Chapter Four
THE DAY that Amarta escaped the capital city of the Arunkel empire was beyond strange.
What she had done at Otevan was beyond anything she could have imagined. In a rain of gold, she had saved the Lord Commander's life and reputation, and averted the full-out slaughter of his queen's army by the smaller Teva force. She had sat by his side as he lay dying, and told him why he must live.
Returning to the capital, he allowed Amarta to ride a horse rather than inside a windowless guarded wagon.
She saw it in his look. Something like respect.
But his gratitude would only stretch so far. Amarta had no hope that he would willingly release her, not after he'd worked so many years to get her in hand.
Amarta returned to a locked, guarded palace room, and resolved herself to spend her life here. He might let Dirina and Pas visit, at least.
Then, one morning, she glimpsed a hairline crack in the future. Thin as breath, unlikely as a falling star in the midday sun. A tangled bramble of timing.
It couldn't work.
It might.
Now, she told her guards, somehow persuading them to take her to see him. At the Lord Commander's office, Srel was just bowing out of the room a group in brown and gray livery. Srel gave her a warm smile, held her with a gesture, slipped inside, then ushered her within.
"Seer," Innel said, surprised. "Come in. What is it?"
She knew that she must be bold. Hesitation would cut the gossamer strand instantly. A wrong word would dissolve the chance.
"My freedom from the contract, Lord Commander," she said, straddling the future and the present, a tenuous hold on both. Flickers of light and darkness, of blood and death. "Release me. It will be worth a great deal to you to have done so."
He was silent for a long moment. He looked at her, then at the far wall, where a floor-to-ceiling map showed the Arunkel empire and the Perripin lands south. He looked again at her.
The future did not reassure. It was still unlikely, and reason told her that he would never free her from the contract. Why should he?
Then he did.
She had nothing to pack and no reason to delay. Her most precious things were Dirina and Pas, and despite everything—the years of running from this very man and his hirelings—despite the freedom that now opened to them—Dirina refused to leave this man named Nalas.
Amarta made every argument, every one that foresight could provide. Dirina would not budge.
Innel might still change his mind. Amarta could not wait.
So it was that hours later Amarta sat atop a beautiful bay mare that Innel had given her, and took the blue-and-white seashell that he handed up to her, which she had thought lost forever: her mother's last gift.
Then, in a moment odder than any she could remember, the Lord Commander of the Arunkel empire asked her what he could offer her to make her stay.
"Name it," he said.
"I want to be free of all this." Free of him. Free of Arunkel.
And she left. She rode south. With each step away from the capital, she felt liberated from Innel sev Cern esse Arunkel and free of the empire and its grip.
No longer hunted. She could go anywhere, do anything. Find out what she was.
This freedom was a glorious feeling, unlike any she had ever known.
It lasted a day.
Amarta was not likely to ever forget the moment she sealed the contract with Tayre.
To learn to live in the world. To understand yourself.
Along with Maris and her apprentice Samnt, they rode south. Tayre soon dropped back and followed at such a distance that Amarta often lost sight of him. Maris was taciturn with Amarta and impatient with Samnt.
Something, Amarta gathered, had happened between Maris and Tayre. But what?
The trip was long and quiet, and Amarta saw little of the man who was now contract-bound to her.
At Maris's land, Tayre stayed outside the mage's boundary wardstones. Amarta followed Maris and Samnt into the house atop the hill.
Amarta stood in the doorway of the room that she had shared with Dirina and Pas, and wondered what they were doing now in Arunkel. Waiting in some guarded room for Nalas to visit, when he was not too busy being the Arunkel Lord Commander's second? Was Pas being forced to wear the empire's colors? A fury began to swirl inside her. They would have been safe here.
A soft footstep behind her was Maris.
"End the contract, Amarta."
Memory served up a flash of Tayre's hand on hers, their palms touching, a nals coin between. Then the ritual reversal, Amarta's hand on top, the coin in his. The contract made, mage-witnessed, as sacred and secure as a contract could be.
