The Silvered

Chapter Eleven

THE CEILING OF THE ROOM was too high for Danika to get a good read on the air currents. Words she set loose might go anywhere, so she had to choose those first words carefully. Hands over her face, as though to block the memory of the dangling pelt, she stared up at the piece of wall once again covering Leopald’s rathole and breathed out through the crack between her hands, Talk to me.

To me not to us. Her position meant she’d played more power games than the rest even if some of those games had been against Kirstin.

The wall fit snugly; Leopald might never hear her. He certainly wouldn’t if she didn’t try.

“Why?” Mouth partially covered by a napkin, Kirstin seemed to be listening to Stina’s low murmur of comfort, but her voice brushed past Danika’s ear.

“He likes to talk, we need information. Knowledge is power.”

Kirstin rubbed her thumb over the white lines the net had etched into her fingertips. “Power is power.”

Without the net, the five of them had power enough to free themselves and while they’d never used that power aggressively, Leopald had ensured they’d be willing to. Telling Kirstin to leave the net alone would only annoy her, and, in all honesty, with the lingering headache from her own attempt pressing needles behind her eyes, Danika didn’t feel she had the right. “Remember, we’re terrified.”

Horrified. Furious. Not terrified. Annalyse, still weeping silently in the circle of Jesine’s arms, her knuckles white around a fistful of her skirt, was grieving for the dead, not terrified or submissive. Marrying into the Pack required power, but it also required the ability to stand up to teeth and strength and instincts and face them down. Submitting in Aydori came with more layers of power and politics than Leopald could imagine.

“Stand!”

It was the voice from her cell, speaking first in Imperial and then in Aydori.

Four sets of mage-flecked eyes turned to Danika. Who stood.

“If we behave, we’re treated well. If we don’t, we go back into the dark.” She hoped the rage that kept her lips back off her teeth couldn’t be heard. “It seems simple enough. We have more than merely ourselves to think of.” Then, sweeping her gaze around the circle, she breathed, Lull them.

Jesine stood first and gifted the guards with a tentative glance from under long, gold-tipped lashes. It was the kind of look that would have evoked protective instincts in a stone. It wasn’t sexual. It spoke to the best part of men, the part that wanted to protect, that wanted, sometimes in spite of themselves, to be a hero.

The other three stood at the same time. Stina wore her most placid expression. Annalyse looked young and frightened. Kirstin smiled, and Danika hoped she’d heard lull. She hated herself for thinking it, but the barely present Kirstin who traveled from Aydori to Karis had caused her less concern.

“Go with your guards!” Again in Imperial and then Aydori.

The guards broke into pairs, and pointed.

Danika breathed harmless at Mouth-breather and Hairy-knuckles and walked down the hall to her cell as gracefully as she could manage. She hadn’t been one of the season’s beauties, but Ryder had told her the first time they’d met that she walked like she was dancing.

Two new guards, Crooked-finger and Pocked-chin, arrived to take Danika back to the big room before she had time to get hungry or tired. She was almost certain they were the pair who’d escorted Stina to breakfast. It seemed the guards were working a variation of the way the soldiers had shifted in and out of the coaches.

Good. It wouldn’t be long before all twelve were convinced they were harmless. Guards who believed their prisoners were harmless grew careless. Their reaction time slowed.

In the big room, the debris of their meal and the two puddles of vomit had been cleared away. The room smelled of strong soap and held what looked like a Healer-mage’s examination table and a lectern with an inkwell and an open ledger. Standing between them was the woman who’d been waiting in the water room when they’d been brought up out of the dark. Danika guessed she was in her late thirties, early forties, light brown hair going gray and twisted up into a knot on the back of her head. Had they both been barefoot or both in shoes, Danika figured there’d have been no difference in their height. She was slightly stocky and wore a dark green bib apron over lighter green clothes so plain they had to be a uniform. Her hands and bare forearms looked strong. She wore a neutral expression like a shield, but it didn’t quite hide the resentment in the gaze that swept over Danika from head to foot and back again.

“On the table.”

It was the voice from the speakers. The voice who’d told them to rise and use the commode. It made sense. She’d spoken Aydori in the water room. Her accent had been twisted by Imperial and…Danika wasn’t sure, but she assumed Pyrahn. As the woman opened her mouth to repeat the instruction, Danika moved toward the table, having taken enough time to establish she moved because she chose to, not because she instinctively followed a superior’s command.

“Who,” she breathed, “are you?” The table was high enough, her feet dangled above the floor. She tensed as the woman pressed her hand against the swell of her belly, but there was no cruelty in the contact, only a familiar efficiency.

“How far along?” This close, she smelled of the same soap as the room.

“Who? Almost four months.” Closer to three.

The noncommittal noise could have been acceptance or disbelief. She crossed back to the lectern and dipped the pen and wrote a notation on the first page of the ledger. Her handwriting was also efficient, dark and blocky enough to see even from where Danika sat. “Any problems?”

“Who? Problems as a result of being kidnapped, exposed to an unknown and ancient artifact, dragged across three countries…” Danika touched the fading bruise on her face. “…beaten, and unlawfully confined, not to mention the emotional effect of not knowing what has happened to my husband, my family, and my country?” Pulled around by Danika’s words, the woman turned away from the ledger, brows drawn in, but before she could speak, Danika added, hands spread. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you’re having problems?”

That tone Danika knew. The beautiful are stupid. The rich are useless. The powerful have no common sense. It was, in its own way, as uncaring as Leopald’s belief they were animals but more familiar and easy enough to work with. She smiled and answered with the same gentle reproach she’d have used on a young Pack member being too aggressive. “I don’t know if the baby is having problems. It’s all happening on the inside, isn’t it?”

Given their relative ages, the reproach both was and wasn’t patronizing. The woman took a deep annoyed breath before responding. “Any problems on the outside, then.”

“Beyond the obvious?” Danika glanced over at the guards. “No.”

“First child?”

“Do I have children in Aydori crying for their mother? No.”

“Yes or no. I don’t care about the rest.”

Danika inclined her head in a gracious, silent apology and hid a smile as the woman spun on a heel back to the ledger. She made another notation, the pen’s metal nib digging into the paper, then pulled a watch from her apron pocket. Cradling it in the cup of her palm, she gently flipped it open. She cared about the watch. That might be useful.

