Teo sighed. “I know that stubborn look in your eye, Zadi, but I can be stubborn too. I’m coming with you. Perhaps I can turn Kiran aside from violence. Or at least preserve you so that you’ll return safely to Raishal. If I can do nothing else for her, I will do this. Before you argue, consider: Kiran still needs my aid.”
“That’s so,” Kiran said. He’d been so upset over Dev’s capture that he hadn’t even considered the loss of the herbs that would have cured him.
Or were the herbs lost? If Dev had found them, Gavila might have taken them when she captured him. “Do you know if—” He stopped, his attention caught by another flicker of life at the limit of his senses. Irrational hope surged in him. If anyone could free themselves without a rescue, it was Dev.
But the flicker wasn’t approaching as Dev would surely do. The glimmer remained faint, hovering on the edge of perception. As if someone lurked out of sight, listening.
Kiran whispered to Zadikah, “Someone’s in the canyon with us. Not moving, and not far away.” He pointed.
Zadikah drew her knife, pulled a charm from her belt pouch, and made emphatic motions for Kiran and Teo to stay put. Silently, she slid away from them.
Teo reached a hand as if to stay her, worry sharp on his face. She gave him a forbidding look and he let his hand fall.
“Be careful,” he said, in a whisper so thick with emotion that Kiran winced in sympathy.
Zadikah slunk past scalloped buttresses and out of sight. Kiran waited, as tense as Teo.
A yell echoed up the canyon, followed by a series of thumps and scuffling noises. Kiran charged ahead with Teo close on his heels. He ran past sculpted swirls of rock and found Zadikah crouched over a groaning, semiconscious young clansman, stripping him of charms and binding him hand and foot with lengths of cloth cut from his vest.
Kiran frowned down at the clansman, confused. “Isn’t this one of Bayyan’s kin?” Serpent tattoos curled up the man’s arms, and the sides of his scalp were shaved and inked with more tattoos just like Bayyan’s warriors.
“He’s a snake-eater, but he’s no friend to you,” Zadikah said. “He was sent by Yashad on behalf of Gavila. He would have led you right into Gavila’s hands. Except he must’ve seen my tracks in the canyon and been wary enough to hang back and spy on you first.” She tugged a knot tight and looked up at Kiran. “A good thing you warned us of him.”
Teo asked, “How do you know Yashad sent him?”
Zadikah brandished a stained scrap of paper in them. “This bears lies written in Yashad’s own hand.”
“Let me see.” Kiran took the paper from her.
To the young friend of a shadow man, from the new ruler of the Khalat: Gavila of the black-daggers holds your partner, but I will free him. The bearer of this message will guide you safely to his side. Do not chase after Gavila, who wishes to entrap you, and be warned of Zadikah, who now does the black-daggers’ bidding and not mine. Lest you doubt me, my messenger has proof of my intentions.
Kiran raised his eyes and met Zadikah’s steady gaze.
“Lies,” she said softly. “Yashad will not free Dev. It’s Gavila and her warriors whose alliance Yashad needs to hold the Khalat. I do no bidding but my own.”
Kiran didn’t know this Yashad. He knew enough of Zadikah that he was certain her fury at Gavila was real. Yet Dev had never trusted her.
“What does she mean about proof?” he asked Zadikah.
“The one piece of good news you’ll get today.” Zadikah opened a loose leather pouch and tossed Kiran a ward-sealed flask and jar.
“Your herbs. Seems Gavila wanted to be sure you’d stay healthy enough to reach her trap. Our friend here would’ve used these to gain your trust.”
Kiran studied the flask and jar, a lump hot in his throat. Gavila might have sent the herbs, but it was Dev who’d found them. Dev who’d done his best to save Kiran’s life—who kept saving him, over and over, no matter the price he paid for it.
Teo was right; Kiran didn’t deserve such friendship. He looked up and found Teo’s eyes on him, black and unyielding. Kiran swallowed. He had the cure Dev had fought so hard to obtain, but there was no guarantee Teo would use it.
“Please,” he said to Teo. “I have to save Dev.” He wasn’t entirely sure he could trust Zadikah. But he couldn’t leave Dev in Gavila’s hands and blithely assume that Yashad would attempt a rescue.
