Another shrug. “It’s anathema, and I was calmer then. Being bound gives one plenty of time to think.”
“What do you think about?”
“Revenge.”
Steel hissed and Isyllt spun, turning just in time to watch Deilin’s knife sink into her gut. It burned like ice, colder and cleaner than living pain. Deilin bared her teeth as she twisted the blade.
Silver-blue light spilled from the wound. Not blood, but life and magic. It hissed and steamed down the blade and Deilin jerked her hand away as it burned her fingers. The hungry ground swallowed what fell.
Isyllt touched the hilt and grinned. Light surrounded the phantom blade, dissolving it, absorbing it. An instant later, blade and wound vanished, leaving glowing drops on her fingers. Deilin gaped and Isyllt laughed.
“Not so easy, I’m afraid.” She reached out and touched the ghost’s face with a whispered word of banishment. Deilin vanished with a curse on her lips.
With the woman gone, Isyllt let go of her bravado and staggered to one knee, grunting with pain. Leaves crisped and crumbled where her unblood struck. Kiril’s voice rose in her mind, the echo of long-ago lessons.
Pride drove her to her feet, pride and the too-close growl of a spirit-beast drawn by the smell of shed magic. She reached for her heartbeat, and in the space of one found herself beside her body.
Zhirin slept, her face stained with tears. Some priests taught that death was an end to pain, but that was a lie. Sleep, at least, might keep it at bay for a time. Isyllt sank into her weary, aching flesh, bound herself with blood and bone, and let the darkness take her.
Xinai and Riuh made better time on the way back, marching through much of the night and finally reaching Cay Lin near midnight five days after they’d set out. Her legs ached to dragging from the pace she’d set and cramps twisted her guts-the sight of the ruined walls filled her with bittersweet relief. Perhaps Selei would be asleep, Xinai half hoped, and she could deliver the news in the morning.
But when the guard escorted them to her makeshift house, a light glowed inside. Xinai didn’t recognize the broken building and didn’t try to recall who had lived there so many years ago. Selei sat cross-legged on a bedroll, maps spread in front of her and the remnants of a meal set to the side. The old woman looked up as they entered and Xinai frowned-Selei might have aged years in the days they’d been gone. Unhappy lines seamed her face and her eyes were sunken and red-rimmed.
“Grandmother?” Riuh knelt in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
“More of us dead.” She shook her head, hair tangled and streaked with ashes. “The Khas attacked a Dai Tranh boat last night-no one survived. One of my oldest friends was aboard. My sisters, my cousins, my friends…So many of us fallen. Nearly a generation lost to Assari blades, or living clanless and alone in the city.”
Xinai knelt beside Riuh and took the old woman’s hand. So fragile and light in hers, and she swallowed around a sudden tightness in her throat.
Selei smiled, brief and bitter. “But grief is a luxury I shouldn’t indulge in yet. You found it.”
“Yes.” Xinai stripped the diamond charm off her neck, and only manners kept her from flinging it into the fire. She dropped it on a map instead. “On the eastern side of the mountain. They fish the stones from the river. It’s as you feared-prisoners die there and rot unsung.”
“Father might still be there,” Riuh said. “Or his ghost. We have to find out.”
Selei shook her head sadly. “This is greater than one family’s grief.”
“What, then?”
Her mismatched eyes narrowed, gleaming in the firelight. “We destroy the mine.”
“How can you destroy a river?” Xinai asked.
“I don’t know yet. We’ll find a way.” She slid a map out of the stack. “Show me where it is.”
Xinai leaned forward to mark the spot with a smudge of charcoal. “They’ve hung ghost-wards all around, but they’re only a distraction.” She fought a grimace as she rocked back on her heels; she’d begun to bleed.
Selei stared at the map, at the sinuous curves of the river and the sharp lines of the mountain. One thin, calloused finger tapped Mount Haroun slowly. “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that.”
The Ki Dai gathered at dawn. Xinai had never been introduced to the rest, or even known their names, but it wasn’t hard to guess-all those around her wore charms or witch-marks, and a chill followed them, greater than any one ghost. Shaiyung kept close, till Xinai’s arm tingled with cold.
A few protested at first as Selei laid out her plan. It was madness. If the mountain erupted, it would easily destroy the mine and the Kurun Tam mages responsible for it, but the jungle was sure to burn as well. But the more Selei talked, the more sense it made. The Assari had bound the mountain with magic as they’d bound the land with steel and stone-what better way to teach them the strength of a free Sivahra than to unleash the fire they tamed? The forest would grow back, unlike all the clansfolk who had died in the mines.
Soon the assembled witches nodded to the argument, and murmurs of assent rippled through the crowd. Their breath hung in shimmering plumes.
When the gathering dispersed, she escorted Selei back to her makeshift house. The fire had left her, and the old woman seemed frailer than ever, leaning on Xinai’s arm as they walked.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be on the mountain tonight, to make sure the bindings break. When you’re done with the wards, join me at the eastern rim of the cauldron.”
“Are you sure that’s safe? It’s a long climb-”
Selei snorted. “I’m not infirm yet. And I’ll have warriors with me, don’t worry. But I want you there as well. And your mother.”
“We’ll be there.”
“Thank you.” The woman’s fingers squeezed Xinai’s arm. “I’m glad you could be here for this. The more clans we have, the stronger we are.”
“Not much of a clan, are we?” She shrugged a shoulder toward Shaiyung.
“You don’t need to take the gray yet. You’re still young. More than one clan has been renewed from a single scion.”
Xinai chuckled. “Those stories were more heartening when it wasn’t my womb needed for the renewal.”
“It isn’t so bad. And I think you’ll find no few men willing to help you.”
“Now you sound like my mother.”
They passed a cooking fire and the smell of pork and curried lentils wafted around them. Smoke stung Xinai’s eyes and for an instant it was like looking through time. People moved in Cay Lin, cooking and talking, walking between the houses. She almost thought she heard a child’s high laughter. But was it the past she saw, or the future?
She shook her head and the illusion vanished, leaving only warriors breaking camp in the iron dawn.
Zhirin drifted in and out of sleep, surfacing at the sound of voices or footfalls or the clack of a tray, only to sink again. Dreams waited for her, circling like nakh in the deep-bright dreams and dark, ordinary and terrifying, till she couldn’t tell what was real.
Eventually she woke, blinking till her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her head felt stuffed with wool, sticky and dreamsick. She sat up with a wince, neck popping; her right arm tingled from being pinned against the floor. Rain rattled softly against the thatch roof.
She rubbed her face, pausing at the salt and snot crusted on her cheeks and lips. Rust-colored crescents darkened her fingernails and the heavy heron-ring gleamed on her hand. The bird’s topaz eye glittered coldly. A sick, hollow feeling opened in her stomach, and for a moment she thought she might vomit.
Cloth rustled and she started before recognizing Isyllt’s pale face in the gloom. The necromancer sat against the far wall, a blanket draped over her shoulders.
“There’s food,” she said softly, nudging a tray with her foot.
Zhirin shook her head, swallowing sour spit. “What time is it?”
“Just past dawn.”
She touched her head, frowning at a strange lingering tingle behind her eyes. “You spelled me.”
Isyllt shrugged. “I thought you needed it.”
With unsteady hands, Zhirin poured a cup of water. The first swallow eased the taste of salt and sleep and reminded her of her aching bladder.
