“Stop!” Ker’s throat hurt. Svann grunted and pulled the jewel back from Sala’s forehead. She had stopped Flashing, so Ker could never be sure, afterward, of what she saw next. A flicker of bewilderment, underlined with just a touch of concern, passing across the Shekayrin’s face, before the cool mask of scholarly interest fell over his features once again.
Ker knew before he stepped back from the chair that Sala was gone.
THREE people came running to fetch him when Dersay started screaming. It didn’t take Ganni long to realize that she wasn’t going to stop by herself, and he sent for Hitterol Mind-healer, and for little Larin. The girl was close—when was she ever anything but close when she was needed?—but Dersay’s voice had worn away into a thin whisper by the time he and Hitterol managed, between them, to knock the Far-thinker senseless.
“Did you mark anything, Hitterol, while you were in there?”
The Mind-healer wiped her face with both hands. “There’s no finesse to what I did, Ganni. It was all I could do to make her sleep.”
“What about you, child? Anything to see?”
Larin squatted to one side, the knuckle of her right index finger in her mouth. She lowered her hand. “Nothing but the screaming, Grandfather. It’s screaming all the way down.”
Ganni didn’t ask what Larin meant by that. He didn’t want to know. By this time others had arrived with a stretcher, and he helped them by lifting Dersay onto it himself. He might have lifted her all the way into the infirmary, if it wasn’t for the discourtesy of it.
“Go with them, Hitterol, do what you can. Send for me when she wakes up.” He raised his eyebrows to Larin in a question.
The child nodded, her eyes impossibly wide and knowing. “Oh, she’ll wake up all right,” she said. “Now that the screaming’s stopped.”
Cuarel dropped the scraper she was using into the basin, spattering the oil she’d scraped from her skin on the polished wood countertop and the tiled floor of the bathhouse. “Luca! Luca, come here!”
Luca gently laid his own scraper down. “I’m right here, for griffin’s sake. What is it?”
“It’s Dersay. She says she’s lost Sala.” Cuarel’s hands hung limp at her sides. Luca handed her his own towel.
“What do you mean? Have they been moved too far away?” He understood that even the Far-thinkers themselves were only now learning how distance affected their Gift.
“No. Sala’s gone.”
Luca steadied himself, gripping the edge of the stone sink. He’d found Sala himself, and brought her here from Ma’lakai. He licked his lips. “The others?” Was the young prince lost to them also? And Kerida Nast?
Cuarel shook her head. “I don’t know.” She made no move to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks, or even to wipe the oil off her hands on the towel Luca had handed her. Her face was whiter than Luca had ever seen it. White even for a person who had spent three-quarters of her life underground.
“Come.” Luca took her by the elbow and led her into the warming room. There he wrapped her in one of the robes hanging over the braziers and sat her down in a cushioned wicker chair. The tears ran more freely, but at least Cuarel had stopped shivering.
“What can you tell me?”
Cuarel pulled the robe closer around her. “All Dersay remembers is the jewel. A red jewel, like the one you showed us.” She looked up, her eyes seeming now to actually take him in. “Just the red jewel, and nothing more. Dersay said that Sala pushed her away. Shut her out. That if Sala hadn’t, she’d have been gone herself. Dersay would.” Cuarel swallowed and took in a shaky breath. “Dersay says that Hitterol Mind-healer, says she or Larin can get more, but everyone’s afraid to let them try.”
Luca sat down in the chair across from her. He had never felt old in his life until this past autumn. Now he was beginning to wonder if any of them would see the spring.
“Take this away.” The Shekayrin waited until Sala’s body had been removed, along with the chair she’d been sitting in, before turning his blue eyes to Kerida.
“Sit.” Svann pulled out another chair and set it down to the left of the worktable. He turned to Wynn. “And you, to that corner and stay there.”
