Warrior and Witch (55 page)

Assassins. “Didn’t hear about that.”

“I got it from Silverfire contacts. And I—” He hesitated, looking unexpectedly guilty. “I didn’t pass it along. To be honest… the most logical explanation seemed to be that Satomi hired them. She’s done it before, and that would be one way to take out the opposition.”

Mirei shook her head, feeling her neck muscles creak as she did. “No. Won’t do that—won’t murder them. But Arinei…”

Eclipse swore softly and creatively. “We have to warn them.”

“Already did.” As much as she could. When was the attack planned for, and what form would it take? Mirei’s mind was too slow to work through it in her current state. She would have to wait for the morning, and pray it wouldn’t be too late. “Girls are at Silverfire, though. The doppelgangers. And Urishin.” She managed a smile. “Guess I was thinking more like Mirage than Miryo, when I sent them.” So at least they were safe.

He placed the cup of broth on a stone by her head and sat looking down at her. The right side of his face was lit by the fire, but the left side lay in shadow, turning his expression into an unreadable mask. “Mirei—what you did—”

She had to sit up, though every inch of her body protested when she did. But what she had to say couldn’t be mumbled into the fire.

“Eclipse,” she said. When had she stopped thinking of him as Kerestel, his old name? When she became Mirei. When she saw him as much with Miryo’s eyes as Mirage’s. “Everyone keeps treating me like I’m irreplaceable—but I’m not. Valuable, yes. But they know what to do, now. And I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror—much less accept the responsibilities they want to give me—if I let you bleed out in front of me.”

He bit his lip, showing more uncertainty than she’d seen from him in a long time. “But you didn’t know it would work.”

A variety of painfully serious answers suggested themselves, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice any of them. Instead, she gave him a wry smile. “Story of my life. I’m making it up as I go along.”

She woke the next morning feeling like one very large sore muscle with a headache on top.

Eclipse said, “I think this is for you,” and placed a message scroll on the ground in front of her face.

Mirei jerked upright, muscles screaming in protest. The blocking spell she’d cast before leaving Starfall must have worn off in the night, for anyone to send her anything—or had they targeted Eclipse? Paranoia made her clear her throat and hum, but there was no spell on the scroll, so she unrolled it and read.

THERE YOU ARE. We’ve been trying to find you since last night. Attack on Starfall
—
Hunters and Kalistyin soldiers, led by Arinei. They tried to poison us. How did you know? How is Shimi dead? Get back here at once
.

Mirei fetched a charred splinter from the fire and wrote on the back of the scroll in clumsy characters,
Can’t come yet, unless you want me dead on the other side. With

Eclipse. Oath gone. Will return to Silverfire, check on girls, come back when I can.

Eclipse peered over her shoulder as she wrote. “She’s not going to like that.”

“She can live with it,” Mirei said, and dredged up the energy to send the scroll back.

She renewed the blocking spell right afterward, and that was the sum total of the magic she felt up to working that day. “I think we’re on our own,” Eclipse said when she was done. “I ran afoul of a patrol of Cousins when I got into the area, but turned out they were on the side of Starfall, and recognized me; they’re the ones who arranged my diversion. But I don’t particularly want to go back to that valley and look for them. Do you?”

They made their way on foot until they reached a farm where, with misgivings, Eclipse stole a horse. He hadn’t taken coin with him when he left Silverfire, so it was that or walk the entire distance. Mirei marked the location of the farm in her mind, and vowed to repay the farmer later.

By the time they reached Silverfire, she had more energy, and so she didn’t fall over when a patrol from the school descended on them and grilled them extensively at sword point before letting them pass. Mirei learned the reason for the caution when they got inside the compound.

Jaguar stood outside the stable, arms crossed over his chest and an unamused look on his face.

“Sir,” Mirei said, and hastily dismounted to salute him.

“As I recall,” the Grandmaster said in a cool, level tone, “I told you to bring Amas and Indera back to me. Not to send me a flock of girls I’ve never seen before.”

She winced. “Sir, they—”

“I know who they are. The Void Prime sent a message.”

He regarded her for a moment longer. “Are they leaving soon?”

“As soon as I can get them a proper escort.”

He nodded. “Good. Keeping up the patrols has interfered with our usual schedule.” And with no more statement on the matter, he turned to Eclipse. “You look good, for a dead man.”

In her peripheral vision, Mirei saw Eclipse grin. “Thank you, sir.”

“However you broke that oath, I don’t want to know.” Jaguar turned away as Briar came out to take the horse. “My office, five minutes,” the Grandmaster called over his shoulder. “You’re still half mine, Mirei, and I expect a report.”

