The Silvered

Chapter Ten

DANIKA HAD NO IDEA how long they left her in the dark. She tried to keep track of the passing time, but couldn’t do it. She relieved herself in the far corner because she had to. She found the small bucket of water by tripping over it and spilling half. She settled against the wall opposite the door. She wasn’t afraid of the dark and at least the cell wasn’t moving. If she ever had to get in a coach again, it would be too soon.

She slept. She woke. She slept. Nothing changed.

The water was gone.

No one came.

She slept. She woke. Relieved herself again. Maybe again.

She thought that maybe she’d screamed because her throat felt like she’d been swallowing broken glass, but she had no memory of doing it.

When the door finally opened, the dim light spilling in hurt her eyes so badly she flinched away and they had to drag her out. Out into an empty corridor. Empty. Silent. Where were the others?

She was afraid to ask. Afraid they’d throw her back in the dark. Hated herself a little for that fear.

At the top of the stairs, were four doors—two facing her, one beside her, one to the right. They all had identical brass locks. Big brass locks. Locks. She had no keys. But the door to the right was open and the soldiers dragged her to it.

Inside the door was…

Danika had no idea.

It was a small, narrow room, tiled, pipes running along the ceiling at the far end, and a grate in the floor. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she realized it would be an easy room to clean. The guards shoved her forward. She shook her head and resisted. She couldn’t be brave about this. Not when all she could think of were knives and her baby and pain and…

There was a woman in the room.

Danika squinted, trying to bring the woman’s features into focus. It was too bright. But she was tall. As tall as Annalyse and large. Not softly rounded like Stina but squared. Competent.

The door slammed closed. She heard the key turn and the woman say in accented Aydori, “Clothes off. Now.”

When Danika moved too slowly, she was efficiently stripped, handled as though she were an object not a person, and shoved toward the grate where she could smell…

Soap?

She turned and looked past the woman to see a large piece of unbleached linen toweling and a robe of the same fabric hanging on the back of the door. Frowning, Danika stared up at the pipes as the woman muttered and pulled a wooden plumb on the end of a chain.

Oh.

The guards took her back down the hallway with the six wooden doors. It had to be the same hallway Danika had seen before, but the door they’d entered the palace by no longer existed. Concrete blocks a very little bit lighter than the rest filled in the space as though there’d never been an opening in the wall. The guards yanked her to a stop at the second-to-last door, and she assumed the last door was for the missing sixth mage.

Her shadow went through the door before her, so she turned to see a lamp behind a sheet of glass above the door. The room had no window. There would be light only when their captors allowed them light. Given where she’d just been, the threat was implicit. Both hands clutching the robe, tiled floor cold against her bare feet, Danika saw a bed made up with sheets and blankets along one long wall, in the far corner a commode and next to it a basin on a small washstand. Beside the basin were a tin mug and a plate of bread and cheese.

She cried out and spun around when the door slammed behind her, but the light stayed on.

This was it. This was…

This was…

This was a room with food.

She ripped chunks off the bread and shoved them in her mouth, coughed, caught the wet mass in one hand and forced herself to eat it slowly. Then the cheese. It was mild and almost tasteless and the best thing she could remember eating. When the food was gone, she gulped down the warm barley water in the mug, then staggered to the bed and collapsed more than sat.

This wasn’t a cell; it was a room. She could smell nothing but the soap she’d washed her hair with. She could see into all the corners. A nightgown had been thrown across the end of the bed. Scooped neck, long sleeves, unbleached muslin. A nightgown.

Then…

A sound…

A sound so faint only an Air-mage could have heard it.

There was a crack, not quite the width of her baby finger under the door. Lying on her side, Danika could feel the air moving down the corridor and hear the door to the room beside her close. She heard two pairs of booted feet move away and the door at the end of the corridor by the water room open and shut.

She might have slept, her body surrendering to relative safety, because it seemed like no time had passed when she heard the door at the end of the corridor open again. Two pairs of booted feet moved closer, but this time she could hear the soft sound of bare feet beside them.

The door to the room beside the room beside hers closed.

They were bringing the others up.

The guilt that had come with being clean and out of that horrid darkness faded.

Feeling almost lightheaded from the loss, she got to her feet, slipped out of the robe, and slipped on the nightgown. It was large on her, would be tight on Stina, short on Annalyse, swamp Kirstin, but fit Jesine if the gowns were all the same size.

She hadn’t worn a nightgown since she married Ryder.

Wearing the fabric like a shield, she was back on the floor in time to hear the fourth door close.

And then, in time, the fifth.

They were safe. They were all safe.

Rolling onto her back, Danika took a deep, cleansing breath. She listened to multiple boots moving about in the hall. Froze as they stopped outside her door. Stifled a scream as the lamp went out.

Clung to the sound of the boots moving away.

Remembered the sound of the doors closing. Four doors had closed. She wasn’t alone. They were all here.

The room was dark. As much of a cell as those ancient stone holes for all it smelled better.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Not this time. She had her crack under the door.

And then…

…in the distance, so faint she thought she heard it because she wanted to hear it, a howl.

Rolling back up onto her side, Danika pressed as close to the crack as she could. Nothing. Nothing but the barely perceptible movement of the air against her cheek. Just when she’d begun to think she’d been imagining it, she heard the howl again.

