Warrior and Witch (51 page)

In the quiet, snowy darkness of Kalistyi’s western mountains, two figures suddenly appeared.

Mirei fell to her knees, retching, shaking, trying not to make any noise.
Warrior’s mercy
—
Warrior’s complete
lack
of mercy
—
Goddess, please tell me I’ll recover if I rest
.

She got over the nausea enough to see Urishin removing the gag from her own mouth. Mirei wasn’t certain how the unrestored witch-half of a pair would react to being moved through the Void, so on the chance that she would suffer the effects an ordinary witch did, she’d gagged the girl. But Urishin looked fine—if suspiciously bright-eyed.

Instinct alerted Mirei. “Don’t,” she whispered, reaching one trembling hand out toward the girl. “Don’t do it.”

Urishin took a deep, ragged breath, and the gleam in her eyes faded.

Mirei could sympathize with what Urishin was feeling. Immediately after the test, the world looked different; she was aware of power everywhere, inherent in the world around her. Resisting the urge to reach out to it was not easy, especially when someone else cast spells.

That was why they were here tonight.

The Primes and the leaders of the Cousins were ensconced in the council room at Starfall, planning a full-blown action against the stronghold outside Garechnya.

Mirei wholeheartedly supported this, but one thing could not wait for their plans to be completed, and that was Naspeth.

Shimi and Arinei would know what had happened to her. If they were smart—and so far they had not obliged anyone by being stupid—they would move Naspeth somewhere else. It wouldn’t keep their stronghold safe, not with the help from the Cousins, but they didn’t know that, and it would mean all the information on this place’s defenses would be useless in rescuing the doppelganger. And time was on the dissidents’ side. All they had to do was keep the two apart for long enough, and Urishin’s magic would kill them both.

She’d said all this to Satomi.

The Void Prime had told her to wait.

Mirei remembered very distinctly the fight she’d had with Satomi when she came back to Starfall from Angrim. She knew she had responsibilities. But she also knew that the time to go after Naspeth was
now
, right after Urishin’s test, before the dissidents had time to make plans. A quick mission, in and out—exactly the kind of thing she’d been trained as a Hunter to do. She had the skills and the supplies to pull this off. The full-blown strike had to wait for preparation; the rescue of Naspeth could not afford to.

Urishin stood shivering in the snow while Mirei pulled herself together.
Only one more of these
, she reminded herself.
Jump back to Starfall, and you‘re done. For a while, anyway
.

With luck, they might even be able to get the rest of the doppelgangers—not just the one.

Mirei wondered what that would do to her. The strain on her was stronger the more bodies she moved; the worst so far had been Ashin and Kekkai. Could she move four people besides herself? They were small people; maybe that would count for something.

I’ll manage if it kills me.

She tried not to think about that.

To Urishin’s credit, the girl didn’t stand idly by while waiting. When Mirei finally pushed herself to her feet, brushing snow off the knees of the Hunter uniform she wore beneath her fur cloak, Urishin pointed off through the trees. “That way.”

Mirei’s original plan, before the message from Eclipse and the arrival of the Cousins, had been to use Urishin for broad triangulation. That had only been because she couldn’t be more precise. With the description Rin had given her, she’d jumped much closer. They were far enough from the stronghold that their arrival wouldn’t be noticed, but near enough to strike. And Urishin could guide her from here.

They moved off, snow muffling the sound of Urishin’s footsteps. The girl wasn’t bad; she’d been spending time with the doppelgangers at Starfall. At last they sighted lights, and Mirei paused.

“Wait here,” she told Urishin, and continued on alone.

Garechnya itself lay somewhere nearby, but another, smaller town had sprung up in this sheltered valley to accommodate the exiles. Witches, Cousins, and soldiers lent by Lady Chaha, according to Rin and the reports from Eclipse. The guard on the area wasn’t trivial, but she didn’t have to penetrate it just yet; Rin had set up ways to contact the loyal Cousins among the dissidents. Mirei wondered whether the woman had suspected her intention of coming out here alone. Perhaps.

A broken pine stood just next to a large, flat-topped granite boulder. Mirei placed a spray of pine needles on the stone, then retreated.

With Urishin in tow once more, she found a clump of holly bushes thick enough to hide behind. Once concealed, Mirei turned to Urishin. “All right. Reach for her again.”

Urishin closed her eyes for a long moment. Then she opened them and shook her head, looking unhappy. “That way.” She pointed toward the settlement. “But I don’t know where.”

