
“Let him look,” he whispered, and he kissed her again. There was an urgency to his touch that could not be denied. Little wonder. He had faced death tonight, and needed to reinforce his ties to life. She could taste the need in him, as powerf
ul a driving force as the hunger to survive. It flowed into her veins as well, along with his athra. Energizing. Intoxicating.
Together they slid down onto the floor of the wagon, until they lay in the narrow crevice between the close-packed crates of spices and perfumes. A fine dust of some red substance, whose crate had been damaged by the rigors of the road, trickled down the back of her neck. Part of her knew that what she was doing was madness; Magisters did not become intimate with their consorts. But the words were empty things, drowned out by the pounding of her heart, and by the growing spark of her own desire.
Slowly, she peeled the sodden cloth of his shirt back from his torso, and ran her fingers over the smoothly muscled flesh beneath. There were scars that cut across his chest, parallel ridges long since healed; touching her lips to them, she tasted the memories they contained. The joy of freedom. The exhilaration of the hunt. The rush of hot blood as a great beast comes close, too close, but even that pain is a kind of pleasure, an act of communion with one’s prey. It seemed that memories from his entire life shimmered along his skin, and flowed into her as if they were her own when she touched him. Heady memories, which she savored as she ran her tongue slowly along his wounds, drinking in their energy like a fine wine.
Ah, my prince . . . would we have this pleasure to share if you did not belong to me?
Men’s voices sounded near the wagon suddenly. For a moment she thought of using her sorcery to make sure no one tried to look in on them, but that would be a poor answer to his passion. Let it be enough that every breath she took was stolen from him, that every heartbeat which resounded in her chest meant one less beat would sound in his, that the very heat in her loins was drawn from his own hunger. She would take no more from him than that. Not now.
The owners passed by on their own and the sounds faded. Kamala had not realized until that moment that she’d been holding her breath. Talesin caressed her lips softly as she exhaled and then kissed her again.
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