Lena and I were trailing well behind Cara when she made it down with Teo. She laid him out on the sand, assisted by Melly. No point in trying to hide our tracks yet, with the dead ironwoods a signal the clanfolk couldn’t miss.
Cara caught Melly’s and Janek’s shoulders and backed them away from Kiran. He knelt at Teo’s side and put a hand on his brow.
Lena faltered, her attention riveted to the scene below, and breathed a string of indistinct words. If she were Arkennlander, I’d have assumed she was praying, but Alathians thought their twin gods too austere to bother with answering mortal pleas. Maybe she was casting to help Kiran wake Teo, though her rings were so dark I doubted her help would amount to much. I scanned the terrain, trying to prod my tired mind into faster action. If Kiran couldn’t get Teo moving by the simple expedient of returning some of what he’d taken, we’d need a new plan.
Teo convulsed and rolled away from Kiran with a sharp cry. Kiran made hurried, hushing noises and reached for him.
Teo’s hands rose to cover his face. He blurted a spill of indistinct words through them, and Kiran recoiled like a man bitten by a viper.
“I saw in Kiran’s mind the depth of Teo’s despair.” Lena lurched down the rock at such a pace I could barely stop her tumbling head-first. “He won’t be happy he lives.”
“Then why didn’t we leave him on the ridge?” I muttered. We didn’t have time for Teo’s dramatics. Or Kiran’s, if Teo worked him up.
Cara was likely thinking much the same thing. She marched over to Teo and hauled him to his feet.
“Ruslan stopped attacking the city, but now we’re the ones in danger. You promised your help against him, and I’m holding you to it. Quit wallowing and start walking.” She shoved him toward a swell of ochre stone.
Miracle of Khalmet, Teo didn’t argue. Shoulders slumped, one hand clamped to his head, he staggered westward. Cara sent the kids scrambling after him and strode up the slab to retrieve her pack from me. I sighed in relief at the reduced load—Teo’s pack felt a featherweight in comparison. As Cara helped me hustle Lena down the last stretch of rock, I flashed her a quick, grateful grin.
“Thank Khalmet you’re here. If I’d had to get Teo moving, it would’ve involved a lot more yelling.”
Cara cocked a wry eye at me. “I hold out hope that one day you’ll realize jabbing people with insults isn’t the best way to gain cooperation.”
“Ever the optimist,” Lena said, with a depth of amused warmth that startled me. I’d seen in Cara’s concerned, supportive touches that she and Lena had become friends, but I hadn’t realized the friendship ran that deep. Stupid of me; I knew perfectly well how mountain travel built bonds. Jylla’s prediction came back to haunt me: In the end, she’ll seek someone whole.
Someone like Lena, maybe, who never lost her sense or her temper. She’d probably never insulted a friend in her life. I could try for a hundred years and never match that kind of calm.
Damn it, Cara had said she loved me. I should take her at her word and stop panicking over pain that might never happen. Maybe I hadn’t Lena’s even temper, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be a decent partner. Things a man doesn’t have natural talent for, he can still master, Sethan had told me. Just means he has to work at it.
Soon as we reached the sand, Kiran approached us, holding out his hand to Lena. “I’ve a little left. Will you let me…?”
After a brief hesitation, Lena pulled free of me and Cara and took his offered hand. She let out a breath, straightening. Her rings remained dark, but her eyes were no longer dull with exhaustion.
“Thank you.” She started after Teo, her stride far steadier than it had been.
I clapped Kiran on the shoulder in wordless approval and followed. Cara jogged ahead to take the lead. Melly dropped back to trot beside me with an anxious Janek right on her heels. Both of them kept shooting me worried glances like I was a mule they feared might drop in the traces. Did I look that tired?
“I can carry that pack,” Melly said.
Apparently I did. For a heartbeat I even considered her offer. She and Janek near fizzed with nervous energy, fueled by a far better sleep than I’d enjoyed.
“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’ll need your help in the canyon. No telling how much squeezing and clambering we’ll need to do.” I wanted to groan just thinking about how much work Cara and I would have in getting kids, packs, and exhausted mages through the slot if its depths pinched into a crevice too narrow to easily walk. Up ahead, Teo was slogging after Cara in bristling silence. He’d shrugged off her offered aid, but I didn’t think his pride would last long. Trailing him, Lena looked better off, but only by a hair.