Young. Male. Terrified more than defiant.

“Hush. I’m here now. We’ll fix this.” Danika blew the words out under the door and waited, sending her presence on every exhale. When the howling finally stopped, she hoped it was because he’d heard.

Rolling over on her back, she wrapped a hand around the curve of her belly. It seemed there were more Pack here to save than those she’d come with.

The roses in the border had clearly needed deadheading for some time. Danika had no idea why she’d left it so long. She pulled the faded blossoms toward her, one by one, barely managing to snip them off the canes before the next rose wilted and then the next. This was rapidly becoming more complicated than her small gardening ability could deal with. She’d have sent a message to Tylor, the second level Earth-mage who oversaw the estate’s flower gardens, but the air was so completely still she was afraid to disturb it.

The air was never that still naturally.

Turning to call, she realized that the house had moved again and she was staring down the west lawn toward the pond and the rough land beyond it. She heard a bird and then Ryder came over the hill, running toward the pond. Highlights danced over his fur and his tail looked unnaturally fluffy. He changed as he dove in, and stayed on two legs as he climbed out of the water, having swum across to the nearer side. His dark hair hung down into his eyes, the water made the muscles of his arms and shoulders gleam. She drew her gaze down the line of hair on his chest, over the flat planes of his stomach, between his legs…He’d obviously caught her scent.

She smiled and stepped forward.

He ran toward her, but ended up farther away.

The light behind him grew brighter until she had to raise a hand to shield her eyes…

Staring up at the tiled ceiling, Danika blinked and remembered. When the distant howling had finally stopped, she’d made her way to the bed. It had been comfortable enough, certainly more comfortable than anything she’d slept on since being taken, and her body had almost convinced her she could die of tiredness. But her mind hadn’t allowed her to rest. Fear for the others had chased its own tail around and around her head. Jesine and Stina would manage, but Annalyse was very young and something had been broken in Kirstin. She’d suddenly realized warm water and food and a bed did not translate into her ever seeing the other women again. This was a better prison—and the thought of going back into the dark, into that hole with its patina of old death and fear made her feel like throwing up—but it was still a prison. They should have fought. Screamed. Struggled.

Died free?

No. As clichéd as it was, where there was life there was hope.

Eventually, her body had won and she’d slept.

Her body had won because it was no longer only her body. She could feel tears prickling behind her eyelids and wished she could give in to a prolonged bout of sobbing but was afraid that if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Taken from her husband. Taken from her home. Her family would be frantic. All their families would be frantic and, for all that their families were high in the leadership of Aydori, Danika doubted they’d be able to count on anything as civilized as diplomatic recourse. There was no one country left in this part of the world strong enough to stand against Leopald’s armies. Should the news of their kidnapping reach the international community, the action would be weighed against the chance of losing Imperial trade and then ignored. Leopald, she’d told Ryder at dinner nearly a year ago, had begun to conquer with his purchasing power as much as with his armies—and although Ryder had laughed to hear it put that way, he’d had to agree she was right.

The five of them would have to free themselves.

Danika rubbed at the tears running into her ears and then scrubbed her nose with the sleeve of the nightgown. She had no idea how long she’d been in Karis. How long in the hole in the dark. How long asleep in a bed. No idea if it was day or night.

“RISE!”

The voice filled the room and pressed against her as if it needed the space she filled as well. The nightgown twisted around her legs, Danika nearly fell out of the bed but managed to get a foot free at the last moment. An Air-mage could have sent such a message, shoved it in under the door as she’d slipped her messages out under the door last night, but Danika would have recognized the use of the craft. The voice had not come from an Air-mage. Trolls and giants were creatures of myth. Therefore, in order to achieve that volume, the voice had come from a machine. She searched for a speaker and found a small circular grill set almost invisibly into the tiles of the ceiling. Without the net she could have followed the air currents back, if not to the speaker at least to the machine. As she understood it, machines were delicate. She wouldn’t have to be.

A thought occurred and she searched again, finding no lenses. They might be listening, but they weren’t watching.

“Use the commode!”

Not quite so loud this time and identifiable as a woman’s voice. Older. Embarrassed by her failure to use the machine properly the first time. Angry at those who’d made her feel embarrassed. She was trying to hide both, but words were air given form and Danika had been…was the most powerful Air-mage in Aydori. It could have been the woman from the wet room.

Why would their captors believe they needed to tell five expectant women to use the commode?

Danika had barely finished when the sound of the bolts slamming back announced the opening of the door.

Perhaps it had been a time warning rather than a command.

She didn’t recognize the two guards who stepped into the room. They weren’t the two who’d taken her to the cell, but they might have been the two who’d taken her from it. The uniform, the hair cut short, the cap pulled low on the forehead, all worked to obscure individuality.

They reminded Danika of a line in The Governing of Reason by Gregor Mertait, a politician from Talatia in the Southern Alliance. Safe within the obscurity of the mob, many deeds are performed that would not be countenanced by the individual. If Leopald had read the book, she could only assume he thought no one else had because Mertait went on to say: The mob cannot be reasoned with and will sweep all before it, but divide the mob back into individuals and it loses its power.

The guard on the left had a mole under his right ear. The other man had a black thumbnail, the edges still red and swollen enough the accident had likely just happened.

