I lifted my arm and wrapped my mind around it.
“Now pull as hard as you can.”
We grunted as our knees braced. It felt just like arm wrestling, my whole body straining. The cluster of energy didn’t move. He was strong, and judging from the look on his face he didn’t seem to be putting forth the entire force of his mind like I was.
“Good,” he said, his voice only partially strained. “Stop.”
We both relaxed and the energy broke apart. He could’ve won with ease.
I hadn’t spent my time in training focusing on strength as much as I had on precision. It made me wonder what kind of regimen Jonen and the other pyforial mages had. If they fought for the North, I wouldn’t think twice about going with him. But I doubted they did.
He seemed half mad. Proof of the gods? I imagined him and the others eating poisonous mushrooms and beating on drums as they danced and hallucinated their proof of the gods.
Swenn yelled, “We should’ve killed her before he arrived like I wanted to! He won’t go with you, no matter what he says. It’s because he has something to lose that he lies. Take away that something and the truth will come out.”
“Control your anger,” Jonen chided.
“You’re an idiot. Let me show you.” After two quick steps, Swenn loomed over Shara as he drew his dagger.
It took too long to gather the pyforial energy I needed, but I threw what I managed to get control over at Swenn. Jonen had the same thought. I could feel his assistance in propelling the energy forward.
Swenn clenched his hands and pulled up his shoulders, prepared for the force. It slowed him as he wobbled, but he was balanced again in an instant. He fell on top of Shara and pulled his arm back to strike.
She lunged upward as she screamed, driving my dagger into his chest. He uttered a grunt of surprise as she kicked him off. He collapsed beside her, aggression flooding his face as he gritted his teeth.
He crawled forward, still trying to get his weapon into Shara’s flesh as she kept him at bay with her feet. Soon I got the energy needed to blow him away from her with a strong gust. He sprawled on his back and clutched the dagger handle protruding from his chest.
To my amazement, he yanked it out, managed to sit up, and began staggering toward Shara. Grunting and wheezing, he moved at the speed of a man with two broken legs.
She scrambled away, appearing nearly as weak as he did. He fell forward in his reach for her ankle as I sent another gust of pyforial energy his way.
It rolled him, leaving him on his chest this time. He tried to push himself up with his hands. Cursing at me in his throes of death, he nearly got to his knees before collapsing again.
He rolled over onto his back, his breath strained. “I’m glad I killed your mother,” he spat out. “She begged me”—he coughed—“to let her live. She was a coward just like Luke.” He took one last gasping breath.
I walked over and kicked the knife out of his hand. If I hadn’t already imagined every possible way he could’ve killed my mother, I would’ve felt anger. But I was calm as I checked his pulse, his eyes still open.
He finally was dead.
I took the key from his pants pocket.
“Leave his money,” Jonen said.
I still didn’t know what to think of this mage. After unlocking the shackle around Shara’s ankle, I looked at her face for clues. Her expressions always told me so much, but with one blackened eye and swollen cheeks, it was hard to decipher anything.
“We’ll bring her to Antilith where her injuries will be treated.” Jonen’s voice was without emotion. “And you’ll come with me into Quosae.”
I put my arm around Shara to keep her on her feet. Jonen walked up to us.
“If you separate from me before we get there, I will ensure that you both die as soon as you’re found. We are extremely powerful and prevalent. We don’t just stay in the mountains.”
So Shara and I would never know if someone we encountered was one of them. I didn’t like that.
“Don’t agree,” Shara whispered.
“I don’t like this apprehension,” Jonen warned.
“Please let us go,” Shara pleaded. “There’s no reason to fight.”
“Sadly, there is,” he said. “At this time, we’re enemies of war. Neeko could be considered the most powerful soldier of the North. I can’t let him leave unless he comes with me.”
“King Quince gave orders to his entire army to kill me upon sight because I disobeyed him,” I admitted. “I’m no longer his ally.”
“Then you should have no reason to stay in his land. Let me show you the truth about the gods. You won’t regret it.”
I fell silent.
