The Sentinel Mage (38 page)

And then came the moment he’d been dreading: she picked up the basket lined with moss green silk and walked across to the wife of Lundegaard’s ambassador.

“L
ADY
P
IRNILLA,
” B
RITTA
said. “Thank you for being my guest today.”

The woman turned from the rose bush she’d been admiring and sank into a curtsey. “The pleasure is mine, princess.” She was a regal woman, with brown hair and cool gray eyes.

“A gift,” Britta said, holding out the reed basket. “As a token of my gratitude.”

The ambassador’s wife took the basket. “How lovely!” she exclaimed politely. “Such an exquisite vase! Such beautiful flowers! Are they from your garden?”

Britta looked at the woman.
Can I trust you
? She took a deep breath. “Lady Pirnilla, the gift is more than you realize.” She had the sensation that she was leaping from a cliff. “I beg that you not allow anyone else to touch it.”

The woman looked at her sharply.

Britta lowered her voice. “Beneath the silk lining is some information for your husband. It’s imperative that you give it to him as soon as possible—and in the strictest privacy.”

Lady Pirnilla glanced around the garden, smiling. “What kind of information?”

“Information that’s vital to Lundegaard’s future. It must be given to your king.”

The woman’s gaze came back to her. Gray eyes regarded her steadily.

“I must beg that neither you nor your husband reveal that I’m the source of your information.”

The ambassador’s wife lifted a flower to her nose and sniffed. “And if my king should ask?”

Britta bit her lip. She looked at Yasma, standing beside the rose bower. The maid’s eyes were fixed on her, anxious. She returned her gaze to the ambassador’s wife. “Your king, but no one else. Else my life will be forfeit.”
And that of my maid.

Lady Pirnilla regarded her steadily again, and then nodded. “You have my word, princess.”

Britta inhaled a deep breath.
It’s done.
“Thank you.” She glanced at the armsmen lined up around the garden, at the chattering ladies, at the musicians plucking their harp strings, and then she turned away from the ambassador’s wife and went to fetch another basket.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

T
HE WAILING ACCOMPANIED
them for the rest of the afternoon, rising and falling with the wind. Even though he knew it wasn’t the voices of the dead, even though he’d seen some of the holes the wind whistled through, the ghost-like sound made Harkeld’s skin crawl.

The witch, Gerit, flew back as the sun set, landing beside one of the fires. Harkeld looked away. The other shapeshifters hid their changes—or at the very least, didn’t try to draw attention to themselves; Gerit seemed to derive perverse pleasure in the hastily averted heads, the mutterings of shock and distaste.
He delights in disgusting us
, he thought sourly.

“Ditmer’s only three or so leagues ahead of us,” Gerit said once he’d dragged on his clothes.

“Three leagues?” Tomas looked at him, startled.

Gerit grunted, a sound Harkeld took to mean
Yes
, and hunkered down at the firepit, holding out his hands to the flames. “He’s pushed his horses too hard, stupid whoreson. Several of ‘em are lame.”

“Three leagues,” Tomas repeated thoughtfully. He fetched the map and spread it on the ground. “We’ll catch up with him tomorrow.”

“We have the advantage of numbers,” his sergeant said, a lean man with sun-browned skin creased like leather.

“Yes.” Tomas grinned, his teeth gleaming in the firelight. “This is a battle Ditmer won’t win.”

They went without tents again; sleeping on the sand was easier, quicker. It was also colder. Harkeld wrapped himself in two blankets and lay down alongside his armsman. Despite his physical tiredness, sleep took a long time to come.

“H
OLD HIM DOWN
.”

Harkeld jerked awake. Someone pinned him to the ground, a heavy weight on his back. He smelled sawdust and dirt: the training arena.

“His right hand.” The voice was Jaegar’s.

Harkeld bucked and struggled, trying to break free. The weight on his back became heavier, almost crushing. He could scarcely breathe. Hard fingers gripped his right wrist, extending his arm. He heard the sleek sound of a sword blade sliding from its scabbard.

“Hold him still.”

Panic kicked in Harkeld’s chest, and with the panic was the sensation of flames igniting inside him. Fire crackled through his veins and danced over his skin, lighting up the arena. He saw Jaegar’s face, saw the crown woven into his hair, saw the upraised sword—

Harkeld jerked awake, a shout in his throat and a feeling of fire in his blood. His heart galloped in his chest, kicking against his ribs.

“Nightmare?” a woman asked alongside him.

Harkeld took a deep, shuddering breath. He turned his head.

Fingers lightly touched his cheek, stroking. “It was just a dream.”

“I know.” He rolled on his side, reaching for her, drawing her close.

Slender arms came around his neck.

For several minutes he just held her, while the thunderous pace of his pulse slowed and the sensation of fire running through him faded. Then he bent his head and found her mouth. It opened to him shyly.

The kiss was slow, thorough. Heat began to rise in him again. Not flames, this time, but arousal. Harkeld slid his hands down the smoothness of her back and pressed her more closely to him—the softness of her breasts and belly, the tickling curls at her groin. Heat flushed sharply under his skin—and with it, urgency. He nudged her legs apart with his knee. This was what he needed: the warmth and softness of a woman, the uncomplicated pleasure of sex.