They both held pistols pointed at her and black batons thrust through loops on their belts. Clearly, Leopald was taking no chances on two grown men being unable to physically overpower one pregnant woman. More evidence that Leopald didn’t trust the net. Nor did he know exactly what he’d taken. If the net failed this moment, this very instant, they’d have no time to pull the trigger before they were slammed against the far wall of the corridor hard enough to splatter their brains over the stone!

Danika took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing they’d see the trembling of her hands as fear rather than reaction to the sudden violence of her thoughts. She’d killed once. She didn’t want to do it again.

She would.

Want had nothing to do with the situation she found herself in.

Mole-under-ear gestured with his free hand, indicating she should move forward into the hall. He moved with her, backing up as she advanced. Bruised-thumb stayed where he was. As she passed him, she murmured a polite, “Excuse me.”

Manners, her mother had taught her, could be a shield in troubled times. And she remembered the confusion of the guard she’d thanked. Given the insults from the soldiers who’d taken them, the guards had very probably been taught the mages of Aydori lay with beasts and were therefore less than beasts themselves. Confusing the guards was a place to start.

Once in the hall, the guards…

No, as portentous as using the descriptions might be, she needed to always think of the guards as individuals.

Once in the hall, Mole-under-ear and Bruised-thumb fell in on either side of her. Mole-under-ear on her left, was left-handed. Bruised-thumb on her right, was right-handed. As they stood beside her, their weapons were in their outside hands, making it all but impossible for her to grab one—had she decided to do something so incredibly stupid. Either the more over-the-top stories about the Pack had not only been believed but applied erroneously to the Mage-pack, or Leopald really didn’t trust the net.

Or, she reluctantly admitted, it was coincidence.

The lamps were on over the other doors, but the doors remained closed. Wherever they were taking her, she was going there alone.

She could feel the weight of their attention. She didn’t dare try and send a message.

The door at the end of the hall opened into the vestibule…

…and she froze.

Not back to the darkness. To the stone and the damp and the smells and the hunger. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t…

They dragged her out of the hall. Closed and locked the door behind them.

Danika knew herself a heartbeat away from begging when they turned her toward the open door on the right—the door to the water room.

She found her feet, shook off their hands, and walked in.

No woman waited inside this time, but, this time, she knew what to do. After days in the same clothes, in the woods, in the mail coaches, in the hole, hot water was the next best thing to freedom.

Back in her room—no, her cell. No matter how comfortable it seemed in comparison, it was still a cell. Back in her cell, the commode had been emptied and cleaned, the bed made, and the robe hung from a hook that hadn’t been there previously. A wide-toothed comb had been left on the small table, and a high-waisted, long-sleeved dress of blue cotton had been laid out on the end of the bed.

Danika turned as the bolts slammed into place behind her and dropped to the floor, listening to discover if the other women were to be treated the same way. She heard the bolts pulled back on the door next to hers. Heard the door opened. Heard Annalyse’s voice, young and frightened, heard her bare feet against the slate floor in the hall, not moving freely but shoved along. Heard the door open at the end of the hall.

As Annalyse entered the water room—Danika couldn’t hear either Annalyse or water, but she had to believe that was where the younger mage had been taken—much lighter footsteps—leather shoes not boots—hurried down the hall and turned into Annalyse’s empty room. The sounds from the room were the familiar sounds of a maid at work.

Danika dressed while she waited for Annalyse to return. The fabric was coarser than any she’d ever worn, but the style was Aydori. The front panels of the dress crossed over themselves, support built into the bodice, a double panel of fabric down the center front. Undoing the two buttons in the band tucked up under her breasts would allow her to step out of it. Lady Berin had been wearing a nearly identical style in the carriage, although Lady Berin’s dress had been of significantly better quality. She wondered if Leopald realized the Mage-pack was not actually Pack and couldn’t change.

When Annalyse was returned to her cell, she thanked the guards in stiff Imperial before they closed and bolted her door. Danika smiled. The shield of manners.

Kirstin, next to Annalyse, refused to leave her cell. To Danika’s surprise, the guards left her and moved on.

Jesine and Stina went with the guards in turn. Stina was unusually quiet, but neither of them sounded as though they had to be forced. The maid attended to their housekeeping while their cells were empty.

When Stina returned, the boots marched down the hall to Danika’s door, and she scrambled up onto her feet as the bolts were thrown. Bruised-thumb beckoned her out into the hall. Mole-under-ear stood with his pistol aimed into Kirstin’s cell. Without waiting for instruction, Danika hurried down the hall.

Still in the robe, Kirstin had curled into a nest of bedding in the far corner of the room between the bed and the wall. The room smelled like vomit. No, not quite vomit. Like bile that remained when there was nothing left to throw up. Wishing she had Jesine with her, Danika stepped farther into the room and softly called Kirstin’s name.

Kirstin looked up, her eyes widened, and any fear Danika had that she’d been injured fled as she suddenly found herself with an armful of her ex-rival. Danika sank to her knees, holding on as Kirstin crumpled with her, sobbing over and over against her shoulder. “I thought I was alone.” There were bruises wrapped purple and green around pale wrists and another that looked like a handprint just visible where the robe pulled away from her shoulder.