On the sand, the clansman’s half-shaven head turned. He blinked unfocused eyes at Kiran and said something garbled and urgent. Zadikah bent like a stooping hawk, her fingers digging into his neck as she growled a threat too low for Kiran to hear. She stuffed a strip of cloth in his mouth and said more loudly, “We need to go. Quickly, before any more spies come to track us.”
“We can’t leave this man bound,” Teo said. “If he can’t get out of the canyon, he’ll die of thirst. Here, I’ve a sleeping tincture. Give him that and then cut his bonds. By the time he wakes, we’ll be long gone.” He dug in his pack and tossed a vial to Zadikah. “Two capfuls. Take out the gag before you give it, or he might choke.”
“Start walking,” Zadikah said. “I’ll catch up.”
Teo hesitated. “Zadikah…I’ll feel it if you kill him.”
Zadikah looked genuinely startled. “Kill him? All he’s done is follow Yashad’s orders as Bayyan asked him to do. Do you truly think me so vicious?”
“I think that neither of us know each other as well as we believed.” Teo turned to Kiran. “As Zadikah says, we should walk.”
What did he intend to say that he didn’t want Zadikah to hear? Kiran followed Teo down the canyon, clutching flask and jar in hands that trembled with nerves. If Teo refused to help him, he wasn’t sure what he would do.
When Teo finally spoke, it was with studied calm. “You’ve heard Zadikah’s condition for helping you. Here is mine. If you wish me to cure you, you must swear to me that you will not kill Gavila. Or use your magic to hurt her or any other untalented person, no matter what Zadi says to you or whose life you feel is at risk.”
Kiran walked in silence, considering. At length he said, “I notice you didn’t include the mage-born in your prohibition.”
“No.” Teo gave a twist of a smile. “I think you are hobbled enough in relation to your master.”
That was certainly true. With consciously dark irony, Kiran said, “I would be willing to swear the terms of Ruslan’s blood vow for Dev and the Alathians. Never to knowingly cast a spell that would harm anyone untalented. But I won’t swear never to cause harm by any means. I have to be able to defend myself and Dev somehow.”
“That’s enough, if you are sincere,” Teo said.
“I can’t cast to give you a binding blood oath.”
“I’ll judge your oath by your actions, not your magic,” Teo said. “Fully restoring the natural balance of your ikilhia is not an instantaneous process. Keep your vow as we seek Dev—support me in finding a way to save Gavila’s captives without killing anyone, and convince Zadi to use it—and I’ll ensure your cure is permanent. Otherwise…”
Kiran couldn’t help a snort of weary amusement. “It’s good to know I’m not alone in using threats.” As Teo’s expression darkened further, Kiran held up his hands. “What you offer is fair enough.” He sighed, thinking of Zadikah’s bleak ferocity. “Although what you ask won’t be easy.”
“Nothing worthwhile ever is.” The depth of Teo’s conviction reminded Kiran all over again of Dev.
He sent a silent, fervent thought Dev’s way: Hold on. I’ll come for you. Once again, he felt the swift, terrible rush of time slipping away. What was Ruslan planning? Kiran had wanted Dev’s advice before seeking more information from the scarred demon, but now he wasn’t sure he could wait. He’d vow to Teo and do his best to rescue Dev without hurting anyone, but on the way…
The rapid thump of Zadikah’s feet sounded behind them. Kiran beckoned her to his side.
“Tell me every tale you’ve ever heard of summoning demons.”
(Dev)
I lay on my stomach beside Bayyan’s muscled bulk. The two of us were squeezed within a horizontal crevice between rock layers. The crack was just barely big enough to fit us both. Every time Bayyan inhaled, his elbow jabbed into my collarbone.
But we had quite a view. Below us, folds of sandstone plunged like a rumpled robe into a deep, sunken basin crowded with black-daggers. All of them watching Gavila, who stood before an oval pool so chalky with minerals the water looked white. Crystalline deposits above the pool’s waterline were lit to shimmering fire by the setting sun. Behind the pool, the basin’s red stone swooped upward into a massive freestanding arch.
