“I understand, sire.”
“We are prepared to march,” he said. “I need you and Laney marching south with everyone else. Jaymes will be leading the charge tomorrow morning. Make sure you are well-rested and fed before then.”
Adrenaline stirred my stomach. “I will be ready. What about Shara, sire? What will she be doing?”
Falister took in a deep breath from the corner of the room. I glanced to find him with a pained look in his eyes.
Quince had the same look. “She did not return after leaving with you.”
My gods.
“Then we need to find her,” I urged, barely refraining from shouting.
“I sent a search team. Henry volunteered to go with them. I had scrolls put up with her name and description here in Glaine, also in Norret and even in Antilith. They offer a reward of fifty silver to anyone who finds her.”
“How big was the search team?”
He sighed. “I need my men for battle. I could only spare four of them including Henry.”
“Four?” I said with more disdain than I meant to let out. I’d expected hundreds. Then I realized how silly that thought was. Shara was worth much less to Quince than she was to me.
“This is not a discussion,” Quince reminded me in an acrid tone. “You deserve to know, so I am telling you.”
I would find her no matter what. I thought about where she could be. Swenn might’ve had something to do with her capture. He would’ve stayed back to avoid battle. She was probably still in the forest with him.
“Neeko,” Quince scolded, making me realize my face had revealed everything. “You are not going after her. You said you wanted to end this war, and you cannot end wars by chasing one lost person.”
“I can meet Jaymes and his battalion before he crosses into the South after I find her. I’ll leave now.”
“You will not! You already have disobeyed enough orders. The only reason you are not in prison is because of what you can do, but even that will not stop me from punishing your disloyalty this time. I am not a capricious man, Neeko. This is no idle threat.”
“Fine…” I fixed my tone before adding “sire. I will stay.” It was a lie, but I needed to get out with my horse and without confrontation.
“I might believe you if you did not have the mendacity of an insolent child.” He leaned forward to show me the fury in his eyes. “Hear this. If you leave the castle before it is time, I will have it known that you are an illegal mage who took advantage of his king’s trust. Everyone in my army will be instructed to kill you upon sight, no questions. This is not how I like to conduct business, Neeko. But you have made me issue this threat.”
“I will stay,” I repeated.
I had all my belongings in the bag on my back as I rode out of the castle grounds on Vkar’s back. Quince was right that I desperately wanted to end this war. The South had killed so many of our people and burned their homes. It needed to stop.
But first I needed to find Shara.
I pushed Vkar to a gallop. I refused to believe she was dead. I knew no one more capable. She would fight and live, no matter the situation.
It took two nights to reach Antilith’s western forest again. If she hadn’t returned to the castle, chances were good that whatever happened had been among these trees. I retraced the route we took, riding toward the river where we’d separated. How could Quince expect anyone else to find her in all these woods without knowing our route? Of course I would have the best chance.
There was a small comfort in Henry volunteering. I was sure it was out of guilt for what he’d done for Swenn, but I didn’t care. Anyone who could help was welcome.
I found myself to be angry, though not at Quince. He had every right to threaten me. I
had
been disloyal. If I wasn’t a pyforial mage, he would’ve thrown me out of the army within the week I’d joined. So what angered me? Swenn and King Marteph, I realized.
Soon it was gone, suppressed by worry that felt like the weight of a horse standing on my chest.
She has to be alive.
I searched quickly yet methodically, riding along the route we’d taken to the river. I spent the day perusing the ground and plants for signs of humans.
At night, unrelenting worry kept me up. The rain would stop, sometimes as long as an hour, but it always started up again.
I rose before morning with the darkness of night still upon the forest. I could see just enough to search the ground, my weary body complaining each time I bent over and then again when I straightened.
A rustle in the trees pulled my head up. Gleaming eyes of silver pierced through the darkness between us.
A diyma.
He scampered down the trunk and plopped onto the dirt, his gray and brown skin blending into the tree behind him. As he came toward me, his limbs came into focus, gnarled like tree branches. He waddled closer, his little triangular head coming up to my waist. Although he appeared to be alone, I knew there had to be many more diymas watching.
