The Whitefire Crossing (31 page)

“I thought the boy lost to you, and his hunter’s arrival imminent,” Pello said. “Your instructions said I must not be discovered, and I knew I’d never conceal my mission from a blood mage. I fled and used your
okalyi
charm to speed my travel, hoping I might survive to bring you news. I crossed the border not two hours past, and received your message to meet you here.” He eyed Kiran. “I was surprised to learn the boy had arrived safely in Kost.”

He’d left out our little scuffle at the outrider wagon. Interesting. Maybe he didn’t want to admit he’d as much as warned me off helping Kiran. Once he’d seen Kiran’s mark, he’d known a blood mage whose magic was unrestricted by the Alathian wards was about to descend on the convoy. He might’ve considered changing employers—not something he’d want this mage to know.

“Gerran says his courier is a resourceful man,” the mage said.

“Apparently so. Perhaps you should have employed him instead.” A sardonic glint lit Pello’s dark eyes.

I didn’t feel resourceful, I felt like a gods-damned idiot. All my efforts to keep Pello from figuring out my plans, when he’d known them all along...and the charm he’d mentioned, that’d let him reach the border faster than any man should—I hadn’t seen anything near so powerful when I’d searched through his stash. Which meant he’d hidden it elsewhere, knowing I’d break his wards. Damn his eyes, he’d played me skillfully as Jylla had, and I hadn’t had so much as an inkling of the truth.

“I required an independent observer. Your services have been adequate.” The mage removed a leather pouch from his belt, and offered it to Pello. “Your payment. In gemstones, as you requested.”

Pello didn’t move to take it. His stance appeared casual, but I saw the way he was balanced on the balls of his feet, mere inches from the door. “Do you think me a fool, to come within your reach? You don’t want the boy’s master to know you have him. I’m sure you’d find it safer by far to let death stop my tongue, rather than relying on coin.”

If anything, the mage looked amused. “Do you imagine distance will save you?”

“In Alathia? Yes,” said Pello. “You dare not cast true magic here, under the eye of the Council. Yet I know the danger of a blood mage’s touch.”

The mage’s eyes narrowed. “You know little of what I would or would not dare.”

Pello’s teeth showed in a sharp smile. “Do I not? I had time to consider, as I rode for the border. Shadow men hear much, and may piece together scattered whispers into a complete tale. I know who you are, and why you hate Ruslan Khaveirin. More, I know what you intend. You mean to break Lord Sechaveh’s hold on Ninavel. Destroy him, and take the city as your own.”

I sucked in a surprised breath. A blood mage wanting to rule Ninavel...was that the true story behind the mage wars? It made sense the other Ninavel mages wouldn’t care for the idea of a blood mage replacing Sechaveh, and would’ve fought to prevent it. But damn it, I wished Pello had been a tad more specific. He might know who this bastard was, but I still had no idea.

The mage had listened to Pello’s little speech without any further show of emotion. “You don’t appear to be making a very good case for your continued survival,” he said, drily. I had to agree. Whatever Pello’s game, he’d taken a terrible risk.

Pello radiated sincerity. “I tell you this so there is truth between us. So that when I tell you I would gladly serve you in this goal, you might believe it.”

Oh, the little rat bastard. I saw his game, now. Return to Ninavel as the right-hand man of the city’s new lord, rather than a mere streetsider. What bothered me was that he wouldn’t make the play if he didn’t think this mage had a real chance of taking down Sechaveh. I couldn’t figure why, given that Sechaveh had clearly won before.

A hint of contempt crossed the mage’s face. “Why would I wish the service of an untalented man?”

“I have no magic, true. But even the most powerful of mages cannot be everywhere, and know all. I can obtain information on your enemies that your magic cannot.”

Yeah, yeah, the standard shadow man sales pitch. I couldn’t tell if the mage was buying it or not.

“And in exchange?”

“My life, of course. And your protection of it. When I fled the convoy, I made an enemy of Horavin House, and they are not merciful. Should I return to Ninavel, I would prefer not to spend all my time dodging assassins.”

The mage’s face was impassive. Pello waited in apparent unconcern, though inside he must’ve been wound tight as coilvine.

“I accept your offer.” The mage held up a hand, as Pello brightened. “On one condition. You must allow me to search your thoughts, to verify the truth of what you say.” A tiny, unpleasant smile touched his mouth. “One can never be too careful.”