When she turned to note Danika’s pulse, Danika breathed, Who? at her a fourth time.

“My name is Adeline Curtin. I’m a midwife. You’ll be in my…care.”

The slight pause before the last word made Danika think she’d only just stopped herself from saying something else. Custody? Control?

“How do you come to speak Aydori.”

Adeline’s eyes narrowed. “Answer when spoken to.”

Danika inclined her head again.

Before she left the room, she sent another suggestion toward Leopald’s rathole that he speak to her. On the way back to her cell, she breathed Adeline Curtin, midwife onto the air that found its way under the doors, knowing Kirstin at least would hear it, and one more harmless at Crooked-finger and Pocked-chin.

She pulled the pillow off the bed and waited on the floor for Kirstin to return.

“She was born in Pyrahn. Came to the empire with her husband.” Kirstin’s voice drifted down the hall and in under Danika’s door. “She doesn’t want to be here.”

“Who does? She can’t be angry at Leopald, so she’s angry at us.”

“She’s angry at the world. If you push, she’ll attack.”

That sounded familiar. “She wants to be Alpha, but every time she’s challenged, she’s lost the fight.”

After a long moment, long enough Danika thought the other Air-mage might not answer at all, Kirstin said, “We know how to work with that.”

If Adeline learned Aydori in Pyrahn, she had to have been born into one of the trading families. Her accent was too rough for negotiations, so probably carting; either learning the language when the drivers practiced at home or traveling back and forth across the border on the wagons.

I don’t know you yet, Adeline Curtin, Danika thought, curled by the door listening for Stina’s return. But I will.

Just as she began to get hungry, she heard the guards escorting the other women from their cells. Three of the other women…When Danika finally reached the big room where another meal had been laid out, Jesine wasn’t there.

They waited.

“They brought her back after she saw the midwife,” Kirstin murmured, “and I didn’t hear them take her away again.”

“She asked too many questions.” When they all turned to look at her, Stina shrugged. “She’s a Healer-mage in a room with a midwife. You know she’d have assumed they’d share information.”

Adeline, as they knew her, would have resented that assumption.

Kirstin shot a narrow-eyed glance at the guards. “Do we demand to know what happened to her?”

“We know what happened to her,” Danika answered. “She’s locked in her cell for asking too many questions.”

“Sent to her room without supper,” Stina added.

“Treating us like children,” Kirstin snarled. When Stina sent a bland look toward the guards and another toward Kirstin, Kirstin reluctantly smiled. “Fine. Like potentially dangerous children.”

“Danika? What do we do?”

“We eat,” Danika told Annalyse, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “We stay strong.” There was a tureen of chicken stew with potatoes, carrots…She wrinkled her nose…. and parsnips in the center of the table. Next to it, a large basket of rolls. “Annalyse, you serve.” When Annalyse frowned, she added, “I thought it might help steady you, if you had something to do.”

The frown deepened.

Putting the serving spoon into the tureen, Danika stirred it once then pointed the handle at the younger woman. Annalyse flushed and took it, stirring twice more before she began to serve. Danika wasn’t certain purifying water would have any effect on possible drugs in chicken stew, but Annalyse was a powerful Water-mage and it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Without Jesine, they were quieter than they’d been at the last meal.

“Kirstin, talk to Stina. Need distraction.”

As Kirstin held forth about how bored she was alone in her cell, Danika set up communication tests with Stina and Annalyse, kicking Annalyse once in the ankle when the younger woman nearly replied to a question no one watching would have heard asked.

Leopald didn’t make an appearance. That didn’t mean he wasn’t up there in his rathole, watching.

“Creepy stalker,” Kirstin muttered.

Danika leaned back in her chair, stretched as though she was working the kinks out of her neck and breathed at the wall. “Talk to me.”

On the way back to her cell, she breathed harmless at Gouge-in-boot and Crooked-front-tooth.

Although they’d just eaten, there was bread and cheese and barley water in the cell as well as a clean nightgown across the end of the bed. Danika glanced up at the lamp, still burning brightly, then lay by the door.

“Me?” Stina was speaking quietly, mouth pressed as instructed to the crack under her door, but it was still dangerous if those listening heard her.

“Stina, I hear you.” Kirstin’s voice rode the air currents. “Can you hear me?”

No answer.

“Stina, I hear you.” Danika took her turn. “Can you hear me?”

No answer.

Danika recited the first three verses of the ancient epic The Hunt, memorized and dreaded by every Aydori schoolchild and took comfort from knowing Annalyse was doing the same.

“Me?” If Stina had nearly breathed it, Annalyse hummed. Smart. Hide the word in singing done to keep up failing spirits.

Like Stina, both Air-mages could hear her but couldn’t make themselves heard.

“It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“It’s nothing much,” Kirstin snarled. “We should tell the guards to free us.”

“We can’t convince them to do anything they don’t want to do.”

“Berger didn’t want to die.” Before Danika could answer, before she knew what she was going to say, Kirstin added, “We have to escape!”

“We’ll only get one chance. I’ll listen to any plan that allows us all to survive the attempt!”

It was a higher-stakes version of an argument they’d had before. Being Alpha was as much about knowing when to be cautious as when to attack. Kirstin had never been good at either caution or compromise.

Singing, as it turned out, was also a way to stave off boredom. Danika had a nap. Grew hungry. Ate the bread and cheese and drank the barley water. Had another nap. Made plans. Threw those plans away. Made more plans.

The door at the end of the hall opened. The movement of the air changed.

“Annalyse?”

And just barely, over the sound of boots against tile, a joyful, “Yes.”

The lamp went out.

Heart pounding, Danika reminded herself that the same thing had happened last night. Although she had no idea if it was night. It was dark at least. She put on the nightgown, threw her pillow back down by the door, and waited for a howl that never came.

She hoped it was because he’d heard her and had been comforted, not because he’d been killed and skinned.

The next day began almost exactly the same way.

Different guards. Chipped-tooth and Dry-lips.

Jesine was there at breakfast. “I kept asking questions when told to be quiet. That’s what the voice in the room…”

“Cell,” Danika corrected quietly. “They’re cells.”

