She snatched Mally into her arms and cradled the little girl against her chest, because at least if Mally was going to die, she would die in the arms of love. “Should we go back? To the other side?” she panted at Yori.
“First, let’s see if we can create some commotion, and maybe some of the Welchin soldiers will notice us and come help,” Yori said. “When the Karkans get close enough, we’ll slip through.”
“Makes sense,” Leah said. Though it didn’t. Nothing made sense today.
Yori had already begun to shout and wave her arms. “Here! Up here! Deke! Carver! Anybody!”
Squirming against Leah’s tight hold, Mally twisted her head to see what the trouble was. “Soldiers,” she said against Leah’s chest.
Leah kissed her hair. “I know, baby,” she said. “I don’t think we can fight them. I’m so, so sorry.”
“They’ll fall down,” Mally whispered.
Leah bent her head closer. “What? What did you say?”
Mally didn’t answer, just continued staring at the approaching troops. The closest three were only ten yards away. Yori had struck a defensive pose, knives in each hand. “Back to the pass,” she hissed, edging that way.
Then the hillside began to rumble.
Leah felt a shudder at her feet as if the ground below her had rearranged itself. A few loose stones began skipping down the slope, small ones, then slightly bigger ones. There was that sound again—as if the earth itself had growled in annoyance—and another temblor, this one stronger. Leah couldn’t keep her balance; she sat down abruptly on the patchy soil, Mally still in her arms.
“What was that?” Yori demanded. She was still on her feet, but she’d dropped into a squat, low to the ground.
“I don’t know—I think—”
Suddenly the whole hillside started shaking, tossing them back and forth till they all clutched at handfuls of grass and shrub to keep themselves from pitching down the incline. More rocks fell, bigger ones, boulders the size of a man’s head, of a woman’s torso, rolling down the hillside in a crescendoing rush and clatter. The Karkan soldiers shouted and screamed and tried to move out of the way, but more stones poured down the hillside, knocking them to the ground or smashing into their bodies, crushing them under the accumulating weight. Leah saw two men swept up in an onslaught of stone, cartwheeling down the mountain in an indiscriminate rain of gravel and boulders. Three more men tumbled down the slope in a hail of red rock.
The immediate landscape was swept clean of soldiers, but the rocks kept falling, landing with noisy force on the tents and elaymotives of the Karkan delegation. Leah saw soldiers streaming away in all directions, trying to outrun the avalanche, heard shouts of pain and terror as hands and heads and hip bones were crushed by the heavy boulders. But none of the rocks rolled past the demarcation line of the westbound road; not one stone spilled over into the tidy confines of the Welchin camp.
Leah clutched her daughter more tightly to her chest and whispered, “Mally, make it stop.”
The hillside ceased its trembling. A few loose stones bounced down freshly exposed scars of red earth, then settled. The silence was so loud that Leah felt a buzzing in her head.
She had practically breathed her words, but somehow Yori had heard them. The guard stared at Mally, then lifted her gaze to Leah’s face, her expression incredulous. Leah merely nodded.
Yori pushed herself to a more upright position and surveyed the scene below. “No more Karkan soldiers headed our way, so that’s good,” she said, with only the slightest strain in her voice. “I see a few survivors in the Karkan camp—some of our people on the way over to make sure everything’s secure. Oh, and there’s the prince. Looks like he made it out alive, more’s the pity.”
Leah could tell her voice was shaking, though she tried to match Yori’s cool tone. “We don’t want him to die on our soil, so it’s just as well.”
Cautiously, as if not sure that the ground would hold her, Yori came to her feet. “Is it safe to climb down?” she asked.
I don’t know, Leah was going to answer, but it turned out Yori wasn’t addressing her. “Yes,” Mally said. “But it might be slippery.”
Yori held out her hand to pull Leah up. Leah set Mally down first, and soon they were all standing cautiously, working to keep their balance. Yori said, “Then let’s get going.”
• • •
They were halfway down when people from their own camp began to collect at the bottom of the hillside, waving and calling out to them. Most didn’t seem too keen on the idea of charging up the hill to meet them halfway—understandably, Leah thought—but Rhan plunged forward with his arms outstretched and no regard for his own safety. He swooped down and swept Mally off her feet, then leaned over to kiss Leah on the mouth.
“When we realized where you were—what had happened—and then when we saw the soldiers were going after you . . .” Keeping Mally in his arms, he pivoted and continued the descent with them.
“And then when you saw the hillside coming down on top of everyone,” Yori added in a conversational voice.
Rhan nodded. “Darien wants to see you,” he said.
Leah strangled a laugh. “I imagine he does.”
“So what’s the situation down here?” Yori asked.
“Darien was making terms with the prince’s latest emissary when everything started shaking,” Rhan said. “I didn’t do a head count, but it looked like the damage was pretty severe in the Karkan camp. But no fatalities in ours. A miracle.”
Leah risked glancing up from her feet to give him a straight look. “Not quite.”
He met her eyes and nodded. “Did you know?” he asked quietly.
“I suspected. You?”
“No. But I find I’m not surprised. With her heritage—” He shrugged.
“Stop talking about me,” Mally said.