"What?" Amarta asked, stunned. "I only just made it, Maris. You witnessed."
"Witnessed and regretted. Be free of him, Seer."
"No. Why do you say this?"
"I know what he did to you. It is written in the bones of your body."
Almost involuntarily, Amarta's left hand made a fist. She held it to her thigh protectively.
"You don't. You weren't there."
Maris's gaze went distant, and Amarta felt a warmth go through her. The mage had healed her once, years ago, and Amarta recognized the crawling sensation she felt now.
"Stop it," Amarta hissed.
The magic invasion into Amarta's body ceased.
Maris gestured at her fingers. "Let me heal what he has broken."
"No."
"Amarta, listen to me—"
"No!" Amarta tore past Maris and out of the house, descending the hill on foot, to find Tayre's camp.
"I could stay here with you," she said to him.
Tayre secured an oilskin tarpaulin between trees. Large insects hummed in the brush from under broad-leafed trees. Southern Perripur—the wet season. It would rain again soon.
He crouched down, setting large stones into a ring for a cookfire. "That won't improve her regard for me."
"Let's go somewhere else."
He rocked back onto his heels to look at Amarta. "You've been on the road a long time, Seer. Running. Hiding. A mage's protection is not to be discarded lightly. Take it, Amarta. Rest a while."
"For how long?"
A soft chuckle. "Until you are rested."
An infuriated orange-and-yellow bird chattered loudly from a high branch, then launched into the air in a flutter of wings. One tiny, bright orange fluff drifted down to the ground between them. Amarta picked up the small feather. Above, the bird winged south. She watched with longing.
"I have never traveled," she said softly, "but to run."
To flee him, but no need to say that.
"Let the mage care for you. Sleep in a bed while you can."
She stared back at him, wondering what the contract between them meant.
He studied her in return. A slow smile infused his expression and Amarta felt as if the sun caressed her cheek.
"I will be here when you return, Seer."
His words and smile took her breath away, her emotions plucked as if she were a lute.
Amarta did as Tayre advised, and slept in the mage's house, watching as Samnt began his apprenticeship.
If Amarta had ever imagined what it would be like, a mage's apprenticeship, it would have been nothing like this.
Hours would pass, Maris and Samnt sitting together in silence. They would take slow, wordless walks. Maris rarely spoke. When she did, her tone was sharp, impatient. Samnt must learn to read. He must learn to speak a new language. He must focus.
She wondered if the young man were surprised, or mystified, at the exacting and harsh Maris he saw now, if the mage seemed as strange to him as she did to Amarta.
One night, Amarta was woken by voices through the wall. Samnt's voice was high-pitched, nearly hysterical. Maris's reply was low, implacable.
Amarta slept more than she would have thought possible. Tayre had been right: she was bone-deep exhausted, and found herself shocked at how many hours each day she could spend in slumber.
But some nights she awoke in the dark, with a start, from dreams where a terrifying shadow waited in the bush. His face was hidden, but she knew who he was.
Who he had been.
Each morning, she left, and with each step down the steep road, she felt excitement tinged with apprehension. Past the wardstones, a right at the wild Tamarind, she would take the game trail through colorful snarls and weaves of Perripin jungle, across a footbridge that spanned a small, fast brook. There she would find the clearing of moss and fern where Tayre made his camp.
She refused to look into the future to know if he would be there. She needed to see it with her own eyes.
Each time that she saw Horse grazing and Tayre beyond, cooking or repairing some item, relief washed over her.
The sun had just topped the high eastern rise, turning the overhead canopy into a glowing, emerald green. Amarta settled herself on a half-log to watch Tayre prepare food. She'd timed it just right: he was just scraping food from a pan onto two plates.
Two plates. It filled her with an absurd joy.
They ate in an easy silence. Overhead, three long-necked birds trumpeted loudly, winging their way west.
West. To Senta? To Free Port and Kelerre? Some island across the Nelar Ocean?
