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Amira
Amira fought the urge to charge back to Cromwell’s estate and demand if he had known about the Istovari sorceress in Lashera.
He must have known. How could he not know? The man knew everything.
Back in the warehouse, they found Thadred lying on his back, tossing a wooden block in the air, and catching it with his other hand. He didn’t acknowledge them as they approached.
“What are you doing?” Amira clipped.
“Waiting for you.” Thadred sat up, resting his hands on his knees. He glanced between the two of them. “Something wrong?”
Amira’s mouth tightened as she glanced to Daindreth.
“The Istovari made contact,” Daindreth said.
Thadred cocked an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what we wanted?”
“It wasn’t a good encounter.” Amira folded her arms across her chest.
“No?” Thadred surveyed them both closely, probably looking for signs of damage. “What happened?”
Groaning, Amira dropped onto the planks of the floorboards. She smeared her hands over her face, cursing her mothers, Vesha, the sorceress from the market, Darrigan, Cromwell, King Hyle, and everyone else who came to mind.
Daindreth settled down beside her. “We ran into a sorceress. Presumably Cromwell’s contact. She knew about Caa Iss—or was at least able to pick up on him.”
Thadred’s eyes widened. “She knows who you are?”
Daindreth shrugged, glancing to Amira. “She does.”
“It won’t be long now,” Amira muttered. “They had to have been the ones who warned my father about you.”
“Well.” Thadred considered for a moment. “What does this really change in the long run? We were planning on going to see them anyway.”
Amira buried her face in her hands. In a way, she supposed he was right. The meeting hadn’t gone well, but it hadn’t been necessarily disastrous, either. They hadn’t hurt the sorceress, though Amira might have wanted to.
But still.
“I wanted to meet them on my terms.” Amira straightened. “I don’t know...” She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about them. I don’t know how many survived, who their leader is, where their settlement is located. There were rumors that refugees from other sorceress clans had begun joining them. There could be an army in those hills for all I know.” Amira jerked her chin to the north.
“I still don’t see how anything was changed today.” Thadred shrugged. “We already knew we were starting from the low ground. You didn’t kill or maim anyone, did you?”
“No.”
Thadred glanced between the two of them. “There you have it. Do you think they’ll be hunting us here?”
Amira let off a bitter laugh. How was she supposed to know? She didn’t see what she could do even if the sorceresses did pursue them. She had no way to contact them besides Cromwell and she suspected he wasn’t in their especial good graces, either. She was fumbling in the dark, groping for any semblance of answers. “Possibly. Yes? I don’t know.”
According to the customs of sorceresses, the woman who cast a spell was responsible for the ruin it wrought. Perhaps the Istovari had realized exactly what manner of hell they’d unleashed with Caa Iss. Perhaps they were trying to fix their mistake by killing Daindreth. Amira felt pain in her palms, and she glanced down to find her fists clenched and her nails digging half-moons into her flesh.
“Amira?” Daindreth’s voice broke through her reverie.
“What?” Amira realized they must have called her name more than once.
“We asked if you planned to see Cromwell about this.”
Amira had considered it on their way back to the warehouse. She imagined pinning the man’s hands to his desk with his own letter opener. As tempting as the thought was, her gut told her that Cromwell didn’t control the sorceresses any more than he controlled her.
“No,” Amira answered after a long silence. Amira considered the sorceress’s words, how she had responded to meeting Daindreth. The woman had been able to sense something was off about him.
Reaching out, the assassin could feel nothing different about him herself. His ka was normal, healthy to her senses. When the demon took over him completely, that changed, but for now Amira had no hint as to what might have tipped the woman off. Was it because Amira suppressed the creature?
“Is it still safe to meet with him in two days?” Daindreth asked.
Amira stared up at the rafters of the warehouse, studying the crisscrossed beams. “He’ll do what’s best for Hylendale. The trick is knowing what he thinks that is.”
Thadred grimaced.
“At one point, it was killing you.” Amira looked back to Daindreth. “The moment that couldn’t be done discreetly, it became marrying you to my sister.” Amira paused and swallowed. She didn’t like to remember that now—that Fonra had been first in line.
