“It’s worth it,” Kiran said.
Dev gave a small, choked laugh. “Now that part, I understand.” A series of coughs racked him, and he bent to brace his hands on his knees.
Kiran pressed his bloody palm to the soil. Even this far from the meadow confluence, enough earth power yet remained for something simple as what he had in mind. But if he was wrong about the stability of the mark-binding link...he forced fear from his mind, and released his barriers.
The forest’s
ikilhia
painted the world in a soft glow, beautiful and seductive. And in his mind, a sudden, vicious tug, and a distant echo of furious triumph. Oh yes, Ruslan was awake. But the link remained too unstable to use, though for how much longer, Kiran couldn’t say.
Kiran blocked it all out to focus on a simple pattern, one he and Mikail had learned as children. Earth energies shifted, aligning, and the air grew icy around him. The mist over the river condensed into a solid white bridge spanning the distance between the banks.
“Huh.” Dev sounded impressed.
Kiran didn’t bother to speak. He grabbed Dev’s arm and drew him onto the mist bridge, holding his focus tight on the pattern. Halfway across, Dev staggered. Kiran ducked under Dev’s arm and helped him stumble the rest of the way to the riverbank.
“Ah, fuck.” Dev’s legs gave way as they reached solid ground. Kiran let him drop to sit on mossy stones. He released the spell pattern, careful to control the energy spillover. The pull in his mind was increasing by the instant. He slammed up his barriers, and gasped in relief as the pull lessened to a faint itch.
“Want this?” Dev offered him the amulet, but Kiran shook his head.
“Too late,” he said. Ruslan already knew their location, and the amulet would only interfere with the magic of Simon’s border charm.
Kiran hauled Dev to his feet. Dev groaned and his eyelids fluttered, but he managed to stumble through the undergrowth, leaning heavily on Kiran.
The thrumming of the border magic increased to a level that vibrated Kiran’s bones. The amulet flared blue on Dev’s chest and spat warning sparks. Cursing, Dev jerked it off and let it fall.
They must be only steps away. Kiran stopped, letting Dev slide to the ground. He yanked off the pack and bound on the silver vambrace of Simon’s charm. Now came the real test of his concentration. To pour power into the charm and hold the gap, while Ruslan ripped away his defenses...he snatched at failing confidence. He’d chosen death for Dev in Simon’s cave. He’d fight now to his last glimmer of
ikilhia
to give Dev a chance at life.
***
(Dev)
Pain gnawed my insides and muddied my thoughts, but I held fiercely to consciousness. When Simon had used the border charm, it’d looked like one hell of an effort. No good counting on Kiran being able to drag me, under that much strain. I’d make it on my own even if I had to pull myself through with my teeth.
Kiran shut his eyes, and the charm began to glow. Just like before, a wash of green rippled outward, staining the air and revealing the border magic. A tiny hole appeared. Slowly, much more slowly than with Simon, it spread. I took shallow breaths, trying not to cough. My chest and gut felt full of splintered rock shards.
Kiran’s face grew haggard, his jaw muscles tight. The hole still hadn’t spread to the ground, and was too small to safely jump through. Khalmet’s hand, what if he couldn’t make a big enough gap?
“Kiran!” Ruslan burst from the bushes at the river’s edge, black anger on his face. Mikail was right behind him.
“You’ve gotta be fucking
kidding me!
” I yelled. Shaikar curse him, after everything I’d gone through to get Kiran free, how dare he show up when we were nearly safe at last?
Nobody so much as glanced my way. Kiran kept his arm up, not even turning around. The gap edged wider.
“Don’t,” he said to Ruslan, his voice strained. “You know what will happen if you strike now. The overspill would destroy us all.” He enunciated each word as if he had to think hard how to say it.
Ruslan glanced at the shimmering green veil, his expression coldly calculating. He and Mikail both stopped, some ten feet away. Ruslan ignored me completely, but Mikail darted me one swift, unreadable look.
The gap in the wards had finally grown wide enough for a person. I scooted toward it, ignoring the agony shredding my gut.
“Kiran.” Ruslan spoke softly now. “Come here.” His face had gone stone still, his eyes inward and intent.
I heard Kiran gasp, saw his arm falter. Worse was the look on his face, like a man who fights knowing he’s already lost.
“Go through,” he said to me, his voice harsh. “Quickly.” He took a dragging step backward toward Ruslan. The gap in the wards wavered and began to shrink.