I am Alpha, Danika reminded herself, and somehow kept her voice from wobbling. She would lend Kirstin her certainty because that was all she had right now to offer. “No, dearling, no. We’re all here. You’re not alone.” When one of the guards made an impatient noise behind her, she freed an arm and gently lifted Kirstin’s head so that blue-flecked dark eyes met hers. There was more of Kirstin in them now than there had been at any time since they’d been taken. “The guards are here to escort you to the water room. And that’s all they want. When you return, your cell will have been cleaned and there’ll be clean clothes left for you. Granted, not clothes even approaching fashionable, but…”

“Where we lead, fashion follows.” Kirstin found the strength for a half smile and Danika mirrored it.

“Exactly, and fashion will follow.” It was as close as she could get to declaring they’d find a way to escape. It was unlikely the guards spoke Aydori, but they already had evidence that it was spoken here, so they had to assume every word would be overheard. Except…

Heard you in the coach. Kirstin exhaled the words. Sniffed, pulled back a little, and added, Only one dead. Sad. She frowned when she felt Danika tense, but there was no way Danika could explain how that one death had made her feel with the guards in the room.

Shielded by Danika’s body, Kirstin took a moment to slide on an approximation of her best society face, then she stepped away and said in broken but passable Imperial, “My apologies for the delay. I found myself indisposed timely.” Hopefully, only Danika heard how brittle her voice was. How easy it would be to break her again.

Bruised-thumb raised a hand and held Kirstin in place, while Mole-under-ear beckoned Danika out into the hall and escorted her back to her room. Cell, she corrected herself again. Not a house, not a dorm, not a hotel: a prison.

As her door began to close, she heard Kirstin say, “That is a Deni pistol, yes? The brass work is very distinct. Sloppy action on old style. Single shot, yes? Too bad.”

Kirstin’s uncle was a Metals-mage who developed weapons for the army. Officers among the volunteers carried a double shot pistol, and Danika remembered either Ryder or Jaspyr saying he was working on a rotating something or other that would shoot up to six rounds.

She dropped to the floor, mouth to the crack under the door. Harmless. Only Kirstin, she sighed to herself, as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, could go from heartbreaking mess to making enemies so quickly. None of the others had spoken to the guards. None of the others had insulted their weaponry. She didn’t even want to think about why, among her limited vocabulary, Kirstin knew the Imperial word for sloppy.

While she waited for Kirstin to return, Danika used the comb to tug her hair into some kind of order, although she had a feeling she’d left it too long and it was now sticking up in an irredeemable spiky mess. Both Kirstin with her thick, dark waves, and Jesine with her auburn curls, had hair more suited to the short style of the Mage-pack. After a moment’s reflection, she took a deep breath, hooked a few teeth under the net, and pulled.

She was still dry heaving into the commode when her door opened. She straightened and wiped her mouth on a corner of the robe as a new guard came into the room. He beckoned, the gesture already familiar. By the time she reached the hall, Danika’d decided to call him Mouth-breather and his partner, Hairy-knuckles. It seemed Mole-under-ear and Bruised-thumb had been assigned exclusively to water room duty.

They took her back into the vestibule and through the door in the opposite wall.

It led to a large, high-ceilinged room. Danika’s gaze skipped over the table set with five places, over the guards standing along two walls, and locked on the other four women of her Mage-pack. They stood a little apart from each other. Not talking. Not touching. Waiting.

Danika spread her arms.

The next few minutes were a frenzy of touch and tears. Everyone’s cheeks were wet, and Annalyse was still crying when they finally pulled a little apart. Kirstin wasn’t the only one with new bruises, but none of them were badly hurt and, more importantly, they were together.

Although too conscious of the guards to say much.

Kirstin swept a disdainful gaze along the walls. “I’ve never really liked those households that keep too many footmen,” she sighed. “It’s pretentious.”

Jesine shot Danika a look that clearly stated, “She’s back.”

Danika smiled and, when no one objected to Kirstin’s declaration, added, “They’re well trained, though. Seen but not heard.”

“Only the best,” Jesine agreed, and directed her smile at the line of uniformed men. Jesine was beautiful. Unless they were guarded only by men who solely enjoyed men, that had to have caused a reaction—even in the plain, deep yellow dress that she’d somehow managed to make look better than the identical piece of clothing worn by all of the others.

Danika and Kirstin were in blue, Annalyse in green, Stina in brown, Jesine in yellow. They’d been color coded to match their mage marks, a style that went in and out of fashion in Aydori, usually among the young and the not terribly powerful.

“Who came up with the theory that simple and comfortable has to be unattractive?” Stina pulled a bit of heavy brown cotton away from her body and sighed with exaggerated frustration. “A little embroidery would have killed them?”

Annalyse stared at her for a long moment, then sputtered with laughter.

“That’s my chick.” She put her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. “Don’t give them the gift of your grieving.”

As Stina clearly had Annalyse in hand, Danika turned her attention back to Jesine and Kirstin, hoping Kirstin hadn’t made it all the way back to her old self. Fighting among themselves would help only Leopald.

“I’m better,” Kirstin was saying. “The pain from trying to remove the net has faded, I promise.” The white lines still marked her fingers, but she pulled them from Jesine’s grip a little impatiently. “They don’t hurt. I just couldn’t cope for a while, so I went away. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

She sounded sincere, but Danika couldn’t shake the feeling that when it came to Kirstin, nothing was that simple. Unfortunately, her stomach chose that moment to growl.