Jesine’s gold-flecked eyes narrowed thoughtfully and she nodded. “That’s what the voice in the cell said. I’m really hungry.”

While Jesine talked, a normal enough reaction given her taste of isolation, Danika told Stina to work at the wood of her cell door. They had no Metal-mage among them, but Stina had once brought a rosewood sideboard into bloom. If she could weaken the wood enough to break it free of the hinges, the latch, and the bolt, then she could open all the other cells.

It would be slow work at the level the nets allowed, but it was a start.

The guards had taken her to the shower first but brought her to any communal time in the large room last. Danika thought if she could figure out why, she might be able to put the information toward their escape plan.

This morning, she was returned to the room to find the breakfast debris gone and the other four women standing in a line facing the wall where Leopald had appeared, their guards behind them close enough to grab them, far enough away to use their batons if necessary.

As she was herded toward the line, she noticed the other two guards standing at the base of the wall on either side of a large pile of multicolored fabric. The room smelled of…coriander.

The moment she stopped in the place left for her—Mole-under-ear and Dry-lips in the place left for them—the sections of the wall folded back, the guards all snapped to attention, and Leopald smiled down at them, leaning forward in the high-backed chair. The pelt he’d rolled out was still there but had been rolled back. Although they could no longer convince themselves it was a carpet, that helped. A little.

“Just so you know…” He actually looked a little sheepish although Danika assumed the expression was as false as their compliance. “…the Soothsayer’s Voice objected to me taking Terlyn out of his room. He hasn’t left it for thirteen years, so you’ll have to excuse him if he’s a little shy.”

Terlyn? Danika turned her attention to the pile of fabric. It seemed to be undulating in response to Leopald’s voice.

“Now, what I want you all to do is, one at a time, go forward and touch his hand. If you can’t find his hand, any exposed skin will suffice, but do be brief. He’s precious to me. He doesn’t See very far ahead, so there are days when he’s almost coherent and you have no idea how much I appreciate that. You start.”

The hand shoving her forward seemed to indicate Leopald had been speaking to her. Searching the pile of fabric for the flesh within, Danika walked toward the Imperial Soothsayer, telling herself she wasn’t doing it for Leopald, she was doing it to satisfy her own curiosity. She’d met two Soothsayers. One had to be kept in restraints to keep from harming himself and the other had walked out into a lake with a concrete block tied around her neck barely a month after Danika had met her. Their families tended to keep them out of sight—there’d never been a Soothsayer in the Pack—and they certainly had no place in Aydori politics.

Lifting her dress, Danika dropped to one knee at the edge of the fabric. If Terlyn was an adult, he was sitting on the floor under what appeared to be layers of scarves. There were fewer layers at the top where the faint outline of a face was just barely visible and an impressive number of layers farther down. Danika moved one. Then another. An undulation slid a third scarf aside, exposing a hand so pale it made Kirstin’s milky skin look ruddy. The Soothsayer had bitten his fingernails short and ragged.

When Danika touched him, his skin felt warm, almost feverish. He shivered.

But he said nothing. He sat unmoving as Annalyse, Jesine, Kirstin, and Stina came up to him in turn and briefly pressed a finger to the back of his exposed hand, wiping the finger off against their skirts as they left him.

“Well,” Leopald sighed as Stina returned to her place in line. “That was a disappointment. Terlyn has been quite vocal about how the sixth mage is being pulled toward the palace. I had hoped with you all together he might…”

“Two, two, two, zero, three.” Terlyn slapped the floor. “Sixth! Two, two, two, zero, three.” Slap. “Sixth!”

“Ah, confirmation that she’s on her way.” For a moment, Danika thought Leopald was going to applaud. “The numbers are new. Are they dates? They could be, couldn’t they? Or measurements. Or coordinates. It’s always fascinating to hear what they’ll come up with, isn’t it?”

“Bag of nothing.” Terlyn’s voice was surprisingly deep.

“Not that it’s always immediately useful.”

“White light!”

Leopald leaned forward far enough to smile indulgently down at him. “I’m sure the Interpreters will eventually discover where these particular puzzle pieces fit into the larger rhyme. And can you believe the Voice said he’d be too frightened to speak outside his usual environment?”

They left the room as Terlyn repeated the list of numbers, over and over. The skin between Danika’s shoulder blades tightened. Although his face remained covered, she could feel the Soothsayer’s gaze on her back.

“Remove your garment.”

Danika smiled and unbuttoned the dress, slipping it off her shoulders and laying it neatly across the examination table. The room was cool enough her nipples hardened, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

Eyes narrowed, ignoring the new guards, Dimples and Freckles, so vehemently she might as well have been pointing at them, Adeline took measurements. Not only height and weight, but every possible measurement—length of fingers, width of nose, circumference of head. Danika cooperated so graciously, it appeared she was doing the midwife a favor.

Adeline took her time, clearly waiting for Danika to be embarrassed by her nudity.

Danika resisted the temptation to box the midwife’s ears, so often so perfectly in position, and considered Terlyn’s prophecy. Bag of nothing could mean he Saw empty cells and white light could stand for freedom. Of course, it could also mean he Saw an empty bag—there had to be a few around the palace—and a beam of moonlight through his window, if he had a window. That was the problem with Soothsayers.

Finally, after entering the distance between navel and hips in the ledger, Adeline growled, “You lay with beasts and you have no shame.”

“I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,” Danika chided gently, but she spoke Imperial because she doubted the watching guards spoke Aydori.

“Talk to me.”

On the way back to her cell, she breathed harmless at Dimples and Freckles.

No one missed the second meal. The emperor did not join them.

Talk to me.

Later, lying on the floor by the door, Danika dug her fingernails into the wood as the young male howled.

“Can you hear him?”

“Yes.”

“Race you to the tree!” Holding the bedroll tight against her side so it wouldn’t bounce, Mirian took off running. They ran at least half the time now and every day she ran farther and faster. Her skirt felt looser where it moved over her hips, and her feet had become so callused she doubted any of her old shoes would fit.

A black wolf ran by, bundle of clothes gripped in his teeth, a dangling sleeve dragging through last year’s grass.

“Tomas, you cheater!”

He dropped the clothes at the base of the tree, circled it, and changed. “You didn’t say anything about staying on two legs.”

