Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (48 page)

“I did. Someone needs to tell the Degaths to renew their petition to the Council.” I grin at Kenta. “This is where it will happen. Not Karolene. And not the Burnt Lands. The Ghost needs you here. We all do.”

“I’m sure the Ghost will send others.”

How many others are there? Unless the Shadow League has grown by leaps and bounds, I suspect there are only a few who would be willing to devote their all to it. The rest have families, occupations, lives they cannot leave on a moment’s notice.

“At least agree to come back once I’ve reached the desert,” I say. “Blackflame’s current position is the most precarious it’s been in years. If there isn’t someone from the League here to watch, to take advantage, we may miss an opportunity that won’t come again.”

He shrugs. “I gave my word to the phoenix. I’m not letting you out of my sight till I’m sure you’re safe.”

Safe is not a state I think I’ll ever achieve. I try a different approach, “Blackflame has a source slave
.
A boy. I don’t know his name, but I saw him after Blackflame used him. He was so weak he couldn’t stand, could barely speak. Steal him, break the bond on him, and Blackflame will think you’re me — because I mentioned the boy before the Council. He knows it made me furious. He’ll put all his efforts into searching the city. And it will continue to undermine him in the eyes of the Council.”

Kenta doesn’t answer, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. Faintly, a long eerie wail begins, so far away it has the tinny unreality of a half-imagined sound. My eyes go to the horizon. Far off in the distance, a pale pinkish cloud rises above the faint outline of buildings. It’s the smoke barrier above the Mekteb’s walls, barely discernible from such a distance, but there nonetheless.

“We need to move,” Kenta says abruptly, shuttering the lantern. “There’s someone waiting for you by the wall.”

It takes me a moment. “Stormwind’s still here? She should have left by now!”

Kenta snorts, starting forward. “You expected her to leave while you were being held prisoner?”

I break into a shuffling run, heading toward the low boundary wall, the figure that has just stood up from its shadow. It didn’t occur to me that Stormwind might endeavor to help me as much as I tried to help her. Especially considering the Council is hunting her.

“Hitomi?” Stormwind says as I pass over the ward stones spread around her sheltered spot. I ignore the faint twinge of magic, reaching out with my good arm to wrap her in a hug.

She chuckles softly, the sound breathy with relief as she hugs me back.

“You’re not angry?” I ask finally, stepping back.

“I feared you were dead,” she says. “I was so relieved to see you walk into my cell, it’s been hard to get too angry.”

“Why would you think I was dead?”

“The house wards were destroyed,” she reminds me. “I asked that the Council look into it, but….”

“I left before that,” I assure her. “Someone stole your mirror and tried to use a locator spell on it. We should probably thank them.”

She shakes her head. Despite the faint smile on her lips she looks old, as if she’s aged ten years in the last few weeks. But she still holds herself straight, her bun as severe as always, gaze as shrewd as I’ve come to expect. I’m glad of these things, that her trial and short imprisonment haven’t robbed her of them.

“You’re a fool,” she says. Her voice sounds strangely rough. “You should never have come after me.”

I open my mouth to argue, but Kenta cuts me off. “The alarm’s already been raised. Tomi, you need to change and then we’ll start moving. You can talk while we travel. Stormwind has clothes for you.”

I nod.

“Be quick.” He starts back to the grove.

Stormwind passes me a stack of clothes. I take them and squat down to change, beside the wall. “Where are we headed from here?”

“North. About four hours walking will get us to a town. By dawn, there should be horses waiting for us there. We would have met you closer to it, but we only had so much time to get here at all.”

I nod, trading my creased white
selvar
for a faded and frayed one. I’m not sure I’ll make it four hours, but there’s no point worrying about it.

“Where will you go from there?” Not the desert — that much I’ve already deduced.

“To the Northland Council.”

My hands still on the knot and loop closures of my tunic. “The
what
?”

She offers me a wry smile. “They do have their own council, even if we have a permanent delegate appointed to it. And … Blackflame will not expect me to go there. If I can gain their support, it may help in opposing his longer term plans. Although he likely has most of their arch mages in hand already. At any rate, if anyone is to do it, I should.”

I start to ask her what she means, but she’s not looking at me anymore. Her eyes have fastened on my hands, the dark swirls and scrolls that skim the edges of my knuckles. She steps forward, taking my good hand and sliding up the sleeve so that the moonlight falls bright on the markings there.

“Oh, Hitomi,” she whispers, and in the speaking of my name I hear sorrow and anguish and a love I did not know she held for me. Here is what I wished for from my mother.

“It’s all right,” I say, my voice cracking. We both know it for a lie.

“I am sorry for it,” she says. “And sorry that you already knew so much of pain that you could embrace it as you must have.”

I smile so she won’t see my sorrow. “It burned. I already taught myself all about that.”

“So you did.” She lets my arm go. “Were you bound as well?”

“No.”

“That will make it easier.”

“Easier?”

“If you were bound, your master would be able to trace you no matter how strong a charm you wore unless we could find a mage capable of breaking the bond. Nor would you be able to control their pull on your power. But if you were only marked, they have no hold on you.”

She glances toward the palm grove. “Here, let me help you finish changing.”

She helps me work my arm out of my tunic, taking a moment to inspect my wound in the moonlight. “It’s healing well. Try to be as gentle as possible with it. Stretch it out thrice daily to make sure you retain full movement.”

“I’ll try,” I say grimly, shimmying out of the gray tunic and pulling on the patched one they’ve given me in its place. “What about the markings?” I ask through gritted teeth.

She makes no answer.

I look over my shoulder at her. “They’re spell made. There must be a counter-spell.”

“None that I ever heard of.”

