Duskfall (23 page)

But their attackers were already dead. Nash stood over four bodies. Dull disappointment burned in Winter’s gut.

No. There, in the distance: two men fleeing on horses. Winter could stop them.

With one of her
tendra
, Winter reached into the ground below one of the boulders. Then she
lifted
. The boulder, roughly the size of a horse, rose into the sky. Winter concentrated, putting all her energy into forming two more
tendra
, reaching out to either side of the rock to keep it steady. Winter tried to breathe evenly. She took aim, instinctively more than anything. Then she reached back, and threw.

The boulder flew through the air. She tried to follow it with her
tendra
, stretching them out to keep it from wavering. For a moment she thought she had overshot, thought the boulder would sail past the escaping men. Then the massive rock smashed into one of the riders, crushing both him and the horse into the ground. The other rider’s horse stumbled, frightened, but recovered quickly and continued to gallop into the distance.

Winter cursed. The two men had been riding close enough that she could have stopped them both. Now one was going to escape. Winter did not think she could throw that far a second time. She was about to lift another boulder and try anyway when someone shook her. She saw Kali, standing right in front of her.

“With me!” the woman shouted, thrusting a set of reins towards her. “We find him,” she nodded towards the rider, “and we find out what they wanted.”

Winter looked longingly at another boulder,. Then, she took a deep breath, and took the reins. Kali was right. They needed to catch the man and question him.

Winter mounted the horse, following Kali as she galloped after the escaping man. They passed Nash, still standing by the four bodies.

“Stay with the others,” Kali yelled to him as they passed. “We’ll bring the bastard back.”

The
faltira
faded far too quickly as they rode. Coming off such a high was difficult; no wonder frost addiction was a problem. But she was still in control. Frustrated, but at least she wasn’t craving another hit already. Not that it wouldn’t be nice. Winter glanced at Kali’s belt, wondering whether the woman carried a pouch similar to Nash, filled with frost. Best not to think about it.

Soon the robed man steered his horse off the road and onto the snow-covered plains. Horse tracks were easy to follow in the snow, and Kali slowed their pace. Winter hoped it was just a matter of time until they caught up with him. The plain sloped into a low valley ahead of them where patches of trees provided cover. She couldn’t see the man anywhere.

“You’ve yet to wear the clothing I gave you,” Kali said, after they’d been riding in silence for several hours.

Winter shrugged, looking down. She had tried the clothes on a few times, but had not yet found the courage to wear them outside. Her
siara
was wrapped warmly around her neck, and she still wore the same dress she’d brought from Pranna. Ugly and impractical, but familiar.

“That’s all right,” Kali said. “It took me a while to get used to them. I assumed it would take even longer for an…”

Kali didn’t have to finish. Winter knew what she was about to say.
But at least she didn’t say it this time.

“Why did you tell Nash to stay behind?” Winter asked, trying to change the subject.

Kali stared straight ahead. “Someone needed to remain with the others.”

“Why take me?”

“Best not to tail a man like this alone. Nash and the others can get moving. With any luck, we’ll catch this bastard and meet them on the road.”

Winter frowned. That hadn’t really answered her question, but she let it go. She thought back to the man who Kali had seemingly forced to kill his ally. “I’ve learned a lot about telesis,” she said. “But you’ve told me almost nothing about acumency.”

Kali sighed. “Best not to overwhelm you. Learning your own craft is difficult enough.”

Winter tried to suppress her frustration. Why wouldn’t Kali just tell her? What was so different about acumency?

“Nash says I’m picking telesis up quickly. I’m ready for more.”

“I suppose telling you a few basics won’t hurt,” Kali conceded. “Logistically, the two arts are very similar. I have my own
tendra
, but mine act differently than yours. I assume by now you’ve discovered some of telesis’s limitations?”

Winter nodded. “The farther the distance, the less strength a
tendron
has. And
tendra
cannot affect living things. They can only interact with inanimate objects.”

“Very good. Acumenic
tendra
are, in some ways, the opposite. They only interact with living things. My
tendra
interact with the minds of others, and nothing else. I can perceive thoughts and intentions.”