“It’s not much of a race if you’re on four!” she panted, throwing an arm around the trunk to stop herself.

Tomas grinned. “You only say that because you lost. If you want to rest here for a minute, I’ll go make sure we’re still on track.”

“Be careful.” The words were habit more than anything. Without a map, the road was their only way to Karis; the compass she’d taken from Captain Reiter, no good without a heading. She watched Tomas run off to the south, then sank crossed-legged to the ground. Circling a breeze around the tree about ten feet out so she’d know when he returned, she settled in to practice.

By the time Tomas broke through her circle, she’d blown down three dead cedars, tipping their roots up out of the ground, pulled a scattering of old bird shot out of the tree behind her, re-formed it into a small lead bar, and had lifted a trio of fallen leaves about fifteen feet above the ground. She set the leaves on fire—one, two, three—and scattered the ash as Tomas settled beside her, the silver streak at his shoulder glittering in the first strong sunlight they’d had for a couple of days.

“It’s not silver like a standard silver wolf, is it?” The fur felt both coarser and sleeker under her fingers. “I mean, Jaspyr was really more a pale gray. This is almost a metallic silver. Very elega…”

“When did you meet Jaspyr?”

Mirian sighed and pulled her hand away. Tomas almost never changed when she was touching him now. She suspected it had to do with what they’d almost done. “At the opera.”

“In fur?”

“No, that was the next day.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Mirian lifted her chin and stared back. “You were the mage he had up his nose.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes.” It didn’t hurt anymore. Apparently, she wasn’t quite sensible enough to not miss the ache.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Only one possible answer to that. “It wasn’t any of your business.”

“Wasn’t? And now?”

She shrugged and sent another half dozen dead leaves up into the air, far enough she had to squint to bring them into focus. Far enough seemed to be getting closer every day, living rough doing her vision no favors. She split the breeze carrying the leaves and danced them around each other before igniting the odd numbered and letting the evens fall back to the ground.

Tomas picked up one of the fallen leaves, crushed it, then reached for his trousers. “You promised you’d take it easy.”

In fairness, she didn’t want to talk about what was or wasn’t his business either, so she let him change the subject. “Practice won’t cause another collapse. The last time, I’d expended a lot of energy in the market…” She still hadn’t told Tomas the details; that she’d killed another man to keep him safe. She wondered if she ever would. “…plus gone through two days of constant healing from the drug…” Tomas told her he’d had to change multiple times while she was out to completely clear his system. Had they not been who they were, Mirian suspected they’d both have died before reaching the empire, let alone Karis. “…and then I did that final thing with the trees. This…” Another half dozen leaves danced into the air and ignited one by one as they reached the highest point in the dance. “…is just playing around. It’s all basic levels just…extended a bit by circumstances. What?” she demanded as he made a face.

“Extended quite a bit.” He pulled his shirt on over his head and added as he emerged, “Harry was a second level Fire-mage and he couldn’t do that thing you’re doing with the leaves.”

“Of course he could, it’s just lighting candles. Only they’re leaves.” She took Tomas’ offered hand and let him pull her to her feet. “And once you can blow a candle out, and you blow it…Ow!” With her attention on Tomas, she lost track of the last burning leaf and a piece of it landed on the back of her free hand, the blister healing almost before it formed.

“That’s not basic.”

“It really is. It wouldn’t be basic if I healed you. Which I won’t do,” she added hurriedly, pulling free of his grip. Healers practiced on themselves for almost a year before they were taught to heal others and she had no one to teach her. The drug had forced first level body equilibrium to perform more efficiently, and she didn’t remember healing herself in the market so that couldn’t count. What’s more, she didn’t need to know how to heal someone else. When they found the Mage-pack, Mirian would remove the nets and Jesine Hagen could heal any injuries they’d taken.

She pulled Captain Reiter’s compass out of her jacket pocket, flicked it open, and squinted down at the dial. “Same heading?”

“Adjust about five degrees south.”

“All right.” Moving around the tree, Mirian lined up the compass needle and pointed. “We’re aiming for that big tree at the edge of the woods, the one that’s been topped off.”

Tomas frowned. “That’s not very far.”

“So you won’t mind running it on two legs.”

She blew a path through the grass in front of her as she ran, exposing the ground. Being able to heal whatever she might jab into her foot didn’t mean she wanted to deal with the pain.

Tomas scooped up the bedroll and followed, allowing Mirian to set the pace.

Jaspyr.

That explained a lot.

But Jaspyr wasn’t here with Mirian; he was.

Four strides took her across the cell. Touch the wall. Turn. Four strides back. Touch the wall. Turn. Five shorter steps. Touch the wall. Turn. Five shorter steps back. Touch the wall. Turn. She couldn’t lie in front of the door all day.

As Danika heard the bolt thrown back, she turned, biting her lips to give them a little color.

Dimples and Bruised-thumb.

“Harmless.”

And when she got closer, she glanced down to see the bruising had faded, glanced up and smiled at him, pleased to see he was healing.

You’re an individual and I see you, but I’m harmless so it doesn’t matter.

Adeline wasn’t waiting in the big room.

The emperor’s rathole had been opened again. This time the head and front paws of the pelt—of someone’s father, husband, brother, son—hung down over the wall.

“Come closer!”

The guards stayed by the back wall, standing rigidly at attention. Danika walked forward until the lower edge of the rathole began to cut off her sight line.

Leopald smiled and stared down at her, elbows braced on his thighs, his chin resting on linked fingers.

Danika stared back. The Pack were predators and she was an Alpha. She’d been stared at with a lot more intent. At the last minute, she remembered this was a power struggle she needed to lose, tipped her head to one side, and looked down at the floor in a ritual submission.

“You seem to be settling in well, no hysterics, no self harm, no pointless attacks on those you can’t hope to beat. Although,” he added, and she could hear the smile in his voice, “those last two points are essentially the same thing, aren’t they? I suspected your instinctive need to protect the unborn would temper your reaction once you were shown the alternatives, and I’m happy you’ve proven me right. Does it hurt?”

That last question, Danika realized, was more than mere noise. He was asking her directly and he sounded as though he cared. That surprised her enough, she looked up.

He straightened and spread his hands. “Look, I know you’re able to understand me—does the artifact hurt?”

