“Making them easy to avoid.” Jerek smiled in a way that made Ker wonder just who and what he had practice avoiding in the past.
“Exactly,” she agreed, looking around for something to draw on before finding a dusty spot on the floor. She squatted down and roughly sketched their part of the building in the dust. “Here’s where we’ll have to watch for them. Here, and again here.” She looked up. “The real problem will be the guard at the door.”
Wynn smiled. “He’s only here when you are, and Jerek and I have an idea about that.”
• • •
The sound of the door opening brought Ker groggily awake. She’d been taking her turn to nap while Wynn kept watch, and had only been asleep long enough to wake up completely disoriented. She blinked, rubbing at her eyes.
“Come with me, girl,” the guard said to her from the doorway. In the torchlight flickering from the corridor, Ker recognized Pella, the thickset man. As he waited for her, he glanced with raised eyebrows at Wynn, sitting at the table, lamp turned low. Wynn shrugged in answer to his unspoken question, and he nodded. Of course, Ker thought. He’d been there to help Tel when Wynn had been injured. Ker slipped past him into the corridor, and he closed the door.
“No use in you hanging about,” he told the guard on their door. “I’ll mind her.” The man sketched a salute before jogging off in the other direction.
“He’s never asked for me this late before.” Depending on how long Svann kept her, they might have to put off their escape until tomorrow. Always supposing that this summons, coming when they were only hours away from running, was just a coincidence.
“I don’t know what it was you did that made him so angry before, but if I could make a suggestion, don’t do it again,” Pella said as they turned into the corridor leading to Svann’s quarters.
“I’ll do my very best,” she said. Ker wanted badly to ask the man about Tel, but what would be the point? Her lower lip between her teeth, she glanced sideways. Did Pella even know what was really going on? He seemed friendly, in a gruff way, but how far would that friendliness go if he knew she was a Talent? She’d never imagined that a day would come when she’d look at ordinary people—even soldiers—with fear.
“Quiet watch,” she said as they reached Svann’s door.
He froze, his hand raised to knock. His eyes narrowed before he answered. “Quiet watch.”
Somehow comforted by the familiar exchange, Kerida took a deep breath and squared her shoulders as Pella opened the door. She walked through, and heard it close behind her.
Only embers glowed in the braziers. Svann would have to put on more fuel if he expected to keep them burning through the night. The window shutters were closed now, and for the first time Ker saw their inner surfaces were painted with a floral motif that picked up the colors from the wall hangings. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make this room comfortable and welcoming.
Kerida hoped whoever it had been was still alive.
Svann was standing in front of the dying fire, one arm braced on the table, looking at the little crystal flask he was tipping back and forth in his hand. Kerida stayed where she was, close to the door. She wanted to show him she wasn’t afraid, but she just couldn’t take that first step forward.
They held their places for so long, Ker wondered whether Svann had forgotten about her. Finally, without straightening or lowering the tiny flask, Svann turned his head toward her.
“I need to say . . .” He cleared his throat and now he did straighten. He seemed smaller somehow, and Ker realized she was seeing him for the first time in only his shirt and trousers. No mail shirt, no tunic. “What I did was not scholarly.”
An apology? Kerida pressed her lips together. Was the Shekayrin drunk?
He crossed the rugs toward her, moving with his usual casual grace. All right, maybe not drunk. But something was changed about him. He still had the small flask of red dust in his hand. He’d used it before in the way people used drugs. Now it looked as though there was less dust in the flask than there had been.
With her back against the door, Ker was unable to back away. She stiffened, but all Svann did when he got close enough was lean forward and peer into her face, squinting as if she wasn’t in focus.
“Logic tells me that if you are afraid, you will not give me true answers. You will give me the answers you believe I hope to hear.” If Svann had been drinking, Ker would guess that he’d reached the speak-slowly-and-clearly stage. “In the future I will not punish your friends, but you must speak the truth. Are we in agreement?”
Kerida pressed her lips together, suppressing a shrug.
“You wish to say something. Speak without fear, only truthfully.”
Ker took a deep breath in through her nose. “You already agreed to keep my friends alive and safe if I cooperated. Then you hurt Wynn this morning. How is what you’re telling me now any different? How are you to be trusted now?”
Svann narrowed his eyes at the flask before turning away to set it down on the table next to the lamp. “I cannot read you.” He was still looking at the flask of dust, but he spoke as if answering her question. “I cannot read whether you tell me the truth.” He swiveled his head toward her. His blue eyes glittered, and he gave her a smile that invited her to smile with him. “I must trust you.”
Ker wrinkled her nose, but she nodded. If the Shekayrin used the jewels the same way her people used the Talent—you didn’t need to trust someone when all you had to do was touch them and know for certain. For maybe the first time since he’d become a Shekayrin, Svann couldn’t rely on the jewel for certainty.
“Maybe we have to trust each other,” she said.
Svann took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gesturing at the chair she normally used. Ker lowered herself to the front edge of the seat as Svann pulled up a chair to face her. He now had the jewel in his fingers, and he studied it the way he’d studied the flask of dust.
