by Spurrier, Jo
He couldn’t. He couldn’t have abandoned her, not after all this time, after all she’d done for him. It wasn’t her fault the wretched girl had run amok and killed nearly a third of her men — Kell said he could keep her leashed! If he’d had proper control of the wench in the first place, none of this would have happened; Osebian would be alive still, and it would be Cammarian in cinders in his abandoned cold-room. ‘Find Kell,’ she snapped at Lord Endrian. ‘Find him and bring him here, I don’t care how you do it or what you promise him. We have no time to lose, gentlemen, the fate of the kingdom is riding on you all.’
‘Yes, my queen.’
As he turned to the men, rattling off orders, Valeria willed her spinning head to be still. Even if Kell refused to return, all was not lost. She may have to give ground and retreat to the south, but she could send to Mesentreia for another Blood-Mage, and woo more land-starved Mesentreian lords to bring their men north. This was her kingdom, by all the Gods, and she would fight for it to her last breath.
Sierra kicked at the ash and rubble, searching for a fallen tent. She’d found a pair of boots that didn’t fit her too badly, taken from the body of a stable-boy who’d been trampled when the horses broke loose. The rest of her clothing came from similar sources, and it felt a peculiar luxury to be decently dressed once again, after all this time.
The dawn sky was streaked with flame-coloured clouds behind the black plume rising from the volcano. When she found scorched canvas beneath the ash, Sierra glanced around to make sure no one was sneaking up on her, then scrabbled through the contents of the tent.
This time she found what she sought: a little cache of emergency rations tucked away in a birch-bark box. The heat of the ash had melted the pemmican, and the fat had soaked into the hard tack that the Mesentreians often used for rations. The flavours were not a happy combination, but the fat softened the biscuit, and she was so hungry that she didn’t care how it tasted. Sierra sat with the box in her lap and made herself eat slowly instead of bolting it down like a starving dog.
While she ate she scanned the landscape around her, watching for Rasten. Visibility was poor through the ash and steam belching from the lava-pit Kell had created to cover his retreat. Rasten refused to accept the old man was gone — she had left him still searching.
The food satisfied her hunger, but it only worsened her thirst. She was utterly parched, and all her searching had failed to turn up a flask or skin of water. The ash seemed to soak up what little moisture there was, and even the volcanic steam failed to wet the air. When she licked her lips, all she tasted was ash.
A movement through the haze caught her eye, and Sierra watched as the figure resolved into the silhouette of a man striding towards her. She knew who it was long before the figure drew near. Everyone who was able had fled this place hours ago. She and Rasten were the only living things remaining in this blasted landscape.
Rasten crunched over the cinders and stopped to glare down at her. ‘Give me that,’ he said.
Sierra scooped up one last handful of the disintegrated pemmican and soggy tack, and handed the box over.
Rasten scowled as though he’d expected more of an argument. With the box in his hand, he glanced around at the ruin before shuffling a short distance away and hunkering down on his heels to eat.
Sierra watched him as closely as he watched her.
A day ago she had trusted him, to a degree. Now, she would not let him touch her, not if she had any choice in the matter. ‘What next?’ she asked.
Rasten said nothing. He only continued to eat in silence until he scraped the box clean and cast it aside.
‘He’s not dead,’ Sierra said.
‘Of course not! You’d be a fool if you thought otherwise.’
‘Then he must still be out there,’ Sierra said. ‘It’s not over yet. We can still finish him.’
Rasten cast her a dark look from beneath lowered brows. ‘Then go and do it. You don’t need me. You won’t listen to me. Go and do it yourself.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Sierra said.
Rasten turned his face towards the crimson sky and raked his fingers through his filthy hair. ‘All you had to do was hold on. Just a little longer. By the time the first battle came about, we could have been ready — just another few weeks might have been enough!’
Sierra fixed him with a narrow gaze. ‘If you hadn’t tried to lock me down we could have done it last night. If you had even struck when you had the chance! I can’t believe you’d think I’d let myself be used that way. I thought you knew me better than that.’