Rhan laughed and hugged her tighter. “But you’re so very interesting,” he murmured into her ear. She hid a smile against his chest.
Darien was waiting for them outside his tent, and he waved them all inside. It was outfitted with two tables and several padded chairs, and Leah sank into one with boneless gratitude. Rhan and Mally sat in another, but Yori remained standing, as did Darien.
“Report, please,” Darien said to the soldier, and she reeled off a crisp accounting of their trek up the hillside, Mally’s rescue, and Seka’s death.
“How did you know she had Mally?” Darien demanded.
Leah stirred on the seat cushions. “We didn’t. She was playing a flute that only I could hear—don’t ask me to explain, I don’t understand it—so I realized she was sending a message to me. I knew I had to meet with her. I hoped she would have information, but I didn’t think—” Her voice was too choked to allow her to continue.
“Why did she decide to betray the prince?” Darien asked.
“I can’t be sure. She said she made her decision when she realized Mally was my daughter.” We’re soulmates, Leah thought. And then, in instant dissent, We’re not. “But I got the impression that there had been some kind of rupture with the prince. He had turned to other people for support instead of her. She was hurt and angry, and this was how she chose to get her revenge.”
“Now that we have Mally back, he’s got nothing to bargain with, right?” Rhan said. “This is over. Right?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Darien said. He nodded at Yori and she left the tent. Darien took one of the remaining seats and regarded Leah thoughtfully. “Am I right in believing that the avalanche was not a natural event?”
“You are.”
“Does this mean that you have been revealed as Taro’s heir?”
It was almost worth having this entire adventure for the opportunity to see Darien’s face. “Not me,” she said. “Mally.”
His expression was all she’d hoped for. Though
, being Darien, he quickly regained his composure. “Impressive control for one so young,” he said.
“I’m not a baby,” Mally said.
“Clearly not,” Darien said, eyeing her. “I can see I have to get to know you much better.”
“Although I agree with Darien,” Rhan said, smoothing Mally’s hair. “Pretty impressive.”
Darien’s face grew darkly serious. “But my question now is, is it common for the heir to have this degree of power? While the prime still lives? Or—” He didn’t complete the sentence.
Leah put her hand to her mouth. “Taro,” she whispered. “Oh no—surely not—with Zoe and Nelson and everybody there with him . . .”
Darien looked at Rhan. “Your father is a prime and your brother his heir. Can you shed any light on this question?”
Rhan was frowning. “Kurtis has always been able to do small tricks with fire, ever since we were boys. But small, as I say. Nothing on this scale.”
“Mally has had some abilities ever since I’ve been in Chialto,” Leah said in a constricted voice. “When there was a thief in the store one day, she brought a box of stones down on his head. I thought I knocked them over when I fell against the shelves, but I think it was Mally.”
Mally yawned and leaned her head against Rhan. “And the man who was hurt. I helped him,” she said.
They all looked at her. “What man? Who was hurt?” Rhan asked.
“He was all cut up. I kept his feet warm,” Mally said.
Leah felt a shiver skitter down her back. She’d forgotten that incident. Or rather, it hadn’t occurred to her that Mally’s touch had contributed to any of the healing that took place that night.
“So you’ve had some abilities for a while,” Darien said to Mally.
“Yes.”
“Was today any different? Did you have more—power?”
“It was different because I was afraid.”
Rhan closed his arms around her and kissed her head again, shooting Darien a look that said, Stop asking her questions. “Well, you don’t have to be afraid now,” Rhan said.
Darien might have stifled a sigh. “I suppose we can’t know about Taro until we’ve returned to Chialto,” he said. “I’ve sent a messenger ahead, and he’s prepared to travel through the night. But I believe we should make haste back to the city.”
Rhan waved at the tent wall, vaguely indicating the Karkan camp. “What about all of them?”
“I will have a detail of soldiers accompany them to the ocean and see them on their way.”
Leah swallowed a yawn. She was suddenly exhausted. It was just past sunset but she felt as if this day had been a hundred hours long. “No treaty?” she asked.
“No treaty,” Darien said coldly. “I informed the prince that I have been in negotiations with both Cozique and Malinqua for the past few ninedays.”
“Of course you have,” Leah murmured. “Just as you’ve been in private negotiations with Soeche-Tas.”
“You have?” Rhan exclaimed. “I wondered why none of their people had accompanied the Karkans on this wild venture. You’ve driven a wedge between them?”
“I doubt that,” Darien said. “Merely, I found a way to divorce their interests in Welce from the interests of the Karkades.”
“So what other deals have you been making in secret?” Leah asked.
He looked faintly annoyed at her tone, but he answered anyway. “Everyone knows that Cozique recently invaded Malinqua, so everyone has assumed that the empress of Malinqua would be quick to join with anyone arrayed against Cozique. But the two nations have settled their differences by arranging for a betrothal between the empress’s nephew and the queen’s daughter. That is not generally known yet, but Corene told me all about it, which put me in a much better bargaining position. And, as it turns out, neither the queen nor the empress has any love for the Karkans, and they are willing to make friends with the Karkans’ enemies.”
“So what did you tell the prince?” Leah asked.
