It was still dark when we returned to Rhaim’s camp.
He briefly left me in his tent, then returned with boots, and Sibyi, the weather-mage, that I hadn’t been properly introduced to.
“Don’t even look at her,” Rhaim told him, while I knelt to move mounds of fabric away and pull my new boots on.
“You do realize when you say that, it just makes it harder not to?” Sibyi complained.
“Do all mages have hungry eyes?” I asked, bouncing up—the boots Rhaim had found for me were too big, but they were better than nothing.
“Yes,” Rhaim said firmly, moving to block Sibyi’s view of me.
“No,” Sibyi disagreed, stepping aside. “I’ve just never met a woman who could do strong magic before. It has nothing to do with the rest of it,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at me, while Rhaim began to growl.
I grinned at him, in spite of myself. “That is how I felt when I saw your storm-form!”
“Yes!” Sibyi said, smiling back. “Half the fun of meeting other mages is finding out what they can do—”
“My moth is not a toy—”
“I also want to meet the girl with magic,” said a deep voice, as the front of Rhaim’s tent parted.
“You’re. . . a tree,” I said slowly, my jaw dropping.
“See?” Sibyi said, swinging his hand between me and the new mage. “It’s hard not to look!”
“Not all the way, yet,” the tree-mage answered me. “Though I feel our curses run a similar route,” he said, giving Rhaim a nod.
Rhaim put his fingers to his temple. “Magic mocks us all,” he muttered, and then more loudly said, “Fine. This is Lisane. Lisane, this is Sibyi and Wyrval. ”
“Do you have a moniker yet?” Sibyi asked.
“She does not,” Rhaim answered for me. “And she doesn’t need one,” he said, giving me a strong look. “Because no one else needs to know how her magic works. ” I caught his hint with ease.
Sibyi squinted at me, unwilling to let it go. “I heard about the unicorn horns—and the fire. So the real question is—did you cause the fire, or did you pick it up, and float it toward your tent, like the unicorn horns? Can you start fires, or are you merely telekinetic?”
“Tele. . . what?” I asked, and looked to Rhaim.
He moved to stand in front of me. “We didn’t come back here for this. ”
“I’m surprised you returned at all, honestly,” the tree-man intoned—and I remembered mages could oftentimes feel other mages’ portals.
“Why did you come back then?” Sibyi asked, looking between us.
I waited for Rhaim to discuss the discovery of my father’s lies. It would be easier hearing it from his tongue, than it would be for me to confess it all again.
“We’re here because we need to take our captive Deathless to the war camp,” Rhaim said—surprising even me.
“What?” I asked him.
“There’s a connection between your father and the creatures, moth. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know I need to get a Deathless close enough to him to find out. ” He looked to the others. “I will tell you more later—for right now, we need to put wheels on the cage, and I will summon beasts to pull it. ”
Wyrval made a contemplative noise that sounded like wood creaking. “That journey will take several days. ”
“Three, with no sleep,” Sibyi said.
“I can create trees of the appropriate size for wheels—and vines for ropes—” the tree-mage went on, already planning.
“And you’ll have to take me back. ” I said it aloud just as I thought the words. Rhaim’s attention snapped to me.
“No,” he growled, heavily enough that it made the other two mages step away.
“My father hates you, Rhaim—I can’t imagine his opinion of you would be improved in any way by this, your first legitimate kidnapping,” I said, trying to make light of things, even though they hurt me. “My presence would be a distraction, and if I go in with you, everything you do or say will be suspect, or they’ll use you taking me as a pretense to fight you, and any good that might come of this would be lost. ”
“We already know they want the yllibrium, All-Beast” Wyrval said. “There’s not much to stop them from trying to take it again—we shouldn’t give them cause. ”
Rhaim ignored the other mage. “I am. . . pledged to you,” he said with great difficulty, as I realized his beast was rising just beneath his skin. “You. . . told me we would not part again. ”
“I know I did,” I said, putting my hands out to calm him. “And this makes my heart hurt too. ” I looked out between the tent flaps, where dawn was coming. “But if I don’t go back now none of your plan will work—and if you can truly solve the Deathless, Rhaim, then maybe we will be free of all this mess. ”
Rhaim was breathing heavy, his body beginning to strain the confines of the leathers he wore. “Get the collar,” he commanded all three of us—and Sibyi took him up on it fastest, running across the tent to pick the dull black metal hoop up off the floor.
The weather-mage started cursing the moment he picked it up, tossing it from hand to hand like it was heated, before offering it out to Rhaim by his fingertips. Rhaim snatched it up and opened it, slamming it around his neck with a silent scream, before stumbling to his knees.
Watching him fall made my world stop. I dropped to my knees beside him, grabbing his shoulders as he panted, bowing his head away from me so I wouldn’t see him in agony. “My beast would not let you leave again,” he explained once he could breathe, both his hands holding onto the collar, one thumb hastily spinning its lock.
“And your man?” I asked quietly.
“He has more sense than that, but not by much. ” Rhaim lifted his head to look at me. “No matter what happens when we’re parted, little moth, no matter what difficulties either of us face—know this is not the end. ”
“This is not the end,” I repeated back to him, in a promise.
He lunged and grabbed my face, pulling my lips to his, kissing me longingly and deep, until I forgot everything about where we were and what was coming up. And then when he pulled back, leaving me breathless, he whispered “This is not the end” one more time, before helping me to stand up, and passing me off to Sibyi, who’d already opened a portal back to the darkness of my prison tent.
“Three days, little moth,” Rhaim said hoarsely, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand, and the fire in his eyes. . . even with his collar on, I wasn’t sure it was entirely human. “Wait for me—and when I see you next, we will never be asunder. ”
“Never,” I agreed, and nodded and kept nodding, until the weather-mage pulled me through.