Daindreth brushed his knuckles along Amira’s cheek, smoothing back the hair that had escaped her braid. It was a small thing, but it said a thousand other things words didn’t have to—he saw she was troubled and he wanted to comfort her.
It was a gift to have someone who could see when she was troubled, who could make it better with a touch. That was no small thing, especially for a woman of nobility, much less in what was still essentially an arranged match.
This thing between them frightened her. When he’d banished her, it had almost destroyed her. But if that was the price of being his...she couldn’t give him up. Couldn’t.
What she had found with Daindreth was precious and to keep it, she’d kill whomever she had to. And if it destroyed her too? Well, that was just a risk she would have to take.
Amira let herself have the luxury of leaning into him for a moment before she continued.
“When you asked for my hand instead of Fonra’s...” Amira left that statement open-ended. The two men could fill in the holes. “Cromwell will seek to appease the empire because Hylendale dares not go against it.”
Thadred nodded, chewing his lip. He shifted his bad leg and tapped the end of his cane against his boot. “Does he know you are Dain’s Kadra’han now?”
“Yes. He doesn’t know I broke the curse, though.” Amira hesitated as soon as she said it. She’d learned a long time ago to never assume what Cromwell did and didn’t know.
Daindreth leaned against the crate at his back with a long exhale. “He’ll be choosing a side—me or my mother.”
Amira nodded, grimacing at the thought. On one hand, it was logical to side with the sole heir. On the other, Vesha held power firmly and there was no sign that would change.
“Does King Hyle know?” Thadred asked. “Is there a way you could reach him? Appeal to him?”
Amira was shaking her head before Thadred finished. “No. He will do as Cromwell advises.” He always did. Always had.
“You’re his daughter,” Thadred said, blinking as if it were obvious.
Amira ground her teeth. “And he was willing to pass me off to a demon without a second thought. You were there.”
Thadred shrugged it off, undeterred. “Never underestimate a father’s guilt.” Ironic, coming from a man whose father had abandoned him.
Amira stiffened, glaring at the knight. “King Hyle has only ever exploited me like any other tool in his arsenal. He’ll keep on—”
“Amira.” Daindreth touched her shoulder, his voice gently easing her from her anger.
Thadred folded his arms across his chest and looked away. “Women,” he muttered.
Amira kicked his bad leg and he cursed.
“Enough, you two,” Daindreth interrupted. He let a beat of silence pass before he spoke again. “Could you force Cromwell to give you the information sooner?”
Oh, how often Amira had wished she could force Cromwell to do things—anything, really. “Cromwell can be unpredictable when cornered. I don’t know what he would do if I pushed him.”
She could kill him. She was fully capable of it. Losing Cromwell might make her father more cooperative, but it also might drive him to tell the empire they were here.
By now, Vesha must not only know where they were headed, but that Amira had become quite powerful as the result of her devotion to Daindreth. The Kadra’han would not underestimate them again.
The assassin exhaled. “We’re racing Vesha’s agents at this point.” Amira’s head throbbed just thinking about it. “She’ll send Kadra’han, I’m guessing.”
“That’s what I expect, too,” Thadred agreed. “Probably five or six.”
Amira shot him a look. “She can spare that many?”
Thadred looked to Daindreth.
The archduke cast Amira a wry look. “My mother has jealously guarded the Kadra’han. She has hundreds of them scattered across the empire. Not all of them as powerful or skilled as Darrigan, to be sure. But they are dangerous, one and all.”
Thadred shook his head. “Most of them are sorcerers,” he added. “Though few are capable of anything like what you can do now.”
Amira shifted at that. Her magic was strong, but chaotic. Ka constantly pulsed through and around her in golden waves, but she couldn’t use most of it. The spells she had learned were mostly for the lower capacity of magic she’d had then. Now that she could channel torrents of the stuff, she didn’t know what to do half the time.
She felt like a child with a ballista. All that power, and she knew she was only using a fraction. She needed to practice more. Test more.