‘Would you have done it for Isidro?’ Rasten asked.
Sierra was struck speechless. ‘He has nothing to do with this!’ she spluttered at last.
‘Answer the question! You let yourself be captured by the Akharians and what happened there was no different! You stood back and did nothing while those other women were used the same way —’
‘There was nothing I could do! Not without killing the slaves as well! Tigers take you, Rasten, you know that! And not on a stage in front of —’
‘But what if they’d picked you, and you hadn’t been able to weasel your way out of it? What then?’
Sierra turned away with a toss of her head. ‘This discussion is pointless.’
‘Just one night, Sierra, and we would have had him!’
‘How can you say that? How could you expect me to submit? You have no idea —’
‘Don’t I?’ Rasten replied. ‘What makes you so cursed certain?’ As his eyes burned into her, Sierra fell silent, and at last she turned away.
‘If you hadn’t freed the prince, none of this would have happened,’ Rasten said.
‘I’d rather be raped by every king’s man there was than let Kell put my friend in your hands,’ Sierra snapped. ‘I’d do it again in a heartbeat.’
‘But now what do we do?’ Rasten demanded. ‘We’ve shown our hand; he knows we’ve turned against him.’
‘What do we do? We find him and kill him,’ Sierra said.
‘He’ll know we’re coming! Do you think we’re the first apprentices to turn on him? He can do things you’ve never even dreamt of, Sirri, and he’ll be ready for us. You don’t want to know what will happen if we fail. By the time he’s done with us you’ll beg to be allowed to spread your legs for a camp full of soldiers.’
Sierra took a deep breath. ‘Look, he won’t have time for anything like that. The king’s army is in shambles, and the Akharians probably already know that. They can deal with Blood-Mages. With them on one side and us on the other, he won’t have many options. His best chance is to find the Mesentreian survivors and rally them to fight.’
Rasten shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. He won’t stay with the king’s men; they’re no use to him now. You’re missing the point completely, you stupid girl. He doesn’t care about the king, or the Akharians or even the cursed Wolf Clan. All he cares about now is you and me. He’ll do whatever it takes to punish us.’
‘But away from the king he has no allies, no resources, he’s surrounded by enemies —’
‘None of that matters,’ Rasten said. ‘None of it.’ He looked down at his hands. After a moment, he began to pull at the cuffs of his shirt. He tugged the sleeves back to his elbows, studying the skin of his wrists. Then he pulled a knife from his belt.
‘Rasten, stop!’ She struggled to her feet.
He glanced up, and with a flick of his hand a thread of flame-coloured power sprang up between them. It caught her full in the chest and flung her back, hurling her down on the clinking rubble. Sierra ignored the impact, the sharp fragments that dug into her back. She wrapped threads of her own power around Rasten’s forearm, shielding his flesh as he brought the blade against his skin. With a bellow of sheer animal frustration and rage, Rasten leapt to his feet and strode towards her as she lay sprawled on the rubble. ‘Tigers take you, Sierra, I can’t do this any more! I need it to be over! And by all the Gods, if you stand in my way I’l
l take you with me!’
She tried to scramble up, but he reached her too soon and threw her down onto the rubble again. He rolled her onto her belly, buried a hand in her tangled hair and dug a knee into her back.
‘Rasten, stop!’ Sierra commanded. Power crackled through her, but she held it in check. ‘Just listen! You’re not thinking clearly. It is over, don’t you see? No matter what happens now, you’ll never be his slave again. Whatever happens, Rasten, you’re free of him now.’
‘It won’t last,’ Rasten growled in her ear. ‘Nothing good ever does.’
‘But we can finish him,’ Sierra said. ‘Don’t you want to live to see that? Don’t you want to see him dead at your feet? Rasten, you’ve waited so long, you can’t give up now. I … I don’t think I can do it without you. I have the power, but only you have the skill. I can’t finish him on my own.’ It was hard to speak with Rasten’s weight on top of her. It was hard even to breathe. Sierra concentrated on the knife in his hand, sensing it even though she couldn’t see it — the blade was glowing with Black Sun’s Fire, and she could feel the energy playing over the metal.
