'How does it look?'
'A little long for you. But it was made for a man.'
Her fingers ran down the bones. Then she arched her back in a brief stretch, yawned, pushed to her feet. 'I need to find a bush,' she said, 'and then I'm going to bed. Could you tend the horses?'
I nodded, leaning forward to add a couple of broken branches to the coals. Del disappeared. I got up and went to refill the horse buckets, check the picket pegs, exchange a few pleasantries with the stud, who had indicated no particular joy at having me back in charge of things; I made my own pre-bedtime donation, then settled down again beside the fire.
Del was gone longer than anticipated. When she came back, it was without the necklet.
I frowned. 'What happened?'
She was arranging her bedding. 'I found a bush.'
'Not that. What happened to the necklet?'
One hand flew to her chest. She looked down, then back at me. 'It must have broken.'
She did not sound very concerned, which annoyed me; the necklet had been a gift. 'It was wire, Del.' I sighed, shutting my mouth on a complaint; she was clearly too tired to discuss it. 'I'll go look.'
'Oh Tiger, just wait until tomorrow. There's not enough light to see by.'
I gathered bunched legs beneath me to push myself upright. 'I'll just poke around anyway.'
She uncoiled in a single sinuous motion and stepped beside the small fire, sword in hand. The tip kissed my throat, holding me in a kneeling position.
I was stunned. 'Del —
Tersely she said, 'You won't find it, Tiger. I buried it.' Coal-glow painted her face into relief, underscoring the hard set of her jaw, the jut of sharp cheekbones. 'I was hoping there would be no need for this. But it's time you came to understand that something is indeed very wrong with you. And has been since you took up with Oziri.'
I was frozen in place, caught between rising and sitting. It was not an appropriate position for oblique movement, which I realized was deliberate. Del knew me. Knew how I moved. Knew how to effectively put a halt to any intentions I might devise.
She wore the mask I'd seen displayed to opponents. 'Do you wish to try me, Tiger?'
I eased myself down. My own sword, still sheathed in its harness, was within reach, but I knew better than to dare it with her blade at my throat. 'You didn't want to see the necklet,' I accused. 'You wanted to get rid of it.'
Del said nothing.
'What is it you think is 'wrong' with me?'
She ignored the question. 'Tell me again how many days it's been since the sandtiger attack.'
I held myself very still. 'Six or seven. Why?'
'How many days were you at Umir's?'
'Two or three. Why?'
'How many days did we stay with the Vashni?'
I wanted to laugh, but didn't. Not with the sword at my throat. 'Del, this is—'
'How many, Tiger?'
My teeth clicked together.
The tip bit in. 'Answer me.'
'Five.'
'And how many since we sparred? You know—the match you say I walked away from.'
'Three or four, I think.' I drew in a careful breath. 'You really have lost track of time.'
She bit down on a sharp blurt of disbelieving laughter. 'I have—?' But she checked it visibly. I saw something in her face, something like pain. But the sword did not waver. The tip had seated itself in the hollow of my throat. The cut stung.
I attempted sympathy. 'Bascha, put it away. You're exhausted and confused. You need more rest—'
She cut me off. 'What I need is for you to come to your senses. To realize what he's done to you.'
'What who's done to me? What are you talking about?'
Her tone was bitter as winter ice. 'The Vashni.'
'Oziri? Hoolies, bascha, he was helping me learn how to—' I stopped. Couldn't breathe.
'How to what?' she asked, when I didn't finish.
Something built up in my chest. Something that twisted. Something that threatened to burst. I felt as if I were on the verge of a firestorm.
Oh, hoolies. Oh, gods, no …
Del's tone changed. No longer was there challenge. Now there was expectation. 'How to what, Tiger?'
I couldn't speak. The heat, the pressure increased. Pain filled my chest.
Her tone was almost a whisper. 'Say it.'
I took the step into conflagration. Denial kindled, exploded, then crisped into ash. Was blown away. Comprehension, confession, slow and painful, began to come into its place.
I couldn't say it.
'He did this,' she said. 'The Vashni. He did something to you. Now do you understand why I wanted to leave?'
Years of being stubbornly, selectively blind and deaf to certain impulses and speculations had created habits I found comforting. Habits that I could live with. Denial afforded me freedom. But I had stopped denying it in Oziri's presence. Had accepted it.
'Say it, Tiger. What he was teaching you. Admit it.'
A spasm ran through my body. The words, slow, halting, laden with need, seem to come from someone else. 'How to work magic.'
Oh, hoolies . . . Memories came back then, came pouring back, tumbling one over the other like stones in a flash flood. I took what I could of them and fitted them into a whole. Hours. Days, weeks. All had been lost to the dream-walks, the learning of the art. Now I understood Del's concern. Del's fear. Her desperation.
The Vashni had indeed done something to me: stolen sense, taken time. Turned me from my course. Set me on a new one.
Nihko had begun the process. Sahdri had explained it. Oziri had advanced it.
Oh, but it was so much easier to disbelieve, when faced with a terrible truth. A truth I could not accept, because the fear of it would overpower me. Incapacitation. I might as well be dead.
And I would be dead, according to the priest-mages of ioSkandi. To Umir's book.
Why would any man wish to be a mage, if the cost was so high?
Why would I?
I wished it because I'd wanted it. Needed it in the nights of my childhood, desperate to escape the Salset and the life of a chula: dreaming of a sandtiger, making it come to life; dreaming of Del atop the stone spire, who replaced a stolen scar and thus identity; dreaming of a boat to carry me to Skandi.
The intent had not been magic. Never. I had only ever, a very few times, wished to make a miracle to change what I could not bear.
Messiahs made miracles. Mages made magic.
Maybe one and the same.
I swore, then drew up my knees and leaned over them, elbows planted, clenching taut fingers in my short hair. I wanted to pull it out by the roots, as if that would erase the knowledge of what Oziri had done. Of what I had become.
Dreams could merely be dreams. But dreams could also be more. Now I walked them. Began to understand them. Summoned the magic within them, using the power Oziri sought, and found, and rekindled within my bones.
Nihko had told me. Sadri had told me. I had denied them both. But somehow, with Oziri, I had not. Maybe it was because enough time had passed since my 'whelping' atop the spire. Maybe it was because I was in the South again, and my walls were down. Or maybe it was because Oziri forced the issue. Whatever the reason, he had