Amira didn’t know what the Istovari sorceress had tried to do with her magic, but she didn’t rightly know what she had done to counter the spell, either. Amira had just seen the blast of ka coming their way and had taken action. She’d gathered her own power around herself and Daindreth in a cocoon, wrapping it as fast and strong as she could. It had been her shadow spell, but without taking the time to wrap shadows into the magic.
Apparently, she could create shields, at least against magic. That would be useful.
“We need to be in the Cursewood by the time Vesha’s agents catch up to us,” Amira said.
Thadred grunted in what might have been agreement or not.
“You don’t make our chances sound promising, my love,” Daindreth remarked.
“They aren’t,” she admitted. “But what choice do we have?” She looked to him, the greyish light from outside casting an ambient glow over his features.
He had a few days of stubble that gave him an unkempt appearance. He looked little like the polished archduke who had arrived in Lashera months ago, but there was still that regal grace and deliberate movement in everything he did. To her, it was obvious he was born for a scepter.
Amira stroked her fingers along the bristle over his jaw. She was used to seeing him clean shaven, but she decided she didn’t mind his more rugged look.
Daindreth smiled at her, sadly, leaning into her touch. “It looks as if choices aren’t our luxury at the moment.”
“No. I don’t...” She took in a deep breath. “Our only hope is that the sorceresses will help us.”
“And if they won’t?” Thadred cleared his throat, glancing between them.
“Then we find sorceresses who will. We’ll travel the continent if we have to. To the Spice Islands or the southern lands. Other lands.” Amira dropped her hand from Daindreth’s face. “I’m not giving up.”
“Me neither,” Thadred shot back. “But we have to consider other options.”
“I’ve just told you our other options.”
“Those don’t sound good.”
“They aren’t,” Amira agreed. “But they’re what we have.”
Thadred groaned and stared up at the rafters. “What’s our plan? Sit here and wait?”
Amira frowned, cocking her head to the side. A golden source of ka tickled the edge of her awareness. It was something fairly large and upright, a human, circling the outside of the warehouse.
Thadred gestured in the air with his cane. “It bears asking. What do you—?”
“Shh!” Amira pulled away from Daindreth, reaching for her dagger. She closed her eyes, concentrating outside the warehouse. The ka source was still there, prowling like a stalking panther.
There were a fair number of urchins and drunks and errand runners who had run past and around the building, but this was different. This ka source stopped every so often, crouched low. Whoever it was, they were taking precautions not to be noticed.
Amira would never have known they were there if she couldn’t sense their life force. “Thadred, did you see or hear anything unusual while we were away?”
Thadred shook his head silently. The knight already had his cane sword at the ready.
Beside her, Daindreth pushed himself up into a crouch. “What do you sense?”
Amira shook her head, frowning. “Someone...”
The unidentified form rose off the ground, higher and higher. It took Amira a moment to realize that they must be climbing the exterior wall. That was impressive. Amira thought she picked up some sort of flaring of ka, but couldn’t be entirely certain. The person might be using magic, or the exertion could be making them burn off more energy.
She muttered curses under her breath, rising to stand. “Someone’s climbing onto the roof.”
Daindreth lowered a hand to help Thadred to his feet. The knight stood at the ready, glancing left and right.
“How many?” Thadred asked.
“Just the one for now.” Amira tracked the ascent of the shape, climbing upward and onto the shingles above. Overhead, there were several holes and patches in the roof. No doubt the stranger would try to have a look inside.
Amira couldn’t do anything about that. She wasn’t sure she could repeat that trick of sending a bolt of ka at the person, certainly not from this distance.
The assassin had only a split second to make her choice. If it was a spy from Vesha, at least Daindreth was wanted alive. If it was one of the Istovari, then the loner probably wouldn’t strike single-handedly.
“This way. Quietly. Leave our bags.” Amira gestured to a space between two large crates.
“What’s the plan?” Thadred asked, even as he stiffly crouched down and hobbled into the crevice.
Daindreth joined him without question, squeezing in beside the knight.
“It’s a scout,” Amira answered. She wedged between the two men, the head of Thadred’s cane digging into her hip.