“We Sunflower Shekayrin are scholars. We seek only truth, and the truth should not frighten me. Did you tell me the truth this morning? I promise on the soul stone I will take no reprisal. Only tell me.”
Well. Ker gripped the arms of her chair. At first, all she could see was the shape of Wynn’s hand as Tel carried her out of the room.
“We have to trust each other,” she said finally. “Wynn and Jerek stay safe and alive if I cooperate. I’ve let you keep me without water and without sleep. Then the first time I say something you don’t want to hear, you hurt Wynn.”
He nodded. “Yet we must trust each other. How?”
“You say you can’t read me.” She nodded toward the jewel he held in his hand. “But I can Flash you. Then I’d know. And—” She shrugged. “If I truly have no reason to fear you, I’d have no reason to lie to you.”
His lips pressed tightly together, and Ker knew he was afraid. Was he too afraid, or would his scholarly curiosity make him brave enough to chance it?
“I’d know,” she repeated. “Beyond all doubt, I’d know. And your research could continue,” she added.
“You would see the whole truth of me?”
“I’m not sure about the whole truth.” Something compelled Ker to be open. “I know I can get a single answer to a single question, but how much more?” She shook her head. “That I’m not sure of.”
He shot a glance at the flask of dust, but as she finished speaking, he was nodding. His eyes swiveled to meet hers. The whites seemed to be stained a little pink. He smiled again, and again Ker wondered if he were drunk—or whether the red dust was some kind of drug.
“The soul stone will protect me.” Ker thought Svann was talking to himself. “The magic of the body cannot harm me. Therefore I will let you do this.”
Ker cleared her throat and rubbed her hands dry on the front of her trousers. There was no way she could object to his holding onto the jewel. S
he got to her feet and stood over him, gesturing at his neck. Svann undid the three offset buttons of his Halian shirt, and pulled the embroidered collar open. She’d never noticed it before, but the threads were the same color as the shirt, exactly the kind of embroidery her mother liked.
Swallowing, Ker placed her hand on the base of his throat. Svann’s skin was warmer than she’d expected, and smoother. Paraste.
The red structure in the center of Svann’s aura was clear and dominant; the yellow, blue, green, and purple, spiky. She Flashed his fear, and his feeling that as a scholar he couldn’t let his fear hold him back. Ker focused, and saw the answer she was looking for. He’d meant what he said. He wouldn’t punish her if she said something he didn’t like.
“I told you the truth,” she breathed.
<
<
<
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Svann sucked in his breath. “What? Who was that?”
Ker opened her eyes, but his were still squeezed tight, the hand holding the jewel in a fist.
“Where did it go?” His aura vibrated, the colors shivering, dashing wildly from side to side.
Ker put her free hand on his shoulder. His distress was so real. Suddenly, she remembered what it was like to Flash the griffin for the first time. “It’s all right, try to relax.” Using the colors she and Svann had in common—and avoiding the red of the jewel—Ker tried to ease some of the spikiness and distress she could see in Svann’s aura, smoothing his colors with her own.
Ker wasn’t sure exactly what happened next or how she did it. Some of the colors had begun to move between Svann and the jewel, and her own had joined them, and the Flash she got then was so fierce that at first she could take nothing else in. Abruptly Ker was washed over with a whole pattern of light and color, streaked through with red. It was beautiful, and bright and warm. The webways of the jewel’s facets were, she realized, an organization of spells and castings that enabled Svann to use the stone. Somehow, he and the stone together had made the web, created the facets. Fascinated, Ker focused her concentration, trying to Flash more. Curious, half laughing, she could see where the pattern began, and how it formed itself.
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Svann had her by the throat. His eyes sparkled, and his mouth pressed to a thin line, face taut and fierce. The fear she’d sensed before had risen up, turning all within him a deep red. He shifted his grip until he had her by the chin, lifted his free hand, and pressed the jewel against her forehead. Somehow he’d sensed that she was Flashing the jewel through him, and the thought horrified him.
Panic rose in the back of her throat, as she felt herself being pulled closer and closer to the red. She shifted her focus and, drawing her block around her like a cloak, she took hold of the roots of his pattern and tore them loose. The web flashed gold—for an instant—and disappeared.
And then Ker was down, pinned by Svann’s weight, her left leg twisted painfully under her. Without the jewel’s net, he’d gone down like a puppet cut from its strings. Ker struggled to get out from under him. Terestre.
Gritting her teeth, Ker was finally able to wriggle her upper body free, giving herself the leverage to roll Svann away and pull her legs out from under him. She felt for the pulse under his jaw and sighed in relief when she found it, rapid but strong. Though why she should be relieved was more than she could say. Surely, she’d be better off if the man was dead?
As she got to her feet, Ker spotted the jewel lying a short distance from Svann’s hand. She scooped it up, the movement awakening new bruises. It felt unexpectedly cold. The facets were still there; the stone had not gone smooth again, like the one Luca had shown them in the mines. She glanced at where Svann lay on the floor, and then at the door. Nothing. No sign of the guard. They’d been quieter than she’d thought. She looked back down at Svann.
