I still did not know much about transfer magic, other than that it hurt and was extremely dangerous. You had to have a specific destination firmly in mind, unless you had a transfer token, which fixed the transfer point for you. Most tokens shifted people between Destinations, that is, places with distinct tile patterns. Experienced mages didn’t necessarily need the Destinations, but there was a greater danger: transfers could be warded. That meant traps waiting for you.
Safe bet that any Destination in reach of Dhes-Andis would be infested with protective (and lethal) magic. Therefore, Geric had probably been given a transfer token that bypassed the wards.
I glanced up the line as the horses lowered their heads and began plodding up a sharp incline. At the front rode Prince Geric, his reddish-blond hair bright against his midnight blue velvet.
Velvet. No one rode in velvet by choice. Geric, wearing his court clothes, which granted him access to the middle precincts of the palace, had to have been stalking me through the outer garden areas of Erev-li-Erval’s palace, and after grabbing me didn’t stop to change. The waterfall lay within what was called the Paths of Harmony, accessible only to the nobles visiting the imperial city.
So he had been relying on his identity as a Prince of the Golden Circle to gain access to the middle precincts, though he had to know I’d told the imperials everything I could about his nefarious activities. He had to have balanced the risk of their believing me against his exalted identity, but it was a safe bet he hadn’t added to his risk by carrying anything magical that might link him to Dhes-Andis.
Yes. That made sense: if there was indeed a transfer token, it lay guarded in a camp. Therefore I had only the time between now and when we reached the camp to effect an escape—
An outrider ahead shouted something a heartbeat before a horn winded faintly somewhere below. Pursuit?
“Pick up the pace.” Geric slung his rich cloak back and drawled over his shoulder. “You want to be long gone before they catch up.”
“You.” That suggested I was right about the transfer token—he was transferring away (with me), leaving his minions to shift for themselves. Taking more than two persons in long transfers was dangerous for reasons I did not understand. Right now I didn’t need to understand. The important thing was that I’d guessed right about a transfer token waiting in a hidden place somewhere up ahead.
So. How could I slow him up? A fall from the horse? No, not only would that really, really hurt, but it wouldn’t slow them long. Geric would have them to throw me over the saddle like a rolled up rug and tie me to the stirrups. Which would slow them maybe ten heartbeats.
I looked around. No cliffs. A stumble from my horse wrenched my body. My shoulder throbbed insistently, reminding me that even if a cliff materialized conveniently around the next outcropping, my diving over it would only end in a painful splat.
I shut my eyes, ready to reach with my mind for the minds of any hidden small creatures who might aid me. I did it rarely, unwilling to risk the lives of creatures whose minds I could hear and influence, unless I knew I could keep them safe.
I shut my mind against the old habit. No reaching on the mental plane!
I opened my eyes and clutched at the horse’s mane to steady the woozy reaction. I was startled to find Geric riding next to me, watching narrowly. “Are you sick?”
“Why should you care?” I muttered.
“If you’re sick, I’ve some whisky. It ought to settle your insides enough to get you to where we’re going, but if you’re hatching a plan, then I’m bringing out the ropes.”
“Sick,” I said, and debated adding in some extra weakness. No, that narrow blue gaze was already suspicious enough. “Shoulder hurts too much to do anything.”
He shrugged, his little smirk igniting resentment in me. It didn’t take a scry crystal or extra powers to see that he was congratulating himself on a deft knife throw.
“The empress appears to have sent out the entire Imperial Guard,” Prince Geric said appreciatively, pointing out over the cliff edge with his chin. “Is that due to your perfidy or mine? What did you do in there?”
I nearly blurted, “Hlanan sent them.” I forced myself to cough, covering the beginning of his name.
Prince Geric did not know that Hlanan was the imperial heir—that is, it was fairly certain that Aranu Crown, Empress of Charas al Kherval, was going to choose him over his three siblings. No one except a handful of us knew that; according to imperial tradition, imperial offspring were unrecognized and unknown until such time as the ruler chose to formally introduce them at court. Which could be any age from five to fifty, depending upon their future position.