Bit by bit Amarta's exhaustion had eased, and Tayre's many and fascinating stories took hold inside her, weaving vivid tales of mountains and cities, of the magi-khrastos—the mages' great works—across the world. She learned the Perripin language.
She would tell him that she was rested and ready to travel. He spoke first.
"There is something you should know."
A tingle of dread trickled through her.
"What?"
"How to end this contract."
Her mouth dropped open.
He held up a finger, a second one, then a third. "Say three times: 'I release you.' Then the contract is over, and we are both free of the bond. Do you understand?"
She dropped her spoon onto the plate full of food, and put it aside, appetite gone.
"Why do you tell me this?"
"It is your contract to begin, yours to end."
She stood, feeling inexplicably wounded. He followed her with his eyes. "I don't want to end it."
"You might, someday."
"No."
His eyebrows rose. "Is that a prediction?"
When she did not answer, he took another bite, chewing and swallowing as he watched her. "You must know how to end it."
"Or you could," she snapped back. "It's only a nals coin."
"You asked how long," he said. "Do you remember?"
She nodded, her feelings tangled.
"I said, 'As long as you need me. Until you release me.'"
He continued to eat, as if nothing had happened.
Confused, she sat again, and attempted another bite. He began to tell her a story, in Perripin, about the One, how it broke apart to become the Many, spinning off the Great Worms. The dragon sun, the serpent moon. Before she knew it, she had finished the food. So vividly did he speak that she was captivated and entirely forgot the earlier conversation, until the end of the day, as the sun set, and she walked up the hill to Maris's house.
A comfortable house that was nothing like a home.
Amarta thought of the farm woman who had taken them in for a time, and how at peace Amarta had felt. She remembered the dark halls of Kusan—the hidden city—and the warmth of the Emendi there who had given them sanctuary.
So elusive and fragile, that feeling of belonging. She wondered if she would know it again.
To this half-question, vision attempted answer. A din of splashes, many of them loud, none of them clear. She stopped on the steep road, trying to sort the images into sense.
Finally, in disgust, she brushed it all away, like the small biting flies that had come out with the dusk to swarm around her.
The mild Perripin spring warmed, then warmed some more. The land turned hot with summer, the muggy breeze scented with jasmine and lock-vine.
She gained competence with the Perripin language. Tayre taught her a simpler language, one of subtle taps and finger signs. She watched his hands move like a dance.
Fascinated and inspired, she was about to show him some of the Emendi signs that she had learned in Kusan. Her hands were raised when she froze, alarm coursing through her, her pulse speeding.
It took her a long moment to understand why.
He was the reason that she and Dirina and Pas had fled Kusan, abandoned what could have been their home. Him.
Hands lowered, she sat down heavily on the half-log. She felt shaken.
For a time he said nothing. Then he resumed the lesson.
Late one afternoon, feeling bold, Amarta left the mage's house with her bedroll tucked under her arm.
She had timed her departure so that the mage's attention would be deep on Samnt, so Maris scowled at Amarta as she walked through the main room, but did not break whatever mysterious teaching she was engaged with to voice objection.
Nor did Tayre say anything when Amarta laid out her bedroll near his.
Hope dawned as the sun set in a wash of fruit-orange and blood red. Fronds and leaves and vines lost their emerald brilliance, tree trunks turning to washed-out browns and greens against the night's black. The stars came out.
A thin crescent moon hung amid wisps of clouds. The Serpent Moon, spun to its monthly finest. Near it was a star, bright and lonely. If the star fell, it seemed to Amarta, the bowl of the moon would catch it.
But what if the star were heavier than the moon realized? Would the bowl shatter into a thousand pieces?
Amarta did not even notice when she drifted off, not until she woke to starlight. In her sleep she had inched closer to him, near enough to see his face, his lashes, his hand cradling his head as he slept. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, the hint of pulse at his neck, and marveled at how beautiful he was.
And how close. Close enough to touch.
What would happen, she wondered, if she reached out a finger to trace a line from under his chin, down his neck to where his shirt opened to reveal the top of his collarbone? With trepidation, she edged open the door of vision.