Ker knew she should kill him. He was one of the people murdering Talents, even if he wasn’t the same man she’d seen at Questin Hall. He would have killed her fast enough if she’d been a Full Talent and he hadn’t been able to use her for his studies. He’d killed Sala, though perhaps he hadn’t been trying to.
Look what he’d done to Wynn.
She searched his belt, but found nothing beyond an empty pouch. The table, mantel, and sideboard yielded the same results. There was no edged weapon in the room. Ker chewed on her lower lip, eyes scanning her surroundings rapidly. And nothing heavy enough to crush a man’s skull. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She had to get out. She had no way of knowing how long Svann would be unconscious, but she had to take advantage of it, to get Wynn and Jerek away. She still had the jewel. Maybe there was some way to turn it to her advantage as well. If she could get it to work for her, use what she knew of it—
Tel. It had seemed, just before Svann had panicked, that she’d Flashed something . . . if she could do more with the webway of spells than simply shut it off . . .
Pursing her lips in a silent whistle, she let the jewel sit flat on her palm. Paraste.
There. The structure of the jewel—the facets, the light and the colors—still there. But different. The red more golden now, the webways smaller. Only by stiff concentration could she see the patterns forming and reforming. There weren’t an infinite number, as it had seemed at first, but only seven, or perhaps nine. She saw how she could allow her aura to mix with that of the jewel, but she also saw that she didn’t need to. She could stay off to one side, take the webs into her own hands, make the jewel work.
She placed the jewel on Svann’s forehead and tried Flashing through it. She saw that he slept deeply, like a man with a head injury. He’d sleep for hours. She saw the mechanism of that sleep. At least, she hoped she did. She slipped the jewel into the pocket of her tunic and, grabbing Svann by the ankles, braced herself to drag him out of the line of sight of the door.
Finally, she pushed her hair back from her face, pulled her tunic straight, patted the pocket where the jewel sat, and let herself out into the corridor.
“You’re all right, then? Made it up with him, have you?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Ker forced what she hoped was a normal smile on her lips.
Pella’s eyes narrowed, and Ker thought he was going to question her further, but he nodded and gestured for her to precede him down the corridor.
When they arrived at her own door, she let Pella open it. As he was stepping back to let her walk through, she stumbled and he caught her by the elbow. She turned toward him as if she was trying to get her balance. Luckily, it wasn’t Tel; he would have been too tall to try this trick on.
“You’ve got something on your face.” She reached up as she spoke, and he was so sure of her he didn’t even notice she had something in her hand until she had touched him with the jewel.
For the second time in an hour a man fell forward into Ker’s arms, but this time Wynn was there to help her drag him into their room and lay him out on the floor.
“What did you do?” Wynn ran her hands over him looking for a wound—and helping herself to his weapons as she went. “Is he dead?”
“I hope he’s just asleep. I’m hoping I didn’t kill him.” Ker shivered, laying her fingers on the pulse in his neck. “Quick, tie him up. I’ve got no idea how long this will last.”
“How did you . . .” Jerek’s question died away as Ker held up the jewel.
“We go now,” she said. “Before anyone comes looking for this one.” She tapped Pella on the chest. It would most likely be Tel himself, she realized.
“Great. Now we have weapons.” Wynn held up the man’s sword.
Ker knelt across from her friend and began to s
trip off Pella’s uniform tunic. “And a disguise that will get us through the first awkward moments.”
Wynn grinned. “At the least, it’ll buy us time for you to use your magical stone.” Her face changed. “Oh, Kerida, what about Tel? Can you use it on him?”
Ker’s stomach clenched. Now that she’d actually used the jewel, she wasn’t sure. It was one thing to put someone to sleep—but if she did make Tel sleep, wouldn’t she then be able to . . . Her eye fell on Jerek. He was tying one of the pillowcases into a carry bag.
“If it was just you and me, I’d risk it. But think.” She nodded at Jerek. “Every minute we spend looking for Tel is a minute in which we can get caught. And then, what if I couldn’t change him? We’d lose all hope of escape. We can’t risk that. Not now.” But there was a hollow inside her that her words left empty.
JURIA Sweetwater examined the woman sitting across from her with interest. This would be the sister, or rather the half-sister, of the young Talent, Kerida Nast. Generally speaking, Battle Wings weren’t something you could inherit, but Tonia Nast was the third generation of her family to be Faro of Panthers. There were older Wings, and older Faros for that matter, but this woman was one of the most well-respected military leaders in the Polity. The kind of person who could make someone Luqs. Or become Luqs herself, for that matter.
So which option brought the Panther to the seat on the other side of the round table, in the room Juria had begun to think of as her own? The Inquisitor Luca Pa’narion sat at her left. The chair to her right was empty, and Juria felt the absence of her Laxtor, Surm Barlot, though he was missing for the best of reasons, finding a den for her newly arrived Bears, the Ruby, Pearl, and Onyx Cohorts that the Faro of Panthers had brought to her.
“You say that no one has approached you since your surrender was demanded?”
“Not directly, no.” Juria spread her hands wide and lowered them again to the table. “Smaller attacks—especially at night—increased, but there was no final ultimatum.”
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