She broke their kiss and drew back slightly. “Harkeld...I’ve never done this before.”

He knew that voice. With the recognition came an image of her face: gray eyes, black hair, pale skin.

H
ARKELD JERKED AWAKE.
He stared up at a starry sky. Night air was cold on his face. A body was pressed against his side: Justen. He heard his armsman’s slow breathing.

Tell me I didn’t just dream that.

He scrubbed his face with a hand, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to erase the dream from his mind—the witch’s mouth opening for his kiss, her body pressing so softly and warmly against him. He’d been about to bed her, to bury himself in her. His body still wanted to. Arousal thrummed in his blood.

Not a witch. Never a witch.

Harkeld opened his eyes and stared up at the glittering stars. There was no wind, no wailing coming from the sandstone, no—

He stiffened. What was that?

Harkeld held his breath, listening. He heard the sound of men breathing in their sleep, the soft crunch of sand as the sentries paced, and then at the edge of his hearing...a faint scream?

He pushed up on one elbow. One of the sentries heard the movement. Starlight glinted on the man’s cheek as he turned his head. “Sire?”

“Did you hear that?” Harkeld asked in a low voice.

“Hear what?”

He didn’t answer, just listened, his ears straining. The faint sound came again. “That,” he said. “Screaming.”

“It’s just the wind, sire.”

The sentry was right—he
knew
that—but his subconscious told him there was danger out there, that something prowled in the darkness, that the distant screams came from a man’s throat, not wind blowing through holes bored in rock.

Next I’ll be believing in ghosts.

Harkeld shook his head angrily and lay back down. He pulled the blankets tightly around himself and shut his eyes.

T
HEY SET OFF
before dawn. No one said anything, but Innis was aware of a change in the soldiers’ mood. They loaded the packhorses with efficiency, but there was an edge of suppressed excitement as they worked, a quiet, grim eagerness. Captain Ditmer’s party was less than ten miles ahead. Today they’d engage him and his men in battle.

And kill them.

She set her jaw and mounted, bringing her horse alongside Prince Harkeld’s.

The canyon seemed particularly gray this morning, the pre-dawn light leaching the sandstone of color. Even when the sky above their heads had lightened to a pale blue, the grayness persisted. Shadows seemed to cling to them all, man and beast.

The first puff of a dry breeze blew along the canyon from the desert. In its wake came a wail from the cliffs. Innis repressed a shiver and looked around her. Dawn was past, and yet shadows still shrouded the canyon—

The moment of insight was sharp.
Fool, they’re not ordinary shadows.
It was the curse she was seeing, lying over them all, cloaking face and form more heavily than it had before.

Innis dropped back slightly from her place beside Prince Harkeld and caught Dareus’s eye. A moment later he cantered up alongside her. “Do you see them?” she asked in low voice. “The curse shadows? They’re darker.”

Dareus glanced around. His eyes narrowed.

Innis touched her heels to her horse’s flanks, coming abreast of Prince Harkeld again. The wailing rose around them, and with it, her uneasiness.

“We must halt!” Dareus called out.

Prince Tomas reined his horse, slowing it. “What?”

“The curse,” Dareus said tersely. “Something’s happening.”

Tomas shouted a command. His voice echoed off the walls, blending with another keening wail.

The soldiers ahead of them halted.

Prince Tomas swung around to face Dareus. “What do you mean, happening?”

“The curse,” Dareus said. “Something’s changed.”

“Changed? How?”

“I don’t know.” Dareus dismounted.

“What are you doing?” Prince Tomas demanded.

“Checking the water.”

Innis jumped down from her horse and followed with the princes. They scrambled over the boulders of the dry riverbed after Dareus.

“You think the curse is in the water here?” Prince Tomas asked, his voice slightly higher than normal.

“It shouldn’t be. Not yet.” Dareus reached the trickling river. “Ivek created the curse to rise in the east and pass across the land until it set in the west, like the sun.”

Tomas nodded. “That’s what the stories say.”

Dareus dropped down on one knee and scooped water in his cupped hands.

They crowded close—the princes, Gerit and Cora, herself—and watched as Dareus looked intently at the water. He raised it to his face, almost as if he smelled it.

“Well?” Prince Tomas asked. “Is it cursed?”

Dareus shook his head. “No. The water’s fine.” He opened his hands, letting the water splash to the ground, and turned his head, still crouched on one knee, scanning the canyon. “But something has changed. And not for the better.”

“You’re certain about the water?”

“Yes.” Dareus stood, his face set in a frown.

“Perhaps the curse is stronger here because we’re nearing one of the anchor stones,” Innis said.

“Perhaps. But I don’t like it. It’s...dangerous.”

Innis followed his gaze, seeing the dark veil of the curse resting heavily on them all.

“It’s not right,” Dareus muttered under his breath.

Movement caught her eye: a hawk arrowing downward. Petrus, from its pale breast.

The hawk swept low over the dry riverbed, alighted on a boulder, and changed form. Petrus stood there, his face grim. “Ditmer’s soldiers are all dead.”

“Dead!” exclaimed Prince Tomas. “How—”

“I don’t know,” Petrus said. “There was fighting, but I don’t think they were killed by men.”

“Why not?” Cora asked. In contrast to Prince Tomas, her voice was calm.