His eyes opened, narrowed, as he stared at her. Flatly, without invitation.
Stung, she rolled over on her back, feeling the cold weight of a refusal that had not even happened.
Why did he say no?
Above, the crescent moon—shattered or whole—had fled the sky.
They were now days out of the seaside town of Mutarka, with its puppet show and bright shells and laughing crowds. Here, high in the Shentaret mountains, they rode toward the mage's land.
As the sun began to sink in the sky, they turned the horses from the main road to take a side path that led to the banks of a hushing river. They dismounted at a stretch of sand and rocks surrounded by a tangle of madrone trees adorned with fuzzy webs of fern-vines and snap-flowers.
Tayre unpacked cheese and dried meat, set it out on the rocks for their meal.
"There must be others," Amarta said, watching him. "Not street-corner fortune tellers like that old woman, but those who are known for their seeing."
"Certainly. The Handless of Vilaros, who supposedly feel the weave of the future with their missing fingers. The Saripechi Waterfall where priests read fortunes from the stunned bodies of the fallen fish. The Heart of Seuan who is said to predict Eufalmo swarms. The Stone Lady's tears that make a map of time."
"The Monks of the Revelation," Amarta added, recalling the old woman's words. "But you don't think any of this is true."
"No."
"But if there are so many stories, there must be some truth to some of them, right?"
"Hope makes people easy to fool."
"That's so," she said, thinking of the many she had given visions to across her life, from poor villagers to rich lords, all of whom already knew the answers they wanted from her.
As they set out bedrolls, his scent wafted to her on the breeze, and she wondered how close to put hers to his.
Only then did it occur to her that when he spoke of hope, he was referring to her. Was she easy to fool, because she hoped to find others like herself?
Or did he mean that her desire for him blinded her?
He had once told her that her face was a window, her thoughts were so easy to read. If so, as he sat there, his face was a wall.
"Why will you not touch me?" she blurted. "To learn about myself and the world. Surely that should include this. The one time that we coupled—" Or was it two times? She wasn't quite sure how such things were counted. "—that cannot have been everything I ought to know about it. Can it?"
"Not everything, no," he said, amusement in his tone. "You should learn more. A good deal more. But perhaps not with me."
"Why not with you?"
In the dark, he considered her a moment, then gestured an invitation to sit closer.
Her breath quickened. She searched the future to see if it led where she wanted to go, and found many moments in which she sat as she was now, looking into the future. While here, in the actual moment, she was still looking.
Exhaling a wordless frustration, she dismissed it all, and moved closer. Close enough to touch, but not touching.
He held out a hand, palm up, and she reached for it. Halfway there she realized that it was her left hand, the one with the fingers that he had broken. In her knuckles the ache flared.
She froze, hand in mid-air. A dark room. Lamplight flickering on the stone walls. The hard edge of a table. Before she could stop herself, she snatched back her hand.
His own hand returned to his leg. "Too soon. Your fear of me fades slowly, like a late spring melt."
"I'm not afraid," she said forcefully.
"No?" he asked.
"No."
Ever so slowly, slowly enough that she had plenty of time—time to refuse, to twitch, to recoil—he reached out his hand again, this time to her face, the backs of his fingers passing gently across her cheek.
A caress, light as the brush of a butterfly's wing.
She held her breath, knowing it was a test, determined to pass.
His dark eyes watched. The eyes of a hunter.
Deep inside, something trembled. She shuddered.
A rueful look crossed his face. He drew his hand back again.
"Some parts of you want my touch. Others don't. They must all agree. It needs more time."
More time.
Her tone dropped. "If you don't desire me, why don't you just say so, instead of talking about time?"
He took a breath, let it out slow, looked up into the dark canopy of trees. "If I agree with the premise of your question, you'll feel as though I've hit you." He thumped his sternum lightly. "But if I tell you that you're wrong, you'll fight even harder to induce me to say yes. In neither case do you have the chance to catch up to yourself."
