The Tainted City (18 page)

Indeed, relief was plain not only on Ruslan’s face, but Mikail’s and Lizaveta’s. Kiran isolated the last strand of his damaged memories, and got a quicksilver flash of fire and agony.

“A spell backlash? But…what spell? Was I the one casting? What
happened
?”

Ruslan said, “You and Mikail cast a spell to create a tenth-level
voshanoi
charm, but your channel pattern was not designed properly and could not contain the energies. As the focus, you took the brunt of the backlash.”

Kiran felt the blood drain from his face.
Voshanoi
charms were meant to shield a mage from the great forces of the confluence while casting, and as such, required equally immense amounts of power to create. Truly, he was lucky to be alive. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I must have been too eager to cast. I should have asked you to check the pattern first…”

Ruslan stopped his words with a finger. “Do not trouble yourself; the error was not yours.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder at Mikail, his expression darkening. “Mikail has already paid the price for his mistake.”

Mikail bowed his head. Kiran swallowed. He didn’t even want to imagine the punishment Ruslan would have inflicted for an error of that magnitude. The ache in his head increased. Kiran rubbed at his brow, wishing the pain would fade so he could think properly.

“Does your head hurt,
akhelysh
? Let me see…” Ruslan set his hands to Kiran’s temples. His presence filled Kiran’s head, red fire in a banked glow rather than a blaze. Soothing warmth spread through Kiran’s mind. He sighed in relief as the ache dwindled to a faint soreness.

“That’s better, is it not?” Ruslan withdrew his hands. “Now you are awake and I can properly assess the damage, I can speed your healing further.” He turned to Mikail. “Bring me a
zhivnoi
crystal.”

“Yes, Ruslan.” Mikail hurried from the room.

“I will heal, then? This damage to my mind and memories…it isn’t permanent?” Kiran couldn’t help the desperate note to his voice. His
ikilhia
, so bruised and faint…what if the backlash had crippled him? He could dimly sense the deep, swirling pulse of confluence energy beyond the room’s wards, but little else.

Ruslan chuckled, soft and knowing. “You fear for your magic, do you? You needn’t. Your
ikilhia
will regain its strength soon enough.”

“What about my memories?”

Regret shadowed Ruslan’s eyes. “I fear the missing ones are lost forever.
Ikilhia
may be resilient, but the mind is a strangely fragile thing, sometimes.”

“But so many are gone…” Kiran concentrated again. Frayed threads were all he had of recent years, though further back the holes diminished, until at last the ribbon of memory ran smooth again through his childhood, all the way back to the old wall that had always blocked him from his earliest days. “If I can’t remember what Mikail and I learned of spellcasting—if I have to study it all again, it’ll take years to recover!”

“You may not need to relearn as much as you fear, little one.” Lizaveta padded forward to stand beside Ruslan. “I have seen mages endure this type of damage before. Knowledge that is internalized and regularly used will often remain when memories are lost. Even if not…time is one gift we
akheli
have in abundance.”

Ruslan nodded. “Mikail will gladly help you. The moment your
ikilhia
recovers, he can take you through the progression of exercises you learned together, and we will soon see what gaps in your learning must be remedied.”

“How long must I wait before casting?” Even if he found he had to relearn all his spellcraft, knowing the long path ahead would be better than the horrible uncertainty he felt now.

Ruslan smiled at him in fond approval. “Not long at all. If your recovery proceeds as I hope, you’ll be casting again within days.”

“Though a further delay might be wise.” Lizaveta laid a ringed hand on Ruslan’s shoulder. “Go gently with him, mage-brother, if you do not wish to risk losing him. We came too close, as it was.”

Ruslan’s hazel eyes gained a hint of frost. “He is my
akhelysh
, Liza, not yours. It is my decision to make, and I will do what is best for him.”

Lizaveta’s kohl-lined eyes lowered, and her red lips curved. “I know it, brother mine.” She bent, her shining black hair spilling over one crimson-clad shoulder to pool on Kiran’s bedsheet, and kissed him softly. “Welcome back to us, little one. I am glad to see you well.”

Her jasmine scent and the honey-sweet taste of her lips left him pleasantly light-headed. “Thank you, khanum Liza,” Kiran said, and smiled at her.

“Ah, Kiran.” She traced a finger down his cheek. “I feared I might never again see your smile.”

He’d assumed the accident with the spell had been mere days ago, but Lizaveta’s tone suggested it had been longer. “How long have I been unconscious?”