Nor did Geric know that my arrest had been faked to cover several things that the empress was quietly investigating.
Sure enough, Geric said, “How did you get them to let you out as far as the Paths of Harmony? The Hrethan, no doubt, using their influence. Only they would be stupid enough to take your word for parole!”
Much as I would have liked to annihilate him with a retort, I forced myself to stay silent and turned my gaze to the patch of late-autumn wildflowers nodding in the early evening breeze.
Geric gave a snort of contempt and urge his horse ahead, as I ignored him and continued to survey the wildflowers in their straggling grasses. They sloped upward toward a thick copse of firs, bisected by our narrow trail. The horses plodded steadily, ears flicking as they listened for sounds inaudible to us humans, as the great mountains towered over us, peaks smothered by clouds.
Below stretched the gentle hills on either side of the river that flowed to the waterfall, the imperial city of Erev-li-Erval tucked between the river and the palisades overlooking the coastline far below. Like ruddy ribbons, the canals gleamed in the westering sunlight; in the center, like a crown, rose the palace.
Hlanan was there. Looking for me? The imperial schedule was relentlessly strict. I was now late for the foregathering of court in the fountain chamber, before the empress sat down to her evening meal. Hlanan might have noted my absence, but I could see him deciding to let me have time to get over my bad mood away from the constant eyes of court. Privacy was as precious as gold to those living in the imperial court.
I had to assume that I was on my own—as I had been all my life—and didn’t have long to figure something out, judging from Geric’s glances toward a cliff above the next turn in the trail.
The blonde Gray Wolf captain raised her gloved fist, and the cavalcade came to an obedient stop. A chance for me?
Prince Geric clucked to his mount, who trotted up the trail. Geric’s long cloak rippled down his back, swinging in folds on either side of the horse’s hindquarters. His impatience, or tension, revealed itself in the shimmer of the fabric over tightened muscles. I strained to hear as one of the scouts said, “Outriders haven’t signaled.”
“They would if there was a threat, would they not?” Geric said shortly. He looked up at the sky, and at the surroundings. In the distance, the last fiery light of the sinking sun caught on something metallic, far below. The pursuit—whoever their target was—had found our trail.
“Carry on,” Prince Geric said. “Like as not the outriders are lounging about drinking something hot.” He turned to the blonde captain, and began in a slow, loud, distinct voice, “You may discipline them—” Then he gave a sigh of impatience, turned to one of the others, and said, “Tell her that she can flog them for negligence later. Right now, we’ll proceed with hands to weapons.”
The blonde captain brought her chin down in a nod that was almost a bow, made a quick gesture, and a subdued rustle and clatter sounded up and down the line as Gray Wolves loosened swords in scabbards or tightened bowstrings and readied arrows.
Then we rode on.
Firelight beat with cheery welcome on the undersides of tree boughs in a sheltered glade with good watch points. As we approached, my neck and spine hairs lifted all the way down my back. Tension? It reminded me of how it felt to do—
&n
bsp; “Magic,” Geric snapped sharply.
But it was too late.
A not-quite-smell somewhere between fire-weed pollen and hot metal made me sneeze violently as everyone holding a steel weapon shouted, hissed, or grunted in shock and dropped their weapons. Those with bows whirled to aim at a woman whose gray-streaked black hair I recognized: the mage who had conspired with the Duchess of Thann to gain a really, really nasty book about blood magery.
Instinctively I ducked my head down, though I was on horseback. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize me. I’d been in disguise when we’d met so briefly at a tower window, when I pinched the book right out of her hands.
The air hummed briefly and those holding bows trembled, bow strings snapping.
“The next spell,” the woman lifted her voice, “will be fatal. I care nothing for your lives.”