I bite my lip, concentrating on fastening buttons. No apparent hope, but no time to dwell on it either. We need to run before the search widens past the city. If there’s anything else I need to ask…
.
“What about the spell binding you?”

“It will fade in strength until I am able to break it myself. It should take no more than a week.”

“Ready?” Kenta calls from the darkness.

“Yes,” she replies, thrusting my clothes into a pack and holding it out to me. “Hitomi, this is yours.”

A smile touches my lips as I take it from her. There is something inexplicably wonderful about getting back what I left behind.

“There’s food and we’ve refilled your flask. There’s a pouch of coins from the Degaths that ought to keep you well should you two get separated.”

“Disguises ready?” Kenta asks as he reaches us.

“Here.” Stormwind hands me a hammered silver band set with an oval of green malachite, a man’s bracelet.

The moment I clamp the band over my wrist, I feel the faint tingle of magic. Kenta’s grin widens to an all-out smile. I look down at myself, the men’s
selvar
, faded white tunic with billowing sleeves, and short, dark vest over a completely flat chest. I’m a boy. My hands appear larger, stronger, and somewhat hairier than I have ever wished them. And completely unmarked. I stare at them a moment longer, the skin pale in the moonlight, free of ink.

“It’s a glamor I purchased from that theater troupe’s costume master,” Kenta says, clearly enjoying my bewilderment. “The same one who sold me the mage glamor.”

“Unless you’re directly confronted by a mage who’s looking for you,” Stormwind tells me, “the glamor should hide you quite well. Besides, it’s better than mine.” She wraps a natty red triangle scarf over her head, knotting it beneath her chin, and transforms into a stocky old peasant woman, wide face creased with age, callused hands still strong.

“How is being a boy better?”

Kenta turns a look of pure disbelief on me.

“No one will take notice if you need to run,” Stormwind says pragmatically.

True enough. “I suspect running is something I have a lot of experience with.”

Kenta snorts and starts forward at a brisk pace, following the wall to the road. The peasant woman who is Stormwind shakes her head as we fall into step behind him. “It doesn’t make a good life, though,” she says dryly.

“Neither does hiding,” I point out.

“There’s nowhere left to hide now,” Stormwind says. “And only so much time left to run.”

Kenta walks some distance ahead of us, keeping a watch for anyone traveling toward us. Stormwind and I are under strict orders to get off the road should he signal us.

As we walk, I run through our earlier conversation, coming back to her words about going north. “You said Blackflame might already have the Northland Council in hand,” I say, glancing at her. “Does he have some plan beyond becoming first mage?”

She reaches out a hand to touch my shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself for that.”

Anger and regret twist in my gut at her words. “Why shouldn’t I? When I broke you out, I
gave
him the High Council.”

Stormwind lets out a harsh bark of laughter. “No, Hitomi. He would have had it eventually. You merely gave him an earlier opportunity than he expected.”

“I always thought he wanted Karolene. He wanted the High Council as a whole.”

“No, he wants it all. He wants the Eleven Kingdoms to serve the Northlands. He will force them to bow to the Northland king of his choosing.”

“A king? Why would he choose a king?”

“Kings are easily controlled by a man such as him. With the king will come an army, a fleet of ships, and a certain legitimacy Blackflame will never have on his own.”

I stare down the long silvered line of the road, the dark form of Kenta far ahead. “Well,” I finally say, “I guess we’re just going to have to do something about him.”

Stormwind’s gaze flicks to the backs of my hands. She makes no other answer.

“I told the Council about his assassination of old Lord and Lady Degath. Their investigation might not stop him, but it will slow him down for a while, don’t you think?”

Stormwind nods, but there is no surety in it. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I cannot say what he would do, but he’s not the kind of man who lets power slip through his fingers. If the Council tries to remove him, he might attempt to destroy the Council itself.”

“He— he can’t do that.”

“Blackflame will do whatever he deems necessary.”

He will. I can feel the truth of her words deep in my bones. Outing Blackflame before the Council may have been the most dangerous thing I could do. The worst of what he will do is yet to come. He will hold on to the power he has gained with every weapon in his arsenal.

“How do you know so much about him?” I ask Stormwind. “And why did he go after you?”

Stormwind doesn’t answer at once. The high wail of the Mekteb’s siren drifts over the fields, faint and unrelenting. When she speaks, it is with regret. “You don’t yet know my history, do you?”

“I know you’re innocent of what he charged you with.”

“Innocence isn’t everything.”

“What do you mean?” A cold dread settles in my stomach. This isn’t right. Stormwind hasn’t done anything. She’s innocent. That’s what’s kept me going. But I know I’m wrong. I’ve always known I might be wrong, because Stormwind held her secrets so tightly
,
all I’ve ever known is the mage of the valley. Who or what she was before, I have no idea. And I have not dared to ask anyone else.

“Twenty years ago I fell in love with a young mage from the Northlands. I had been apprenticed in the Eleven Kingdoms, and he in the Northlands, but we shared our heritage and— he had a way about him.” She stares down the road, her eyes trained on a past I cannot see. “He dreamt of helping our people, of raising them in power and making them again a force to be reckoned with. He believed that it could be done if only we Northland mages banded together.”

“What are you saying?” I ask, my voice uneven.

“Blackflame is — or once was — my husband.”

My mind goes blank. I stare at her. I cannot make sense of her words.

“I helped him gain recognition as a high mage by the Council, and make the connections he would need to be elected as an arch mage. It was then, when I saw what he was willing to do to achieve his vision, that I began to understand what I had done, what I was doing. I left him mere weeks before he poisoned your father for opposing his election as arch mage, and for assuring that he was placed over the smallest of the Eleven Kingdoms.”