She took the cloth and dabbed at the cut as he moved back to the other side of the room. The cold water stung more than she had expected.
<If you really want to protect that boy you need to get him out of here,> Kira told him.
Rho walked to the door and stared at it for a few moments. <How would I even do that?>
<Gannon is going to open Eowara’s tomb today to look for Valor’s Storm, so he can be the great hero the Book says will come forth to fight the cursed,> she said, <and provoke the cursed into attacking. No one’s been able to talk him out of it. The Front will be filled with soldiers from all the clan regiments, and everyone else will either be going into the tomb or outside watching to see what will happen. It will be the perfect time for you to get into Eotan Castle. They keep the Shadari witch in the southwest tower. I can tell you how to get there through the servants’ corridors. She does have a guard, though, and he has an imperial sword. I don’t know how well you’ll do with that old relic you’re carrying.>
<If I can rescue Dramash, then I can take Ani too,> Rho offered, as she went to her writing desk to sketch out a little map for him. <She can go back to the Shadar with us.>
<Take Ani?> asked Kira. A little giddiness tickled through her at the prospect of an end to all of this, but it quickly faded. <Gannon relies on her to take the elixir for him. He’ll spend his last eagle and his last breath hunting you down.>
<Why doesn’t Gannon just take the elixir himself?>
<He’s afraid it will kill him. He tried it on a half-dozen “volunteers” Vrinna provided for him. They all died in agony.>
Rho’s bewilderment caught Kira by surprise. <That doesn’t make sense. Eofar took the elixir himself. It made him a little sick for a while, but that was all.>
<Well, that’s what Gannon told me,> Kira said, blinking as the lines on the paper began to run together. She felt like she hadn’t slept in three years; she probably looked like it, too. <No, take Dramash away if you can, but don’t try to take the witch.>
<If you say so,> said Rho. <But what are you going to do?>
<Me?> She picked herself up out of the chair and handed him the map. <I’m going to get some sleep.>
He had more he wanted to say, but all he managed was, <I’ll bring your necklace back before I go.>
<You can keep it,> Kira said sincerely, as she moved the cushions around on her bed. <Judging by all the girls pining around here after you left, I’ll bet you’ve no shortage of soft necks to put it on. Or you could sell it. It ought to be worth at least passage for two to the Shadar.>
Rho hesitated for a moment, and then walked out into the entrance hall. Kira waited until she heard the thump of the outer door closing, then she dropped down on the bed, pulled her boots off and tossed them aside. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something pleasant, but she kept imagining walking down into Eowara’s tomb, going down, down and down, until she finally let the black swallow her up.
Chapter 19
After three days spent flying toward Prol Irat, Isa’s skin had been chafed raw by her harness and her muscles were in knots from sitting in the same position for hours on end. Lahlil had put Jachad in the middle, where he would be safest, and taken the reins herself, leaving Isa to sit in the rear. Having nothing to do except to stare at Jachad’s back made the burning pain in her stump that much more difficult to ignore.
They stopped every few hours to rest and for Jachad’s prescribed blood-lettings. The Nomas king tried to make the journey cheerful, teasing them about being dull traveling companions and telling them ridiculous stories of things he claimed to have witnessed or experienced on his travels. Mairi had given him something for the pain; he used the mixture sparingly, but when he drifted off into a daze and Lahlil took the brown glass bottle from his hand, his steady decline became all too apparent.
When she wasn’t watching Jachad, Isa watched the landscape racing along below. The marshes around Wastewater had given way first to plains of cracked, baked earth interspersed with islands of dead-looking grasses, then to brown crinkled hills before flattening out again to cultivated lands where tiny figures worked in vegetable patches and fields of grain. Lahlil steered clear of the prosperous port towns—they were either Norland colonies or allies—and instead took them inland where there were fewer settlements. The imperial armies had reduced many of the towns below to ruins, but people worked the scorched fields because they had no choice, and children played in the burned-out homesteads because they had nowhere else to go. This wreckage below her: this was the glorious Norland Empire. Her family had worked countless Shadari to death in the mines to make it all possible. How could she blame them for hating her?