“Hello,” I said, my tone as friendly as possible.
He lifted his twisted hand and a light green ribbon of sartious energy appeared in the shape of an upturned mouth. Behind it, the creature smiled. I did the same, pointing to my mouth. I figured we had either met in the forest on the other side of Antilith, where we’d killed Priest Karvrek, or he had heard about me from another diyma who was there. Unfortunately they all looked too similar for me to tell.
Suddenly he ran off. I waited with my horse’s reins in hand until he looked back at me and shook his hand. A vertical line of sartious energy appeared over his head.
I followed him.
He took me west in the direction of the river. We’d only walked a hundred yards before I began to smell a foul odor, like when a rat had died within a wall of my father’s room.
The stench thickened as I followed the diyma. He pointed. There was something hanging in the trees.
I knew I should’ve looked away the moment I saw it, but for some reason I couldn’t. A horse hung from ropes tied to branches, its head missing. Maggots squirmed around in its gaping neck and a hole in its stomach. Swallowing hard to keep down the contents in my stomach, I realized the horse looked like it could’ve been Casp, the one Shara and I took from the castle.
The diyma waved me onward. Once we were clear of the stench, he showed me three balls of sartious energy, lifting one at a time just like the first diyma had done in the other forest.
“Yes, I’m a pyforial mage.”
I used the energy to grab a rock, lifting it in front of us.
The diyma made a slash of sartious energy between us, the quick motion telling me I had done something wrong. He waved his stump of a hand and the three spheres of sartious energy formed again. He wiggled his other hand and three more spheres swirled beside the others.
“Two pyforial mages?” I held up two fingers.
He made an arc of energy and forced a smile.
So there was another pyforial mage here. Was the diyma telling me this mage had been the one to put Casp on display? I couldn’t figure out a way to ask.
I did know two things: Shara had to be close, and someone wanted me to find her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The diyma brought me to a cave and refused to go closer. When I walked toward it, he scampered back up into the trees.
The cave’s entrance came out from the mountain, giving it a rocky roof…on which something lay.
Nearly the same odor as before invaded my nostrils and throat as I came near. I saw that a body was strewn across, as big as men can get. Unless he was thrown from the mountain’s edge above, no person could’ve lifted the body above the cave’s entrance. Not one. Not ten.
But one pyforial mage could,
I realized.
Coming closer still, I recognized the sigil of a dalion on his shoulder. This was one of our men, possibly part of the search team.
I lifted myself into the air for a look at his rotting face.
Gods. It’s Henry.
I came back to the ground and sank to my knees, my strength sapped. The brutality and savage display of the kill was too much for me in that moment. He may have helped Swenn in the beginning, but he was a good man in the end.
I was supposed to find this place. Some pyforial mage had gone through a lot of trouble just to bring me here. As I walked toward the darkness, it felt like entering a terrislak den, every part of my being telling me to turn around. But in the same way that I knew this was meant for me, I also knew I would discover Shara’s fate inside.
I’d arrived before the morning sun had risen, and the cave was as quiet as it was dark. I kept one hand around the hilt of the dagger I’d brought from the castle as I bumbled along the jagged left wall. I followed it through a turn and stopped suddenly when I noticed light ahead. Someone holding a torch stood just around the next bend.
I turned back, then continued forward along the right wall this time. There were no turns as I trudged on in the darkness.
Soon, I could feel cold air. Light came with it, just enough for me to see shadows along what looked to be the back wall of the cave in a wide space ahead.
A crack in one wall let in drops of rain. A puddle below rippled with each plop of water. I glanced around as my eyes continued to adjust. The shadows slowly unfolded to reveal someone asleep or dead against the back wall.
I crept forward and soon noticed a chain coiled near her feet, long hair telling me it was a woman. Slow, so as to not wake her, I came close enough for a glimpse at her face. Although my eyes saw Shara, I knew it was too dark for me to really tell if it was her. Whoever it was, hopefully she wouldn’t scream.
