The Labyrinth of Flame Read online

  Kiran staggered for the house. Whatever Raishal’s relationship to Teo—sister, cousin, friend?—at least she didn’t seem likely to prevent Dev from receiving help.

  As he negotiated the narrow doorway, Zadikah asked Raishal, “Where’s Veddis?”

  “He went to tell his kin that if they want to feast our child properly, they’ll have to do it here, no matter the omens.” Raishal’s voice lowered, grew sharper. “Zadi, these two half-dead sivayyah had better not be a sign you’re hip deep in trouble again. You said you were done with that city nonsense.”

  Kiran paused, wanting to hear what Zadikah would say in answer.

  “They’re nothing but a pair of idiot prospectors from Ninavel who thought they could stroll across the desert without the right supplies,” Zadikah said. “Or so they claim.”

  Kiran didn’t miss her emphasis on the final word. Zadikah might be keeping to the lie she’d instructed Kiran to tell, but she wanted Raishal to know she didn’t trust him. He couldn’t fault her for that, but the friendship between the two women was a raw reminder of all he stood to lose if Dev died. Kiran stumbled forward, remembering with painful clarity Dev’s steadfast encouragement over the last weeks, his stubborn confidence, his sardonic humor.

  Within the house, a soft glow from a single firestone in a hearth lit a surprisingly broad room. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with pots, ladles, metal tins, and a multitude of glass jars containing everything from seed pods to what looked like snake scales. Strings of dried herbs and roots dangled from a painted clay ceiling. A low stone table stood in the center of the room, surrounded by woolen cushions dyed in colors that rivaled the sunrise outside.

  Raishal directed Kiran to back up to the table. She sawed through the straps binding Dev to Kiran’s back and eased Dev down onto the tabletop’s pitted sandstone.

  “Hurry, Zadi, get Teo. This man’s barely breathing.”

  Zadikah directed another basilisk glare at Kiran, the warning clear: Don’t you try anything. She hurried out through an interior archway hung with chips of colored quartz.

  Kiran wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the cushions, but he gripped the table’s edge and forced his shaking legs to hold him. Now he was no longer touching Dev, he couldn’t even sense Dev’s ikilhia, it had ebbed so far. Kiran couldn’t take his eyes from the slow, almost imperceptible movement of Dev’s chest.

  “Have you any water?” he asked Raishal. “I gave him some a while back, but Zadikah didn’t have much left in her skins.”

  “Of course.” Raishal unsealed the cover of a fat, brightly painted urn. She ladled water from the urn into a cup, dipped a cloth within, and began squeezing a trickle of moisture into Dev’s slack mouth. Kiran swallowed, abruptly aware of his own parched throat.

  Raishal caught him staring. Her mouth quirked, and she shoved the cup toward him. “Go on, drink some too, boy. What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Kiran. And this is Dev.” No point in attempting false names when Dev was so sick that he might easily reveal their real names if he roused to delirium. Kiran wanted no hint of deception to alarm Zadikah. He groped for the water cup, his gaze sliding back to Dev. Why was Zadikah taking so long to get Teo?

  “Sit down before you fall over,” Raishal said. “You’re worried for your friend, I know, but—”

  “Raishal, I’ll need saltwort, firetongue extract, and fresh-ground carro root.” A short, sinewy man with tawny skin and almond-shaped eyes shoved through the quartz strands at the archway, with Zadikah crowding right behind him. His ink-black hair stood up in a disheveled forest of spikes, his linen shirt was rumpled, and his feet were bare.

  The man checked abruptly, staring at Kiran. Kiran gaped in equal surprise at the bronze flame of the man’s ikilhia, vivid even through Kiran’s barriers.

  Teo was a mage? Zadikah had said nothing of this! Kiran felt naked, knowing his own ikilhia marked him out just as strongly as Teo’s. This close, not even his amulet could mask its intensity.

  Zadikah was already frowning, glancing between Kiran and Teo. Raishal hadn’t noticed Teo’s reaction; she’d turned away to survey the shelves.

  “Think we’ve still got some carro root in the cellar. I’ll grind some for you.” She dodged around Zadikah and Teo to leave the room, quick on her feet despite her heavy belly.