"I don't need time. I need—" She swallowed. "That first time, you were—you were competent." Better than competent, she suspected. Those hours had been delicious. "Have you forgotten how it's done? Maybe it was just luck that you got through it at all." She chomped down on the awkward, biting words, rubbing sweaty hands on her trousers, angrily ignoring the ache in the fingers of her left hand.
"That first time," he said, slowly, as if choosing his words, "when you asked me, the contract to which I had then bound myself, and your wish, were in alignment. Now, my contract and your wish are not. At least, not yet."
Not yet.
Hope rose in her, as he must surely have known it would.
She shook her head, angry again. "How does this contract work, in which you are supposed to help me understand myself and the world, yet when I ask you to teach me something important, you refuse?"
He nodded. "It's a puzzle. But not every wheel can be made to turn faster. I do what I can. I do what I must."
There seemed nothing else to say.
That night she lay awake for hours, watching the half-moon crawl across the sky. She considered wheels, seasons, and puzzles.
Finally, she inched her bedroll away. Close enough to be companionable, but not so close that the scent of him would keep her awake.
Late spring melt indeed.
Midday, they reached Maris's land, crossing the ensorcelled watchstones that marked the boundary. Amarta strained to feel anything, even a tingle. But Maris had made her welcome, and the stones knew it.
Tayre could now pass only because Amarta had told Maris, before she'd left, that keeping him away meant he could not protect her if he needed to.
Still, it was not a warm welcome.
"What does it feel like?" she asked.
"A fast fall into an icy stream."
She thought of him naked and wet, but no—he'd be dressed. Wet clothes, then. The image was distracting.
They surged up the incline, eager to get to the stables they knew were there, for water and feed. Amarta and Tayre tended to them, then went into the house to unpack the supplies they had brought for Maris.
Amarta arranged various brightly colored fruit into a bowl. On the windowsill, a spider had curled up to die.
"When?" he asked. Every few hours, he asked when Maris would return.
Absurd, this rift between them, the two most capable people Amarta knew, both powerful and clever. Until recently, there had been great good will between them.
She still remembered how Maris used to talk about him, as a friend, one she would trust with her life, and had. Maybe if the two of them would just talk—
"Amarta?"
Amarta sighed, slipped open the door to vision, watching the future solidify.
It was not what she expected.
"Something has happened on their journey back." A detour not taken, a ferry caught early...there was no way to know the cause. An unlikely occurrence, in any case.
"Oh no," she breathed.
"Do I have time to leave?"
"I don't think so."
Outside, the sound of horses answered with certainty.
"Dirina and I used to fight. But we made up, every time." Except maybe this last time, she didn't say. "You speak so well. Just talk to her."
The door banged open and in strode Maris. With a glance, she took in the room, her look staying on Tayre.
"Salt air on you both. You take her seaside, where she stands out like a diamond? Whose coin has bought you now, mercenary?" Maris demanded.
"Only hers," Tayre replied.
Amarta spoke. "It was my idea to go to Mutarka, Maris. I wanted to travel. But we are returned safe."
Samnt followed Maris into the room, his eyes flickering between his aetur and Tayre and Amarta. He muttered something about the horses and left.
"I'll help," Tayre said, following him out, closing the door behind him.
Maris scowled at the door.
"What of Cern and the child?" Amarta asked, hoping to focus the mage on something else.
"The entire purpose of my unpleasant journey." Maris dropped a pack on the table, and examined Amarta as she spoke. "Queen and daughter are both healthy. The eternal gratitude of Innel al Arunkel is mine."
Amarta was surprised at how much relief she felt to know that Cern and the child had both lived. "Thank you," she breathed.
Maris snorted, shrugged. "Ah, I have something for you." She tugged loose the ties on her pack and took out a large red-and-black envelope, holding it out to Amarta.
Amarta's heart sank. Could she simply refuse?
Maris opened the envelope, began to read aloud.
Apparently not.
Still, she delayed, turning it over and over in her hands. The paper was combed amardide textile, the ribbon a thick satin. Expensive. Probably shockingly so. She wondered how many meals the cost of this one envelope would buy.