“Where?”
Amira pointed upwards, to the hole in the roof. She couldn’t see the stranger, but she could sense them. They stayed huddled there for a long time before scurrying across the roof in another direction.
“They’re moving,” Amira muttered. “Scoot back. I need to—”
“Ow!” Thadred hissed.
“Shh! Just let me...” She shoved an arm back behind each of the two men. Thadred jostled against her awkwardly, his cane still digging into her hip. Daindreth fit much more easily against her side, but the cramped space still made it unpleasant.
Breathing deeply, she gathered ka around herself, extending it to Daindreth and Thadred. She imagined the energy as threads and the three of them as the center of a spool.
Concentrating, she wrapped the ka around them again and again until the shadows thickened and darkness fell over all three.
“What—” Thadred choked back an exclamation and fell silent.
Amira felt the scout scurry over the roof for several more minutes. He examined the roof from various angles, then scaled back down.
Neither Thadred nor Daindreth spoke. Amira’s legs ached and her hip throbbed, but she didn’t move. Pressed against her sides, both men remained almost perfectly still.
“Come on, you bastard,” Amira cursed.
“Talking to me?” Thadred quipped.
“That scout isn’t leaving.” Amira added several choice insults. “He’s lingering outside.”
Even Daindreth indulged in a soft curse at that.
“Son of a—” Amira drew the shadows closer around them as the source of ka came closer. “He’s coming inside. Be quiet.”
Amira’s heart pounded and she focused her racing energy into wrapping the shroud of darkness closer around her and the two men.
There was only one of him and against all three of them, he would probably lose. But Amira would rather let him go and think he hadn’t found them than kill him and confirm to Vesha where they were.
She didn’t hear the stranger as he approached. She could feel his presence like a golden throb. As he neared, her heart went to her throat as she recognized a golden band of power burning around his neck.
A Kadra’han.
By that time, she dared not speak. He was too close.
The Kadra’han stepped into view moments later. He was a slim man with a slight build and small frame. He wore the leather and linen armor of an archer, but carried several knives strapped securely across his chest. Amira sensed enchantments on at least three of them. A hood concealed his face, weighed down on his head with moisture. It must have been raining again outside.
Her arms were pinned around Thadred and Daindreth and her knives and dagger tucked in their sheaths. She didn’t see how she could attack with her weapons before the Kadra’han saw and struck first.
He passed in front of them, on his guard, every movement cautious. There was a tension in him that warned he was on high alert.
The Kadra’han studied their gear. He knelt and prodded at their bags. Amira gritted her teeth as he unfastened the tops of the saddlebags and began carefully examining their contents.
How far would she let him take this? He still seemed oblivious to their presence. He had to be a scout. The Kadra’han would never have sent just one of their number after three targets, especially when one of them was a powerful Kadra’han herself.
This man wasn’t an immediate threat. At the same time, anything he might learn about them would only put them at greater risk of being caught.
Amira wracked her brain, thinking.
Voices came from outside the warehouse, probably a group of passersby, but the stranger didn’t know that. He spun around, his whole body coiled ready to spring into action. His hood shifted and Amira’s heart seized for just an instant.
She almost didn’t recognize him. His face was harder than the last time she’d seen him. A pale line interrupted the growth of his stubble just below his cheekbone—a new scar.
Dark, large eyes peered out sharp as paring knives. His rounded face made him appear younger than he was and yet there was a savage, jaded tilt to his mouth.
Iasu.
How long had it been? Seven years? Whenever she had visited Kelamora.
Voices continued outside and Iasu rose, silent as a phantom. On feet swift and noiseless as a fox, he jogged away, disappearing back through the warehouse.
Amira followed his ka until it passed beyond her senses. The voices outside the warehouse continued.
“It’s clear,” Amira said.
The three of them tumbled out from between the crates, groaning.
Amira rubbed at her sore hip and Thadred snarled curses as he flexed his aching leg.
“You knew him,” Daindreth stated.
“Iasu Zhan.” Thadred said it first. “His name is Iasu Zhan.”
Amira shot a sharp look to the knight.