Annalyse giggled and covered her mouth when it started to get out of control. “What do we do about the food, Lady…I mean, Danika?”

They all had to be hungry.

“We eat.”

“Is it safe?”

She didn’t blame Kirstin for being suspicious. “Yes, it’s safe. We’ve had the stick. This is the carrot.”

The porridge had grown cold, but that didn’t matter. There was honey to put on it and butter and cream. There were large, fluffy biscuits warm in a napkin cocoon, with more honey and butter and jam to put on them. There was no tea, but there was water that didn’t taste of rust.

Danika caught Annalyse’s gaze and nodded, ever so slightly, toward the pitcher.

The younger woman reached for it and frowned over at Stina who’d kicked her under the table. Her green-flecked eyes widened as she realized what was expected of her. She lifted the pitcher with shaking hands and took a deep breath, braced for pain as she poured the first glass. “Oh. It doesn’t…look like there’s anything but water,” she amended hurriedly, cheeks flushed. “I’d very much love a cup of tea.”

“So would I.” Reaching across the table, Danika squeezed her hand. Annalyse clearly hadn’t used any low-level mage-craft since being netted but had still been willing to try and purify the water. How could Leopald hold them with such women as these?

“This is a banana.” Jesine waved a long yellow fruit. “Sirin and I…”

Sirin Hagen was Ryder’s third cousin, silver-furred like Jaspyr and at forty, eighteen years older than Jesine. Danika had seen them together, and it was clear Sirin’s nose had known what it was about. Ryder had sent Sirin and Kirstin’s husband Neils to the front with the 2nd. Annalyse’s husband Geoffrey was Hunt Pack and Torvin Menkyzck, Stina’s husband was a senior officer. Tomas had said the Hunt Pack was dead. Annalyse was a widow at twenty. Stina at thirty-seven, her three children left in Aydori without a father.

But they couldn’t all be dead. Looking around the table, Danika saw every woman there thinking, He can’t be dead.

“Sirin and I,” Jesine repeated defiantly, “had them on that trade trip Ryder sent him on to Abyek last spring. You eat them like this.” She peeled the thick skin down, pushed her chair away from the table, and slid the end of the fruit into the perfect circle of plush lips.

Not one of the guards made a sound, but over half of them shifted in place.

Annalyse turned her giggle into a cough and hid it in a napkin.

“It’s an interesting sort of prison.” Stina pushed back from the table, one hand gently stroking circles over her stomach. “Someone has put a lot of thought into it. We’ve seen the worst, we’ve seen the best, and they can control us by sliding us up and down the scale depending on how we behave.”

“Shut up,” Kirstin snapped.

“The voice this morning, it spoke Aydori.” Annalyse twisted the napkin with both hands. “Are they listening to us?”

“Count on it.”

“Then I imagine,” Stina said calmly, “that they’ll be pleased we understand what’s going on. It’ll save them a lot of time.”

“And we will be model prisoners.” Danika cut off Kirstin’s response. “We have more than ourselves to think about.” She dropped her hand to mirror Stina’s and glared at Kirstin, exhaling. Lull to false security!

Escape!

Absolutely.

Kirstin’s cheeks were dark as she dropped her head, but Danika knew her well enough to recognize it as anger not embarrassment. She swept a gaze around the table, breathing Lull to false security directly at each woman, aware that Kirstin would hear it each time. The reemphasis couldn’t hurt. From the outside, it would seem that she was demanding compliance with her call to be model prisoners and as she was, in a way, she had no fear of discovery.

The sound of trumpets filled the room. Danika barely stopped herself from searching for speakers in the ceiling and kicked Kirstin under the table when her chin started to rise. Credit where credit was due, Kirstin wasn’t stupid and she followed Danika’s lead, searching around for the source of the noise rather than up.

No need to let their watchers know they’d found the speakers in their rooms.

The guards snapped to attention.

Danika had seen more military reviews over the last year than in the rest of her life combined, but she’d never seen anyone come to attention with such fervent precision.

High on the inside wall, a double section of wallboard swung open to lie flat, exposing a small chamber lined in flowing panels of Imperial purple fabric. The chamber contained only a single high-backed chair positioned close enough to the edge of the wall that when the man sitting in it shifted his foot where it was resting on what looked like a roll of carpet, the toe of one highly polished boot jutted out into the room. Above the boots, he wore cream-colored pantaloons, and a dark coat cut in a military style, gold cord looped over and around one shoulder, gold buttons gleaming. He wasn’t a large man, but, as far as the angle allowed, Danika thought he filled out both pantaloons and coat without resorting to padding. He had thick brown hair, eyes so blue they seemed mage marked, and his full lips were surprisingly red against his pale skin. His age was common knowledge, even in Aydori, and he looked to be a full decade younger than his thirty-four years.

One last flurry of trumpets, then: “His Imperial Majesty, Leopald. By the light of the Sun and the strength of his people, Exalted Ruler of the Kresentian Empire, Commander in Truth of the Imperial army, Supreme Protector of the Holy Church of the One True Sun.”

That was new. The Prelate had always been the Church of the Sun’s highest office.