“A little, Your Imperial Majesty.” She spoke to him as though she wasn’t his prisoner. As though this were a social situation where Lady Danika Hagen and Emperor Leopald had been forced by proximity to make small talk.

He seemed pleased she’d used his full title, as though she’d done an unexpected trick. “When you say a little, what do you mean, precisely? The mages it was tested on were depressingly inarticulate, although, in fairness, the available mages were just generally depressing. Poor. Superstitious. Uneducated.”

Danika had a feeling that anyone with money or education or social standing would deny even basic mage ability in Leopald’s empire. “It causes…” About to say our, Danika changed her mind. Better he thought of them as isolated rather than as a group. “…my head to ache, Your Majesty.”

“Constantly?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

She considered that for a moment. The pain was background noise most of the time. On a scale of one to ten, a two or a three. “A four, Majesty. Sometimes a five.” Was he expecting her to tell him the truth?

“Fascinating. And if you attempt to use your powers?” He smiled and shook a finger at her. “Come now, you don’t expect me to believe you haven’t tried?”

“Any use of power causes the pain to increase, Your Majesty.”

“Of course. Of course. I’d love a demonstration, for scientific purposes, but I’ve been informed it would be bad for your whelp. Puppy? Cub? What would you call it?”

“A baby, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Yes, I suppose you would,” he said thoughtfully as though this had never occurred to him. He tapped a finger by his left eye. “You have blue flecks. If you weren’t wearing the artifact, what could you do?”

What do I control when I control you? He might as well have whispered it on a breeze.

“Air, your Imperial Majesty. Without the net, I could send a scent…”

His lip curled.

“…my voice,” she corrected, “across distances.”

“How far?”

“Majesty?”

“Precisely how far?”

“I’ve never tested the exact distance, Your Majesty.”

“Why not?”

“There was no need.” She’d fulfilled the criteria the university required for her level and had never needed to send her voice farther than she’d been able.

Leopald shook his head, almost pityingly. “It’s lack of curiosity that sets the lesser races apart. Can you fly?”

Social manners, Danika reminded herself. “No mage can fly, Your Majesty.”

“No, not now, but in my Archive are documents that tell of mages who could fly. I have ancient journals that suggest even the mages of Aydori are powerless in comparison to the mages of old. Who were,” he leaned forward and dropped his voice slightly, “completely insane as far as I can tell and more trouble than they were worth. But still, flying…” He settled back in his chair. “I can fly. Science has given me the sky. I have balloons to take me above the earth. I can send my voice over a distance; I can split my voice into multiple destinations over short distances. My people have fire-starters and surgeons who can cut into bodies and pull out diseases. Science gives freely to all, not just the few. Mage-craft is done.”

“I wonder…” She bit her lower lip and stared off at nothing. When she refocused on the emperor, he was staring down at her, red lips curved in a mocking smile.

“You wonder if mage-craft is done?”

“I wonder…” She smiled and shook her head, as though overwhelmed by the thought. “I wonder what science and mage-craft could accomplish if they worked together.”

“Science and mage-craft don’t work together.”

Danika dipped her head, reluctantly correcting him. “Haven’t worked together, Majesty.”

Back in her cell, she tossed the pillow by the door, stretched out, and shared the details of the conversation with Kirstin.

“He dismissed me after that, but I could almost smell him thinking.”

“You think he’ll remove your net?”

“Not without taking every precaution, but then we’ll know how it comes off.”

“Lord and Lady, Danika, it’s like you think we have all the time in the world to get out of here.”

She pressed a hand against her belly. Stina was the furthest along at nearly six months. “I know exactly how much time we have.”

“Tomas, that rabbit isn’t dead.” Not dead but clearly terrified, staring up at her from where it dangled from huge black jaws.

Tomas set it on the ground, not opening his mouth and releasing it until it was securely held between his front paws. He changed and spent a moment crouched adjusting his grip although Mirian noted that he didn’t lift the frightened rabbit off the ground. Rather than straighten, he sat, the rabbit between his knees but outside the curve of his crossed legs. “It’s injured. I thought you could practice healing on it.”

“What?” Mirian, who’d returned her attention to their small fire the moment Tomas had lost his fur, turned to stare at him. “You want me to heal a rabbit?”

He shrugged. “You won’t practice on me, and we need to know what you’re capable of before we engage the enemy.”

“So you want me to try and heal our evening meal?” The thought of healing something, then killing and eating it was a little creepy. Actually…She shook her head as though trying to shake the thought free…. it was a lot creepy.

Tomas snickered and Mirian wondered how much of that had shown on her face. “If you heal the rabbit, we won’t eat it. It’ll live long and have baby rabbits. I’ll catch something else for us to eat.”

“That’s not…”

Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. It was a sensible idea even. She couldn’t practice on Tomas, and it was best they knew what she could do. It was sitting quietly within the cage of his hands. Mirian suspected quietly meant too terrified to move. If it could move…“How badly is it injured?”

“Not badly. A couple of puncture wounds on the back of its neck.”

She laid another stick on the fire and watched it start to burn without her help. “What if I can’t heal it? And it’s not that I want to fail,” she added hurriedly, “because I’m still thinking of it as food.”

“It’s not injured so badly it couldn’t heal on its own. If you can’t heal it, I’ll let it go.”

“All right.” Mirian shuffled around until she sat facing him, her knees touching his, the rabbit corralled between them. When Tomas tensed to lift his hands away, she shook her head. “No, you keep holding it. I can’t be distracted by worrying that it’ll get away from me.”

Its fur was soft, plush. She’d left a rabbit fur hat and muff back in her room in Bercarit, but this fur had more substance. The rabbit flinched as she touched it, in fear not pain, not that it mattered beyond how much it hurt her heart because she had to have contact. Although not the usual contact. Tomas hunted to keep them fed and they mostly ate rabbit.

Don’t think of the rabbit as food.

Logically, she reminded herself, an injury was an injury, whether on her or on a small animal. She could heal herself, so healing another would merely be extending that outward. An examination showed the rabbit’s skin had been pierced in two places by Tomas’ teeth. Blood had dampened the fur around the bites, clumping it into dark triangular points. She couldn’t put the blood back, so all she could do was close the holes.