On the front her name was made elegant by some royal calligrapher. On the other side was the black raised seal of the Arunkel monarchy. So beautiful, this carrier of grief.
At last she broke open the seal and drew out a many-folded thing, its edges dusted with gold. She stared at the script uncomprehendingly. While she could read the complex Perripin pictograms, the convoluted slashes that composed the high-form script of her homeland were still illegible.
"What does it say?" she asked in a small voice.
"It says that Dirina is to be wed to Nalas, deputy Lord Commander of the Arunkel empire. Your presence is most ardently requested."
Amarta's mouth went dry. "No."
At this, Maris chuckled a little. "So often those we care about fail to choose their companions wisely, don't they?"
"Aristo," Amarta said, staring at the invitation. "Nalas is aristo. Dirina is common. He can't marry her."
Maris made a surprised sound. "She'll have a challenging time of it, surrounded by pompous fools and scheming clods who would doubtless agree with you, but there's nothing preventing this match."
The foreseen grief settled on Amarta like heavy snow. Her sister was marrying into the Arunkel aristocracy, but could never be one of them. While Amarta was still hoping that her sister might come to her senses, Dirina was planning to stay.
So hard. She had worked so hard, across so many years, to keep them safe. It was like losing them all over again. Her chest shuddered with a silent sob.
"Ama," Maris said more gently, "they delayed the marriage so that you could be there. I've a letter of credit for you, to fund your passage north in safety and comfort."
"No."
"I have no more love for the empire than you do, but this is Dirina. Your sister."
"She chose to stay in Arunkel in spite of all sense," Amarta said sharply. "She can marry a soldier without me, too."
Maris walked the room, her gaze momentarily on the bowl of fruit, then turned to Amarta. "Do you know what convinced me to ride to a city I loathe, to sustain a monarchy I decry? Yes, I had a letter penned by my aetur, and Innel's self-abasement was impressive. But neither of those were sufficient. Do you know what tipped the scales?"
Amarta shook her head.
"You, Amarta. Innel set you free from that wretched contract. I went because of that. I've given him three lives now, one of which is his own. He is in my debt and will not come after you again."
Amarta suddenly remembered her own words: Release me. It will be worth a great deal to you to have done so.
How strange to know a thing was coming, yet also know nothing about it.
"I am grateful, then," Amarta humbly.
"It grieves me to see you in another ill-conceived contract, one that I witnessed and thus must uphold."
"Maris, Innel gave Tayre his directions, yet you forgave him. How is that just?"
"No one is forgiven," Maris snapped. "But Innel does not change his loyalties with each larger stack of coins. To the mercenary you are merely a wager on the ground of some back-alley Rochi game."
Amarta shook her head in denial, but the image stung. "A single nals for the bond. What stack of coins?"
"Fates, Amarta! You don't know your own worth."
For a fleeting moment, Maris's expression opened, and Amarta thought she saw pain, then it was gone.
Suddenly Amarta nearly understood: the difference between Innel and Tayre was not who had hurt Amarta, or why. It was that Maris had never trusted Innel to begin with, but Tayre had been her friend. Maris felt betrayed.
It came to Amarta, then, how little she really knew about Maris, about her apprenticeship with the mage Keyretura. How young had Maris been?
Her empathy stirred, Amarta searched for the right words to say that she cared about Maris's pain. How to say it without being insulting? With mages, respect first. Was there some future in which she said the right thing? She began to foresee.
Maris's voice snapped her back. "What is he to you, Amarta? A lover?"
Amarta blushed, knew it was obvious, blushed further, shook her head adamantly. "He is to help me learn. You witnessed the words, Maris."
"Meaningless words. I'll find you a suitable companion to warm your bed and sooth your body hungers. I should never have allowed this contract."
"What?" Amarta's empathy for the mage's pain shredded.
"You want to learn? I'll teach you."
"You? Do you mean me to be your—" What was the word? "taslata? Your apprentice? To study alongside Samnt?"