I shook her shoulder. “Shara is that you?”
She awoke with a strained gasp. “Neeko?”
“Yes.” I pulled her up.
“Neeko,” she whispered again, her throat dry. “They’re going to kill you. Get out of here.”
“I’m taking you with me.”
“My ankle is bound.”
I knelt down, putting my dagger on the dirt so I could feel around with both hands at the bronze shackle connected to a chain.
“Who has the key?”
“Swenn. They’re going to kill us both. You have to go.”
Enough light came over my shoulder for me to see her face, bruised and swollen. Anger boiled within me, erasing all fear as I turned to find someone approaching with a torch from our only exit. Shara sat over my dagger to hide it.
Whoever held the light stood too far away for me to see his face. He laughed, then shouted over his shoulder, “He’s finally here. I told you he would come eventually.” It was Swenn’s voice.
I put myself in the center of this wide space at the back of the cave as another figure emerged. Together they walked toward me until my eyes recognized Swenn. He set the torch onto a sconce, giving me a clear view of the dagger on his belt. The other man was younger, nineteen or twenty and not a weapon on him.
“Neeko Aquin?” he asked.
“Who are you?”
“Jonen. I don’t have to be your enemy.”
“What a clever way of threatening me,” I mocked. “How about you let Shara go to show me how friendly you can be.”
“That will be up to you.”
“What do you want?”
“I want this war to end.” He sounded sincere.
“What else do you want?”
“I want people to stop dying.”
“Then you’ve chosen the wrong person as an ally.” I lifted my chin at Swenn, who scoffed in reply. He drew his dagger and pointed it at me.
“Just get on with your questions, Jonen,” Swenn said.
The young man came forward, his dark eyes like a cloudy sky before a storm. “Are you a pyforial mage?”
“Yes.”
“Swenn told me you would stop at nothing to kill him. Is this accurate?”
I looked at Swenn, my mind evoking the image of him stabbing my mother. “Yes.”
“And is it accurate to say that you not only fight for King Quince Barryn, but you would protect him against any threat?”
“Yes.” I felt my body preparing for battle. “So is that it then?” I unsheathed both swords.
Jonen lifted his palms. “No, that’s not it. Put away your weapons so we can continue.”
I glanced at Swenn, waiting for him to first sheathe his dagger. Jonen gave him a look. Swenn forced a chuckle and slid in the blade. He seemed all too comfortable with this.
I put away my swords as I walked toward Jonen, drawing Swenn’s eyes away from Shara. “I’m like you,” I told him. “I want this war to end and people to stop dying. Swenn is different from us. I don’t know what lies he’s told you, but he’ll do anything to be king. He doesn’t care about the war. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
“Yes, I know. He’s despicable. He would’ve raped this woman if I hadn’t prevented it.”
My teeth pushed together hard enough to induce a sharp pain. Swenn showed no guilt, just indifference.
“But he and I want the same thing,” Jonen added. “I come from the council of pyforial mages of Quosae. For more than a hundred years we’ve led austere lives in the mountains while watching over Sumar. Our sole purpose is protecting this land, and right now it’s dying. The gods are real, Neeko. And they’re in pain without sacrifices. This weather should be proof enough, but if you need more I’ll show it to you. Come with me to the mountains in Quosae and you’ll see things you couldn’t imagine existed.”
I thought for a moment. “If I agree, then we must first bring Shara to Glaine where she’ll be safe.”
“Glaine is too far from our path, but we can bring her to Antilith.”
Swenn threw up his arms. “It’s a lie, don’t you see! Once she’s safe, he’ll leave during the night and return to protect his idiotic king.”
“I will go with you to the mountains, Jonen.” I kept my voice stern. “I will see whatever it is you want to show me. But I can’t say I will be convinced of anything.” No doubt the moment I came in contact with this council of pyforial mages, there would be no leaving. So Swenn was right; I would leave after Shara was safe. This seemed to be the best way to ensure she would live.
“First show me how strong you are.” He flicked his wrist and a ball of pyforial energy gathered between us. “Grab hold.”