The Whitefire Crossing (23 page)

“Good.” I stood. The magefire had warmed the cave enough to halt Kiran’s shivering, but he still looked badly chilled. We were losing heat out the entrance, aided by the occasional icy blast of wind that spat swirls of snow through the crevice. I’d need to fix a tarp to try and block the gap. “This storm could last days. We’ll need to conserve energy and food. If I were you, I’d sleep as much as possible. We’ll have a hard climb to the notch once the storm clears.”

Kiran sighed and tilted his head back against the rock. The firelight softened his pallor, making him look very young as well as unhappy. I turned away from the sight. No need to like him, or even believe him. I just had to get him across the border. That’d be hard enough.

***

(Kiran)

Kiran shifted closer to the magefire as Dev pounded pitons into the rock near the cave entrance. The wild howl of the wind outside made him shudder with remembered cold. His physical exhaustion was deeper than any he’d experienced before. His entire body hurt, not with the sharp fire of magical overload, but with a deep, pounding ache. His eyelids seemed weighted by lead. Sleep promised welcome oblivion, but the chill hostility in Dev’s eyes kept jerking him back from the brink.

If only Dev hadn’t seen Ruslan’s
akhelsya
sigil! Anger or fear, either one might easily grow to outweigh Dev’s desire for payment. But how could Kiran prevent betrayal to Ruslan or the Alathians? He could think of no argument he hadn’t employed already. Money seemed a frail thread to hang all his hope on.

His thoughts slowed despite himself, his body surrendering to sleep’s ever more insistent pull. For a time, exhaustion kept his sleep dark and dreamless. But as the hours passed and his body slowly recovered, the inner darkness faded, replaced by memories.

“What is it that has upset you, little one?” Lizaveta looked up at him from where she reclined on a low couch. Her jasmine-scented black hair slid in a heavy fall over one smooth brown shoulder to pool on the crimson folds of her robe.

Kiran was too agitated to sit. “You have to help me, khanum Liza, please. I can’t live like this, I won’t! Can’t you undo the binding?”

Her kohl-lined eyes followed him as he paced. “You know the answer to that, Kiranushka. The mark-binding is forever. No one can undo it.” She sat up and reached for his hand. “Can you not see how much he loves you? All these years he has waited for you to take your place with Mikail at his side.”

Kiran stopped short, baring his teeth. “Loves me?
Loves
me? How can you say that, after what he did?”

Her face remained placid, though a shadow moved through the liquid depths of her eyes. Gently, she drew him down to sit beside her. “Ruslan is sometimes...hasty. He only meant to teach a lesson. Can you not forgive him?”

He jerked his hand from her grasp, feeling the bitter sting of tears. “I will never forgive him. Never. He is a monster.” He swiped at his eyes. “I refuse to be one. I’ll kill myself, if that’s what it takes to free myself from this.” He gestured furiously at his chest, where Ruslan’s mark lay.

Lizaveta’s delicately painted lips curved. “Ah, Kiran. Always so dramatic.” She sighed. “I told Ruslan as much when he first brought you to me. This one, I said, this child does not have the right temperament for our life.” She traced a finger down his cheek. “But your life-light burned so brightly, so full of power, so eager and so loving—how could we not love you in return?”

“I mean it, khanum Liza. Help me, or I’ll seek the only release left to me.”

“Very well, little one. I will help you, on one condition.” She paused, her eyes on Kiran’s face.

“What?” Kiran said, unwillingly.

“You must give me a binding blood-promise: you will not kill yourself, by direct or indirect action, no matter what should occur.”

Kiran glared at her. “No! If I do that, you’ll just hand me back to him, the moment I step out your door.”

Lizaveta’s eyes grew hard, her face stern. “Give me this promise, and I will help you leave Ruslan. I have said it. Do you doubt my word?” Her voice cut through the air like a whip.

“I...no.” Kiran bowed his head. “I’m sorry, khanum Liza.”

“Then what is your answer?”

He was silent for a long moment, biting his lip. At last he met her eyes. “I will promise.”

She rose and glided over to an ornately decorated side table, her bare feet silent on the thick carpet. A sigil glowed to life on a chest carved with spineflowers as she approached. She removed a silver knife and bowl from the chest, and padded softly back to him. Seating herself gracefully on the couch, she placed the bowl between them, and held out a hand, palm up. The knife waited, gleaming, in the other.