Gavila was busy giving an impassioned speech in guttural Varkevian, occasionally interrupted by shouts from her listeners—of agreement or argument, I wasn’t quite sure. Bayyan was intent, listening; he’d told me that as warleader of his clan, he’d taken care to learn his enemies’ dialect.
I didn’t have to understand what Gavila was saying to be certain it was nothing I would like. Iron manacles protruded from the rock at the arch’s base, near a fat lump of crystal streaked with disturbingly dark stains. The air was saturated with a stink I recognized from my days as a ganglord’s runner-boy: the charred-sugar odor of shadowheart leaves being boiled down to make taphtha. A drug that wiped away will and thought to leave its takers docile, mindless puppets. Too strong a dose, and the mind never came back. I’d once feared that fate would be Melly’s, before I got her away from Red Dal and Ninavel. For the briefest of instants, I savored the knowledge she was safe with Cara, far from ganglords and demons and blood mages, traveling toward a new life.
An instant only, and then I locked away that shining vision. Melly might be safe, but the two luckless scholars sure weren’t. Woman and boy were bound back-to-back, sitting on the basin’s far side beneath an overhanging bulge of stone. They were no longer drugged into a stupor. The woman’s head was high and her back straight despite her bonds. The boy was crying, his plump body shaking with the force of his sobs. Gavila must’ve stopped dosing them so they could make the steep ascent to the basin. No mule could’ve managed the slanted slabs Bayyan and I had crept up to reach the black-daggers’ sacred pool.
Bayyan whispered, a bare breath of air, “You see that big crystal by the manacles? She says they must wait for it to glow. Then they’ll ‘prepare the scholars’—she hasn’t said what that means.”
My imagination was all too happy to provide stomach-turning scenarios. If the crystal’s glow signaled a demon’s arrival, maybe Gavila meant to dose the scholars with taphtha so they’d lie quiet and smiling while Gavila’s guest ripped out their innards.
“Did she say how soon she expects the crystal to glow?” After nightfall, we’d have far better cover.
Bayyan’s elbow jabbed me deeper as he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Soon as I crawl out of this crack, I can wield my sling. I’ve a good sightline and stones sharp enough to shatter those scholar’s skulls. I’ll kill them fast. Then we run, even faster.”
“No. There’s still a chance to save them.”
“What chance?” Bayyan demanded. “I see none. We’ll need Khalmet’s favor just to escape after killing them.”
“I’ll take the risk. You stay hidden in the rocks. If I fail, kill anyone you like. All I ask is that if I get the scholars safely to you, you hide them while I draw the black-daggers off.” Around us was a maze of fins and crevices and cliffs. The black-daggers might know the terrain better than I did, but I was certain I could outclimb them.
“You are mad, shadow man,” Bayyan said. “What of your friend Kiran? I thought you were worried for him. You die here, you cannot help him.”
Yeah, I was worried for Kiran. Bayyan still had no charm-message from the runner who’d gone in search of him. But Kiran had Teo to help him. The scholars had no one.
I was as crazy as Bayyan thought me. Killing the scholars was the safer choice, no question. Maybe if both of them were adults, I could stomach it. But that damn kid, only a few years older than Melly…shit. I couldn’t murder him and skitter away. Not when I’d seen a way I might get him and the woman free.
I said to Bayyan, “If night falls before that crystal glows, I swear to you, I’ve a plan that can work.”
Bayyan cut me a sharp glance. “I must be mad to listen, but I admit I’m curious. Tell me how you plan to snatch two scholars from the midst of an army of warriors.”
I started talking, even as my gaze drifted south, where buttes and cones of rock dwindled into crimson distance. Kiran was somewhere out there. Mother of maidens, I hoped he was all right. At least he wasn’t anywhere near Gavila.
I sent him a silent apology for the risk I was about to take. Stay safe, I willed him. Please. And be careful of Zadikah.
Chapter Fourteen
(Kiran)
Kiran crouched beside Teo and Zadikah in the shadows between tapered turrets of stone. The rich light of the setting sun heightened the improbable colors of the rock, which was whorled and striped in layers that ranged from red and purple through orange to palest cream. Beyond the turrets was an expanse of low dunes barren of boulders or any other cover. A mile distant, the sand lapped up against a great bulwark of rock with a crenellated crest resembling the spine of some storybook dragon.