She could make it better, though. She would rescue that asha imprisoned in Ravindal and bring her back to the Shadar, and together they would make up for the past. They would heal the old wounds, and Daryan would be free.
A storm began just after noon on the third day and showed no signs of stopping. Isa huddled in her borrowed woolen cloak and tried to keep the driving rain from getting underneath it and soaking her shirt. Despite the discomfort, her endlessly racing mind had swept her into a semi-conscious daze before a tongue of lightning sizzled across the sky, illuminating the world in one stark white flash. She was still blinking away the glow when a deep rumbling rolled through her, followed by a crack like someone had split a board just behind her head.
Aeda dipped down toward the ground and her stomach flipped. Jachad hunched over as Lahlil stood up in the stirrups and hauled on the reins, but Aeda tossed her head and reared, jerking them all backward. A cold sweat crawled over Isa’s skin and she clenched her stomach muscles tight.
<It’s no good. I’m taking her down,> said Lahlil, slackening the reins.
<We can’t stop here,> Isa protested. She didn’t dare take her hand off the saddle to slap away the hair clinging to her face. Another flash of lightning turned her sister into a stark silhouette and a gust of wind blew a sheet of cold water over her. <You said we’d reach Prol Irat before dark—we have to keep going.>
Lahlil said firmly, <We can’t fly through this.>
Aeda banked and turned northwest, and as the lightning flared again Isa could just make out the treetops whipping around in the wind beyond a desolate meadow. A black ribbon snaked through the trees in the distance: the Truant River, one of the three that fed into the lagoon at Prol Irat. She expected Lahlil to follow it, but instead they spiraled down to a field where tall purple weeds crowded up to the blackened foundations of what had once been a farmhouse, landing near a stone well with a rusty bucket still hanging over it.
Lahlil jumped down from the saddle, then helped Jachad with his harness. Isa slid back the buckles on her own straps until she could wriggle out and drop down into the mud. The field had a dank smell that reminded her of an old washrag. She had taken no more than two steps before her shins cracked against the remains of a cart hidden in the tall grass. A blast of wind flattened her sodden cape against her body and bent the grass down to the ground just before another flash split the sky and ushered in another heavy roll of thunder. Aeda bellowed deep in her throat and sidestepped away through the grass.
<Get the packs,> Lahlil called to Isa as she rummaged through the saddlebags and tossed some supplies down to Jachad.
<Why do we need the packs?> Isa asked. <We’re not—>A bolt of lightning streaked down toward the trees on the other side of the field and the great bang! that followed shook the ground. Aeda reared and stretched out her wings. Isa ran forward and tried to grab her bridle, but the triffon rolled her blocky head and then charged forward, forcing Isa to leap out of the way as the frightened beast flattened a wide swath of grass.
<I can’t hold her,> she called to Lahlil. <What are we going to do with her? There’s no shelter out here, and she’s afraid of the storm.>
Lahlil hooked the packs over her arm long enough to wipe the water from her eyes. <We’ll have to let her go.>
<Go?> Another gust o
f wind roared through the trees and swept across the field. Aeda crouched down and Isa could see the fear in her black eyes. She pulled the cloak more tightly around her, wishing she could block out the realization that her sister was right.
<We couldn’t have taken her into Prol Irat anyway,> Lahlil said. <They have patrols.>
<What’ll happen to her?>
<They usually go back where they came from when they’re set loose.>
Isa approached the triffon slowly and stroked the bristly fur on her side, trying to imagine her flying back to the Shadar and landing on her favorite spot on the mountainside to dry off in the sun. She could go and live with the other triffons now and she’d be free … but not with her saddle on. Isa drew Blood’s Pride and sliced through the straps holding the saddle in place, then shoved with her good shoulder until it slipped over the other side and rolled off into the weeds. The moment she was free, Aeda sprang into the air and almost immediately disappeared, hidden from sight by the driving rain. Isa was glad of the downpour. She didn’t want Lahlil to see her crying over a triffon.