Close the holes…

Close…

The rabbit writhed, twisting out of Tomas’ grip, and Mirian snatched her hand away staring down at the animal in horror. Every thing that might be considered a hole on its body had closed. Unbroken fur covered its eyes, nose, mouth, ears…anus although she wouldn’t, couldn’t check.

Scrambling onto her knees, she twisted to the side and threw up. Threw up again when she heard the crack as Tomas broke the struggling rabbit’s neck. Her stomach spasmed over and over until only bitter bile dribbled out of her mouth.

She couldn’t stop crying.

She could destroy. Two men were dead by her hand. But she couldn’t heal.

When Tomas wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t fight him. She collapsed against his chest and cried until she had no tears left. Cried for the rabbit and the Mage-pack and Ryder Hagen and Jaspyr Hagen and the two men she’d killed and for Tomas and for her because they were going to rescue the Mage-pack and they didn’t have the faintest idea of how and for the first time since hearing gunshots that morning on the Trouge Road, she missed the bland certainty her life had been.

“Bland would drive you crazy,” murmured a quiet voice against her hair.

Mirian sniffed and rubbed her sleeve over her face. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“I know.”

“I got you wet.” She pulled away from his chest and dried that cheek as well. “I’m sorry.”

He loosened his hold, a little, and shrugged. “Skin dries.”

“I’d have made a mess of your fur.”

“And that’s what I was worried about. Here.” One arm released her, stretched out to the right, and came back with a canteen. “Rinse your mouth.”

She sloshed a mouthful of water around and had to poke him so she could get enough clearance to spit. The fire had burned down to embers, the last of the daylight had faded, and she couldn’t see the puddle of vomit, but she could smell it. “What happened to the…to the body?”

“I got rid of it.”

“You didn’t…”

“Eat it?” She might have felt him shudder. “No.”

“All right.” Another mouthful of water. “Good. I’m all right. Thank you. Let me go now.”

He released her reluctantly. “I could hunt…”

“No. I mean, yes, for you.” She crawled to fire pit and began piling the smallest twigs in the pile against the coals. “I couldn’t eat.”

“You need to eat.”

“I said I can’t!” The fire flared and she froze, refusing to back away. If she’d actually been able to advance beyond first level while at university…If she’d attempted to heal another student…

“Mirian….”

“Just don’t!” She slapped away the hand reaching out for her. “Leave me alone!”

But when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night, he was there, arms pulling her close, murmuring comfort against the top of her head, as if he’d known she’d been dreaming of his fur covering eyes, nose, mouth…

“Your orders, Captain Reiter, were to bring back six mages. I know, because those were the orders I gave to General Loreau. One in six or six in one. Not a single Soothsayer said anything about five.”

Reiter stared over Emperor Leopald’s head, gaze locked on what looked to be a blue drawing of a shepherdess playing a flute, a recurring image on what he considered to be entirely inappropriate wallpaper. Of course, wallpaper wasn’t something he’d given much thought to previously, so for all he knew it might be exactly correct for a debriefing that would probably turn into a court-martial that would, in turn, turn into an execution. Reiter doubted the emperor would allow wallpaper to delay an official court-martial should he decide a mere captain’s action had been treasonable.

“Lieutenant Lord Geurin, as his uncle persists in informing me, returned with five of the mages, leaving the sixth mage for you. Although, as you were his commanding officer, and as I have had the unfortunate privilege of meeting Lieutenant Geurin, I rather suspect you ordered him to Karis with the mages already secured as you considered him incapable of finishing the job.”

Was he supposed to answer that, Reiter wondered. Would anything he said matter if he were already marked to die?

Apparently not, as the emperor barely paused for breath. “I have read your report. I have read the report written by the garrison commander at Lyonne. I have read the letter written to the garrison commander from Major Halyss at Abyek. You may not know that Major Halyss was, until recently, a highly regarded member of my staff and I continue to value his opinion. Captain Reiter…” The emperor sighed his name. “…would you please look at me. That staring at the wall thing you military men do is annoying.”

“Sir!” Reiter forced himself to drop his eyes and found the emperor gazing up at him, shaking his head.

“All that emphatic agreement is a bit annoying, too.”

But he was smiling, so Reiter managed to breathe almost normally in spite of the fact he was looking at the emperor. Or the emperor was looking at him. Had been looking at him. The emperor. Reiter had been in the army for two years when Emperor Leopald had risen to the Starburst Throne. He’d taken part in the pageantry with the rest of his company, he’d drunk to the young emperor’s health, he’d sworn new oaths to His Imperial Majesty Leopald, Commander in Truth. When he’d been transferred to the Shields, he’d realized he might be given a chance to see the emperor from a distance, then he’d been given orders carrying an Imperial seal, and, now, the emperor was looking at him. Smiling at him.

“The evidence suggests you made every attempt to carry out my orders.”

His shoulders straightened. His body reacted to Imperial attention as though it had a mind of its own.

“Under normal circumstances, I honestly wouldn’t care about how hard you tried. I care about results. That’s how one builds and maintains an empire after all, isn’t it?”

His shoulders slumped, just a little. Reiter wasn’t sure he liked feeling even so minimally out of control.

“However, the Soothsayers have Seen the sixth mage here, at the palace, which somewhat negates your failure. More importantly, at least as far as you’re concerned, last fall two Soothsayers Saw you at the palace standing by my side in a square of purple. Two of them.” From the emperor’s tone, visions by multiple Soothsayers seemed to be important. “Although,” he added, “it wasn’t until recently that the Interpreters were able to identify you. I will not bore you with the reams of bad poetry.”

The pause extended almost long enough Reiter thought of throwing in another sir, but the emperor began talking again before he could.

“I had assumed you’d be here, with me, as a reward for successfully completing your mission. Apparently not, and, yet, here you are. So, as blame must be placed, if I am not placing it on you, where do I place it?” He raised a hand. “Don’t answer that. It seems to me you performed as expected; the artifact did not.”

“Your Imperial Majesty, all six of the artifacts were tested multiple times.” The voice came from just behind Reiter’s left shoulder, from one of the two civilians who’d accompanied him and General Loreau into the Imperial presence. They were courtiers, both self-important and simpering, but, other than that, Reiter had no idea of who they were or what their function was. Courtiers were not introduced to captains. “I performed the tests myself, as you requested, rather than leave them to a lesser researcher. The mage should not have been able to remove the artifact!”