At my side, Kiran moved so stiffly it was obvious every muscle hurt him. Cara and I had done our best to spare him during our scuffle on the ridge, but he’d fought too hard for us to be gentle. The bruise on his cheek was nothing to the ones braceleting his wrists, or what must pattern his ribs under the crusted mess of his clothes. His eyes were dark and remote in a way I didn’t much like either. Maybe he was just chewing over his guilt about Prosul Akheba.
I checked the ridge looming like a great red wave behind us. No sign of clanfolk on its bulk. That didn’t much comfort me, remembering Bayyan’s skill at moving unseen. Our goal was likewise impossible to see—one of the desert’s many tricks. Deceptively gentle undulations of stone would block our view of the slot until we reached the rim. From this vantage, the plain we traveled seemed to extend in an unbroken sweep all the way to the foot of the mountains. The Whitefires’ distant summits shimmered ghost-gray against a sky of purest blue, tormenting me with the desire to be climbing cool, high cirques far from demons and clanfolk.
Janek skittered closer to me, as twitchy as if his boots were full of fire ants. “If the clanfolk catch up, will Kiran stop them before they can hurt us?”
That roused Kiran out of withdrawn silence. “I won’t let them hurt you. Any of you.”
“Don’t you dare give Ruslan the least sliver of an opening.” I turned to Janek and said more gently, “Don’t worry. If the black-daggers spot us before we reach the canyon, we’ll set a new plan to fox them.”
“But if you won’t let Kiran cast to protect us…” Janek’s voice wobbled. “Lena’s rings are black. I’m not stupid, I know what that means. She’s too tired to cast. Melly can’t use the Taint here, and you and Cara haven’t even any charms.”
“Easy, easy, kid.” Rare to hear him blurt out so many words to an adult at once. He was badly rattled, and no wonder, after all the excitement on the ridge. “Magic’s not everything. Cleverness is what counts most, and we’ve far more of that than the idiots chasing us.” Or so I hoped, even knowing Gavila wouldn’t be so dumb as to charge after us blindly. She had some kind of plan. I wished I could decipher what it was.
“Believe him, Janek,” Melly said, skirting a crusted patch of sand so she wouldn’t leave prints. “Dev doesn’t need magic, not even against blood mages. You should’ve seen him in Ninavel! He faced down Ruslan and made him stop hurting me, and he wasn’t even the tiniest bit scared.”
What a lie that was. I’d been terrified. Melly knew it, too. But thanks to her embellishment, Janek was looking at me with wary hope. Even Kiran was smiling at me, an ironic tilt of a grin.
“It’s true,” he said. “I’d never before seen a nathahlen so brave as to oppose Ruslan, let alone clever enough to force him into backing down. Without that, I might never have realized fighting him was possible.”
I recognized that as a peace offering: Kiran’s way of saying he regretted our argument on the ridge. I regretted the volume of our yelling, but not what I’d said. I was right about Mikail, damn it. And I still worried we were running straight into a trap.
I didn’t want to voice that fear in front of Janek, whose eyes hadn’t once left my face. In them, I saw how desperately he wanted to believe I was the hero that Melly painted me. Hell, I wished I was that hero. But it wasn’t courage that kept
me fighting to take down a man who could destroy entire cities on a whim. It was sheer terror of what would happen if I failed.
I sighed. I could at least offer Janek what little comfort I’d given Melly.
“Janek. I promised Melly I’d keep her safe. The same goes for you.”
His head bent so all I could see was a cloud of curls. “My cousin promised me that in Prosul Varkevia. He said he’d keep me safe until my father could come for me. Then Vidai took us and killed my cousin and chained me in a cave. And now my father is dead, so he will never come.”
My heart twisted. He’d learned even younger than Melly that life was cruel. I wanted for him what I wanted for her: the time and safety to learn that it could be sweet, too.
Melly said, “But your cousin told you that your father had other blood-kin. Your mother might, too. Once we kill Ruslan, we’ll take you back to Prosul Varkevia to find your kin, and you can have a proper family again. Right, Dev?”