Ker was aware she and Wynn were still holding hands only when Jak Gulder loosened her fingers and pulled her away from the other girl. Her wrists hurt where she’d strained against her bonds. She couldn’t be sure which one of them made the half-swallowed sobbing sound. She couldn’t take her eyes from the spot where Sala’s chair had been. The new chair, her chair, was only a few feet away.
Ker pulled back, but there was nothing to dig her heels into, no leverage she could use to twist away from Jak. Thank the Mother it wasn’t Tel holding her. Thank the Daughter even the sight of him was blocked by Peklin Svann’s blue tunic.
Ker told herself it was only because she was so tired that she finally sat down. Now she could see Tel, but after the first glance she kept her eyes turned away. Seeing the change in Jak had been bad enough. She couldn’t stand the disinterest on Tel’s face. How could she ever have thought that Tel wasn’t her friend? Now that it was gone, Ker realized she’d seen friendship in his face every day.
She folded her hands on her lap and focused on the bruises. So long as she kept looking down, she’d see nothing else to upset her.
“Tel Cursar,” Svann said. “You will remain. It may be that you know of something more pertaining to my inquiry. But you are forbidden to speak of anything you see here.” He held up the jewel in his fist. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Svann lowered his hand and turned to Jak Gulder.
“Yes, sir.”
Ker closed her eyes. She wouldn’t give him any opening. Wouldn’t ask any questions, wouldn’t make any remarks—nothing. She would stand mute. She wouldn’t even look up.
She looked up.
She braced herself as the jewel came closer, determined to keep her eyes open, like Sala, but in the last minute Ker took the coward’s way and shut them. She couldn’t push away that image of the Far-thinker, the cords of muscle, the skull beneath the skin. Then she squared her shoulders. She would use the image, not push it away. Remember it, and along with it, Sala’s fierceness, and her strength.
“I call on the Mother.” Wynn’s voice, from behind Ker’s left shoulder, began to whisper the morning prayer and the familiar rhythms strengthened her even more.
She felt the cool touch of the stone on her forehead, making the skin between her eyebrows twitch. She hissed in her breath and then . . . nothing.
Then auras Flashed, blinding in their brightness. She hadn’t used her trigger word, and yet she was surrounded by the swirling mass of colors as if the jewel had awakened them, green, yellow, turquoise, orange, blue, purple, and red—some her own, some Svann’s. His central red pattern grew darker, sending out feelers toward her.
Ker’s instinct was to wrap her aura around her in a protective shield, as Sala had done, but she forced herself to think. The Feeler’s strategy had worked against her. What had Luca Pa’narion said? He’d used his block as a shifting and obscuring barrier to hide behind. Not as a solid shield. The Inquisitor had been able to resist the interrogation by jewel, even though he didn’t know about the auras, didn’t see the colors and couldn’t use them. If she could use her own block in the same way, surely her awareness of the auras would help?
Ker wove a swift net of her own. Green joined blue, purple melded with yellow, turquoise with orange; all dusted over with the coppery sheen she’d seen nowhere else. The Shekayrin’s red lines glowed brighter, reaching for her.
Ker held her ground and pushed back, but gently, softly, as if moving in a dance. Letting the red threads through a little here, holding them back a little there, not allowing, and yet not provoking them to form a fixed and dangerous pattern. She had no sense of time passing, no way to know how long s
he’d been holding against the jewel’s attack, when suddenly she was alone again, the Flashing stopped. Slumping to one side, Ker kept her eyes closed, hoping that Svann might think she’d fainted. In the heavy silence she could hear Wynn breathing. Finally, curiosity got the better of her, and Ker cracked open her eyes.
The Shekayrin was watching her with a calm face. The warmth and humor she’d seen in his eyes was back now. And maybe something else. Maybe a touch of wariness.
“Interesting,” he said. “You are not a sealed witch,” he said. “You could have opened to me, if you had chosen to. You use the magic of the body, but you haven’t been sealed to the Mother. The books have always been unclear on what that meant, precisely, but I know now.”
“I told you, she’s just a Candidate,” Tel said from the door. “She hasn’t finished her training.”