“And yet she did.” The gold net dangled from the emperor’s finger, the broken links with their blackened ends obvious. “I believe you stated at the conclusion of your research that attempting to remove this artifact without the proper tool destroyed not only mage ability, but all cognitive ability as well.”

“Those were the results we obtained during testing, but in fairness, Majesty, we never tested it on a mage as strong as the mage the captain lost.”

If the narrow-eyed reaction was any indication, the emperor didn’t appreciate this attempt to pass the blame back. Neither did Reiter, but he had to admit the emperor’s opinion counted for more. “Lieutenant Geurin reported that when one of the other five merely tugged at the artifact, she scarred her fingers and was all but unresponsive for the rest of the journey.”

“Again, Majesty, we have no data on comparative power between the two mages.”

The emperor’s wide-eyed gaze shifted left. “Lord Warder of the Archive.”

“Your Imperial Majesty?”

The reply came not from the man who’d been talking, but from the older of the two civilians. Actually, Reiter would have been willing to bet he’d be the older of any two civilians. He looked like a turtle in fancy dress, his face and neck a cascade of wrinkles and his clothing at least a generation out of style.

“What was the condition of the artifacts when you removed them from the vault?”

“All six artifacts were in the same condition, Majesty. That was why I removed those six. While gold does not decay as baser metals may, there is a certain delicacy to the construction of these artifacts in particular, and I was, therefore, careful to check for any physical differences.”

“So no broken links, Lord Warder?”

“Not so much as a weak link, Majesty.”

“Interesting.” Elbow propped on the arm of his high-backed chair, the emperor dropped his chin onto the heel of the hand not holding the artifact, two fingers curled by his mouth, two resting on his temple. He looked as though he were considering nothing more important than if he should have another drink before he left the officer’s mess for the night. “As the sixth mage removed the artifact with no apparent damage to herself, I can only assume the artifact was, in fact, defective. Not physically, as has been stated by the Lord Warder of the Archive, so, therefore, the testing had to have been defective. Do you have anything to say in your defense, Lord Master of Discovery?”

“I can only repeat, Majesty, that the mage should not have been able to remove the artifact.”

“And yet she did. Six mages, Lord Master. Six. The Soothsayers were specific and now, thanks to your incompetence, I have five. Yes, the sixth is on her way, but that’s not the point. General Loreau.”

“Sir!”

The emperor rolled his eyes. “Have him taken to the north wing. I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

“Majesty!”

The artifact glittered in the lamplight, swinging from the emperor’s finger. “The evidence speaks against you, Lord Master.”

“Your Imperial Majesty, no! I beg of you…”

He kept begging while soldiers dragged him from the room. He was still at it when the door closed behind him. Reiter stared at another shepherdess, sweat sticking his uniform to his back. Locked in position in front of the emperor, he’d seen none of what had just happened. That should have made it less affecting. It didn’t.

“Tavert.”

The conservatively dressed young woman sitting on a stool just behind the emperor’s chair taking notes on a lap desk, looked up. “Majesty?”

“We’ll try Doctor Lord Camberton as the new Lord Master. It should make him happy. He’s wanted the job long enough.” The emperor’s smile made him look almost too young for his responsibilities. “Try to make it clear that I’d rather he not overshare his happiness with me.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

The emperor straightened, the languid posturing gone, and Reiter found himself back under the regard of a piercing blue gaze. He made a mental note to ignore the affectations.

“You showed initiative, Captain Reiter, using the drug to keep the mage under control. I like that.” The corners of the Imperial mouth flicked up into a quick smile. “I’d have liked it better had it been successful, but still, initiative. I’ve had an opening on my staff since Major Halyss left—somehow his father convinced me that the major’s knowledge of mage-craft would be of more use on the front, given what the Swords are fighting in Aydori—and I’d like you to fill it.”

Well aware he wasn’t being asked if he wanted the job, Reiter managed a fairly neutral, “Sir?”

“I found Major Halyss’ study of mage-craft to be of use in my own research. You don’t have his academic background, but you’ve certainly had more exposure in the field and that might be of equal, albeit different, use. Also, your appointment should stop Lieutenant Geurin’s uncle from petitioning me on his behalf. The man’s an idiot. Actually, both men are idiots. It’s a family trait.” Reiter came to attention as the emperor stood. “Walk with me, Captain.”

A small door at the back of the room led to an empty hall—the walls the first without wallpaper he’d seen since arriving in the palace. When the emperor beckoned him forward, Reiter fell in behind his right shoulder. When His Imperial Majesty, Exalted ruler of the Kresentian Empire, Commander in Truth of the Imperial army, said walk, there was only one option. Reiter suspected his legs would have obeyed regardless.

“When my father redesigned the palace, he added a way to get to the public rooms without having to deal with the public. Why should the servants have all the privacy?”

The emperor wasn’t particularly tall. The top of his head just cleared Reiter’s shoulder. Had he been a soldier not the emperor, Reiter would have described him as just over tit high on the average whore.

“I find myself with a decision to make, Captain. You’re aware of the reason you were in Aydori?”

“The Soothsayers’ prophecy, Majesty.”

“You don’t approve.”

Reiter thought he’d kept that from his voice.

“Of my using Soothsayers in general—and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how different your circumstances would be had the Soothsayers not Seen you—or of this prophecy in particular?” The question sounded conversational, but then every word out of the emperor’s mouth had sounded conversational.

Reiter couldn’t lie to the emperor. He was the emperor. “I think combat requires initiative that might be stifled by Soothsayers, Majesty.”

“Ah, yes, a soldier’s opinion.” He didn’t sound as though he disapproved. “I, however, need to maintain a wider perspective. Soothsayers are useful for that. One in six or six in one. Empires rise or empires fall, the unborn child begins it all. Clearly, I intend to see the empire rise. It’s in the nature of doing my job. Unfortunately, although the Soothsayers are quite emphatic about the sixth mage eventually arriving at the palace, they’ve Seen nothing about how she gets here. Is she captured again? Do you think that’s likely, Captain.”