Rasten went very still, pressing all his weight into her back. ‘But …’ he said. ‘How? I don’t see how we can do this, Sierra.’
‘We’ll find a way,’ Sierra said. ‘You know him better than anyone, Rasten. What will he do next? Think! He knows we can’t give up now, so what will he do?’
Rasten stayed silent for a moment, then he released her hair and lifted his weight from her back. When she rolled over to face him, he was sitting on his heels again with the knife still in his hand.
‘He’ll leave Ricalan,’ Rasten said. ‘There’s nothing for him here. I don’t have any allies, but you do. He’ll go somewhere where your friends can’t help. But we have to follow if we’re to have any hope of destroying him — if we wait, he’ll come after us again.’
‘Alright,’ Sierra said. ‘So where will he go? Mesentreia? Akhara?’
Frowning, Rasten shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ He rubbed one hand through his filthy hair. ‘I need some water. I need to think.’
‘Then let’s go find some,’ Sierra said. She stood, and offered him her hand.
Rasten stared at it, and then at her. ‘I know you hate me,’ he said.
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Sierra said. ‘I haven’t come this far to give up now. We’re in this together, right? We don’t have any other choice.’
Dawn came as Isidro and Mira were leading the injured horses on the slow walk to the new camp. Cam and Delphine had gone ahead with the gear, and the riders who had taken them there would have rejoined Ardamon’s party and be heading east by now.
Since it was impossible to have any privacy in a camp, Isidro was waiting until they were alone to ask something he had wondered about since they’d found Cam. Before he could bring it up, Mira called him over and pushed the lead rope into his hand ‘Here, Issey, can you hold him for me? I have to … I mean, just give me a moment, will you?’
She hurried away, ducking behind a thick clump of bushes while he juggled the two ropes with one good hand. If the horses acted up he would struggle to hold them, but the beasts stood quietly with their heads by their knees, too weary and in too much pain to cause any trouble.
Isidro turned to the west, studying the black plume of smoke and ash. Was Cam right? Would Sierra really ride their way to ask for help and forgiveness? He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her if she did.
When one of the horses hobbled to the edge of the path to graze, Isidro realised he’d been lost in that unpleasant reverie for some time, and Mira had been gone for longer than it usually took to duck behind a bush. He turned back in the direction she had taken, listening for her, but there was only the distant moan of wind and a gurgle of water from the stream at the foot of the hill. Or was there some other small sound, right at the edge of his hearing? He couldn’t be sure.
‘Mira?’ he called down the hillside. There was no response.
Isidro tethered the horses to a wizened tree beside the path and struck out after her, calling her name. After a few moments she answered, but he knew from her voice that something was wrong.
He found her by the streambed, sitting on a flat rock with her face in her hands. ‘Mira, what’s the matter?’
She glanced up, cheeks red and tear-stained. ‘I didn’t mean to make you worry …’
‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘Are you hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘No, no … Issey, my bleeding started.’
‘I … oh.’ He felt himself flush even before the words sunk in. ‘Oh Mira …’
He sat down beside her, and when she leant towards him he wrapped his good arm around her shoulders as she began to sob.
‘I always knew this might happen,’ she choked. ‘Right from the start I was afraid I only missed my courses out of worry for Cam. I was so scared of having a baby without him, of doing it all on my own with my clan hovering like vultures, especially if you … if you …’
Isidro just held her tighter.
‘And then, we found him, and I thought everything was going to be alright. But I didn’t tell him because my courses were due, and I thought, I’ll just wait. It would be horrible to give him the news and then have to tell him I’d been mistaken …’
Isidro sighed as she buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed. ‘I was trying to find a way to ask if you’d told him.’
‘I wanted to be sure,’ she said with a gulp. ‘I’ll have to tell him anyway, but not yet. He already blames himself for putting us through all this. He’ll only beat himself up if he finds out now …’
The knowledge was like a leaden weight in his chest, but it wasn’t Isidro’s place to pass it on. The fact that they were brothers made no difference.