<Can we get out of this storm?> asked Jachad, speaking Norlander so he wouldn’t have to shout just as more thunder swelled in Isa’s ears. Another bolt of lightning whizzed overhead and she braced herself for the sound, then flinched anyway when it came. The rusty bucket rocked back and forth in the wind, squealing on its iron rod.
<This way,> said Lahlil, hoisting up the packs and leading them into the trees.
Isa forced her stiff legs to move and they formed a line with Lahlil in front and her at the back. Branches pulled at her cape and dragged across her face, sending cascades of cold water down over her every time she pushed one away. She had never been in a forest before and her inability to see more than a few yards in any direction was beginning to make her feel like the trees were closing in on her. She found herself holding her breath, waiting for them to break out again into the open, but they never did.
<See that?> asked Lahlil, stopping finally and pointing toward some rocks a little way ahead. There was an overhang, deep enough for one or two people to shelter under; it sat just under a run-off where water poured from the rocks above. <You two wait there. I need to check up ahead.>
<That will just take longer,> Isa said. <We should all go.>
<Isa, just do what I tell you.>
Isa would have continued arguing if she had not suddenly noticed Jachad swaying dangerously; instead, she took his arm and they trudged through wet leaves to the relative shelter of the rocks while Lahlil went off through the trees. She dived under the overhang, but Jachad just stood there with the rain pouring down on him, ignoring the stares of the grotesque faces that her imagination had carved out of the black trees’ knotted bark. Then, finally, he let himself break down.
She had seen Daryan weep in a quiet, controlled way, but she had never seen anyone let go the way Jachad did now, as if everything he had been holding back was flowing out of him all at once. The force of his pain stopped Isa’s breath, and she realized his physical strength wouldn’t hold out for long; when it did overtake him she caught him, just before he fell, and half-carried him under the overhang. She sat him down in a sheltered spot where the waterfall didn’t spray back, and as soon as he could manage it, he took out the brown bottle.
<It’s not much further to Prol Irat,> she told him. He pushed his cowl back, panting as if he had been suffocating beneath it. His skin was pale enough that he could have been mistaken for a Norlander. <We’ll find the strider soon, and then we’ll be in Norland.>
Jachad gave her a tired smile. <You don’t need to do that.>
<Do what?>
<Comfort me. Keep my spirits up.> He ran his fingers through his wet hair until it stood up. <I know I’m going to die—I’ve known it from the beginning, as soon as I saw my little near-brother lying in his basket. There’s no cure for this—whatever it’s doing to me can’t be undone. I can feel it.>
<Then why come?> Isa asked. <Why put yourself through this?>
<If I didn’t go, she’d have gone without me.> Jachad reached his hand out into the waterfall and let the water run through his fingertips. <Don’t say it isn’t true, because you know it is. What’s easier to picture, her sitting calmly beside a sickbed, or charging off to some impossible place for a cure? If I only have a few days left, well … you know.>
<Why didn’t you tell her?>
He responded with a little laugh, but said nothing else until Lahlil came through the trees up ahead. Just before she came close enough to hear, he said, <Please don’t tell her what I said.>
<I won’t.>
They got up again and followed Lahlil past a tiny weed-choked pond, over a swollen brook and then back into more woods so thick that Isa didn’t even see the tower until they were on top of it. Not that it had been much of a tower for a long time, but the rectangular shape of the surviving story and the dressed stone blocks lying all around made its origin clear. Vines with brown fan-shaped leaves had obviously continued the work of pulling it all down, with tendrils insinuating themselves between the blocks until chunks had just crumbled away. The whole structure gave her an uneasy feeling. There was no roof.
<How is this a shelter?> she asked.