Slowly, he extended his own hand. With practiced, rapid motions, she cut matching lines first on his palm, then hers, following the lifeline. Blood welled up to coat the silver blade. She clasped his hand, and he drew in a sharp breath as blood met blood and her magic rose to envelop him. If Ruslan was all blazing red fire, she was something much more dark and subtle, a deep violet vine twining through his consciousness. But for all her subtlety, he could feel her strength, ancient and powerful, equal to her mage-brother’s.

With her magic sinking roots throughout his mind and soul, she looked deep into his eyes and said softly, “Make the promise.”

He obeyed. The power flared as he spoke, searing the words into his heart. Satisfied, she withdrew. With their hands still clasped, she drew him forward into a kiss. He resisted, memories of Alisa rising to drown him. But she was patient, her mouth sweet as the lira berries she loved to eat, and long habit made him yield. After a timeless interval, she released him. He turned his hand over to find the cut vanished. She’d worked a restorative binding so smoothly he hadn’t even felt it.

She smiled at him, gently. “Ah, Kiranushka. I will miss you.” She rose. “Come to me in a day’s time. I can provide you with means to hide yourself from Ruslan, and I will give you the name of a man who can arrange passage for you out of the city.”

“Thank you.” Kiran hesitated. “Ruslan will be angry with you, if he discovers you helped me—”

She put a finger on his lips, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Angry will be an understatement, little one. But fear not. In the many long years we have known each other, Ruslan and I have been angry with each other countless times, and it has not destroyed us.” She sighed, her smile fading. “This is what you are too young to understand: that for the
akheli
, family is all.”

Kiran woke to Dev shaking him by the shoulder. A suspicious wetness lingered in his eyes. He rubbed a hand over them and hoped Dev wouldn’t notice. “What is it?”

“Storm’s over,” Dev said. “Time to pack up and go.” The tarp lay in a neat bundle beside the cave entrance. Snow caked Dev’s boots, and his cheeks were red with cold.

“Already?” Kiran peered at the darkness outside the crack. “I thought the storm would last longer.”

“It’s been a full day.”

Kiran blinked. He’d slept for an entire day? No wonder hunger pains cramped his stomach and his mouth felt dry as bone. He reached for his waterskin. The deep ache had gone from his body, though his muscles still felt sluggish and stiff.

Dev busied himself with his gear with sharp efficiency. Kiran’s worries returned at the sight of his impassive face. Dev would want to reach the border to escape Ruslan, but he might easily have lied about his intent to help Kiran cross.

“When we reach the border...you said before ‘there’s always a way,’ but what will you do to find one?” Specifics would be a good sign, but if Dev brushed the question aside with vague assurances, that would be a clear warning.

“While you were sleeping, I did some thinking.” Dev sat and strapped a set of small but wickedly sharp metal spikes to the instep of one boot. “When I bring Bren’s usual goods through, they’re in a box sealed with a special ward that damps down their magic, to a level so low it fools both the mage and the gate spells. The box goes in a hidden compartment, so the guards don’t see it in their search. Works every time. I figure a mage shouldn’t be far different. Hide you from the guards, find a way to suppress your magic same as Bren’s charms, and I can get you through.”

Kiran relaxed a fraction. “Suppress my magic...” He frowned, thoughtfully. The amulet worked by misdirection, not suppression. “May I see your ward?”

Dev extracted an oilskin bundle from his pack. Gently, he unwrapped layers of cloth to reveal a thin copper square inset with gleaming gold lines.

Kiran laid a hand on the copper and cocked his head in surprise. Rather than fiery swirls of cleanly contained energies, the ward contained a chaotic darkness unlike any magic he’d sensed before. “What kind of mage made this?”

Dev shrugged. “Dunno. Got it from Bren when I first started working his route. He called it a blackshroud ward.”

Kiran released the ward. Extend that dark void over a group of charms, and he could well believe them undetectable by ordinary methods. But his own aura dwarfed that of any charm. “I doubt this type of ward would be enough to conceal me.”

“I didn’t think it’d be so easy.” Dev rewrapped the ward. “I’ve got an idea, though. The Alathians aren’t much on magic, but you wouldn’t believe what they can do with herbs. I heard an Alathian say once that one way their Council controls magical offenders before trial is to force drugs on them that cut off their magic. Bet you they’ll have a drug that’ll do the trick, in combination with your amulet and my ward.”

