The suggestion took Mirei aback. True enough, it was the one place where she might be competent as a diplomat. But why the schools?
“I thought they might become allies,” Satomi explained when she asked, turning back from the window. “Much in the same way the Avannans have, by playing up the change in our attitudes toward the Warrior. Though I doubt that would persuade all of them. There is word from your friend Eclipse that the Thornbloods are saying you killed Ice.”
Mirei blinked in surprise. “But I didn’t. I was tempted, but I didn’t.”
“I know. Someone has, though, and is using that to set them against you.”
It was surprisingly upsetting. After that struggle with herself, the debate over whether or not to kill a woman she detested on every count, now her decision had been made irrelevant. Ice was dead, and she was being blamed for it anyway. She wanted to say good riddance; the Thornblood had been an irritant to her since her first day out of Silverfire, and had sold fellow Hunters out at a moment’s notice. Yet for all that, Mirei had to offer up a silent prayer to the Warrior, to guide Ice to rebirth. She might have damned the woman to the Void more than once, but she hadn’t meant it literally.
“I suppose you can send messages,” Satomi said, breaking the silence, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea. “Instead of going in person.”
To the schools. Mirei’s mind came back to the problem at hand. “Maybe,” she said, but doubtfully. How much attention would they pay to messages? Jaguar would, certainly, but Wall? Let alone the Grandmasters of more distant schools. The Cloudhawks had no more reason to listen to her than to a bird in the trees. What a pity
they
weren’t the ones who owed her boons.
Which reminded her of the problem she still had not solved. “I want to call in our second boon,” she said, looking up at Satomi.
Returning to her seat and picking up a brush to write with, the Void Prime said, “Oh?”
“I want to put someone under a blood-oath.”
The brush clattered back onto the desk. Satomi stared at her. “To what end?”
“So I can study it. And figure out how to break it.” Mirei waved one hand impatiently. “I won’t swear them to anything important. Just something that will let me experiment.”
“
Experiment
? With someone’s
life
? It’s out of the question.”
Mirei’s jaw clenched. She chose her words carefully as she said, “The terms of a blood-oath don’t put limitations on the boons. But they
must
be granted.”
“I honor that oath by choice,” Satomi snapped. “It was sworn to Ashin and her friends, not me.”
Something went cold inside Mirei’s stomach, and caution went to the winds. “What a pity, then, that Ashin’s dead.”
An ugly silence fell between them. Mirei met Satomi’s pale eyes, unblinking. She was running out of ideas for how to save Eclipse, but she
wasn’t
going to give up. She cared about him too much to let him die. This was the only option she could see. She wouldn’t abandon it.
At last Satomi said, her voice clipped, “How fortunate for you that we have a subject on hand for you to study.”
The unexpectedness of that thawed her a little. “What? Who?”
Satomi smiled thinly. “Kekkai. All the witches close to Shimi and Arinei have had to swear modified oaths, built on the same spell. You can study Kekkai.”
“
Modified
oaths,” Mirei said. “How do I know that anything that works on her will work on him?”
“You’ll just have to hope that it does,” Satomi said.
* * *
At the sight of Mirei, Kekkai sank into a bow that was entirely unnecessary from a Key—even an imprisoned and treasonous one—to an unranked witch. From the depths of it, not rising, she said, “I didn’t get a chance to thank you.”
“Don’t,” Mirei said bluntly, settling into a chair. The room they were keeping Kekkai in was painfully bare, and chilly; it was as if someone were trying to minimize the risk of her breaking out with destructive Fire magic by limiting the amount of flame that could be used to heat the space. Pointless, of course. Or maybe they were just punishing her.
Kekkai straightened and sat as well. “You saved my life.”
“At a cost I didn’t want to pay. And don’t assume you’re in the clear yet.” Mirei reached out. “Let me see your wrist.”
The Key didn’t bother to ask which one she meant. Pulling back her sleeve, she extended her arm for Mirei to examine.
The scar shone silver-white, smooth against the skin. “Air. Who cast it?”
“Shimi.”
“A blood-oath? I didn’t think she’d have anything to do with the Warrior.”
“She doesn’t.” Kekkai reclaimed her arm when Mirei released it and tugged her sleeve down, as if ashamed to show the mark. “The Warrior was nowhere in it.”
Mirei remembered the terms of the spell very well. “But the Warrior is the one who judges whether the oath is fulfilled.”
“According to the traditional words, yes. Shimi changed it.”
If the Warrior wasn’t a part of the oath, then what could she possibly learn from Kekkai that would help with Eclipse? Fury surged in her gut. But it was all she was going to get from Satomi, and so she had to try. “What words did you use? Or can’t you say that, either?”
“No, I can.” Closing her eyes—whether to help her memory or to hide her emotions, Mirei couldn’t say—Kekkai recounted it. “Shimi’s part was, ‘You are forbidden to betray, by speech or action, deliberate silence or inaction, the location and defenses of our stronghold that you now stand in. Should you violate this prohibition, you will die.’ Then I said—we all said, every time she made someone swear this—‘I swear, on my body and my reborn soul, that I will obey the prohibition, or suffer immediate death.’ ”
No asking whether she accepted. No promise of reward, because the oath wasn’t a charge to do something; it was a ban
against
doing something. And because of that, the oath would never end.
No reference to the Goddess, anywhere in it. Just human pride and fear.
Into Mirei’s thoughts came Kekkai’s quiet voice. “She got the idea from her encounter with your friend.”
Mirei’s head shot up. “What?”
“The Hunter. The one who swore to kill you.” Kekkai eyed her, now nervous. “Surely you’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard.” Mirei got up and went to the small fire on the hearth, reaching her hands out to the warmth. Her fingers were cold. For all that she was here for information that might save Eclipse, she didn’t want to talk about him. Not to this woman.