“Only a day,” Ruslan said. “Our fear for you made it feel an eternity.” He turned to Lizaveta and spoke words full of harsh consonants and liquid vowels. Kiran recognized the language as that of Ruslan and Lizaveta’s long-ago childhood, a tongue Kiran and Mikail knew only in scattered words and phrases. Ruslan had never taught them more, saying he preferred to keep some things private between himself and his mage-sister.

Lizaveta answered in kind, her head tilting. Ruslan’s eyes softened. He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. “Perhaps,” he said. “As you said, we must take care.”

Mikail strode back into the room bearing a faceted black crystal. The red gleam at the stone’s center made Kiran uneasy without knowing why.
Zhivnoi
crystals held stored life energies, ready for a mage’s use in minor spellcasting. Kiran had used them countless times throughout his childhood. Perhaps the shiver along his nerves was some lingering memory of the spell that had injured him.

Ruslan took the stone. “Relax now, Kiran, and let us see if we cannot heal you faster…” He folded the sheet down to bare Kiran’s chest.

Kiran started at the sight of the red and black sigil etched into the skin over his heart. Ruslan’s
akhelsya
sigil…Kiran had already been through the
akhelashva
ritual, then? He knew Mikail bore the mark-bond, could even summon a brief image of the pride shining in Mikail’s gray eyes as he showed Kiran the sigil on his chest…but of his own ritual, nothing.

Ruslan traced the sigil with one long finger. “You don’t remember. A shame, to lose a memory so sublime. But never fear,
akhelysh
, time will bring new ones.” He held the stone over Kiran’s heart.

Magic poured into Kiran in a smooth rush, shot through with the fire of Ruslan’s will. Kiran lay unresisting as Ruslan flowed through his body and mind, healing, adjusting, smoothing over the raw places. His eyes slipped shut, and he floated in red light for an indeterminate length of time. When the light faded, he felt too sleepy to open his eyes again.

“Rest, Kiran. Sleep, and let your mind heal,” Ruslan said softly. Kiran obeyed and sank into darkness.

Chapter Nine

(Dev)

I
clung in the inky shadows beneath a balcony, my back braced against stone and my toes and fingers dug into a worn pattern of vines carved into the supports. Across the dark void of the alleyway, the arched window of Red Dal’s Tainter den glowed warm with lanternlight through a linen curtain. Enough light spilled through to show the wards surrounding the window. They were carefully placed, extremely nasty, and new. Looked like Red Dal had gotten just as twitchy as everyone else in the city.

My right calf muscle spasmed. I eased my foot free, flexed the ankle a few times, and stabbed my toes into a new hold that at least taxed my thigh muscle instead of the calf. Khalmet’s hand, and here I’d thought scouting Simon’s house from that damn drainhole in Kost was uncomfortable.

Hopefully I wouldn’t have to stay braced under the balcony much longer. Full dark had arrived, the stars a diamond spray above the ragged lines of the rooftops. Magelights sparkled in the distant highside towers, and a chaotic babble of streetsellers’ calls underlaid by the thump of tabis drums echoed from the alley’s mouth. If Red Dal’s Tainters were working a job tonight, they’d be leaving any minute.

His den minder Liana was too wary of Cara to let her see Melly in person. Me, she would’ve welcomed; we’d been Tainters together, and I’d dropped by the den often enough in the past. But I didn’t fool myself those visits had been kept secret from Red Dal. I didn’t think Liana would lie to Cara about Melly, but today, trust came hard. I had to see Melly for myself. Make sure of the one whisper of hope in this whole disaster, that I’d reached Ninavel in time to save her.

Even if I couldn’t save Kiran. Fear still ate at me that within Ruslan’s house I’d find only an empty-eyed puppet with Kiran’s body. I sent a quick, fervent prayer to Khalmet, begging him to favor Kiran with the touch of his good hand. Kiran would need god-given luck to survive Ruslan intact, let alone escape him again.

The curtain twitched, and my breath quickened. A hand drew the curtain aside to reveal Red Dal himself. A bitter pang shot through me at the sight of his dark curls and wiry shoulders. I was too far away to see his face clearly, but I knew just what it’d show: the laughing eyes, the mischievous grin that invited you to share the joke. Kids loved him. Other handlers kept their Tainters leashed with drugs or painbender charms, but Red Dal prided himself on doing it through sheer force of personality. It might’ve been better if he’d used fear to keep us motivated. Maybe then the fall wouldn’t have been so hard.