Smiling, eyes shining, Leopald leaned forward. “I know, the sixth mage hasn’t arrived yet, has she, but I couldn’t wait. I needed to see you. You’ll just have to tell her everything when she arrives tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. You know how Soothsayers are. It’s so hard to get an exact time out of them.”

Danika was reminded how professors sounded when students they were mentoring did something clever. Friendly and proprietary sounded dangerously similar. And she still had no idea who this sixth mage could be. For all his smiles, she very much doubted Leopald would tell her if she asked.

“It’s unfortunate that you’re not all capable of understanding Imperial, but I’m sure that those of you who are will explain to the rest when I’m done. You’re fascinating, all of you, actual high-level mages, and I wish I could trust you enough to discover what you’re capable of, as our records concerning mages could definitely use updating, but, regretfully, no.” He sounded as though he did honestly regret the lost opportunity for study. “Let me explain why you’re here. When wild and mage together come, one in six or six in one. Empires rise or empires fall, the unborn child begins it all. Soothsayers, obviously.” His smile was a friendly request to share a common reaction to such ridiculous poetry. “There were also a lot of numbers, eventually determined to refer to time and location, but that needn’t concern you. The prophecy suggests that one of your offspring will bring the empire down, so, for purely nationalistic reasons, I should have you killed before you whelp. Now, I would honestly hate to have to do that because that same prophecy also suggests that one of your offspring will make the empire greater than it is. That interpretation argues for your lives. As it happens…” Sitting back, he crossed his feet at the ankle, leaving them still propped on the rolled carpet. “…one doesn’t rule the world’s greatest empire by leaving things to chance, does one? If I control the offspring of the prophecy, I control the effect they have on the empire. It’s simple really. If your offspring is a beast, it will be a favored pet and trained to kill at my command. Eventually, if things go well, I’ll have the last of the abominations under my control. If your offspring is a mage, it will learn to use its powers to my benefit. They’ll live useful lives, unable to move against me or the empire.” Leopald had a strong, reassuring voice. He spoke as though what he said was so obviously inarguable that any reasonable person would have to agree with him. “But what of you, the bearers of these offspring? Neutered as you are by ancient technology, you’ll live quietly here until your offspring are whelped. Fed. Exercised. Kept clean. All your needs seen to. However, a bitch can whelp in any kennel and, as you’ve discovered, there are less pleasant places prepared for you.” Still smiling, he uncrossed his legs and kicked the roll of carpet at his feet.

No. Not a carpet.

A wolf’s head and front paws flopped down over the wall.

No. Not a wolf.

“I was amazed by how long he lived, even given the silver knives. He changed twice after they had the skin off him, you know, and then continued to twitch for some time.”

Danika could hear Kirstin and Jesine throwing up. Stina’s heavy breathing. Annalyse sobbing. But she was Alpha. She straightened her back, clenched her teeth, and swore that Leopald would die before any of the children were born.

The smell of cooking meat pulled Mirian up out of a dream of flying. She opened her eyes, blinked several times to little effect, and finally had to grind the heels of her hands against the lids to bring the rock overhead into focus. Rolling onto her side, she peered out of the overhang at a brilliantly sunny day, at the ground beyond that rose and fell in such a random pattern it looked as though it had been stirred by a giant hand, and—although she had to squint to bring it into focus—in the shelter of a flat rock rising nearly half her height into the sky, at a smokeless fire with a carcass roasting over it on a skewer of green wood.

Her mouth watered. She threw off the blanket, crawled two steps toward the food, realized she was naked, and dragged the blanket back over herself again. Cheeks hot, she vaguely remembered wet clothes being removed and a warm body pressed tight to keep her from freezing. The memory of the body flipped between fur and skin.

“Tomas?”

He was there so fast he must have been just out of sight. Toenails skidding against the rock, he bowled her over and then pushed his cold, wet nose against every bit of exposed skin he could find, as though he’d forgotten what she smelled like.

Giggling—cold and wet tickled—Mirian grabbed two handfuls of fur and dragged his head up so she could see his face. “I’m fine. Really. Except that you’re heavy!” Releasing her grip and stroking the fur smooth, she added, “How late is it?”

Tomas’ body rippled, changed, his forearms pushing up under her shoulders, his weight on his elbows just under her armpits. He stared down at her, eyes wild. “Two days. You were asleep for over two days.”

“No…”

“Yes.” He dropped his head and sniffed a bit frantically along the edge of her ear. “I couldn’t wake you. I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to make sure the search parties weren’t on our trail. The Imperials can’t track for shit, and this area’s never been hunted so there’s lots of small game, but you wouldn’t wake up.” He growled the last bit with his mouth against her shoulder, and Mirian shivered although she wasn’t at all cold.

No point in apologizing since it hadn’t been her fault, but she tucked his hair back behind his ears and let her finger linger over the points. “How did you know I was only asleep?”

“What?”

“You said I was asleep. How did you know?”

She felt as much as heard him swallow, then he raised his head and grinned. “You snore.”

“I do not.”

“You do.” His grin broadened. “I was terrified the Imperials would come close enough to hear you. Actually, I was terrified they’d hear you back in Aydori.”