“What did you do to that man this morning?”

“That was a more aggressive form of acumency. Once I decipher a person’s sift, I can rearrange certain things. This morning, I altered the man’s loyalty. Turned the two against each other. I could freeze a man in place just as easily, send a psionic burst into his mind, stunning him, or…” Kali hesitated.

“Or what?” Winter asked.

“Or stop a man’s heart.”

Winter nodded. Telenics killed just as easily; at least Kali wasn’t holding back.

“What’s a sift?” Winter had never heard the word before.

Kali’s lips pressed together. “Something very complicated,” she said. “A distilled soul, essentially. Someone’s essence, everything they are, condensed.
Sift
is the term we have for this;
lacuna
is the term for what is left behind.”

“Left behind?”

Kali laughed softly. “So curious. There is much to tell you, but that will have to do for now. We can talk more about acumency later.”

They rode down the side of the valley. Winter was gaining a newfound respect for the woman. Despite the obvious dislike Kali had shown towards Winter and Lian in the beginning, she seemed to be coming around. While Kali was terse, even unkind at times, she could handle herself in a fight, and she could protect those she cared about from just about anything. Maybe Kali wasn’t tiellan, but she was a woman, and she certainly wasn’t weak.

Not for the first time, Winter wondered whether she might find a home of some kind with Nash and Kali. With psimancers. She did not know how to reconcile that with their pursuit of Knot, but perhaps an agreement could be reached. Perhaps Winter could finally find a place she belonged.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” Winter said, surprising herself.

Kali turned to look at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I… when those men attacked, I froze. I didn’t do anything to help. I just stood there.”

Kali shook her head. “You managed to take out one of the riders. That throw with the boulder was accurate. You may have been useless otherwise, but so is everyone in their first battle.”

“But I basically wasted a frost crystal,” Winter said. “I hardly did anything.”

Kali turned her horse so she faced Winter directly. Winter stopped in surprise.

“You need to stop this,” Kali said. “If you’re going to survive in this world—as a woman, as a
tiellan
—then you need to be stronger. Dwelling on your inadequacies will get you nowhere. Taking upon yourself blame you do not deserve…” Kali closed her eyes, reaching beneath her cloak. For a moment Winter thought Kali might show her something, but her hand was empty when it reemerged.

Kali opened her eyes. “I know you blame yourself for what happened in the alleyway.”

Winter blinked. She did not know why—Nash was the one who had saved her in the alley, after all—but it surprised her that Kali knew. Or, perhaps, it surprised her that Kali seemed to care.

“I’ve seen how your eyes empty when you think no one watches you. I know that look because I’ve had it myself.

“What happened in the alleyway was not your fault. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tiellan, if you’re a human, or what you did or did not wear or do. He treated you like an object. He thought you were something he could use and discard. That was
his
error. He chose to act like a narcissist, an egoist, and a bastard, and you don’t deserve any of that blame. So bloody stop shoveling it onto yourself.”

“If you’re right,” Winter said quietly, “why do I feel so guilty?”

For the briefest moment, Winter thought she saw Kali’s eyes soften.

“You might think you could have said something to prevent it. You might think you could have fought harder to stop him.” Slowly, the softness left Kali’s face, and she looked out into the distance. “There could be any number of reasons, but they don’t matter. What matters is that he chose to attack you, and you didn’t want him to. The fault doesn’t lie with you. End of story.”

Winter swallowed. She couldn’t tell if Kali was angry, or just being stern. But what Kali said… could it be true? Winter
had
gone over the incident over and over in her mind, wishing she would have defended herself more aggressively, or just realized what was happening sooner. There was so much she could have done differently.

But none of that caused what had happened to her. None of that excused what the man had done.

“All right,” Winter said. She didn’t feel better. The truth was, she still felt guilt. But, now, she could acknowledge that she
shouldn’t
. And that was a beginning.

“You have strength within you.
Use
it, Winter.” Then Kali turned her horse, and continued down into the valley.

After a few moments, Kali held up her hand indicating they stop again.