Maris's expression was tinged with brief pity. "You are not udardae, Amarta. What you are, I don't know. But not that."
Amarta felt a hardening resolve. "Not udardae. I accept this. As you must accept that I decide my fate."
"You are besotted, your judgment unsound. End this contract, Amarta, or I will."
Amarta's mouth opened in outrage. "I will not. I've barely—" Met him, she wanted to say, but that wasn't quite right. "begun."
The door opened. In stepped Samnt, setting down travel bags. Tayre followed him in.
Amarta felt the future warn. She began to look. As if she knew exactly what she was doing, Maris's words cut through.
"Watch, Amarta. Watch closely. Let me show you how weak is this man you so admire." Then, to Tayre: "Mercenary, the amount of coin that Innel al Arunkel paid you to hunt Amarta dua Seer—you must know it to the nals."
Tayre blinked.
"I will pay you twice that amount to end this contract," Maris said. "Name your price."
Amarta gaped, at her, then at him, her breath caught tight in her throat. How much coin was it that Tayre had been paid across the years, to find her? Surely a fortune.
A mage-witnessed contract should be secure. But the mage stood right here, urging him to end it.
If Maris and Tayre agreed, who would hold them to account? No one.
He wouldn't. Not for mere money. Not even for a fortune.
Would he?
He met Amarta's eyes and held her gaze a long moment. He looked back at Maris.
"No," he said.
Amarta exhaled in relief. This was clearly not the answer that Maris expected. The mage lifted her hands.
Vision came clear: He lay on the floor, gasping.
"Maris!" Amarta cried. "No!"
Tayre stiffened, stumbled backward, hands flat to the wall, knees buckling as he lowered himself to the floor. Unthinking, Amarta ran at Maris. She had no plan, just a driving need to make the mage stop.
All at once, everything went black. Amarta gasped, coming to a sudden awareness as she stumbled into Maris, who took her by the arm to hold her upright.
On the floor, Tayre was trembling violently. He struggled to rise, collapsed again as he convulsed.
"Stop it," Amarta shouted. "Maris, you have no right!"
"I bought my rights with mage-blood—my own. With what did you buy yours, Amarta?"
His breath would stop. He would turn waxy pale. Motionless. He would die.
"Please," Amarta croaked. She yanked her arm, again and again, trying to free herself, but could not break the mage's grip.
"Taslata, attend," Maris said calmly to Samnt, gesturing at Tayre with her free hand. "Put your focus within the Iliban. Do you note the patterns of pain response? Typical, but lacking the expected fear markers. You perceive this, yes?"
Samnt was breathing raggedly, wide-eyed, seeming as panicked as Amarta felt. "Yes, Aetur."
Tayre was choking. The futures in which he would live another minute were fast dwindling.
He could not die. Amarta would not let him die.
And so she must— what? What must she do?
With a great force of will, Amarta ignored everything, but the one answer she needed. Even his wheezing, and Maris's morbid lesson, she pressed away.
This moment. The next. A future in which Tayre stood whole again.
That future's trail back to the now.
"Do you feel it, Samnt?" Maris was saying. "He moves close to the door. Do you see the land beyond life? Do you feel it?"
The words that could change this moment...
Will you lose me, too, Maris?
"Yes, Aetur."
He was no longer moving.
"Maris," Amarta cried, her voice breaking. "Will you lose me, too?"
Maris frowned, very slightly.
"I know the future, Maris. Kill him and you will never see me again."
At last she had the mage's attention. "He's taught you to lie, too, has he?"
"Truth, mage," Amarta hissed, rage fueling her determination. She would create a future in which her words were true. "I will despise you. You will be to me as he is to you."
Maris searched Amarta's face. An unsettling touch of magery went through her body.
Then she released Amarta's arm. Amarta wanted to run to him, to drop to the floor, to assure herself that he lived.
But no. He was close to that door. He must not go through. With great effort, she turned her back on him to face the mage.
"Restore him, Maris."
"Your bones to heal, Seer."
Amarta made a furious, frustrated sound, clenched her teeth. She held high a trembling left hand, with all but the smallest finger curled tight.