“Maita,” Prince Geric exclaimed, sliding off his horse and slinging his cloak back. I noticed he approached her cautiously, for all his bluster, and stopped well away from the woman. “You forget that I too studied magic. You can’t strike us all dead.”
“I can begin with you, Prince Geric,” Maita retorted. “Where is my blood magic text?”
Prince Geric retorted, “The last I saw of it was when I gave it to my wife.”
Wife? He was married?
He went on, “My understanding was you lost it.”
The mage’s heavy brows twitched together. “I did not lose it. The text was stolen before I could complete the first experiment.” As she spoke, she glanced from him to me. “That is a Hrethan or one of the Snow Folk, isn’t it? Wait.” She stepped closer. “You look familiar. Why?”
I licked my lips and tried to distract her by lifting my spine hair and tail. She blinked as my hair and tail swirled around, silvery in the last fading light, as I tried rapidly to put together a lie that would distract her from placing me at that tower when I grabbed that blood magic text.
But then Prince Geric said, “Meet Bird of the Snows, a Hrethan thief. Or was that name a lie, too?” He cast a scornful glance my way.
The mage scowled. “It was a little thief with honey-colored eyes who robbed me of my book! I know those eyes.”
“You too?” Prince Geric shouted with laughter. “Hrethan, this I will say, you and your sticky fingers certainly get around.”
The mage sent him a scornful look in answer, and her fingers began to glow as she wove a couple of quick signs.
For the second time that day, a stone spell dropped me.
TWO
Considering the fact that I had not eaten since a couple of pieces of fruit earlier in the previous day, my sense of monumental injustice increased when I woke up to morning light streaming in through a high window and was promptly sick.
That piece of nastiness was followed by the sensation of being pricked all over by hot needles, far worse than the previous time. The only good thing was that my awakening was unaccompanied by dreams, or whatever that had been when I was recovering from Prince Geric’s spell. But considering how much my entire body ached, I would rather have not awakened at all.
Still. Awake was awake, and in no place I’d chosen to be. Time to find out where, and get away.
Long habit kept me still, listening for danger. Hearing nothing but the soft sough of wind, I cracked an eyelid.
In my range of vision: narrow window slit, the light splashing over the contours of gray, mossy stone curving in a smooth wall.
I risked turning my head, which pounded alarmingly. More curving wall. An iron-reinforced door.
Nearer, someone had thoughtfully left a jug of water on the warped wooden floor next to the pallet on which I lay. I sat up cautiously. When I touched the jug, a brief sense of . . . something . . . lifted my hair. Magic? It was gone in a heartbeat.
I sniffed with my magical sense as well as my nose. Smelled nothing but water.
I gulped it down, reveling in the clean, cold taste, then lay back, exhausted by that much exertion.
I’d scarcely recovered my breath when heavily-shod feet clattered on stone beyond the door, followed by the clank of keys. A lock! My hand snapped to my waist, but instead of finding the comforting shape of my thief tools, my palm scraped my hip bone under my fine layered silk tunic.
The door swung wide, and in walked that mage, one hand held at an angle, fingers extended. A greenish glow flickered disturbingly, like slow-crawling lightning, around a stone that lay on her palm. “You woke at last,” she said, glancing at the jug. So that flash I’d sensed had been some kind of warning spell to alert her when I touched the thing.
“While you were safely bound under my spell, Prince Geric traded your life for his,” she said pleasantly, in the tone anyone else would say, “And good morning to you!”
I couldn’t help cringing away from that greenish glow. I couldn’t fight her—though I was fast and agile, I wasn’t exactly strong, even when I didn’t have a wounded shoulder. Fighting for me always involved using the objects around me to cover my escape. There was no escape here. She, and those glowing fingers, stood squarely between me and the door, the only two objects besides me being the jug of water and the bed pallet.
