Warrior and Witch (54 page)

She found Nenikune outside the door to the infirmary hall, frantic with confusion. “Aken, what’s going on? Urishin and Mirei vanished—”

“Go to the council room,” Satomi said, ignoring her questions. Explanations could wait. “Take help with you. Knock in three sets of three. The women in there have been poisoned; I don’t know with what. Once you’re inside, close the door again, and don’t let in anyone who doesn’t knock in three sets of three. Understand?”

Nothing focused Nenikune like word that sick people needed help. She nodded, turned back into the infirmary, and began shouting orders.

Satomi continued on. She could hear noise from outside: the ring of blades and clashing melodies of multiple spells. Witches in various states of wakefulness and dress crowded the hallways, calling out questions. Attack? How could they be under attack? Satomi barked orders for them to all follow her, and most of them did.

Outside, she found chaos.

The courtyards had become battlegrounds. Kalistyin soldiers were locked in combat with the Cousins; Satomi caught a brief glimpse of Nae, bellowing orders to a squadron of armed women. But they were not the ones that tore out her heart.

Witches stood with the Kalistyin soldiers, singing out spells. In the clamor, Satomi could not begin to sort out what they were; she could only guess by the effects. Nae’s squadron, moving at the run toward one knot of battle, fell in their tracks, and Satomi could only hope they were unconscious instead of dead.
But they could be doing much worse; they could be singing Fire
—

Behind her, the witches she had summoned stared in horror, unable to understand what was going on.

“The dissidents are here,” she said in a carrying voice.
Nevermind how. That question is for later
. “We must defend Starfall.”

And she began to sing.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The dagger slipped through Mirei’s fingers and fell, hilt-first, onto her knees, then to the floor with a heavy clunk.

She swayed where she knelt, eyes closed, senses reeling. She’d felt pain at first, but then it had ended. Merciful, that.

Except why did she still feel pain from everything
else
?

Strong fingers closed around her wrists, yanking them back far too late. Eyes still closed, Mirei waited for the end.

It didn’t come.

Eclipse’s voice whispered, almost too soft to hear, “
Goddess
.”

Mirei finally had to admit she wasn’t dying. The lack of pain from shoving several inches of steel into her brain wasn’t shock. There was no blood pouring out of her neck.

She opened her eyes.

Eclipse’s blue eyes stared at her from mere inches away, lost between horror and awe. He still held her wrists, and now his grip was bruisingly strong. Mirei didn’t even try to pull free. He stared at her, and she stared at him, and then finally he said in a stronger voice, “You Void-damned
idiot
—what in the Warrior’s bloody name did you think you were
doing
?”

Mirei moved her hand at last. Eclipse didn’t let go, so she dragged his hand along as she reached up to touch the skin beneath her jaw. It was smooth and unmarked.

“Life for a life,” she whispered. Her voice wouldn’t manage more. “Rigai said it might work. They used to do it—killing someone else in exchange. But the only life I had the right to offer the Warrior was my own.”

“Mirei, the whole damned point of me bleeding out was that I refused to be responsible for you dying!”

She managed a wavering smile. “Both of us trying to trade ourselves in for the other. Looks like
some
part of the Goddess took pity on a pair of fools.”

He finally let go of her wrists, then, but only so that he could enfold her in a bone-crunching hug. Mirei gasped in pain. He released her. “Sorry. Crone’s teeth. I feel better; you don’t look like you do.”

Mirei shook her head. “The Warrior didn’t heal anything else.” She reached for him again, and this time he held her in a gentler embrace. She could feel his heart beating, its pace rapid. Alive. She’d saved him.

Assuming they could escape from here.

Eclipse helped her to her feet. “Can you do that magic thing and get us out of here?”

She fought the urge to crack up at “that magic thing.” Shock had made her giddy. She shook her head in response to his question. “I’ll fall apart if I do.” Maybe literally. She felt like her body was coming apart at the seams.

He grinned down at her, though there was worry in those blue eyes. “Then I guess it’s up to me to get us out of the giant mess you made of this place. Has becoming a witch made you forget what subtlety is?”

