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When I woke again, the army was waking, too. Tents fell to the ground as they were dismantled and rolled away. A soldier in a rumpled uniform with mud streaking his boots brought us two bowls of porridge and a fresh waterskin.
“No time for niceties this morning, boys,” he said as he handed it to us. “Eat fast. We need to march. Maybe we can get out of these mountains sooner. I’ve never seen such pathetic mountains. They’re nothing like the majestic Ko’keewin Mountains of home.”
We were in a valley between mountain ranges where the main road meandered between their curves and bends. This would be the perfect place for the Dominion to attack. They could close the bottleneck of the pass and sweep down from the mountains on dragon-back. Wishful thinking. No one knew they were there but me and Bataar – and of course the enemy army.
I felt like there was a ticking clock in my mind speeding up with every minute that passed, as if it were counting down every second that I wasted while the enemy rushed across my land like a tidal wave.
I clenched my jaw and shoveled the porridge in, counting numbers of troops and watching to see how responsive they were to commands, who led them, where the golems were positioned, and trying to think about what all of it meant.
“And you must be Tor Winespring,” a tinkling voice said from behind the cage.
I spun, standing up from where I had been crouching on a three-legged stool. From my place in the cart, I stood so that my feet were waist level with anyone on the ground. It gave me a very full view of the tall brunette woman addressing me. She was at least ten years older than me, though it was hard to judge that for certain.
I almost laughed at her attire – a rosebud pink dress billowed in gauzy waves in the breeze while white rabbit fur was wrapped in a warm collar and stole around her neck and shoulders, barely enough to shield from the wind, especially considering the low cut of the dress.
“And you are Ambrosia. A Magika with plans,” I said.
She laughed. “You’ve heard of me.”
Now, why would she look so pleased? I noticed that she did not speak to Bataar or even seem to notice him. He quietly took my empty bowl from my hands, murmuring to the soldier who was collecting them on the other side of the cage.
“I suspect anyone who is near you has heard of you, Ambrosia.”
“Tell me, Tor, were you trained by Magikas?”
My eyebrows shot up. What was she getting at?
“Well,” my mimic said, springing to life and peering through the bars with a look of delighted interest, “I think the pretty lady noticed that you can make those golems do as you say. And that’s Magika territory.”
I was so used to my shadow-self popping up whenever he felt like it, that I didn’t notice Ambrosia’s shock at first.
“And what,” she asked, “is that?”
“A mimic,” I said. “A gift from the dead.”
Her eyes were wide, but rather than shock or even maliciousness, they seemed wide with delight.
“I’ve never seen a magic like yours before, Tor. And I don’t feel you pulling power from the nearby well, or even from the plants and animals nearby. Where does your magic come from?”
“I have no magic,” I said coolly. There let her chew on that for a while. I had the sneaking suspicion that a woman like Ambrosia wasn’t just dangerous, she was deadly, but like most people of high intelligence, there was nothing so good at distracting them as a puzzle. When a person thinks they are smarter than everyone around them, it bothers them to no end if there is something that they can’t figure out.
“I think that you and I should spend some time together, Tor Winespring,” she said with what I thought was meant to be a seductive smile. Anyone fool enough to fall for that probably played with full-grown vipers for fun, too. I knew that charming look. I used it all the time. And just like when I did it, she didn’t mean it at all. She simply wanted to disarm me so she could maneuver me as she willed. Time to throw her off balance again.
“Do we have to?” the mimic asked. “I think I’d like it if she made me her plaything.”
“Shut up,” I told him and then turned to where her smile had turned into a predatory grin.
“I heard rumors that you were already spending time with someone – Eventen, I heard. He claimed to have you spun around his pinky finger and all it took was telling you that he approved of your plans for the non-Magika populations.”
Her grin disappeared, her cheeks flushing. “We aren’t done here. I will be back to deal with you.”
“Looking forward to it,” I called to her back as she stormed off in her impractical heeled boots.
“Are you entirely sane?” Bataar asked me quietly as she strode away.
“Probably not,” I muttered.
“Only, sometimes you talk to people who aren’t there.”
“What can I say? I’m just a really friendly kind of guy.”
“And I have a feeling that you don’t want to get on that woman’s bad side,” he said with a frown.
“I think being on her good side might be just as dangerous,” I said quietly. “It would be best for us if we could find a way out of this cage before she returns.”
“I agree.”
He didn’t sound at all hopeful. And neither was I. The clock was ticking.