“He’s one of Vesha’s Kadra’han. We trained together in Kelamora. He was bought by her agents when they came to collect me.” Seeing her expression, he added, “You know him, too?”
“Kelamora,” Amira answered with a nod. “How did he find us so soon?”
“He always was an overachiever.” Thadred smacked his cane against one of the crates.
Amira inhaled a deep breath. “The Kadra’han have found us. I think it’s safe to say that much.”
“No shit!” Thadred hissed, barely keeping his voice below a shout.
Daindreth clapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “We need to get out of here, then.”
Amira gnawed on her lip. “If we’d caught that sorceress, she could have shown us the way to the Haven.”
“Yes, because nothing fosters goodwill like hostages,” Thadred quipped. “I thought we wanted the sorceresses to look fondly on us?”
“You have better ideas?”
“Compared to that? It wouldn’t be hard.”
“Enough.” Daindreth interrupted. “Amira, do you think Cromwell betrayed us? Is it still safe to wait for him to find a guide for us?”
Amira shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Cromwell was the only one to call her princess even after her bastardization. At the same time, he was the one who had seen to the annulment of her parents’ marriage. He had looked after her in many ways, but also left her to the wolves in others.
She wasn’t sure if he protected her in order to use her or used her in order to protect her.
“Either way, the Kadra’han know where we are now.” Thadred hobbled to their bags and began lashing their bags back together. “We’ll have to find a new place to wait out the next two days, so let’s get moving.”
Daindreth stepped over to help his cousin, tying one of the bedrolls into a bundle.
Amira’s eye snapped to a low glow in the corner of her awareness. Thadred picked up one of the bags and the glow moved. “Thadred, stop!”
“What?”
“Step back.” She knelt over the bag, recognizing it as one of the ones that Iasu had rifled through earlier. She unlaced the top and shuffled the contents, spare clothes, flint, steel, coil of rope, several other odds and ends.
Finally, she spotted a blue marble, the size of an acorn. She plucked it out and frowned at the threads of ka weaving around it.
The glow was faint, barely perceptible. Amira might have easily mistaken it for a spider or some other small form of life. Whoever had created the enchantment had made it to be stealthy.
“What’s that?” Thadred squinted at the marble.
From the other side of their fire pit, Daindreth stopped. “What did you find?”
Amira held up the marble. “Some kind of spelled object.” She frowned, reaching carefully out to it. “A passive spell. It’s not doing anything at the moment.” Letting off a sigh, she leaned back on her heels. “A tracker, if I had to guess.”
Daindreth was quiet for a moment, looking to his cousin. “Well, good thing you caught it.”
Thadred cursed heartily, including Iasu, Darrigan, and the whole of the Kadra’han order in his profanities.
Amira’s frown deepened. “Iasu has magic.”
Amira hesitated, mind spinning. Years of service to the crown should have given Iasu at least some magical power. Men tended to be less powerful than women and a Kadra’han’s curse took up a good portion of magic for most of them. Male Kadra’han were rarely more than minor sorcerers, Darrigan being an exception.
Still.
“He should have sensed us,” Amira realized. “Our ka. That close, he should have been able to tell that we were between the crates.”
Thadred considered that for just a moment. “You’re right.”
Amira’s heart raced with excitement despite the fact they had been found. “That spell I cast...” She wasn’t sure she could even call it a spell. She’d just focused on weaving ka and shadow around them as thick as she could. “I hid our ka.”
“Huh,” Thadred said.
“What does that mean?” Daindreth asked
“Your girl hid us from a sorcerer,” Thadred nodded to Amira. “With the empress setting her sorcerers on us, that could come in useful.”
Amira’s heart sped as she considered the implications. She hadn’t known she could do that, but then again, she’d never been powerful enough to try.
If she could hide herself from sorcerers, she could get close to Darrigan without him knowing. She could get close to the Istovari, perhaps even her mother.
She held up the spelled orb, pinching it between two fingers. “Let’s toss this in a caravan wagon and find somewhere else to hide,” she muttered, pocketing the marble for now. “I have an idea.”