“But how would you obtain such a thing?” A drug that cut off magic...Kiran supposed that was possible, since mind, body, and magic were inextricably linked. Surely the effects wouldn’t be permanent. Though if they were...he crushed the protest in his heart. He’d chosen the moment he left Ninavel to trade magic for a life free from Ruslan.

“Gerran’ll know. When we reach the border, best if I first scout the gate and make a trip into Kost to talk with him, before we try taking you through.”

Kiran tensed. “You’ll go into Kost alone.” A solo trip into Kost would give Dev the perfect opportunity to either betray him to the Alathians or safely abandon him to Ruslan.

Dev darted a sardonic glance his way. “Want a guarantee I won’t sell you out, do you? Too bad. Seems to me I’ve had to take your word for all kinds of shit on this trip. About time you had to take mine.”

Kiran subsided, reluctantly. With his life at stake, he couldn’t afford to merely take Dev’s word. Perhaps if he approached the problem from another angle...Dev needed money, but why so badly? Based on his words to Cara, Kiran was certain it wasn’t out of simple greed. If he could learn why, he might discover another, stronger inducement to offer.

It wouldn’t be easy. Dev was nearly as reticent on personal matters as Kiran. Kiran yanked his pack shut. If there was a way to get Dev talking, he’d find it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

(Dev)

I
crested Bearjaw’s ridge and flopped onto the snow with a heartfelt groan. My strained side was on fire, and my back felt like someone had been thumping it with rocks. Snow and ice had turned the easy climb I remembered into a lethally slick ascent near as difficult as Kinslayer. Kiran hadn’t a prayer of managing it. I’d got him up ten pitches worth of rock one inch at a time, by hauling on the rope with all my might every time he made even the slightest advance upward. Khalmet’s hand, I hadn’t worked so hard on a climb since the time Sethan had broken his ankle on a three-day ascent of Nyshant Peak.

Kiran struggled up my bootpacked steps in the final snow slope. He eased himself down onto the snowbank next to me. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just resting.” The view westward from the notch was spectacular. Snow-dusted spires dropped down to lines of thickly forested ridges that glowed a lush green in the late afternoon sun. In the distance, a break in the trees marked the deep gorge of the Elenn River, twisting southward through the foothills. The Alathian border lay on the other side of the Elenn, guarded by the invisible barrier that prevented foreigners like us from crossing anywhere other than a border outpost like Kost.

I’d tried crossing in the wild once, just to see. Even though I’d inched through the seemingly empty forest clearing, hitting the border felt like I’d slammed face first into a cliff at the speed of a charging rock bear. I’d tumbled backward onto my ass with my head throbbing, blood leaking from my nose and ears, and not even a shimmer in the air to show I’d troubled the wards. Of course, that was only for an ordinary guy like me. Word was the barest touch from a foreign mage like Kiran would fire the wards in truly spectacular fashion: empty air blazing into a wall of magefire, joined by the instant appearance of a horde of grim-faced Council mages eager to destroy the unfortunate intruder. Not a scenario I cared to risk.

Kiran pointed to the sunwashed hills. “Is that Alathia?” Wary hope glimmered in his eyes.

I nodded. “Kost lies southwest of here, where the Deeplink River meets the Elenn. We’ll head down to treeline, then cut south across the ridges until we can drop into the gorge.”

“It’s so green! Look at all those trees...” His voice was soft with wonder.

I wasn’t falling for that wide-eyed act anymore. I pushed to my feet and said sharply, “Come on. Not much light left in the day.”

If I’d needed any more proof that Kiran’s master had spellcast that storm, I would’ve had it by the relative lack of snow on the west side of the ridge. Ordinary storms dumped their heaviest loads on the Whitefires’ western slopes, resulting in the abundant Alathian waterfalls and rivers. But only a hundred yards west of Bearjaw’s ridgeline, the snow thinned to scant inches deep, instead of the several feet we’d fought through in the cirque. Too bad—I’d been hoping for a nice easy glissade down a snow slope, and instead we had to clamber over slippery talus.

I had to lower Kiran down another cliff, while I took shallow breaths and tried to ignore the pain stabbing my side. I downclimbed the same section, placing my feet with care thanks to all the meltwater dripping down the cliff face. Sporadic rattles of rockfall echoed through the basin as the meltwater loosened rocks in the couloirs. I kept an eye on the narrow couloir directly above, praying no sharp-edged missiles would catapult out before we could clear the fall zone
.