“Fuck this,” I said, and shoved myself to my feet. Pain savaged me, my vision darkening. I threw myself at Kiran and crashed my shoulder into his back. He went flying through the gap, and I toppled through right after him.
Ruslan rushed forward, but he was too late. The hole collapsed inward with a violent, sparking flash, missing my feet by inches. Sparks showered off of Kiran’s arm, and he cried out in pain.
I had eyes only for Ruslan, who stood just beyond the shimmering veil, incredulous fury twisting his face. I laughed, blood bubbling up in my mouth. “I win, you asshole,” I said, and happily surrendered to darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
(Kiran)
K
iran tore off Simon’s charm, working frantically to dampen magical energies before they spiraled out of control to catastrophic effect. Forces roiled, crested; submitted to his control, and subsided. He released his focus, his heart still pounding with reaction, and looked up.
Ruslan’s hot-eyed gaze stabbed into him. Kiran froze. Ruslan stood scant feet away, so close to the border he was almost touching it.
The mark-binding link remained blessedly still and silent. Ruslan’s voice no longer echoed in his mind; his will no longer crushed Kiran’s with the pitiless, implacable force of an avalanche. Kiran let out a shaky breath. He stood, slowly.
“This isn’t over,” Ruslan said coldly. “Don’t assume this—” he waved a dismissive hand at the fading veil of color in the air—“will stop me.”
“It worked for Simon.” Kiran lifted his chin.
Ruslan smiled, dark and terrible. Kiran took an involuntary step backward.
“Simon was nothing to me, compared to you.” Ruslan’s hazel eyes burned. “You are mine, body and soul, linked, bound, and marked.” He sketched the ancient ritual gesture in the air with one long-fingered hand. “
Mine.
Nothing will change that as long as you live, and I promise I will find you, no matter where you hide or how long the search takes me.”
Kiran turned his back. Ice choked his stomach and the border wards’ protection felt far too thin, but he couldn’t let Ruslan see the depth of his fear.
Dev lay huddled on his side, an unhealthy yellow tinge to his skin and blood trickling from his nose and mouth. His
ikilhia
had shrunk to a feeble flicker. Kiran hastily knelt and pressed a hand to Dev’s shoulder. He couldn’t heal Dev, not without careful study and a channeled spell, but perhaps if he fed in an infusion of
ikilhia
as would help a mage, Dev’s condition might stabilize. Kiran sent a trickle of his own
ikilhia
through the contact.
Instead of binding with Dev’s, the trickle dissipated.
“I fear the
nathahlen
will escape my vengeance.” Ruslan sighed in a mockery of regret. “A pity they die so easily.”
Kiran refused to look up. Wild power born of fear and frustration seethed within, perilously close to escaping his control. Dev badly needed a healer’s care, but Kiran had no idea of the distance to Kost, or how he might safely convey Dev there.
“Well, hasn’t this been
interesting
,” a new voice said brightly, making Kiran jump.
A dark-haired man in the blue and gray uniform of an Alathian mage sauntered out of the forest. His round, open face and snubbed nose gave him a cheerful look at odds with his height and his confident walk. Behind him, other uniformed mages appeared, ghosting through the trees to form a loose half circle behind the speaker.
Kiran tensed, rising. Alathians...he quelled the urge to run. He’d never win against so many. Besides, if he offered a peaceful surrender, perhaps they’d agree to help Dev.
“I heard a rumor a blood mage was using a charm to cross our border, but it seemed a little much to swallow...and yet here you are, caught in the act.” The Alathian glanced at Simon’s charm, then at the telltale
akhelsya
sigil on Kiran’s chest, exposed by the shredded remains of his shirt. Despite the man’s casual tone, his eyes were sharp.
“This one is mine,” Ruslan snarled, pointing at Kiran. “Return him to me, and I promise you, your precious border is safe.”
Panic surged through Kiran. He took one stumbling step away, but the Alathian raised a hand, his sigil-marked rings flaring silver in warning.
“Not so fast. You’re under arrest by decree of the Alathian Council, for the dual crimes of blood magic and border violation.” The Alathian turned to Ruslan, his posture studiously formal. “Any claims on an Arkennlander criminal must be filed with the Alathian ambassador in Ninavel.”
“Return him to me, or I will tear down your country stone by stone,” Ruslan said, pure venom in his voice. Kiran’s heart quailed. Ruslan did not make idle threats.