"This one only, mage. The rest are mine."
A flash of heat rushed up through Amarta's hand and she whimpered as her smallest finger shifted under the skin, a grinding sensation, and flare of agony that left the finger red and pulsing.
"Get him out. Out and gone, before I change my mind."
From the floor, Tayre gasped. He rolled onto his back, clutching his chest.
"It hurts, doesn't it, to come back from the edge," Maris said. "But so much more pain is possible. Someday, Iliban, I'll show you."
Samnt struggled to get Tayre to his feet and helped him stagger through the door. Amarta followed them outside, taking over for Samnt.
For a moment Samnt looked as if he wanted to say something. Then he shook his head, squared his shoulders, and went back inside.
Amarta wrapped Tayre's arm across her shoulder as he shuffled forward toward the steep road down.
"Should we run?" Amarta asked him about halfway down the road.
The future offered a range of possibilities. Maris must be considering many options, including the one where she changed her mind.
A rueful smile. "I don't think I can."
"How dare she—"
Silence, he tapped on her shoulder. "We're not away yet."
He recovered a bit more, every few steps. Their pace improved until he no longer needed to lean on her.
Back at his camp, they assembled packs. Amarta worked the knots of the oilskin tarpaulin attached to the trees.
"Leave it," he said of the oilskin, pans, bags of vegetables suspended from branches. "Leave it all."
Such a familiar moment, to be about to flee, to need to decide too quickly what you could live without, so that you might live at all.
Amarta secured Souver's saddle, tied on the saddlebags, stuffing in what she could.
The sound came from the edge of the clearing, so soft that it took Amarta a moment to realize she was hearing something. She whirled, drew a sharp breath.
Maris stood by a tree, gaze panning across the campsite. From her look, Amarta suspected that this was the first time the mage had been here.
Overhead, a small, chittering creature peered out from dark leafy foliage, then darted back into hiding.
Maris made a thoughtful sound, then spoke. "What have you learned from me today, Amarta? Perhaps how a mage treats those she claims to care for?" A humorless laugh. "Or how potent is the blindness of the powerful? Perhaps I have taught you something of value, after all." Her tone softened to a near whisper, "And perhaps someday you'll forgive me."
"Maris, I—"
The mage raised a hand, her expression stone-like. Amarta bit off the words.
"Listen, Seer, and listen well. It is unknown, for an Iliban to see the future as you do. Dribs and drabs, perhaps. Lucky guesses, more like. Even among the elder mages, foresight like yours is beyond rare. Your worth is... unreckonable." Maris's gaze found Tayre. "Be shrewd in your choice of companions."
"I will," Amarta said softly.
"Go, then. Go well. Where does your path lead?"
Fear made Amarta hesitate, but anger gave her voice. "There must be others like me. I will find them and learn what they know."
"A fruitless search."
"Mine to make."
"I suspect you go west," Maris said. "Forgo the coastal road. Lerpan's Labyrinth is snarled. Some recently created mages are making a mess of the place. Eventually someone will clean it up, but I advise avoiding it now."
"Thank you," Amarta said, a little surprised at this help. Tayre had mentioned Lerpan's Labyrinth in one of his stories. Until this moment, Amarta had thought it only a fable.
"Clear vision to you, Amarta dua Seer al—" Maris paused thoughtfully. "You're not from Arunkel any more, that's certain. Safe journey, Traveler." She walked to the edge of the clearing and paused, facing away. "Enlon."
At the sound of the name by which Maris had first known him, Tayre shifted his stance.
"I listen, High One."
"Whatever befalls Amarta dua Seer, if it displeases me in any portion, I hold you accountable. I swear by my lineage to settle that debt, at leisure and with precision."
It took Amarta a moment to understand that the words were a threat. She opened her mouth to object, but Tayre signed: silence.
"I hear," he said.
Maris nodded, then walked away. They stood unmoving until the mage's steps had faded to silence.
"Now," Tayre said, "We must go. While we still can."