On the far side of the dragon-rock, hidden amid a thousand folds and crannies of stone, were the black-daggers’ sacred pools—and Kiran’s chance to stop Gavila from handing Dev over to demons. Nervous impatience fizzed in Kiran’s blood, burning away weariness. They’d pushed hard to get here, and Zadikah kept insisting her route was faster than any Gavila might take with captives in tow, but Kiran couldn’t shake the fear that he would come too late.
Squatting a careful few feet away, Zadikah aimed a sour glance at him. “Stop fidgeting. We have to wait to cross the dunes until darkness hides us. See those holes?” She pointed to a pale layer at the dragon-rock’s base that was honeycombed with voids like hungry black mouths. “They lead into caves that run for miles beneath the rock. I spent many summers exploring the caves as a girl, far more deeply than most others in the clan. I know a route that comes out right above the pools.”
The words might be reassuring, but her eyes held no warmth. She never got within touching distance of Kiran. She wasn’t much better with Teo. While she might not display the same anger as Raishal, the revelation of his nature had left a barrier between them, obvious in their taut silences and dark, pensive glances.
During rare rest breaks, Kiran had seized every chance he could to give Zadikah and Teo privacy to talk, in hopes their shared grief for Veddis might bridge the rift. But when he returned from whatever task he’d used as an excuse, all too often he found Teo and Zadikah sitting farther apart than ever, their bodies rigid and an argument dying on the air.
The sadness Kiran felt over that was so deep it surprised him. It wasn’t out of guilt; he might have been the catalyst for the fracturing of Teo and Zadikah’s relationship, but their difficulties now had little to do with him.
Maybe he just wanted some sign of hope for a happier future, even if that future wasn’t his. But what he really wanted was to have Dev once more safe at his side.
“We shouldn’t waste time waiting for darkness,” Kiran said. “You said Gavila would be taking a different route. If we reach the caves quickly enough—”
“Gavila will send scouts ranging wide,” Zadikah said. “Some may already be high on the crest of the rock keeping watch. If we’re spotted, our chance for ambush is ruined.”
At the word ambush, Teo turned his head. His gaze bored into Kiran, a silent warning.
Kiran sighed. He’d convinced Zadikah to capture Gavila alive, on the argument that they needed her as leverage to free Dev and her other prisoners and ensure their safe retreat. The black-daggers knew the danger of his touch. All Kiran had to do was get his hands on Gavila, and she and her kin would believe that her life depended on his will.
/> But if they succeeded in freeing Gavila’s captives, Kiran held no illusions that Zadikah intended to leave Gavila breathing. That was a problem for later; for now, he was more worried over how to succeed in an ambush when he didn’t dare take the least bit of ikilhia in case Teo construed that as harm. So frustrating, when Teo’s new doses had left him feeling stronger than he had since…well, since before he’d woken with his mind damaged in Ninavel. Kiran hadn’t realized how deeply the imbalance of his ikilhia had affected him. But now—if only he dared drop his barriers, he felt he could cast with such strength he could move mountains.
Despite temptation, he would hold to his promise. Kiran still winced to think how easily he’d broken the one he’d made to Dev before the black-daggers’ first attack. This time would be different. This time he wouldn’t kill, no matter the provocation, and not just because he wanted to stay in Teo’s good graces.
“We have a problem besides scouts.” Kiran looked out at the dunes, all red sand and sharp-edged shadows. “An earth-current loops between us and the caves. A strong one, for me to sense it from this far away.” The faint, sweet song of it made his stomach shiver with nerves.
Teo tensed. “Where? I can’t feel it.”
“About a third of the way across the dunes.” Kiran pointed.
Zadikah asked, “Can we go around it?”
“We’d have to swing wide to the north and double back.” Such a detour would waste half the night, perhaps without reason. Kiran still didn’t know how easily demons could find him. If the ssarez-kai had used up all his blood in their first hunt, their only recourse might be to lie in wait in the distant canyon where Gavila had meant to send him. But Kiran knew too little of demons’ capabilities to be sure they wouldn’t pounce upon him the moment he set foot near the least wisp of earth-power.
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