Ker pressed her lips together. His voice was the same—and yet so different. She hadn’t known how it would tear at her heart to hear him speak against her.
“Interesting,” Svann said again. He drew another chair up in front of her and sat down. He took her hands in his, and for a moment simply held them, his fingers as square and bony as his face. Finally, he pulled apart the knots that bound her and tossed the cords to the floor. Ker eyed the space between them.
“You are thinking if you attack me ferociously enough I would have to kill you,” he said, so calmly he could be advising her on what to choose for dinner. “But you have forgotten your friends here.” He tilted his head toward Tel and Jak. Without taking his eyes from hers, he raised his voice. “What would you do if this witch attacked me, Tel Cursar?”
“Kill her.” The answer came swift and sure.
“You see? And he is not even armed. By the way”—Svann smiled—“you may arm yourself from the chest back there.”
Out of the corner of her eye Ker watched Tel circle around the table.
“There has not been any great opportunity to examine an unsealed witch,” Svann said.
Ker licked her lips. “You’d have had lots of chances if you hadn’t killed everyone at Questin Hall,” she said. “Most of the people there were only Candidates like me.”
“I was not there, believe me.” And somehow, she did. “The Poppy Shekayrin are often too quick to act—though you mustn’t tell them I said so. They examined some—of the boys at least. But apparently it was not possible to save them, sealed or not. They had been contaminated by the magic of the body. Perhaps if one of us Sunflowers were there, the results would have been different. But there you are.” He shrugged. “The opportunity for gathering knowledge about witches and their craft was wasted, something I hope to rectify with you.”
He turned his head, aiming his smile at Tel. All the while they’d been talking over the clatter of Tel rummaging in the chest behind the worktable, lifting out swords and rejecting them one after another. It seemed he’d finally found one that would do.
“Found everything all right?” Svann asked.
“My own’s a better length if I can get that one back,” Tel said. “But this’ll do for now, sir.”
Svann nodded. “Good. Will you stand by the door?”
Tel gave a salute and circled round again, this time passing behind the Shekayrin. Ker’s leg muscles tensed, but she forced herself to relax. That would have been the moment to move, if Tel had been faking. If he hadn’t let Sala die. Evidently, her muscles hadn’t caught up with her brain.
It didn’t help that Svann was again smiling at her, exactly as if he knew what she’d been thinking.
“Why should I help you at all?”
He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “Because I will kill you if you do not?”
Suddenly Ker felt very calm. She’d often heard her grandmother—and her father for that matter—say things like “a soldier walks toward death.” Everyone is going to die, her gran used to say, but the smart soldier knows it, and faces it squarely all the time. It was suddenly very clear to Ker what that meant.
“Not good enough,” she said to Svann. “You’re going to kill me anyway, so why should I help you first?”
Svann leaned back, slapping his knees. “You give even better answers than Tel Cursar. I like you. I like you a great deal.” He rubbed his fingers through his beard. “Let me see. What can I give you to persuade you to cooperate, if I cannot give you your life?” His eyes shifted from hers and came back. “What about the life of your friend over there in the corner?”
Ker swallowed. “Explain.”
“This is what I mean.” The humor left his face, but not the warmth. “Your friend stays alive so long as you cooperate with me, answer my questions, and submit to my experiments.”
“And afterward?”
Svann lifted his hands and let them fall again. “Why should we think about that now?” he said.
Ker tilted her head to one side. She might be prepared to die, and Wynn, as a soldier, might feel the same. But so long as one of them stayed alive, they still had a chance to escape with Jerek.
“And Jerek,” she said. “Wynn and Jerek both.”
His right eyebrow quirked upward. “Of course, your friend here, and the stepson, both.”
Ker pressed her lips together. He was agreeing too quickly. There was something here she wasn’t seeing— “And you leave them alone meanwhile.” The words almost tripped over themselves she was in such a rush to get them out. “No using that jewel on them.”