Red Dal opened the window and leaned out to touch each ward in turn. The sly bastard probably hadn’t keyed the wards to anyone but himself.

He backed away, replaced by the eager faces of children, Melly’s foremost among them. My heart twisted in my chest. Mother of maidens, but she looked like Sethan! It wasn’t just her hair, the deep, vivid red of magefire flame. She had his long-limbed, graceful build, too, and a certain way of tilting her head, so familiar it made my breath catch.

Her long-lashed almond eyes and caramel skin must have come from her dead Arkennlander mother. The combination of traits was striking; where Sethan had been merely handsome in a foreign sort of way, Melly looked to match Kiran for jaw-dropping beauty when she grew up. Easy enough to see why Karonys House was panting after her. Red Dal could make more on her sale than he had on all his previous Tainters combined.

Melly said something to little dark-haired Jomi beside her and slid an arm around the boy to squeeze his shoulders. The mature confidence of the gesture cramped my gut. Even in the few months since I’d last seen her, she’d grown several inches. How much longer before her Change? Weeks, or mere days?

The light went out. Silently, small bodies swarmed out the window and up the wall to crouch on the roof’s edge. Melly was easy to recognize even with her red hair hidden by darkness, thanks to her relative height compared to the younger Tainters. An adult crawled from the window up to the roof, moving far more awkwardly. From the build, it wasn’t Red Dal, only one of his minders. Most of them treated climbing as an irritating necessity rather than a passion. We’d mocked them behind their backs in my day, safe in our assumed superiority.

Once the minder reached the roof, they were off, flitting across the stone like shadows. I watched them go, and only after they were out of sight realized my teeth were clenched so hard my jaw ached.

I’d hoped seeing Melly would reassure me. Instead, the drumbeat of urgency that haunted me had increased. Nobody could predict the Change exactly, but when it came, it happened quick. I remembered my own all too well. One day I’d been boss Tainter of the gang, able to fly faster and lift more weight than any other kid. Next night, I’d had to ask for help wafting loot down a tower. Red Dal had come the next morning and tested me; gods, the awful pit in my stomach when I’d found I could barely lift myself head-high. The other kids had been wide-eyed and solemn when Red Dal told them I had to leave for my new family. I’d joked and pretended not to care, though inside it felt like I’d swallowed ground glass.

I should’ve listened to that feeling. I sheered off from the memories of what came after, when I found all Red Dal’s breezy talk of a new family was a lie. The black hell I’d endured in Tavian’s gang was a paradise compared to what waited for Melly.

Red Dal’s dark shape reappeared in the window. Faint blue flashes lit the darkness as he reactivated the wards. Once he shut the window and the curtain glowed with light again, I slithered sideways around a section of carved stonework and scrambled down to street level.

The evening crowds were out in full force. People choked streets lit by colored lanterns and firestone charms. Shops hawking everything from spice-infused liquors to sun shrouds had their shutters thrown wide, their wares displayed on tables edged with crude copper thief-wards. The pungent scents of curried meats and spicebread clogged the night air, and the ululating wails of demon singers soared over the cheers and catcalls of spectators ringing illusionists, acrobats, and storytellers.

The crowd’s babble had a nervous edge. Laughter sounded forced, and wrists gleamed with warding charms. But it was peak convoy season; enough wide-eyed, wardless foreigners wandered the night markets that I safely lifted enough coin to buy some low-grade but useful charms, along with a heaping bowl of rasheil-nut curry.

Another time I might have reveled in the spices exploding over my tongue, so welcome after months of bland Alathian mush. I might’ve sought out friends at the Blackstrike, joined them in drinking cinnamon-laced firewine and gambling with bloodstone tiles while we heckled our favorite performers. Or lost myself in the shifting rhythms pounded out by groups of tabis drummers, and spent long hours stamping and whirling in the knot of dancers surrounding them.

Tonight not even the insistent pulse of the drums could cut through the tangle in my head. Without Kiran’s help, stealing Melly away from a handler as wary and clever as Red Dal would be a hell of a trick. Especially since Melly herself wouldn’t want to go. No, she’d still be loving life as a Tainter, fiercely loyal to Red Dal and convinced of every lie he’d ever told her. Red Dal trained his Tainters well. He drilled into them from their earliest days in the den never to go anywhere with an adult unless he ordered it, not even someone as familiar as Liana. And Melly was Tainted enough to kick my ass ten times over if I tried using physical force.