“I told him I would rather ally myself with those nations than with his. And now that he can no longer blackmail me with Mally, I will tell him I want him off my land as quickly as possible.”
Leah felt a rush of relief so intense that it left her giddy. “Mally is safe and you didn’t have to trade Chandran to get her back,” she said. “The prince goes home empty-handed and we go home happy.”
The look on Darien’s face was indecipherable, but for some reason uneasiness made all her joy drain away. “As to that,” he said, “there’s a problem.”
“What?” she said so sharply that Rhan looked over at her in astonishment and Mally lifted her head. “You didn’t give Chandran to him, did you? He’s here in the camp, isn’t he? Our camp?”
“He’s here—but we had made significant progress in our talks to effect the exchange,” Darien said soberly. “It seemed likely that he would be joining the Karkans before the night was over.”
“No,” Leah moaned, surging to her feet. “Oh no. Oh no. No!”
“What is it? What’s happened?” Rhan asked urgently, jumping up with Mally still in his arms.
“Chandran,” she choked out. “He’s been poisoned.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Leah ran out of the tent, knocking past soldiers and transports and cook fires and the accumulated detritus of camp, racing for her tent. But Chandran wasn’t there. Why would he be? He had been nowhere near when Yori set it up and urged Leah to nap. She had slept away her final hours with Chandran! She paused at the tent flap, panting, terrified, trying to think.
Jaker. Chandran had obtained his drugs from Jaker; he would have returned to check for an antidote. She spun around, peering wildly through the growing shadows of the camp. There it was, the small, tidy elaymotive that Barlow had been driving ever since they set out on this rescue mission. A few people were reclining in its seats and clustered around its frame—surely one of them was Chandran. She gulped for air and ran in that direction.
Yes—that was Chandran, settled on the narrow front seat as if resting his bones after a long and trying day. Jaker and Barlow hovered nearby, as well as a few other people she didn’t know and didn’t care about. She pushed past them all and clambered into the seat next to Chandran, practically kneeling on top of him, and begged, “Tell me you didn’t take the corvier.”
He smiled at her, his teeth very white through the heavy cover of his beard, his dark eyes warm. “Leah,” he said, lifting his hands to cup her face, much as Seka Mardis had. “Barlow tells me you brought Mally safely down the hillside. Is that true?”
“Yes, yes—we got her back—Seka Mardis betrayed her prince as her great act of atonement,” she rattled off. “But you—what did you—”
“Ah,” he said, still smiling. “I forgive her all of it, then. Every crime, every horror. Because she saved Mally. And she is dead now?”
“Yori killed her at Seka’s insistence,” Leah said baldly. She clutched the front of his tunic and almost shook him. “Chandran. Did you swallow the corvier?”
“I did,” he said. “About two hours ago.”
“Then take the antidote. The antitoxin. Whatever you have to take.”
He smoothed back a loose strand of her hair, then cupped her cheeks again. “No such drug exists,” he said.
“Did you ask Jaker?” A stupid question. Of course he had asked Jaker. Why else was he here, conferring with the trader and his friends?
“I did. But I knew before I took the dose that there was no turning back.”
He was so tranquil that she was infuriated. Now she did actually shake him. “Then you have to make yourself sick! Vomit up the poison! Come on—now. Take something vile or stick your fingers down your throat—”
“Leah. It is too late. It has already been absorbed into my body.”
“You don’t know that,” she sai
d desperately. “It will take a few days to kill you, right?”
“Three. That is what Jaker said.”
“So it hasn’t done any damage yet. If you get rid of it—”
A shadow fell over her and she looked up to see that Jaker had moved close enough to hear them. His face was wracked with guilt and compassion. “Leah. I thought it was best. I gave him the dose, and I explained—but I didn’t realize—I’m so sorry.”
She glared at him. “But if he throws up,” she said. “If he finds some way to expel it from his body—”
“I’ve never known anyone to recover from this high a dose once the drug has been in his system longer than an hour,” Jaker said gently.
For a moment, she stared at him, not entirely comprehending his words. It won’t work. He’s been well and truly poisoned and there’s nothing you can do about it. Chandran will die. Then she shook her head fiercely. “No. I don’t accept that. Give him something—something that will clear out his stomach and his bowels. We have to try. We have to do something.”
Chandran dropped his hands to Leah’s shoulders, gripping tightly. “Leah. No. I do not want to spend my last hours with you doubled over in pain and nausea. I want to spend that time laughing with you, loving you, telling you all the things I have stored up to say.”
“How can you?” she whispered, feeling the tears gather and fall. “How can you stop fighting to live? How can you so calmly leave me behind?”
He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, a benediction. “Because I have given my life for you and no other gift could have made me so happy.”
“But you didn’t give it for me! Or for Mally!” she exclaimed, crying harder. “It’s a wasted sacrifice!”
“I do not believe that,” he responded. “I think my sacrifice was a counterweight in the great balance of justice. Because I was willing to give so much, Seka was willing to give so much. My actions in some sense inspired hers, even though neither of us knew what the other was planning. She probably slipped from camp with Mally in her arms the minute I swallowed the fatal dose. The universe loves such symmetry.”