“I believe she gave him the normal version of the oath, though,” Kekkai said softly to her back.
It took a moment for Mirei to see the implication of the Key’s words. She turned abruptly, hands still toward the fire. “Wait—
Shimi
cast the spell on Eclipse?”
The nervousness in Kekkai’s eyes edged over into fear. Mirei wondered what her expression looked like, to get that response. “Yes,” Kekkai said. “Even with the Warrior in it. Or so I’m told. I might be wrong.”
Three quick steps across the floor, and Kekkai flinched back. “But it was
Shimi
.” The same bitch who had him taken prisoner and didn’t release him when Satomi called the hunt off.
“She forced him into it,” Kekkai said, her words rushing together. “They had him prisoner in Abern—he told them he wanted to do it, that you weren’t his year-mate anymore, so he didn’t care about you, but she made it be a blood-oath, and told him they’d kill him if he didn’t swear. That he wasn’t any use to them if he wouldn’t. So the only way for him to live was to agree to kill you.”
Mirei had known that an Air witch cast the spell. The color of Eclipse’s scar had been reported to Starfall. But she hadn’t known it was the Air Prime herself.
I’m going to make her pay.
Rigai’s voice whispered through her memory, saying, “
Human sacrifice
.”
A life offered to the Warrior, so that she would not take someone else’s.
Who better to offer in exchange?
The thought repulsed Mirei even as she was attracted to it.
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice? She tried to set up Eclipse’s death; I’ll set up
hers
in his place
.
She was a Hunter, and she’d killed people before. But never in such cold blood.
What would Eclipse think of it?
But he didn’t have to know. No one had to know.
I don’t even know if it will work.
Will
work, her thoughts had phrased it. Not
would
work.
I don’t even know where she is.
Mirei dragged herself away from those thoughts with an effort, and looked back to Kekkai. The Key was staring at her, eyes wide. No doubt wondering what Mirei would do to her for having been the bearer of that particular bit of information.
I won’t do anything to
you, Mirei thought coldly.
“We’re done for now,” she said, and left without another word.
The practice with the girls that afternoon was a quiet one. There had been so much bad news lately, starting with Chanka and Anness; Mirei had been nauseated to hear about their deaths. Now the business in Kalistyi. The girls didn’t know where Mirei had gone, nor what exactly had happened there, but they knew that Ashin had gone with her, and that Ashin had come back dead. Indera and Sharyo were both stone-faced, and the others stayed gingerly away from them, as if not sure what to say.
Tajio had been watching over them in Mirei’s absence; with Mirei’s permission, she remained on hand to observe how the practices were normally conducted. Mirei wasn’t particularly happy with having an audience, but she couldn’t shake the memory of her conversation with Hyoka and Nenikune. She wouldn’t be around forever, and someone else had to know what to do with these girls. Ashin, who had helped, was gone.
As they moved through their exercises, silence only broken by shouts as they punched and kicked, Mirei wondered privately if this was even a good idea.
If my magic is killing me
—
The thought left her feeling scared in a way she hadn’t since the days before she rejoined. Back when she was doubting whether there
was
any alternative to killing her doppelganger. If the consequence of this rejoining was early death, then did she have any right to send these girls down the same path? Wouldn’t it be better to lose Amas, than Amas and Hoseki both?
It all depended on what exactly was happening to her. And she didn’t know the answer to that.
Practice ended; she waved everyone off, including her escort of Cousins. They didn’t want to go, but she summoned up a glare that drove them into retreat. Alone at last, she exhaled slowly, breath blooming outward in a white fog. Standing in the wintry clearing, she relaxed her muscles, and began to move.
It wasn’t a spell. There was no purpose to the power she drew. She simply moved, weaving her voice in counterpoint to the shifting of her body, and called up the power of the Void. Dangerous, perhaps—but she had to feel it. She had to touch it, and see if the healers were right.
She had to know if it was killing her.
The sensation was so different from other kinds of power. It was a paradox she didn’t understand—how she could make use of something whose essence was nonbeing. But she felt it around her, flowing through her limbs as she moved, and knew it was there even as it was not.
And in that power, she felt no harm.
Work like this was not dangerous. She had no proof for Hyoka and Nenikune; they’d have to take her word for it. This was not where the damage lay. What was harming her was translocation, the journey through the Void, where the only thing that kept physical form together was the power of her will. That was what she had to avoid—no, not avoid. She couldn’t afford that. She must use it in moderation, and accept that the cost would be paid in flesh and blood.
She drew her movements to a close and released the power she held. It did not hang in the air, as other Elements did; there was no need to cancel it. The minute she let go, it was gone, for it had never been there to begin with.
“A paradox,” Mirei murmured into the cold air. But one that was a part of her now.
With her attention no longer bound up in movement, she realized there were eyes on her.
Turning around and scanning the thickets of gray, leafless underbrush, Mirei said, “You might as well come out.”
Amas emerged from behind a tangle of branches, looking disgruntled. “I thought I’d gotten better at hiding than that.”
Mirei was not in a mood to play teacher right now. “What do you want, Amas?”
“Well, it’s not so much what / want, as what
we
want.” Amas glanced back over her shoulder and called out, “We might as well ask her now.”
Farther back, several more figures appeared. Lehant was not much of a surprise; Owairi, Hoseki, and Urishin were. As they came up to join Amas, Mirei sighed. “Couldn’t this wait until later?”
Urishin stepped forward. “I wanted to talk to you privately.” Mirei gave a pointed look at the others; she flushed. “Privately as in, without witches and Cousins around. Without Tajio-ai, or A—Or any of those other people that are constantly watching over us.”