Stonewiser (61 page)

“That man killed himself, Sariah, and only after he tried to kill you.”

“Still, everything I try goes wrong.”

“Not all. Look. I've done all you asked.”

“I didn't ask for you to bring the executioners here.”

“Not in those words, you didn't, but when you left the Bastions you sent me a message with those Hounds of yours—mind you, their appearance caused quite the commotion at Ars—telling me to do my best to persuade the executioners to come as close as possible to the wall. You didn't think you would have the time to travel back to Ars and you didn't want to risk missing the deadline. That was clever, Sariah. You anticipated the current situation quite accurately. So I tried. And when the executioners wouldn't heed my arguments, I resorted to kidnapping.”

Sariah's jaw dropped. “You kidnapped the executioners?”

“Not the entire tribe, of course not, just Petrid and his seconds, enough to conduct a proper witnessing and make a decision if necessary. Mind you, the tribe is livid and threatening blood. We've got just a few days left before the deadline, and the executioners aren't happy with their lodgings at the keep's cages. So here's the deal. I made war on the executioners. I crossed the broken wall. I fought the Shield and came clear across the Goodlands. Now it's your damn turn.”

Metelaus was right. She couldn't give up. It wasn't in her nature, despite the bad odds.

“I think Auntie needs more healing,” Mia said. “Go ahead, Daddy. Get some rest. I'll stay with her and infuse her with some of my strength.”

Sariah was thankful for Mia's generosity.

“What is it, Mianina?” she asked when Mia's nose wrinkled in puzzlement.

“I don't know, Auntie. It looks like your core is, well, kind of dim or something.” Mia closed her eyes and tried again. “Your links are slippery. It's like you're getting worse instead of better.”

That was a good description of her life at the moment. The girl was doing what she could, but Sariah's links were withering. Despite Mia's impressive healing skills, Sariah couldn't feel the child's luminous presence in her mind.

Sariah drew in a deep breath. “Mianina, I want to thank you for everything you've done for me. I'm sorry I've put you in danger and dragged you so far away from home. I'm sorry you've grown up so fast and I haven't been able to help you as much as I should.”

“But you have helped, Auntie. Lots. You taught me everything I know. Well, maybe not everything, but almost. I figured out the part about the honey all on my own.”

“Honey?”

“Your craving fulfills my craving,” Mia said. “As long as I have honey, I can control my need to be with you and check my power. The honey makes the distance between us bearable.”

“How—?”

“Malord said the craving led me. The farther you traveled from me, the more I needed something, although at first I didn't know what. Thank Meliahs you craved honey.” The blue and green eyes sparkled with mirth. “'Cause green sprouts would have meant the Goodlands’ doom for sure.”

The smile that tickled Sariah's lips felt rusted and crooked, but it was a smile. “Your thoughts kept me sane, Mianina. I can still hear the words in my mind.
We're near and we're here.”

Mia's face tilted to one side in puzzlement.

“What is it?”

“Uncle Kael told me to say
we're near.”

“And?”

“I never, ever said
we're here.”

Forty-four

 

M
ELIAHS HELP HER.
We're here.
The baby had spoken to her. It wasn't a pain-induced delusion or a wistful creation of her feverish mind. It was a true contact. She thought about the boost of strength she had felt during the quickening. It had been no coincidental revival of her battered senses. It had been
him,
her tiny courageous son, adding his incipient strength to hers.

The revelation confirmed what she had suspected all along— that the child was powerful beyond the norm, self-aware well ahead of his time. And if there was one thing Sariah knew for sure about Grimly, it was that even damaged, she wouldn't allow a wiserling treasure like him to pass her by. The thought dazzled her mind. Could her child be alive?

A deafening crash startled her. Something large thrashed in the hallway and then in the waiting chamber, scattering stools and tables before crashing like a battering ram against the door. The bedchamber's door exploded. Delis strode in, dirty and bloody like the executioner she used to be, sporting a new torque of fresh ears and noses. Her face was streaked with dirt and her hair was matted with mud. A contusion bruised her cheek. Aided by quite a few Hounds, she dragged something huge and ferocious behind her.