“Not easily, Majesty.”

“Not easily.” The emperor frowned. “Well, then, let’s hope she’s being drawn by the power of the prophecy. However, in case the prophecy could use a little help…Tavert.”

“Majesty.”

“I want the army in Traiton and Pyrahn on high alert. Have Major Halyss pulled from the front and put in charge of making very certain my sixth mage is heading in the right direction. Major Halyss is more of a thinker than a fighter. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to have something less dangerous to do.”

“I’m not sure she’s less dangerous,” Reiter said without thinking.

The emperor actually stopped walking long enough to stare into his face. As a drop of sweat rolled down his side, Reiter figured it wouldn’t hurt to show a few nerves. After a long moment, the emperor smiled. “I like you, Captain.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that but, “Thank you, Majesty.”

Although the area next to the road became more built up as they moved deeper into the empire, it took a while to find what they needed. A skirt snatched off one line then later, a belt to cinch it tight. A shawl taken off another line. While Mirian might have no understanding of the whys and whens of laundry, she trusted her ability to judge price. And she thanked the Lord and Lady when they finally found a shirt. From a distance, she now looked like any lower class woman of the empire. Up close, however…

“This thing has no support!”

Head cocked, Tomas frowned as she twitched the unbleached muslin back and forth. “Why does it matter?”

“It tells anyone with eyes, I don’t belong here. Also, it hurts when I run.”

On the list of things Mirian thought she’d never do, shopping for Imperial undergarments off village clotheslines had to be right at the top. Running across the empire with Tomas Hagen to rescue the Mage-pack was an unlikely, but possible, childish daydream. Stumbling around in the dark, avoiding houses with geese, to find the ridiculous number of items Imperial fashion required to replace a simple set of banding, would never have occurred to her. She missed the simplicity of Aydori clothing.

In spite of Tomas’ protests that they were merely living off the enemy, which was perfectly legitimate in a time of war, they left a little money at every house they took clothing from.

Seedlings pulled from the edges of gardens, she assumed no one would miss. They all looked the same to her, a darker blur in the shadows of the night, so maturing them was always a surprise. They grew a lot of cabbage in this part of the empire. And onions.

Turning into the breeze, Mirian pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders and tried to figure out why she’d been feeling anxious all morning. “It’s like I can almost hear something. Something important.”

“Danika?”

It was possible, but she’d heard Lady Hagen’s voice on the breeze and this didn’t sound the same. “I don’t think so.” It sounded less…directed. “If there’s Pack in the empire, are there mages here, too?”

Tomas shrugged. “There’s mages all over. But Ryder says…said, Imperial mages aren’t much. First and second levels if that.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was nothing more than a mage without enough power to be understood. But flinching at a shadow, her reaction not her own, Mirian didn’t think so.

Midafternoon, Tomas stopped running so suddenly she nearly tripped over him. His head went up, nose into the breeze. His ears flattened, his hackles rose.

“Tomas?”

He growled, and took off running toward the northeast, angling away from the road.

“Tomas!”

Even running as fast as she could, she lost sight of him fairly quickly, but he was following his nose, so she followed the breeze.

The sun had nearly reached the horizon when she started to smell smoke.

Sweet, greasy, almost familiar smoke…

A moment later she could see multiple strands of dark gray rising over the trees, writhing against the sky.

Breathing through her mouth, she came out of a hollow, pushed through the masking trees, and stared down a long slope at a burned-out compound tucked against the side of a small valley. A fairly large cottage, a well, a garden, a low shed half open for wood and half closed in for livestock…all destroyed. Recently destroyed. The blackened shells of the buildings and a small dark pile in the center of the garden still smoldered. She couldn’t make out the details of the pile no matter how she squinted or how hard she rubbed her eyes.

She couldn’t see Tomas, although this had to have been what he’d caught scent of.

Heart pounding, she slowly walked forward until she wasn’t only looking at the destruction, she was in the midst of it.

Only two walls of the cottage stood, less of the shed, and it looked like they’d burned it down with the chickens inside. Even the wellhead had been destroyed, stones smashed away and tossed aside, the destruction more evidence of viciousness than even the fires.

Boots had pounded the garden hard, bootprints crossing and recrossing crushed seedlings and stained earth.

They’d killed the chickens in the shed. Why had they dragged the rest of the livestock here?

Even staring directly at the blackened pile, Mirian couldn’t figure out what the bodies had been although through the unmistakable smell of lamp oil, she thought she smelled pork. She thought, at first, it was her eyes, then she saw the foreleg slightly off to one side, far enough away from the heart of the fire its shape had survived in spite of how small it was.

After that, it wasn’t hard to pick out skulls, shoulders, bones cracked and black.

There were Pack in the empire. Small family groups. Children.

Fur stank when it burned.

She couldn’t smell fur.

Killed. Skinned. Dismembered. Burned.

She only hoped it had been in that order.

“They can’t have gone far.” Black against the burned wood, she hadn’t been able to see Tomas until he rose to his feet. She could hear a whine and a snarl both in his voice. “I wanted to track them, but I knew you were following and…” He dropped again to four feet, threw back his head and howled.

Mirian felt something break inside. She backed up, nearly tripped as her heels sank into a patch of softer earth, didn’t stop until she reached Tomas’ side. With his howl sounding inside her, replacing the horror with rage, she pointed at the pile of smoldering bodies and then pulled her clasped hands apart.

If water could be parted, so could earth.

When the last body had tumbled out sight into the cleft, she brought her hands together again.

Knelt and laid her palms flat against the ground.

The bare earth turned green and wildflowers bloomed, covering the grave in a thick carpet of color, covering the ruins in a tangle of vines.

Mirian glanced toward the sunset as she stood. “Don’t get so far ahead I can’t find you.”

Snarling, Tomas took off to the south.

He was out of sight almost immediately, but somehow she never lost his trail.

She caught up to him just after full dark on the outskirts of a village. Together, they watched six men strutting down the road. They carried pelts, and they were laughing. Talking. Bragging. Two of them planned to head straight home. The other four were going to the pub to celebrate.

It turned out it didn’t matter if they still had silver shot remaining. They had no chance to use their guns.

The breezes stole their screams away.

And Mirian buried the bodies too deep to ever be found.