Epilogue

“You ready?” Eclipse asked from the door of Mirei’s office.

She glanced up from a list of reports she’d received that morning from Kimeko. Though her work for the Void Heart Key made her into something of a glorified secretary, she’d settled into it better than she expected to. Helping rebuild Starfall’s traditions to be stronger was not a bad way to spend her time.

At least they hadn’t made her a Key yet. There had been plenty of vacancies at that rank once Hyoka pieced together the ritual that released the Primes from their positions; Satomi and Koika were reinstated, but Shimi was dead, Arinei was awaiting trial, and Rana had stepped down. Kekkai, despite rumblings, had taken Arinei’s place. She was more qualified than Onomita, and her return to Starfall made her a better candidate than Mejiki, who was imprisoned along with Arinei and the two other Keys who had left. Paere of the Water Heart replaced Rana, and Naji replaced Shimi. All told, seven Key positions were vacant at the moment—but none of them in the Void Ray.

Satomi, when asked, made no bones about it. She wanted Mirei in her Ray, but wasn’t so eager to get her into an administrative position—yet—that she would force one of her current Keys out. They both agreed that she needed experience first.

But the work Mirei was doing was Void work anyway, and so she didn’t mind as much as she might have. Dealing with the Cousins, the Primes had decided, was the responsibility of the Void Ray, and she and Eikyo had been tapped as liaisons. Then there were the children to deal with: the doppelgangers to train in the fledgling school, and the witch-students to prepare for their tests. Only a few now, but there would be more, once the changes really started taking hold. For the time being at least, it seemed best to go on conducting the ritual of connection in infancy, and to let the doppelgangers and witch-halves grow up separately. Mirei was grateful that Eclipse had been allowed to stay at Starfall, to help her with the school, since in a few years they would have quite a lot of children to train.

Including those the Cousins had sent to them. The connection rituals for those five were coming up very, very soon, and Mirei prayed they would go well.

She wasn’t the only one praying for it, either, and that was a good sign, too.

Eclipse snapped his fingers. “Message for Mirei. They want you downstairs.”

She jerked out of her reverie. “Oh. Right.” She rose and went to where he stood in the door, pausing long enough to touch his arm and smile. Their relationship, like so many things at Starfall, was still being sorted out, but she was grateful every day for the chance to do so.

As she went through the halls, Eclipse at her side, Mirei could still feel the uncertainty in the air. Nothing but time would make the new ways feel comfortable; witches and Cousins alike were walking gingerly, unsure of what the changes would mean. Urishin’s experience meant that no more witches would become Cousins, but what of the Cousins already in the world, those descended from the failed witches of the past? So much hinged on the five children they had given to Starfall.

Problems in the future, problems in the present. She wasn’t looking forward to Arinei’s trial. The Fire Prime had sold her people in multiple directions, spending coin she didn’t have in a gamble to take Starfall. If anything saved her from execution, it would be that the poison put in the soup hadn’t been intended as lethal; she’d asked the Hunters to prevent the women who ate it from singing. It would have killed them if left untreated, but she
had
intended to heal them.

Still, the fact remained that she’d made extravagant promises to Lady Chaha of Kalistyi, spread damaging rumors about Satomi and Mirei in other domains, arranged for Ice’s murder to anger the Thornbloods, and then hired Thornbloods and Wolfstars alike to help her attack Star-fall. She’d built a fragile house of political cards, and clearing the wreckage would take awhile.

But that was Kekkai’s problem now, not Mirei’s. At least until she finished recovering from translocation enough for Satomi to send her out as an emissary to the Hunter schools.

She’d already had an uncomfortable conversation with Jaguar about Amas and Indera.

“No one’s sure whether Indera’s still… well, still a doppelganger,” Mirei told him when she was recuperating at Silverfire, waiting to escort the girls south. “In the physical sense. The theory witches are arguing about it.”

They’d gotten right back to their intellectual debates before the smoke had even cleared from Starfall, to hear Satomi tell it.

“Can’t they tell?” the Grandmaster asked.

“Not by looking at her,” Mirei said. “And if she’s still strong and fast, she isn’t showing it. She won’t train anymore. They’re trying to decide what to do with her.”

He bypassed the unspoken question for the moment. “Amas?”

“She and Hoseki are going to wait until they’re older to go through the tests—though Satomi has ideas about how to change those, to make them safer. They might start before they’re twenty-five. But Amas wants to go on training while she can.”

Jaguar steepled his fingers, face lined with thought. “Given what’s happened, I’m not sure she can return here. Or Indera.”