“Where,” she said, advancing on me, “is my text?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Prince Geric warned me that you are a liar,” Maita went on, still in that calm, pleasant tone. “And so I am prepared. This stone will let me know if you are willingly lying.” She brandished the green-glowing thing on her palm. “I’ve never met a Hrethan before, much less a half-Hrethan. You have the legendary tail, I see.” She cocked her head, scrutinizing the fuzz on my arms where my sleeve had rode up because of the bandage.
What I think of as my fuzz is more like down, covering me from collarbones to my knees and wrists. It’s very light and very short, almost not there, except as a soft covering, so I’ve always preferred loose clothes, and no shoes.
She pointed at my arm. “And your fur is actually feathers. Does that mean you are not human? Or partially human? I have to admit I’ve never paid any attention to your kind before. Hrethan seem unwilling, or unable, to move in the circles of power and influence.”
She paused. We stared at each other, me unable to believe that anyone could be so ignorant as to think that Hrethan were not human. But then I hadn’t even known what Hrethan were, or that I was half-Hrethan, until relatively recently. Since then I’d discovered that there are all kinds of humans, but somehow I did not feel obliged to educate her.
She tried again. “I understand that Hrethan have natural access to some minor magics, though I am told you have no training.”
“No training,” I said truthfully. That threw me right back to the specifics of Hlanan’s and my . . . not-quite-argument. I grimaced.
She uttered a complacent laugh. “Fear not! In this instance, your ignorance guarantees your comfort. I am pressed for time, but if you had been an adept, I should have been forced to ward you. As it is, you may enjoy the light and air of this chamber while I see my goal through—the goal that you, admittedly ignorantly, did your part to thwart.” She paused, and when I said nothing, she went on as if I was lacking in wits, “The spell I worked so very long to obtain calls for fresh human blood, and I interpret that to mean untainted by any inherited magics that might ruin the spell. And so I will not deviate a jot from the required elements when I resurrect my beloved.”
“What?” I yelped.
I’d figured she had to be up to something nasty, but that took me flat.
She gazed at me steadily, still smiling. “Have you not heard the poets sing that love conquers all?” she asked in that soft, calm, reasonable voice. “I believe it, and I mean to prove it. At least, I mean to prove that love conquers death. I have worked very long and very hard to gain the skill, the ancient language, and the means. And while I could probably sacrifice any of these fools serving me here, there is an irresistible piquancy in using the living blood of someone who has betraye
d me twice over and irritated me endlessly.”
She was talking about the blood mage text that I’d snatched away from her before she and that horrible Duchess of Thann could use its magic on the Prince of Liacz. She wasn’t just doing the duchess’s bidding—she wanted to use that magic herself!
She smiled benignly. “Once my darling has been restored to me, we shall venture into questions about your relation to humanity, and how that might aid my studies.”
“I don’t know anything,” I whined. “I’m an orphan. Learned how to read a season ago. I’m no use to you.”
“On the contrary,” she said cheerfully. “I always need subjects for experiments. The degree to which your consent will be sought depends upon your cooperation. I will leave you with something to consider: I was only able to copy out the enchantment I need before that grasping fool of a duchess bustled me into her own pet project, in the midst of which you then broke in on us and purloined the book. While I don’t consider your action a deliberate betrayal, such as Prince Geric committed, I believe you owe me a debt. You may repay it in part by telling me whom you sold the book to. Prince Geric said you were a thief, and thieves steal for gain, not for power. Who bought my text?”
“Nobody did,” I said, and as she frowned at her stone in disbelief, I added before she could try any other nasty spells, “It was taken away from me, too.” The stone flickered but didn’t change color: I’d given that thing to Hlanan, and good riddance. “The Council of Magic got it before I could sell it.”
Her eyes widened, and she drew in a long breath. “Really,” she breathed. Then the skepticism was back. “I thought you were a better thief than that. We shall conduct an interview in more detail when I have leisure. I must return to setting a suitable welcome for Prince Geric.”
“What?” I squawked, too astonished to hold my tongue. “You couldn’t possibly think that pinch-sneak is going to try to rescue me?”