Mira pulled away, mopping her face on her sleeve. ‘I’ll be alright; I just need a few moments. Really, this would be a terrible time to have a babe. And I’m only three-and-twenty, there’re years and years ahead of me to bear children.’
‘Of course there are,’ Isidro said, searching for the right words to say.
Mira turned to him. ‘Issey, I’m sorry to put you through all this —’
‘Don’t be,’ he told her firmly. ‘Mira, if you hadn’t told me, if it weren’t for you and Delphine doing all you could to make me want to live, I don’t think I’d be here now. I’m grateful, and I wish there was some way I could make this better.’
‘I … well,’ she sniffed. ‘If it did help, then at least something good came from it all. That makes it easier to bear, in a way. But I truly thought I was with child, I was so sick all the time, and so weary …’ She clutched her hands to her belly. ‘But women don’t bleed if they’re pregnant, do they? So I can’t be.’
‘Mira,’ Isidro said with a shake of his head, ‘I don’t know the first thing about these women’s matters. Maybe I could go after the others and bring Rhia back —’
‘No!’ Mira shook her head. ‘No, there’s nothing to be done about it now, and I don’t want any fuss.’
Isidro nodded. The decision was hers to make. ‘Will you promise me you’ll let Cam know?’
‘Of course I will. Just … not yet, or I’ll only start weeping again and he’ll blame himself. I will tell him, Issey, I swear.’ She wormed her way free of his arm and went to the stream to wash her face. When she stood again, her eyes were still red and swollen, but her face was determined. ‘We should get moving again, before the others start to worry.’
‘He was here,’ Rasten said.
‘You don’t say,’ Sierra said, trying to soothe her horse as it stamped and twitched, made nervous by the power choking the air.
They stood at the edge of a blasted crater, the earth scorched to glass. The trees, too, seemed to have been turned to stone — each twig and leaf was a strange ashen shade, and so fragile that they broke at a touch, leaving edges that cut like a scalpel.
She’d barely noticed the corpse until Ras
ten went to examine it, and he was frowning as he returned to claim his stolen horse. Circling the ruins of the fortress, they’d run into a small party of soldiers. Rasten had commandeered their mounts; the soldiers had handed them over without question.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sierra asked him as he picked his way through the petrified trees.
‘There was no ritual worked on that body,’ Rasten said. ‘He didn’t kill him to raise power.’
‘Then why?’ Sierra asked.
Rasten looked at her as though he couldn’t believe she could be so lacking for wits. ‘To have control. He always does something like that when things don’t go as he planned. You should have seen what he did when you escaped in the winter.’
‘Does that mean he’s not thinking clearly?’
‘Not at first,’ Rasten said. ‘But that would have calmed him. He’s past it now and beginning to plan. He’s left a trail leading south, do you see?’
Mounted now, Rasten started to ride away, but Sierra reined in, and when he noticed he stopped and looked back with irritation. ‘What now?’
‘Cam and Isidro aren’t far from here,’ Sierra said. ‘They’re sheltering in the White Tiger Ranges.’
Rasten’s face darkened, and she hurried to explain. ‘Last night, I felt Isidro looking in on us. The fight must have been visible from a fair way away.’ They would have heard it too — her ears were still ringing from the blast. Sierra bit her lip. All morning she’d been trying to find a way to make a suggestion without having Rasten flare up like a fresh torch. This was by no means the best time, but since he was angry already it seemed there was little to lose. ‘We could ask Isidro for help. He knows this land well, and he’s good at this sort of hunting and planning.’
She glanced up to find Rasten watching her with a cool gaze. He shrugged. ‘Do you really want to take the chance of drawing Kell’s attention to him? He’ll be watching for us, you know. He knows you’re to blame for this rebellion — in one moment you ended the war and made sure he had no place here in Ricalan. I warned you it was dangerous to have friends who could be used to hurt you. What if he goes after them to punish you?’