Caught off guard, I hesitated. If Yashad had survived Ruslan’s attack, Janek had family a lot closer than Prosul Varkevia. She might well have survived if she’d been in one of the towers with wards that held. But Pello had kept his son secret from her—maybe just because Pello himself hadn’t wanted to be found, but I suspected his decision ran deeper than that. Besides, I didn’t want to mire Janek in an agony of uncertainty.
“If you have kin, we’ll find them,” I said.
Janek’s chin came up, his eyes newly bright. Guilty, I couldn’t meet his gaze. The wistful envy on Melly’s face only made me feel worse. The only family she’d known was one she could never rejoin. I knew exactly how much she missed Red Dal and her fellow Tainters, and how bright and bitterly out of reach her old life must seem.
Kiran understood that yearning too. Lena’s comment about influence returned to worry me. Was his reluctance over Mikail a warning sign that he might also hesitate with Ruslan? His talk of wielding Ashkiza’s weapon sounded definite enough, but chasing after some moldering vault of books in a ruined temple was far from the fastest way to get hold of it. Hard to believe he could still feel ambivalent after watching Prosul Akheba burn, but then, I’d never quite understood how he could love Ruslan. Ruslan wasn’t like Red Dal, who was always careful to play the kind, merry father-figure with his Tainters. Red Dal had never hurt any of us like Ruslan had Kiran.
“Don’t get too excited,” I warned Janek. “We’ve still got to kill Ruslan first.” I met and held Kiran’s gaze. “It’s long since time someone sent him screaming into Shaikar’s hells.”
Kiran’s smile died. “I intend to.”
“Good,” I said. “But let’s say we find the temple, and this vault you’ve set such hopes on is destroyed or empty. What then?”
“Then I’ll reconsider bargaining with my ‘scarred friend,’ although I don’t think a demon will be easy to cheat, or that alliance is possible without cost. Does that satisfy you?” Without waiting for an answer, he picked up his pace. His stride was stiff with more than aching muscles.
Hell. Did he think I didn’t care what price the demon might ask of him? I scrubbed a weary hand over my mouth. Better to hold my tongue for once. I didn’t want another argument.
I fixed my gaze on Cara, who was leading our straggling crew from one swell of stone to the next with steady confidence, and told myself we’d be fine if we could just reach the slot. But my gut remained sour with the fear that we were heading right where Ruslan wanted us.
* * *
(Kiran)
Walking this fast made bruised muscles howl in protest, but Kiran didn’t slacken his pace. His irritation was more for himself than for Dev. He was certain that avoiding the scarred demon and seeking the temple was the right course. More certain than he’d been of anything since waking in Ninavel with his memories in tatters. So why couldn’t he find the right words to convince Dev?
Maybe because he didn’t want to admit how deeply he feared the scarred demon. Terrifying as Ruslan was, Kiran knew him. What he wanted, how he thought… But with the demon, all Kiran was sure of was the depth of its cunning. He shivered to remember how it had waited, sly and patient, for Lizaveta to stab him in the cave. Or its final words to him, so unsettling in their confidence: Soon you will beg to take my offer.
He would do nothing of the kind. If he gave the demon the least chance, it would use him just as ruthlessly as Ruslan would. He had to find his own path to Ashkiza’s weapon, and the temple held the knowledge he needed. He knew it, heart-deep.
He was rapidly catching up to Teo and Lena. Kiran slowed his stride. He didn’t want to speak to Teo, either. Not after Teo’s vitriol upon returning to consciousness.
You blight the land and force your poisoned power upon me—for this, I did not give consent! But you don’t care, do you? Arrogant and selfish as your master.
Kiran had retreated before he could unleash the red wash of outrage that swept him. He knew Teo’s words were born of despair and pain, but he didn’t have the strength to answer calmly. Even if he did, he doubted Teo would listen.
Maybe Lena was having better luck. She was walking close at Teo’s side, her head bent to his, talking in an earnest murmur too soft for Kiran to distinguish. She must be explaining all that had happened while Teo was unconscious. Telling him with quiet compassion that Raishal and her child might yet live, that he should not surrender to despair.
Perhaps in Lena, Teo would see what Kiran kept failing to show him: that a mage could be a good person. Someone whose first instinct was to help and not harm, who could not witness pain without attempting to salve it.