Eclipse’s reflexes saved them before they’d gone a hundred paces; when they were about to step out the door of the building, he dragged Mirei back into the shadows as figures rushed by outside. They were indistinct in the darkness: witches or Cousins or soldiers, Mirei didn’t know. He waited until the lane was clear, then led her across to the shadows of another building.

“Good diversion,” he muttered, peering around a corner at the chaos enveloping much of the town. “A little
too
good—they’ve stirred the whole place up.”

Mirei’s tongue felt slow and thick when she spoke. “I asked for a distraction.”

He grinned at her, a flash of white teeth in the shadows. “So did I.”

It explained the scale. Mirei wanted to ask how he’d gotten help from the Cousins, but she had to focus on keeping her feet in the snow. Eclipse led her from one bit of cover to another, his hand locked in hers. Anyone else, Mirei would not have been able to trust to get her out of there. Eclipse, she let work without interference. Even back when she was a doppelganger, her Warrior-blessed gifts hadn’t helped her much with stealth. He’d always been better at it than she was.

She almost cried when they reached the slope of the valley. Eclipse helped her scramble up the broken, icy ground, but the climb took what remained of her energy; by the time they reached the top, she wanted nothing more than to lie down in the snow.

Eclipse growled a curse. She felt his arm wrap around her hips, and then she was swinging through the air, up and onto his shoulders.
I should argue, but Goddess, I’m so tired
…

But a short time later, he stopped and put her down. “This isn’t going to work—I’m leaving a trail a blind man could follow and I’m going to smack your head into a tree if I don’t watch out. Come on, Mirei. On your feet.”

She mumbled something incoherent even to herself.

There was a brief silence. When he spoke again, it was not with the voice of a friend; he sounded like their training-masters from Silverfire.

“Get
up
. What are you, weak? I’m not asking you to run laps with a pack on; you just have to walk through the snow. On your feet, already. Mother’s tits—did you lose all your strength when you turned into Mirei? The Mirage part of you’s got to be crying in shame. Move your
ass
. It isn’t time to collapse yet Are you a Hunter or not?”

He got uglier before she got to her feet, and uglier still by the time they were able to stop. Mirei was soon snarling half-articulated death threats back at him. But it worked; it kept her awake and moving. She no longer had a separate half to call on for strength, but she did have stubbornness and pride, and he knew how to wake them both up.

Refuge was a cave where he’d left his pack, and getting down to it was the last straw for Mirei. Her foot slipped on an icy stone and she slid the rest of the way into the ravine where it lay, adding bruises to her other pains. But once there, Eclipse’s harsh, goading tone vanished as if it had never been; he spoke soothingly to her while he built up the tiny fire that was all they dared risk.

“I didn’t expect to be coming back here,” he admitted while he coaxed the flames to grow. “Rode a horse to death on my way north—we’ll have to try and get another one. I just figured to come here, on the off chance that I might be able to find and kill the witch who made me swear the oath.”

“Shimi,” Mirei whispered; she lacked the energy to speak more loudly.

Her year-mate glanced at her sideways. “The Air Prime?”

“Cast the oath spell on you.”

He fed more pine needles into the fire. “You killed her.”

“Yeah.”

His face was still in the shifting illumination; then he shrugged. “Saves us having to Hunt her.”

Might have come to that
, Mirei thought sleepily, curling herself around the fire while Eclipse warmed broth from what was left of his supplies.
If they couldn’t get her back to Starfall
. He’d lost weight while they were apart, and it made his cheekbones stand out sharply in his face.
What did Shimi mean about Arinei? Why isn’t Starfall safe
?

She whispered that last question to Eclipse. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Traitors among you?”

“Found one already.”

“There might be more. Or some way to get past the defenses.” He bit his Up, then looked down at Mirei. “Shimi hated Hunters, right?”

“Hated the Warrior.”

“So you don’t think she would have hired any.”

Shimi, no. But what had she said? “
Arinei has seen to that
.”

He must have seen the shift in her expression, because he grew even more serious. “Mirei—someone hired a whole lot of Wolf stars recently.”