He’d been frightened; she could still see the fear lurking behind the laughter in his eyes. No excuse. “You brat! I don’t…” Her laughter escaped before she got the last word out and, an instant later, he joined her. It didn’t take long before she ran out of breath although that was more likely due to the solid weight of the idiot roaring with laughter on top of her than to any lingering effects of the drug that had put her to sleep for so long.

“Come on, stop!” She poked his side, just above his lowest rib.

“Ow!” He snapped his teeth by her ear, so she poked him again. “All right! Bully.” Eyes bright, he smiled down at her, and she suddenly became aware that there was only a blanket between them. Not even a blanket in places. Skin to skin.

“Tomas…”

“You smell amazing.” He wasn’t laughing now.

“So I’ve heard.”

“I want…We could…”

They could. And she wanted to. At least part of her wanted to. Wanted the comfort. Wanted the closeness. Wanted the distraction. None of those were bad reasons, and another time they might be all the reasons she needed—but not this time. Here and now, they couldn’t use the excuse that they’d been overwhelmed by circumstances. This would be a decision they’d both have to live with when the comfort and the closeness and the distraction was over, and she wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t sure Tomas was ready for that either, in spite of his evident arousal.

But no seemed too final after everything they’d been through together, so she took as deep a breath as their positions allowed and said, “Not now.”

“Not now?”

“Tomas, I just woke up. I’ve been asleep for two days.”

“I know!”

“And I really have to…” She bit her lip and thought, Seriously? He’s naked. You’re naked. At this point you’re missish? “I really have to pee.”

“You have to pee?”

She gritted her teeth and stared up at him.

After a long moment, he snickered. “You have to pee.”

“Stop repeating it!”

“Sorry.” For a moment, she thought he was going to say something else, but instead he rolled off her, changed, ran out from under the overhang, and disappeared off to the right.

Mirian crawled after him, wrapped the blanket more securely around her body, then, once clear of the overhang went in the other direction.

Soaked in rain then dried in the sun didn’t make her clothes clean, but it made them significantly cleaner than they had been. Mirian dressed quickly in skirt and shirtwaist and applied herself to the rabbit. When Tomas finally returned, he changed, pulled on his trousers and shirt, and declined the meat she’d left for him.

“I’ve had plenty. Thank you. There’s lots of rabbits around here.”

He seemed embarrassed, more formal with her than he’d ever been.

“Tomas!”

He glanced up as the leg bone bounced off the top of his head.

“You weren’t being led by your nose. It was the right reaction, just the wrong time.” Jaspyr Hagen had been no part of her decision. Mirian opened her hand and let the last of that possibility go. When she looked up from brushing her empty palm against her skirt, she realized Tomas was staring at her, brows drawn in, confused by her mime. “When it’s the right time, we’ll both know.”

“When?”

“If!”

His teeth flashed white and very pointy, and he snatched the rib out of the air before it hit him. “So you’re saying we may later?”

“I’m saying you’re an idiot. What do you think ‘not now’ means?” She rolled her eyes as he looked more cheerful and began cracking the bones to get at the marrow. Something told her that would have been an easier conversation if the Imperial army had left her the collar instead of the telescope, but she had no intention of examining that something too closely. “Is the Imperial army still searching for us?”

“No. As frightening as it was not being able to wake you, going to ground for a couple of days was probably the best thing we could have done. You can’t track someone if there’s no tracks to follow. Not,” he added thoughtfully, “that they can track for shit.” His eyes widened. “Language. Sorry. Sometimes I forget you’re not Harry. I mean, I know you’re not Harry, I just forget you’re not…” He caught the third bone, too. “Stop that.”

“Stop being an idiot. I’m honored that you sometimes forget I’m not Harry.”

“He died.”

She stretched out her leg and pushed against his knee with her toes. The Pack was tactile. Not all of her mother’s advice was bad. “I wish I could have met him.”

“You’d have liked him. He’d have liked you.” Tomas closed his hand around her bare foot and squeezed gently. Then he exhaled emphatically and said, “Unless they had a problem on the road, the Mage-pack reached Karis about the time you went to sleep. Maybe before.” He squinted up at the sky. “We’ll be three days behind by full dark.”

“Then we’d better get moving.”

There was a lot of money in the pouch she’d taken from Captain Reiter and more than she expected in Chard’s. Perhaps enough to pay for a seat on a mail coach and…

…arrive in Karis drugged, chained, or locked in a small box. Or all three. Captain Reiter seemed like the type who didn’t take unnecessary chances.

Or hadn’t taken unnecessary chances.

Mirian let the coins spill over her fingers, absently noting the metals that made up each, and wondered why Captain Reiter had freed her. It wasn’t one thing that had changed his mind, he said. He hadn’t done it on the spur of the moment. He’d planned it. Had set it up to look as though a powerful mage had overcome every possible precaution. She thought of the circle of trees blown flat and wondered if perhaps she couldn’t have freed herself.

“Mirian?”

“Coming.” Sliding the coins back into the purse, she tied the bedroll, and draped the rope over her shoulder—although she held the whole thing against her body as she crawled out from under the overhang.

“Ow!”

Tried to crawl out from under the overhang.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She touched her forehead and then stared down at the drop of blood on her finger. “I didn’t see the rock.”

“Really? I’d assumed you smacked into it on purpose.”

“I’m going to smack you,” she muttered, but accepted his hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “You’re going to stay in skin for a while?”