Now he smiled again, the humor back in his face. “They stay alive, and I will not use the soul stone on them. Very good. Very good. I can see that I’m going to enjoy our association a great deal.” He started to get up and then seemed to change his mind. “It is well past the hour to eat,” he said. “And I have other demands on my time. Why do we not resume our discussion later in the day?”
Jerek was waiting for them in a room clearly intended for guests of minor status: couriers, perhaps, or even traveling Talents. He held himself erect and stiff until the door was closed on them before flinging himself into Ker’s arms, and almost as abruptly pushing free of her, to step back blinking fiercely.
“Sala?” he said, looking from one to the other. Wynn looked away. Ker shook her head.
Jerek’s face stiffened, and Ker looked away from the signs of earlier tears marking the dirt on the boy’s face. There were two beds in the room, a couple of chairs, and a round table to eat at, though the brazier underneath it was empty and cold. Their captors probably thought giving prisoners fire was a bad idea. The window was big enough for any of them to crawl through, if it wasn’t for the bars. The lock on the outside of the door was obviously a recent addition, but Ker knew they were lucky. This building would also have actual cells in it.
It was long past the midday meal, but they were brought lamb turnovers, stewed onions, and tasty—if coarse—bread. All things they could eat without using knives. Ker helped Wynn shift the table over to the end of the nearest bed, so they could all sit down. Plates and food were passed in silence.
“Could I have done anything differently?” Ker said finally.
Wynn wrinkled her nose. “I don’t see what, truth to tell. This way, we’re at least alive and in our right minds.” The other girl’s voice was firm and confident, but Ker couldn’t help noticing that Wynn wasn’t actually eating any of the turnover she’d so thoroughly broken into bite-sized pieces.
Ker reached for the basket of bread. “At the risk of being obvious, we have to get out of here.”
“The sooner the better.” Wynn indicated Jerek with a shift of her eyes. The boy’s mouth was full, and all he did when he saw her looking at him was raise his shoulders. “We’re urgently needed elsewhere.”
Ker ripped the heel of the bread off the loaf, tore off a still smaller piece and popped it into her mouth. The Peninsula—never mind the rest of the Polity—had no chance against the Halians if they d
idn’t get Jerek to the Wings. She forced herself to chew slowly, seeing herself in the kitchen back at Questin Hall, frantically putting together a pack of supplies, grabbing up the kitchen knife. Saw herself in the stables, the spray of blood across the horse’s head and neck as she cut the Halian’s throat. At least this time, there was no question that they had to leave Tel behind.
“So we’ll have to escape.” Jerek said this so quietly Ker almost didn’t hear him. He raised his head, looking from Ker to Wynn and back again. He shrugged and helped himself to another turnover. Ker wished she had the boy’s appetite. “While we’re still alive, we can work something out. If we’re dead . . .”
“Well.” Wynn looked around as though there were other people in the room. “No arguing with that, is there?” She picked up a sliver of pastry and put it in her mouth, following it with a sip of water.
Ker grinned, but she wasn’t smiling inside. She hadn’t been thinking very far ahead. Maybe it was time she started.
“We’re all hostages for each other, aren’t we?” she said. She had hold of the tail of an idea, but she needed to pull the thing closer. Wynn paused with her cup of water halfway to her mouth, and Ker continued. “You stay alive because I cooperate. If you escape, I wouldn’t need to cooperate anymore.”
“You want us to escape?”
“No. I mean yes, I want us all to escape.” Even Tel, she didn’t say aloud. If I can figure out how to change him back. “But it’s like a prisoner of war giving a word-bond,” she said. “They promise not to try to escape,” she explained when it looked like Jerek was about to ask. “And in return they can get the run of the camp, or the precincts of the prison, that kind of thing. I’ve given my word-bond in promising to cooperate, and instead of a measure of freedom, I get your lives in return.” She pulled the dish of stewed onion closer and spooned one out onto her plate. “The two of you could give your word-bonds in the more traditional sense.”
Wynn shook her head. “Obviously, you mean us to break our words, so I don’t see why we should give them in the first place.”
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