“There’s a stream down here,” Kali said. “Might even be running, with the warmer weather we’ve had recently.” She was right. As they approached, Winter saw the glint of running water, heard a faint trickling.

Kali placed a finger to her lips. Winter nodded. Kali reached a hand out to her. She held another frost crystal. Winter looked at it, resisting the urge to snatch and consume it immediately. Instead, she reached out slowly, and put the frost in her satchel. Odd that she was sweating. The wind had picked up, and Winter shivered despite the trickle that ran down her temple.

They reached the stream, which was indeed partially thawed. Mud churned in a few places on the banks, while remnants of ice jutted out into others. The tracks stopped at the water directly in front of them. Winter was about to suggest the man had ridden his horse down the stream to throw them off when she saw, to her surprise, that the tracks continued away from the stream, at an angle, a few rods downstream.

Kali had noticed as well. She led the way to the tracks, urging her horse into the water.

“Kali, wait,” Winter whispered. Kali stopped and turned. Something wasn’t right. The way the tracks led away from the water, the way they looked…

“He didn’t go that way,” Winter said. The tracks were too light, the cadence of the horse’s steps too irregular. The horse had been riderless.

Winter nodded downstream. “He left the horse and continued on foot in the stream.”

Winter was worried the woman would argue, but Kali nodded.

“Stupid of him,” Kali said. “His feet will freeze if he doesn’t get them dry and warm.”

Winter nodded. It
was
stupid, but it was a trade-off of sorts. Leaving his horse had been a good move.

They moved downstream, quietly. The stream cut into the valley floor, creating two high earthen banks. In the summer it was probably more like a river, rather than just an icy, ankle-deep trickle.

“There,” Winter whispered. Ahead of them, a set of footprints, barely visible in the frozen mud, led away from the water. She slid down from her horse.

“Goddess,” Kali muttered. “Good thing I brought you along.”

Winter tried to ignore the pride filling her chest. She bent down, looking closely at the prints. “Kick debris,” Winter said, pointing at the barely noticeable cone of mud, snow, and water in front of each footprint. It had taken Winter a long time to recognize kick debris while she was growing up, but her father had been a good teacher. “We know he isn’t backtracking, at least. Definitely went this way.”

Then she froze.

“What is it?” Kali whispered.

Winter waved behind her, quieting Kali.

There, overstepping one of the man’s footprints, was something much larger. The print, from heel to toe, was at least as long as Winter’s forearm. In front of each toe, long claw marks pressed into the mud.

Winter turned to Kali.
Snowbear
, she mouthed.

In northern Khale, most bears hibernated during the winter. The snowbear, on the other hand, had no such need. It hunted through the winter, taking whatever prey it could find, often stalking heavily trafficked areas by roads or water sources. Snowbears would usually leave humans and tiellans alone in the summer, but in the winter, food was food.

Winter stopped. Had she just heard something? Heavy breathing, perhaps. A soft rumble.

She looked back at Kali, who slowly unsheathed her sword.

Then Kali’s eyes went wide.

Instinctively, Winter ducked and rolled to the side, just as something huge lumbered behind her.

She had been right. The massive beast stood on its hind legs, roaring. Snowbears were the largest type of bear Winter knew of; this one towered over Kali on her horse.

Kali shouted, spurring her horse towards the animal, but the bear was already charging. Winter didn’t have time to reach for the frost. She had to do something
now
. So she did the only thing that came to mind. She rushed towards the animal, drawing a long, thin dagger from her belt. Just as the bear was about to come down from its hind legs, Winter dropped beneath it, sliding over the ice. She passed between the beast’s massive legs, thrusting the dagger up as she did so.

Stabbing the animal stopped her sliding short, but now she was directly underneath the bear. Winter froze, fighting panic. The bear could crush her easily. She pulled the dagger out of the bear’s thigh and hot blood splashed down on her as she tried to shimmy out from underneath the beast. The bear, roaring in pain, came back down on all fours just as Winter slid away. Ice shattered. Winter felt the freezing water of the stream gurgle up and around her.