He shrugged. “I thought you might want someone to talk to.”

Or he might. He’d been more than two days on his own. But all she said was, “I would.”

Following him away from the overhang, she marveled at the slabs of rock surrounding them…“Ow!”

“You all right?”

“Fine.”…and at the shards of rock underfoot. There were enough edged, broken pieces that she locked her eyes on the ground, careful where she put her feet. They were going to have to go through the whole shoe thing again. And trade her clothes for clothes more likely to be worn wandering about with someone wearing what Tomas was wearing. Suddenly stepping out into the open, Tomas grabbed her arm as she teetered on the edge of an enormous crater.

It wasn’t so deep the bottom looked blurry, but it was deep enough for all that. It looked like a giant’s footprint. “What is this place?”

“An artillery range. This close to the border, it’s the empire showing off.”

Mirian didn’t know if Tomas knew a lot about artillery or just a lot more than she did. The explanation he began seemed thorough. After a while, as they found themselves back under the cover of a second-growth forest, she glanced up at the sun and interrupted, “Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?”

“We have to swing north to make sure we don’t pass too close to the garrison.”

That made sense. “I should have searched the captain’s pack for a map.”

“To Karis?”

“Good point.” Once in the empire, all roads led to Karis. A captain in the Imperial army wouldn’t need a map to find the capital.

Tomas stepped up and over a fallen tree, waiting for her on the other side. “My grandfather told me once that Earth-mages never get lost.”

Mirian thought of Bernard walking the promenade with her at the opera and hoped he was alive. “Always knowing where you are doesn’t necessarily mean you know where you’re going.”

“Do you…”

“I’m not an Earth-mage.”

She wasn’t an Earth-mage, but she’d grown apples out of season. She wasn’t a Healer-mage, but she’d thrown off the Imperial drug, and the cut she’d got leaving the overhang had already closed. Tomas doubted she’d even noticed. She wasn’t an Air-mage, but she’d flattened a circle of trees.

“Mirian…”

“Yes, I think it would be a good idea for me to practice some mage-craft before we get to Karis.”

“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”

She grinned, and he had to fight the urge to lean over and kiss the corner of her mouth. “It was all there in the way you said my name.”

“Really?”

“No.” She leaned sideways far enough to bounce her shoulder off his. Like Harry would have.

Reiter settled back against the barely padded seat in the mail coach and braced himself as the driver sprung the horses. Chard, who’d been staring out the window, would’ve fallen to the floor had there been room. As it was, he barely managed to stop himself from landing in Reiter’s lap, legs tangled with his musket.

As Reiter shoved him back to his own side of the coach, he flushed and muttered, “Sorry, Cap.”

“You might want to pay more attention. It’s still a long way to Karis.”

Although, for a while, it had begun to seem like he wouldn’t be leaving the Lyonne garrison. No one had doubted his story, not when they’d backtracked Thunder to the camp and found the two of them still out and a perfect circle of shattered trees, but no one had been too willing to believe it either. The moment Reiter had woken, he’d been pulled from the infirmary into a meeting with the garrison commander who’d tapped the two sets of orders on his desk and informed him that he’d already sent a courier to Major Halyss.

“You’re questioning an Imperial seal, sir?”

The colonel had smiled tightly. “Given the way you were found, I’m questioning every flaming thing about this mess. Your report, Captain.”

The report jumped from “…gave her a little privacy to relieve herself…” to “…opened my eyes in the infirmary with no idea how I’d got there.” but was, otherwise, complete. While the colonel chewed at it, Reiter marveled at how much difference leaving out a single sentence made. A single sentence: I let her go. And a name. Mirian.

“How did she knock those trees down?”

“She’s a mage, sir. Other than that I can’t say. I wasn’t conscious when it happened.”

“Mage-craft is a dying art, Captain. There isn’t a mage in the empire who could do half—no a tenth—that damage.”

Depending on how the battle at Bercarit was going, that might no longer be true. If the empire tried absorbing Aydori, they’d find themselves suddenly in possession of any number of powerful mages. For a while.

“Did she have a weapon?”

“Just her mage-craft, sir.”

“Impossible.”

It hadn’t been difficult to see why the colonel had been left behind in Lyonne rather than given a role in the winter campaign or the spring advance.

Fortunately, Major Halyss had confirmed Reiter’s identity and supported his report as far as he’d been able.

“Can’t say I’m not happy to be leaving,” Chard muttered, finally turning from the window. He pulled his stained and nearly shapeless bicorn down over his forehead, then slapped the barrel of his musket back and forth between his palms. “You get taken out by a girl and they look at you funny, you know?”

“She was a mage.”

“Still a girl, Cap.” Chard grinned across the coach at him as though that, at least, was undeniable.

Reiter didn’t plan on denying it.

He’d tried to leave Chard behind, the way he’d left Armand and Best in Aydori, at least partially because what was waiting for him in Karis was likely to be unpleasant, but Chard been surprisingly stubborn.

“You’re an officer and you can leave me where you like, sir, but I think I need to go with you to Karis. I was there. You might need me to back you up.”

Reiter knew flaming well that Chard’s word would carry no weight at all with the men who’d sent them out chasing prophecy’s tail, but he was selfish enough not to want to face them alone.