“Unless,” he continued, cocking his head, “you’re still planning to fight for the North even after your king gave this order?”
“All I care about right now is Shara. I can’t say what I’ll do after she recovers.” It was a lie, and he knew it. He stepped back.
“I see you’ve already made your decision. Now you’re just stalling.”
He pulled his hands to his hips, amassing a wide cluster of clear energy. I jumped away from Shara to keep her out of this. The py slammed into my side before my feet retouched dirt, hurling my shoulder against the rocky wall.
I got a hand in front of my neck just before the energy wrapped around my throat. It squeezed me tighter than a pair of strong hands, but I still could draw breath with my hand in the way. Jonen gave up and threw me against the wall once more.
I managed to get my feet down before landing. Gathering my own energy, I drew a short sword from my belt.
I’d just gotten energy firmly around its handle when he took me off my feet again, my head and back hitting the wall this time. I didn’t bounce off like before, for the sheet of energy held me in place. But after so many duels with Laney, I was able to maintain my focus.
My sword hovered. I tilted the energy to aim the blade at Jonen.
He released me to grab hold of my energy as I willed the blade forward. Jonen stopped it halfway between us. The sword shook for a moment, then slowly slanted down and all the way around until it faced me.
I dove out of the way as it shot through the air. It hit the wall with a
crack
, surely with enough force to go through my torso. I rolled backward before the blade came down on top of me, then swatted my hand to mimic the motion I wanted the energy to take. The sword tumbled to the ground as I drew my other one.
The first sword was back in the air in an instant. I swung my arm at it, chopping through the energy under Jonen’s control and swatting the sword’s handle. It spun into the dirt.
I tossed the other sword from my hand, immediately catching its hilt with py. Without losing momentum, I turned the blade and forced it at Jonen with all my strength. A gust of his py hit me in the chest as my sword flew, knocking me over so I couldn’t see the result.
As I rolled to my feet, I found his attack had made me miss. My sword now lay at his feet. He aimed his hand at it.
I let go of my energy around it, forming a grip around the blade near me instead. Both of us got our weapons into the air at the same time. I dove to the side as I forced mine at him, watching the whole time as he did the exact same motion. Both swords crashed into the wall.
I can’t match his strength, but can he control two sets of energies at once like I can?
We would find out. I strained my mind to push back the energy around his sword as he got it into the air. Mine floated as well, my concentration split between the two of them.
He raised both arms, his eyes darting between both swords. Mine floated toward him as his floated toward me, both blades wobbling like drunken dancers. They stopped in the center, where they swayed beside each other in near symmetry.
When it had been just one sword, it felt like a wrestling match against someone twice my weight. But now with two of them to focus on, I could feel myself in control. Neither sword was about to slip out of my grasp at any moment and impale me.
I walked forward, getting closer to both floating swords. Gradually they both turned until they pointed at him.
I continued one step at a time, pushing the swords closer and closer to him with each shallow breath I took.
Suddenly his grip on both clusters of energy came off. The swords catapulted into the wall where his chest would’ve been if he hadn’t ducked. He threw out his hand and a line of energy hit my shins. Falling forward, I kept my grip on the energy around my weapons.
He jumped to his feet and began to run. I aimed, reminding myself Shara and I would be hunted if this man was allowed to live.
He turned and threw out his hand. Another gust of energy slammed into me, forcing me into a backward tumble. By the time I was back upright, my swords still hovering, he’d disappeared down the dark walkway out of the cave.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Can you walk?” I asked as I took Shara’s hand and helped her up.
“My legs are stiff but uninjured.” She hobbled over to Swenn’s corpse, dug her hands in his pockets, and pulled out a pouch.
We cautiously made our way toward the cave’s exit, Shara’s hand shaking in my grasp. She grabbed my arm with her other. “Wait, my wand.”
“What if he’s waiting?”
“He’s not.” She seemed sure.
I let her take the lead because she seemed to know where she was going. She brought me down a turn and into an opening where Swenn and Jonen must’ve slept, blankets still laid out. Beneath one of them was Shara’s wand, its blue handle easy to recognize.