The Alathian looked unmoved. “Ruslan Khaveirin, isn’t it? Oh yes, I’ve heard of you—best to study snakes before they strike, as the Sulanians like to say. Allow me to introduce myself—Captain Martennan of the Seventh Watch.”
His round face hardened to match his eyes. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I insist you take this matter back to Ninavel. Right now.” The casual tone had disappeared, leaving steel in its place. “And take that other with you.” He pointed to the silent Mikail.
Ruslan glanced at the air where the border lay, then at the half-circle of mages. His mouth thinned. “I gave you fair warning, Alathian. Remember that.” He stalked off eastward.
Kiran swallowed. Ruslan’s retreat was purely strategic. He wouldn’t engage in a fight when he lacked a major confluence to draw from, while the Alathians had all the immense power of their border wards. But once back in Ninavel, the colossal forces of the Well of the World would be his to use once more in spells subtle as they were powerful.
Mikail lingered, his eyes on Kiran. “You’re wrong about him,” he said quietly, as if he and Kiran were the only ones present. “He loves you, my brother. Remember that when your temper cools, and come home to us.” He strode after Ruslan.
Kiran could only shake his head. The Alathian shifted to face him, ringed hands spread. Kiran drew in a sharp breath, reminded of his hope for Dev. “I’ll not fight your arrest, if you’ll only get him a healer, please—” he pointed at Dev’s limp form.
“We’re not barbarians here,” Captain Martennan said. “Of course he’ll receive healing.” He motioned another mage forward, a bird-boned woman with tousled brown hair. “Alyashen, see to him.”
She nodded crisply and bent to lay a hand on Dev’s forehead. After a moment, she looked up, her eyes dark. “This is damage from blood magic, beyond my skill to heal. He’ll need to go to the Sanitorium.”
Martennan’s expression hardened again as he turned to Kiran. “What do you know of this?”
“It was a charm, not mine, Simon’s, Dev only wore it to stop Ruslan and save me...” Kiran stopped, realizing he was babbling. His hands still trembled with reaction, his control dangerously thin after the effort of using the border charm. Taking a deep breath, he continued. “The charm that hurt him is there—” he indicated Dev’s pack, half-hidden in the ferns on the far side of the border. “It might help your healers to examine it.”
Martennan nodded to another of the silent mages. The man stepped out of the circle and walked straight through the border as if it didn’t exist. Only a brief and barely visible flash marked his passage. Kiran stared in amazement.
“Surely you don’t imagine we’d design wards we couldn’t cross when and where we wanted to.” Martennan’s casually cheerful tone was back. “Did you think you blood mages were the only ones who can work powerful magic?”
Kiran flushed. He’d assumed exactly that after Ruslan’s dismissive attitude toward Alathian magic. Martennan chuckled.
“Very well, people, let’s go. Alyashen, you and Kallentor take the injured Arkennlander. Talmaddis and Lenarimanas, contact Captain Sorennas and tell him to double the mages on duty in the Aerie. I don’t trust that sly bastard Khaveirin one jot.” He looked down at Kiran. “I apologize in advance for this, but you are a blood mage and your magic is unbound.”
Kiran fought down an instinctive flare of power. He’d promised not to fight. He stood unresisting as Martennan’s hands clamped his shoulders, and a lash of magic burned the world away.
***
(Dev)
I woke in the slow, muddled way of a recovery from a bad fever, awareness drifting closer, then ebbing out of reach again. When I finally surfaced, the first thing I saw was Cara.
She sat in a wooden chair by an open, sunlit window, one leather-clad leg thrown over the chair’s arm. The sun turned her pale hair to molten gold, and lit fire from the metal outrider badge still pinned to her jacket. From the wistful look in her blue eyes, the window surely held a view of the Whitefires.
I savored my own view. I’d hoped, but I hadn’t truly thought to see her again. But against all odds, I’d survived not just one, but two angry blood mages. Slow satisfaction warmed my chest. Miracle of Khalmet, indeed.
Cara glanced my way, and her eyes widened. She sprang from the chair, beaming at me. “Dev! You’re awake!”
I tried to sit up, and flopped back with a groan. Khalmet’s hand, my body felt like tumbling boulders had ground me to powder.
Worse than my weak, aching muscles was the dull emptiness in my head where the Taint had been. Gods, to have it back, only to have it ripped away again...bitterness scalded me. Grimly, I buried it deep. Fuck if I’d fall into sniveling despair like some newly Changed city brat. I’d survived the Change; I could handle this.