<Trust me,> said Lahlil, and led the way through a high-arched doorway with the hinges still dangling from the masonry, then around a corner to another doorway. This one had an iron-banded door, much newer than the stonework around it, which stood open under a makeshift porch to reveal a flight of steps already marked with Lahlil’s wet footprints.
Isa halted. <Down there?>
<It’s dry,> Lahlil pointed out.
“What is this place?” asked Jachad in Shadari, the language they had most in common. Isa guessed that the mental effort of speaking Norlander had become too much for him.
“Just a ruin,” said Lahlil. She went halfway down and then stopped to adjust her sodden eye-patch while water dripped down from the hem of her cloak and speckled the layer of dust around her feet. “I know someone who can help us. He lives about an hour’s walk away, right on the Truant. He should be able to take us to Prol Irat by boat.”
Isa followed Jachad to the doorway, then the musky smell of an animal’s den stopped her again. “I don’t think we should wait—if it’s only another hour we should just keep going.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Isa. She went down the first two steps, then turned and slammed the door behind her. Lahlil had left a candle burning below, though the flicking flame did little to dispel the blackness. “I just don’t want to waste any time.”
Lahlil took her pack and put it with the others she had brought down earlier. The space was large and divided into two rooms by a wall with a dark doorway leading from one to the next. Animal nests—mostly just bundles of sticks and leaves—took up the corners, but the creatures didn’t show themselves. Their party obviously wasn’t the first to take shelter there, either. There were some bits and pieces of crockery, mostly broken, a cracked knife-handle and a supply of rags smeared with some kind of oily black substance lying around.
<What is this place?> asked Isa, repeating Jachad’s question as she walked out into the middle of the room, revolving slowly so nothing could creep up behind her. <Have you been here before?>
<That’s not important,> said Lahlil.
Jachad had already stretched out on the floor. He pulled over one of the packs to use for a pillow, too exhausted even to put down a blanket. Isa took off her wet cloak and spread it out on the floor to dry, then waded into the vaguely reassuring pool of candlelight as her sister started rummaging through the packs. With the door to the outside shutting out the rain, she could hear every one of Jachad’s painful inhalations.
<If we have to be stuck here,> said Isa, <you might as well tell me more about Ani. I’ve been waiting for the whole story since we left Wastewater.>
<Later.>
<What’s wrong with right now?>
<Let it alone, Isa. I don’t want to talk about it now, that’s all.>
Isa watched her take out the lancet and the bowl, and the thought of the cuts already hashed into Jachad’s forearms made her empty stomach squirm.
<Why won’t you talk about it?> she pressed. <Is there something you don’t want me to know?>
<There was still an open contract on the emperor’s head when I left Cyrrin, so I went to Ravindal. Ani knew I’d be coming and had her guard intercept me. She gave me the elixir and I saw what I needed to do in the Shadar. Then I left.>
<And that’s all?>
Lahlil began rolling up a bandage that had come undone.
<I can tell you’re keeping something back,> said Isa. <The less you say, the more there is to know. There’s something important you’re not telling me. What is it? And don’t tell me to drop it, because you know I won’t. I’ll hound you from here to Norland.>
<It wasn’t important, just strange,> said Lahlil. An uncertainty emanated from her, something Isa had never felt from her before. <She said I was part of something—that everything that had happened to me was leading up to something. Then … she told me she loved me.>
<Did you believe her?>
<Yes.>
Isa walked toward her shadow on the cellar wall, watching as it got larger and then disappeared into the general blackness. Bristly things stuck out from between the stones in no particular pattern. Isa touched one: a tree root? <Well, I don’t believe it,> she said, tugging at the root and loosing a sprinkling of mortar. She turned back to Lahlil, who had gathered their waterskins and was checking them for leaks. <I don’t believe there’s any reason for anything. The Shadari girl who burned my arm didn’t do it as part of some great plan. She did it because she was jealous and half-mad, and because I was stupid enough to let her get behind me. We make our own decisions; the gods don’t make them for us.>