Behind his back, Pello’s hands fisted so tightly I thought blood might drip from his palms. I grinned, fiercely. He’d thought he was so clever, yet he’d been trapped neat as a blacktail in a snare. If he let the mage touch him, gods only knew the result.

Pello’s shoulders stiffened. He jerked his head in a nod. I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. He might be a rat bastard, but he had balls.

The mage held out a hand, palm up.

Pello edged forward, reluctance clear in every line of his body. He hesitated, then extended his arm.

Swift as a striking snake, the mage clasped his bare wrist. Pello gave a strangled, agonized cry and collapsed, dangling from the mage’s grip like a bone doll. I waited for the mage to cast his dead body aside, but instead the mage held his pose, his eyes distant and his hand locked over Pello’s wrist.

He wasn’t killing Pello, but searching his mind. My stomach lurched. Shaikar take me, this was what I’d left Cara and Jerik to face, back at the convoy.

Pello’s face had gone gray, and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. The mage’s face stayed as serenely calm as a Varkevian idol’s. At last he released Pello’s wrist with a contemptuous flick of his hand. Pello dropped flat on his face, his body spasming in little hitching jerks. I winced, imagining Cara in his place.

The mage strode to the door and called for Gerran, who slid into the room with the wary caution of a man entering a sandcat’s lair. The mage waved a hand at Kiran, unconscious in the chair, and Pello, who still lay twitching and gasping like a man brain-burned. “Have your men take them both to my carriage,” he said, and stalked out.

I eased myself away from the crack in the boards. Oh, gods. I should never have come to Gerran’s warehouse. Far from lightening the black weight in my gut, what I’d seen and heard had only made it worse. I hadn’t only betrayed Kiran to a fate he’d rather have died than face. I’d handed a monster the key he thought he needed to bring a second war down on Ninavel.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

(Dev)

I
dropped my forehead against a roof truss, wishing to all the gods I could forget what I’d just seen and heard. Every instinct screamed at me to get the fuck away from the Shaikar-cursed blood mages before I got myself killed. I should run back to Ninavel, use my hard-won coin to free Melly, and get us safely out of the city before it erupted in magefire. I could warn my city friends a power-hungry blood mage meant to strike down Sechaveh and claim Ninavel—some of them might even believe me...and even if they thought me a sun-blinded, jabbering idiot, Sechaveh would surely win in the end, just like he had before. Right?

Yet the desperate defiance on Kiran’s face and the agonized fear in his cry haunted me. If I left him to a slavery bad as anything Melly faced...what kind of man did that make me?

One every bit as soulless and cold as Jylla had claimed. If I ran, I’d prove her right, and earn every harsh word Cara had shouted at me.

But Melly...I’d promised Sethan I’d save her. No matter the cost.

My skin burned against the cold metal of the truss. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew full well Sethan would never have wanted me to keep my promise to him this way. He’d have been horrified by what I’d done to Kiran, let alone the idea of me sneaking off while a blood mage worked to start a war that might kill thousands.

I could see the way he’d look at me with fierce, earnest eyes.
You can still make this right,
he’d say. Sethan had always believed in second chances.
All you need do is free Kiran, before the mage can make use of him.

Yeah, sure. How the fuck was I supposed to do that? Even in my Tainted days, I’d stayed well clear of mages. Magic couldn’t detect or prevent the invisible grip of the Taint, which gave Tainters a chance at breaking wards—but ward magic was passive, bound to a single purpose. Red Dal had warned us time and again that nothing could compete with active casting. And now I hadn’t even the Taint to help me.

Pello’s words whispered through my head.
You dare not cast true magic here
. This was Alathia, not Ninavel. A blood mage here would still be a deadly opponent, but the instant he cast anything stronger than a street-simple charm, he’d trigger the Council’s detection spells and bring a host of their enforcer mages down on his head. Plus, the Alathians would never have agreed to let a blood mage live in exile within their borders—which meant they must not know about him.

A weapon I might use, though if I ran to the Alathians while Kiran remained a captive, I’d sentence him to death along with his captor. Now that I wasn’t making idiotic rationalizations to myself, hoping for leniency from the Council for Kiran felt crazy as wishing for snow in Ninavel. No question Kiran was a blood mage, and the Alathians weren’t known for making fine distinctions.