It was terrible to know she couldn’t look at him without seeing a murderer. Yet she continued to treat him with steadfast kindness; he wished he had such strength. Or that he could repay her for her help, but he couldn’t even replace the ikilhia she’d spent in healing his mind. What he’d taken from the plants had been so frustratingly meager. The erratic, subdued glow of Lena’s ikilhia revealed how drained and exhausted she still was.
His own inner flame was hardly steadier. Kiran’s head throbbed and his eyes were gritty and hot. It felt like years since he’d last slept, but the silent, ceaseless craving of his battered body for healing was a goad that kept weariness at bay. Passing scrubby little cactus or shaggy ironwoods without snatching at their scant ikilhia required a serious effort of will. But he knew better than to leave even a single blackened twig to mark their trail.
Ahead, Cara stopped short and pumped one fist skyward in victory. The canyon, at last! Heedless of sore muscles, Kiran broke into an awkward jog, dodging past Teo and Lena.
He staggered to a halt at Cara’s side. The coppery stone underfoot cut off with shocking abruptness. The gorge beyond looked like some vast dagger had been plunged into the plain and dragged along to cleave the sandstone as neatly as if the rock were pudding smoothed by the blade. Where Kiran stood, the canyon was open enough to see the drifted sand and heaped rocks of its bottom. Not far down-canyon, the upper cliffs pinched inward so tightly they hid the confines of the slot. Belatedly, Kiran worried the canyon might narrow to the point it became impassable.
But the Demon’s Maw looked so tantalizingly close. A few miles travel through the slot, and they would be among the Maw’s red spires. The remnants of the bone mage’s defenses might hide the temple from clanfolk, but spells wouldn’t stop Kiran.
If he and Lena could penetrate the bone mage’s veiling without breaking it, the spell would hide them from any hunters. Now that was an incentive Dev would understand.
Kiran turned, intending to say so, but Dev was already in conference with Cara. They leaned over the rim to scrutinize the cliff, discussing the problem of descent. Melly uncoiled Cara’s rope with practiced hands while Janek perched on a boulder like a small, nervous vulture, scanning the desert behind them.
Cara stepped away from the canyon. “We’ll lower all of you. Dev will be last on the rim; he’ll climb down without a belay. Teo, we’ll start with you—”
Teo backed away from her. “I’m not going down.”
“What?” Dev and Cara spoke in sharp chorus.
“I’m going to the city.” Teo looked at Kiran, his eyes black and obdurate. “You don’t need my help any longer, but Prosul Akheba will be in desperate need of healers to care for the injured. And I must know if—if Raishal—”
“You can’t leave,” Dev snapped. “The clanfolk will spot you. They’re not going to let you saunter on past to the city.”
“I’ll tell them you sought to circle back to the sacred pools so Kiran might contact the scarred demon. I’ll say that after I saw Prosul Akheba burn, I refused to help him further. The black-daggers know my beliefs. They’ll have no reason to doubt me—especially since I won’t offer the information freely, but in exchange for news of Zadikah.”
Lena had indeed talked him into hope, and not just for Raishal. He still loved Zadikah despite his horror at her choices. Kiran knew just how that felt.
Cara too was looking at Teo with something like sympathy. She put a hand on Dev’s shoulder. “Laying a false trail’s not such a bad idea. Maybe—”
“No,” Kiran said, the word hard and cold in his mouth. Selfish as your master. “Teo, I still need you. For your scholarly skills, not your healing. I don’t know what language the bone mage’s books might be written in, and I can read only Kennish.” Ruslan had not bothered to teach him and Mikail other languages. He’d said if they wished knowledge of more, designing their own spells of translation and teaching would be an excellent test of their abilities.
Teo tensed. “You demand my help in seeking a weapon. This, after I saw what disaster resulted from merely curing you! When you strike at your master, how many more will burn?”
Kiran took firm hold of his temper. “I’m asking your help to prevent death. I need to know how to find and wield Ashkiza’s weapon without harming anyone but Ruslan, and I can’t trust any demon to tell me. My only hope of truth lies in the bone mage’s books, but I have to be able to read them.”
The Labyrinth of Flame Page 39