Soon we were out in the morning rain and running to my horse.
“Wait.” She stopped me. After a quick spin, her gaze focused on Henry’s body over the cave. Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him.
I decided not to mention Casp, though if she was aware of Henry’s fate, she probably already knew about the horse.
We didn’t speak until we were miles away. Sharing Vkar’s saddle, Shara took bread and water from my bag.
“Can you make it to Norret?” I asked.
“Why not Antilith?” We were close to the city by then, and it would be days until we reached Norret.
“What I said to Jonen is true,” I explained. “Everyone in Quince’s army will soon have the order to kill me upon sight. And even if no one from the army found us, my reputation among the citizens in Antilith is dangerously poor.”
“What happened?”
I told her everything that had occurred after we parted: the Southern army’s trick, my scramble in Antilith, Rao spying and then coming with me, the terrislaks, Lord Crall. I ended by describing bringing Rao and Brijit back to Antilith.
Shara never said a word, even when I told her he’d been abandoned like she had. We were out of the forest by the time I’d finished.
“Does this change your thoughts on Rao?” I asked.
“I think so but I can’t tell yet. I’ll know in a few days.” She sounded unusually reserved, though she had every right to be. I hated to think of what had happened to her over the past week.
We rode up a hill and dismounted amid a secluded grove of bushes red with berries.
“How did they capture you?” I asked gently as I began gathering.
“After we parted, someone followed me without me realizing it. They waited until night, then took me and killed Casp. They brought me on their horse to Swenn and a few hundred of Marteph’s men. They bound me and kept me with them.” She heaved out a sigh and surprised me by coming up behind me and squeezing her arms around my stomach. I turned within her embrace to face her. “I told them about you and the other scouts.” Tears ran down her swollen cheeks. “I couldn’t help it. Swenn tortured me.”
The words seemed hard for her to speak. She couldn’t say anything else afterward.
I held her for a while, repeating that I didn’t care that she’d told. I was just glad she was safe.
“But scouts were killed because of me,” she whispered into my chest, weeping. “I tried to hold on for as long as I could. But I’m not strong.”
“You are strong.”
She shook her head, her forehead rubbing against my collar. “I’m not. I told him everything I knew about you and the scouts. I couldn’t endure the pain.”
I carried her to a tree so we could be out of the rain. I sat her against its trunk and put my blanket around her.
“Their deaths aren’t your fault,” I assured her. “Swenn is the one willing to torture a young woman. You would never do that, and I would never do that.”
I sat beside her. We held hands until she finally stopped crying. “I’ll never stop feeling guilty.”
“I know.”
She looked straight at me. “I understand now.”
“It does get easier the more good you do.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “Swenn went through so much just to try to kill you. He knew Jonen was recruiting pyforial mages, so he concocted a plan to have you turn down Jonen’s offer, forcing the mage to kill you.”
Because Swenn knew he couldn’t do it himself.
“You know this means everyone I meet could want me dead,” I said. “Anyone could be a member of the army or of the PCQ. I can’t trust anyone anymore.”
“You mean
we
can’t trust anyone anymore.”
“No, you need to go back to Glaine. You have a life there.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Shara, you—”
“Neeko! I’m not going to do that! You said the guilt gets easier the more good I do, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you serious about winning this war? Because right now there’s nothing more I want than for the South to give this up, all these…
killings
.” She made a face as if disgusted. “They’re life-ruiners, and they need to be stopped. You want to stop them, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll take you South. I’m sick of doing nothing. We’re going to stop this war ourselves.”
“How?”
“Take Marteph down from the throne.”
“I ask again…how?”
She put two fingers over her lips as she fell into thought. “I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I do know how to get there. I’ll need some maps and books before we leave, along with other supplies. But it’s nothing we can’t afford.” She brought down the blanket to show me Swenn’s money pouch in her hands. She opened it and poured five dalions and some ruffs into my palm. “Two of those dalions were taken from me.”