Besides, they wouldn’t limit their questioning of me to safe topics. They’d find out all about my smuggling and Gerran’s operation, and even if I didn’t end up executed by the Council for my own crimes, my life wouldn’t be worth two kenets when Bren found out who’d destroyed his business. But if I could find a way to break Kiran free and only then set the Alathians on the mage, anonymously...

Gods. I’d thought ditching the convoy to run with Kiran was crazy. Stealing him away from a blood mage was a whole new level of insanity. Yet the vicious knot in my stomach had already eased at the idea of a rescue. And if I’d learned one thing from my trip through the mountains with Kiran, it was that mages weren’t the invincible creatures I’d thought. They were human like everyone else, and made mistakes. Mistakes that could be exploited. I hoped.

Best to treat it like any of the jobs I’d worked in the old days, and start with a thorough scout of the mark’s location. I began crawling through the rafters, back toward the smoke vent. Damn it, I’d never sneak out of Gerran’s compound in time to follow the mage’s carriage, and I didn’t have any hair or blood from either Kiran or Pello to key a find-me charm with.

Kiran, slumped in the ropes with his shirt torn halfway down his chest...I gripped a rafter with renewed force. His shirt, with the faint dye stains on the collar, left by his snow-dampened hair in the cave. And I still had a packet of dye from the same batch, sitting in my stash. I’d thought I might need it if I had to lie low in Kost. I’d never used dye to key a find-me, but it might work. So long as the mage didn’t dump the shirt or burn it. I crawled faster.

At least I had one advantage. The mage had no idea I’d have any remaining interest in Kiran. He wasn’t expecting me, and any Tainter worth their price knows that’s the best advantage of all.

***

(Kiran)

Kiran returned to consciousness the same way he’d left it, with the mage’s hand on his forehead. He twisted away from the touch, his eyes flying open.

Instead of tied to a chair, he lay on a narrow but thickly quilted bed. The wood of the walls and ceiling was polished to a warm golden glow, and a patterned silken tapestry caught the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. Kiran pushed up, only to collapse back on the bed as sluggish muscles gave way.

The mage looked down at him dispassionately from his seat on an ornately carved chair beside the bed. “It’ll be a while yet before that hennanwort wears off completely.”

Even as the mage spoke, Kiran reached desperately for power, realizing the smothering numbness within had faded. Yet the moment he released his barriers, he slammed up against a force as solid and unyielding as a stone wall.

The mage gave a dry chuckle at Kiran’s reflexive gasp. “Come, now. You cannot imagine I’d allow the drug to wear off without a better means of control.” He pointed.

Intricate silver filigree twined over Kiran’s forearms from wrist to elbow, the metal bright against his skin. Kiran’s stomach sank. A charm strong enough to block a mage’s power so completely must be thirteenth level, or more—well beyond anything Kiran had ever created. But if he could read the pattern... he touched silver, and cried out as needling agony swept over him.

A small smile played about the mage’s mouth. “Surely Ruslan bound your magic as a child.”

Kiran forced himself upright despite the trembling of his muscles. True enough that Ruslan had blocked both him and Mikail for years, claiming mere proximity to the powerful forces of the confluence would destroy the mind of any mageborn child without such protection. But Ruslan had used a specialized form of a blood-binding, not a physical charm.

“Who are you?” Kiran asked, his voice husky with disuse. Ruslan and Lizaveta rarely spoke of other
akheli
. Yet if they’d ever mentioned this man, perhaps he could recall something of use.

“My name is Simon Levanian.” The mage sounded as if he expected Kiran to recognize the name. It meant nothing to Kiran.

Simon’s brown eyes turned cold. “I should have known. How very like Ruslan, to assume in his arrogance that his apprentices need not know my name.”

“Why should we know the name of some street conjurer exiled to Alathia?” Kiran imitated Ruslan’s most derisive tone, despite the fear chilling his heart. If this man was anything like Ruslan, defiance would easily provoke him to anger. Anger might drive Simon to a mistake; or perhaps Simon would kill him in a rage, as Ruslan had not. Kiran thought of his blood vow to Lizaveta with bitter regret. Any effort toward death more direct than this would be impossible. Already he skirted the edges of her binding, making it hard to speak.