She snarled. “Get out of here!”

Mia and the Hounds scuttled out of the room, fleeing Delis's wrath.

“I won't have it anymore.” Delis slammed the huge sack against the wall. “I haven't come halfway across the world for this. I'd do it. You know I would. But I'm not the one. Am I? You!” Sariah recoiled from the dirty finger. “Stop toying with your damn life.

“And you.” Delis kicked the sack. “I don't care what you think you have to do or why. Fix her.” She dragged a battered man from the sack and hurled him against the bed. “Fix her now!”

The bed quaked with the force of the impact. The hangings collapsed to one side and tipped over the basin. Sariah stood with her back against the wall in disbelief. Then Delis was gone and the door slammed shut, leaving a bruised Kael sprawled against the foot of the bed and Sariah gaping.

Signs of life came from the bedside. An uncouth oath. A groan. “I'm going to kill the bitch.” A large hand grabbed the blankets and pulled, followed by Kael's battered face.

Sariah had to will the air to flow through her faltering lungs. He was alive. He was back. He was here. His mere presence was as fortifying as a year of healing. She wanted to cry from relief. She wanted to cackle like a mad woman. Instead, she fell on him like the most thorough of healers. His bones seemed whole, the blood on his face was dry, his pupils looked normal.

“Are you hurt?”

“I think she broke my ribs.”

“They're just ribs. They tend to mend on their own.”

The broken eyebrow went up. “Unless they puncture your lungs.”

“You don't have time to be pierced and done.”

She dipped a sponge in the basin and tossed it to him. She groped through the chest, throwing things out of the way until she found a long cloth. Without waiting for him to finish washing, she wrapped it around his ribs. Then she threw the window open, grabbed a chunk of ice from the sill, bundled it and pressed it against his bruised lip.

“What's going on, Sariah?” he mumbled through the cloth.

“We have to hurry. You'll have to kill Delis some other time.”

“I'm thinking today.”

“Not when she did right.”

He yanked a clean tunic into place. “So you thought it wrong that I left?”

“Only on one count.”

“And that is?”

She rose on the tip of her toes and kissed him on the lips. “That you left without me.”

The kiss he gave her in return was fresh salve to all her sores. He embraced her with such passion that, for a moment, Sariah feared for his ribs and hers. It was the only luxury she allowed herself.

“Did you find Grimly?”

“I almost did. I was so close—”

“Did you see any signs of a baby when you tracked her?”

“A baby? Nay. But I never caught up to Grimly herself—”

There it was, the spark that had been missing from his eyes, the green-eyed boyish look of wonderment that never failed to steal her breath. “Please, Sariah, tell me. Are you thinking he might still be alive?”

“Maybe—”

“What about the body I saw?”

“There was this other baby. Violet's baby. It was dead.”

“You think the witch staged everything and showed me some other child?”

“She's capable of that and more.”

“If he's as strong as you say, the witch will want him alive.”

“The prism,” Sariah said. “Does Grimly have it?”

“Not anymore.”

Sariah's back collided against the wall. In Kael's hand, the lifeless yellow prism reflected the candlelight with a macabre golden glow.

Kael dropped the accursed stone. “Are you all right?”

Panic was rising through her veins like boiling magma.

“You said we needed it, that's why I brought it back.”

“We did,” Sariah said. “We do.”

“Should I toss it? Should I bury it? What is it, Sariah? Tell me.”

She kept her eyes on the stone as if it were capable of launching itself and striking at her navel.

“Is this the thing they used to—”

“It was misused,” she said for her own ears.

“How do I destroy it?”

“You can't.” Her voice was steadier this time. “How did you get it?”

Kael's face went blank. “They had fallen behind the others. They were running from the sunlight, I think, and they took refuge in the shade. She had it in her hand when I killed her.”

“Who did you kill?”

“The black one. I killed the black sister.”

Meliahs help them. Kael had caught up with the sisters and killed Telana, and there wasn't a trace of regret on his face. She knew he spoke truth. Only death would have wrestled the prism from the dark sister's hands.