Mirei was afraid she was telling the truth. When Miryo had come to Angrim, she’d known Mirage was in the city, but nothing more. Directionality faded at close range. Mirage had pushed past that, once, but only after knowing Miryo for a while, and she’d done it by focusing on the things that made Miryo distinct from her. Urishin and Naspeth had never met.

But she couldn’t accept that this time. “Close your eyes again,” Mirei said. “Deep breath. Meditate like I taught you.” She waited while Urishin obeyed. “Naspeth,” she said softly, when the girl seemed ready. “Your other half. You are the Maiden, the Bride, the Mother, the Crone. She is the Warrior. You are Fire, Air, Water, Earth. She is the Void. Reach for her. Feel her. You two are connected. Follow that link. Which way does it lead?”

The winter silence stretched out. Mirei hardly dared breathe.

Then, as if of its own accord, Urishin’s arm rose to point. This time it aimed, not at the main body of the settlement, but off to one side.

“Hold that,” Mirei whispered, and waited.

It was a cold wait, but eventually a heavily bundled woman appeared, scouring the area for firewood, though it had largely been picked clean. From behind the holly bushes, Mirei mimicked the call of a cardinal.

The woman stopped. “Friends to Misetsu?”

“Misetsu made mistakes,” Mirei said. The pass phrases the Cousins had chosen were… interesting.

The woman didn’t approach them. “What do you need?”

“A diversion,” Mirei said. “South end.”

“How big?”

“Enough to draw guards away from where the children are kept.”

The Cousin’s face went tight. “Dangerous.”

“Necessary,” Mirei said. “We have to get the girls out if possible. Can you do it?”

The Cousin hesitated. At Mirei’s side, Urishin was breathing slowly and evenly, maintaining the trance that pointed the way to her doppelganger.

“Yes,” the Cousin said at last. “If this is the time.”

“It is,” Mirei told her softly.
It had better be
.

With a nod, the woman said, “Then wait here. You’ll know when to move.”

She vanished into the snow, leaving Mirei with Urishin.

The diversion, when it came, consisted of lighting a horse barn on fire.

It’ll do
, Mirei thought grimly, wishing that the Cousin had been a little more creative. Certainly some people would be involved in getting the horses out, and in making sure the fire didn’t spread from the barn to the thatched roofs of the neighboring buildings. It wasn’t very effective, though, and it looked too much
like
a diversion.

But if that was what she had to work with, she’d do it. Mirei took Urishin by the hands and led the girl out of the holly thicket.

They had just reached the outermost buildings, sitting on the slopes of the valley, when the rest of the diversion kicked in.

Mirei couldn’t even quite be sure what was going on. All she could make out, at this distance and with only firelight to illuminate it, was that some kind of armed attack was underway on the far side of the valley. Some distance from the fire, but well away from the direction Mirei and Urishin were headed in.

Precisely calibrated to look like the fire was a diversion for
that
.

Mirei took back her unkind thoughts about the woman’s creativity and began to move faster.

The town was beginning to swarm like a hornet’s nest. Deep in her trance, Urishin continued to point when told, in a decidedly creepy way. Mirei took her direction, marked the buildings that were along its path, and then circled around the outer edge of the town. It kept them away from the people now swarming out of the buildings, and let her triangulate. Urishin seemed to be pointing at a one-story building that looked like some manner of barracks.

Let’s hope the soldiers are busy outside.

Snatches of song were rising from the chaos at the other end; there was enough magic being flung around that Mirei could feel it even at this distance. She shot a quick, worried glance at Urishin, but the girl showed no sign of reaching for power. Still, Mirei moved faster. The sooner they got out of here, the better.

Urishin continued to point, unerringly—at least Mirei hoped unerringly—at the barracks building.

Hiding in the shadows of a storehouse’s steeply canted roof, Mirei eyed her target. At a guess, the main door would take her into an antechamber where people could remove their snow-covered outer garments. Beyond it would be a mess hall. She’d seen the type before.

Urishin was pointing straight in. Not to the side. Probably at the mess hall, then.

I don’t like this.

She especially didn’t like the idea of taking Urishin in with her. But the alternative was leaving the girl here, or sending her back out into the woods alone, and both of those options were worse.

Mirei took a deep breath.
I’ll just have to be ready. If there’s trouble, I’ll sing us out as fast as I can
.

“Come on,” she whispered to Urishin, and together they ran across the intervening space.

Through the door, and yes, there was an antechamber, and then through that into the mess hall behind—

The girls were in there.

So were other people.