This was not the kind of death one should celebrate, even if it was necessary. It left her stomach cold, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d witnessed crueler things. She’d done crueler things.
The air chilled and her skin crawled with gooseflesh as Shaiyung appeared beside her. “Don’t mourn them, gaia. They made their choices, as we made ours.”
Xinai nodded, shuddering as her mother draped an icy arm across her shoulders. The ghost was clearer now, her touch stronger.
“I’ve waited so long for this,” Shaiyung whispered. “Soon we’ll have what we’ve dreamed of, what we’ve bled for.” She raised a pale hand to the wound in her neck; Xinai nearly mimicked the gesture.
“What will you do then? Will you go on?”
“And leave you again? I want to see the land remade, cleansed. I want to see my grandchildren. All their whips and knives won’t take that from me again. Your children will rebuild Cay Lin.”
“Ch-children.” Xinai drew her knees close against her chest, tried to rub warmth into her hands. “I’ve never thought of that. Of a family.” A mercenary camp was no place for a baby, and neither she nor Adam had ever wanted to settle down.
“I’ve seen the way Riuh looks at you,” Shaiyung said with a smile.
“Ancestors!” Her teeth chattered as she laughed. “No need to matchmake yet, Mira. Let’s win the war first.”
“We will.” Shaiyung pulled her closer, and the familiarity of the embrace made Xinai’s eyes sting. “They bound the mountain and the river, but they can’t bind us.”
Leaves rustled nearby, almost quiet enough to be the wind’s work. Shaiyung vanished, leaving Xinai shivering in the damp. She reached for a blade, but it was only Riuh.
“How did you find me?” she asked as he crouched outside her shelter.
He grinned crookedly. “You walk softly, but not so soft that I can’t find your trail.” He ducked under dripping fronds and knelt beside her.
“I’ll have to practice.” The warmth of his flesh lapped at her, feverishly hot after Shaiyung’s embrace.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after a moment’s silence. “It’s not just what we did today, is it?”
“No.”
“Was it the man you met in the city?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You followed me?”
He shrugged. “I see how much my grandmother cares about you. I’m not going to let something happen to you out of carelessness.”
“Or courtesy?”
“That either.”
She snorted. “He was my partner for years. I thought I’d never come home again. It’s hard to leave a life behind, even for a better one.”
“What was it like, the north?”
“Strange, at first. Different. Mountains sharp as tiger’s teeth. Seasons so cold everything freezes, even your breath. People pale as ghosts. The forests taste different.”
Riuh shook his head. “I don’t think I would have been so brave. The elders used to rail at me for being wild, traditionless, but I don’t know if I could have left Sivahra.”
“I had nothing here. Aren’t you wild anymore?”
“Sometimes.” He grinned again, but it faded quickly. “But it’s not the same. I never cared much about the Dai Tranh, about the cause. I ran with the prides in the city, stayed away from Cay Xian.”
“What happened?”
“My father was arrested after a raid. They said he would be sent to the mines, a three-year sentence. Grandmother tried to find him-she knows people everywhere-but he wasn’t there. He was just gone. No body, no rites, no songs. We’ve never discovered what happened.”
Xinai laid a hand on his; he squeezed her fingers and frowned. “You’re freezing.” He shifted closer, his warmth burning against her shoulder, and pressed her hand between his. “It hit Kovi hardest of all, but even I couldn’t ignore that. We can’t let the Khas keep doing this to us.”
“No,” she whispered. Her head spun and she closed her eyes. Riuh’s arm settled over her shoulders, warm and solid. He touched the short hair at the nape of her neck and she shivered.
“Not very traditional, I know,” she said with a wry smile.
“I like it. We can do with a few less traditions.”
This was wrong. The smell of his skin, the fit of his hand around hers. She needed time…But she was so cold, a northern winter gnawing at her bones. He could make her warm again.
Riuh’s calloused fingers brushed her cheek, tilted her head toward his. His thumb traced her lower lip and her pulse throbbed like surf in her ears. She should say no, but his lips brushed hers, soft and tentative, and she couldn’t speak. Her hand rose to his shoulder-her body felt like a stranger’s. Like a puppet.
“No-” she whispered against his mouth. He pulled back, and she shuddered with the absence of heat. Clumsily she jerked away, hand slipping in mud as she landed on her hip. Her chattering teeth closed on her tongue and the taste of pain and blood filled her mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, scrambling to her feet; her flesh was her own again, but she couldn’t stop shaking. “No,” she said again, more to her mother than to Riuh, but she couldn’t explain that to him. Instead she turned and fled into the night and the rain. He didn’t follow.
Chapter 11
The room was pleasant enough, but still a prison, no matter how decorative the bars on the window. Isyllt paced a quick circuit after Asheris and the guards left-a bedchamber and a bath, all the amenities courtesy dictated, but nothing that might easily become a weapon. Nothing resembling a mirror.
She paused in mid-pace as the weight of her kit swayed against her thigh. At least that wasn’t at the bottom of the canal. She slipped it out of her coat pocket; the leather hadn’t taken well to water and the silk wrappings were sodden, the salt dissolved, but her tools were still intact. The mirror lay cold and quiescent in her palm as she wiped off water spots with a corner of the coverlet.
The black surface showed her pale and weary face, her hair hanging in knots over her shoulders. At least no spirits waited on the other side-she was in no shape to fend off anything deadlier than a gnat.
“Adam,” she whispered, leaning close to the glass. But the mirror remained still. Wherever he was, she couldn’t reach him through the reflected world.
Isyllt sighed and wrapped the mirror in its soggy silk. She was too tired for clever plans. The best she could hope was that no one killed her in the night and quietly sank her body into a canal. One more missing spy. She stripped off her damp and soiled clothing, tucked her kit beneath the pillow, and crawled into the feather bed.
The bed, at least, was soft. She didn’t dream.
The creak of the door woke her. Isyllt blinked sticky eyes as a woman dressed in servant’s clothes slipped in. Apricot dawnlight trickled through the leaves and puddled over the casement.
The woman dipped a curtsy and laid clothing on top of the dresser. “Good morning, Lady. Lord al Seth has requested that you join him for breakfast at your convenience.” She stepped into the bathroom and water gurgled and splashed into the tub. “And he says the rest of your luggage should arrive later today. Do you need any assistance?”
“No, thank you. Tell Lord al Seth I’ll be with him soon.”
The maid nodded and ducked out the door, giving Isyllt a glimpse of the armed guard standing in the hall.
For her own protection, of course.
She washed her hair twice and combed it with oil, and still had to rip out several knots. The dusty-sweet scent of lavender soap clung to her in a cloud, like a stranger leaning over her shoulder. She pinned up the damp length of her hair and dressed in the trousers and long blouse the maid had left. They were too short, but at least