  His eyes locked on Teo, his barriers as strong as his unsettled ikilhia could make them, Kiran said, “You’re the healer? Please, my friend’s in dire need of your help.” Teo’s ikilhia wasn’t half as bright as Kiran’s own, and his protective barriers were little more than gossamer wisps around his inner flame. In ordinary circumstances, such a lesser mage would be little threat to an akheli like Kiran, but now…the amulet would help protect Kiran from any spells Teo might cast, but that was far from the only danger.

  Teo’s eyes narrowed. His gaze darted to Dev, then back to Kiran. Kiran braced for Teo to reveal him as a liar, perhaps even attempt to cast against him.

  Teo said, “Zadi, I need saltwort from the stone garden and fresh goat milk to dilute it. Get it quickly, please. The Arkennlander looks to be at death’s very gateway.”

  Did he want Zadikah gone out of fear Kiran would cast against her? Perhaps Kiran could use that fear. Teo didn’t know the depth of his handicap any more than the godspeaker had.

  Zadikah didn’t move. “You nearly jump out of your skin upon seeing this man, and now you want me to leave you alone with him? No. Tell me what spooked you.”

  Teo shrugged, a tight jerk of his narrow shoulders. “I was merely surprised because of his odd coloring. Men so pale usually have equally pale hair. Zadikah, please. The saltwort. I would not have a sick man die because we wasted time talking.”

  Could it be Zadikah didn’t know Teo was mage-born? All Kiran’s assumptions fractured. Of Teo and Zadikah, who was using whom?

  “Fine,” Zadikah said, still scowling. “I won’t be long.” A warning more than an assurance, reinforced by the parting glare she gave Kiran before she left the room.

  Teo faced Kiran, his ikilhia flaring bright, and said in a furious whisper, “What do you want of me? If the Seranthines sent you, tell the matria I will have no part of her schemes. She breaks her oath in searching me out.”

  “Nobody sent me,” Kiran protested. He was so tired, he could barely think—“I didn’t know you were a mage! All I want of you is your help as a healer. Give me that, and I’ll leave you alone.” He let his ikilhia surge high to press against his barriers, hoping Teo would take it as a warning of what might happen if he refused Kiran.

  “Your soul’s fire outshines the very sun, and you expect me to believe you can’t cast to heal this man?”

  Through gritted teeth, Kiran said, “I know nothing of healing magic. And I am not well, myself.”

  “That, I can tell. I’ve never seen a mage with his inner energies in such chaos. Yet that’s not the true reason you want to avoid spellcasting, is it? You let Zadikah use you as a pack mule when it would have been far easier to reveal yourself as a mage and order her assistance in carrying your friend, and you wear a veiling charm so powerful I couldn’t sense you until I walked in this room. I think you fear an enemy’s attention.”

  Why did the man have to be so clever? Kiran resisted the urge to pull his shirt farther over the hidden sigil on his chest. “I have good reason not to cast, it’s true. But if you force me to the choice…” He laid a hand on Dev’s fever-hot arm, felt again that struggling, dying ember of life. Desperation rose to choke him. “I would do anything to save this man. Anything.”

  Words he meant in utter earnest, for all he could hear Ruslan’s dark, amused chuckle. Anything? Oh yes, I saw your soul rightly, Kiran.

  Teo’s eyes grew hooded. “If you care for him so greatly, then you will understand: I too have friends I care for and want to protect. What guarantee do I have that your enemy won’t track you here?”

  Friends you value so highly that you lie to them? Kiran wanted to demand. But hadn’t
he made similar decisions many a time in the past? Besides, Zadikah seemed to see no contradiction in love and lies. Maybe she and Teo were a better match than he’d thought.

  “You’re safe so long as I don’t cast,” Kiran said. “Without that, my enemy has no reason to seek me here. Heal my friend—give me aid, too, in restoring the balance of my ikilhia—and we’ll leave you the moment we have the strength to do it.” Even if their dealings with Zadikah would be far from over.

  “Oh, now I must help you as well as the Arkennlander?”

  Perhaps he should offer knowledge of Zadikah’s plans to Teo as an incentive. Yet Kiran hesitated to reveal the information when he had no idea of how Teo might use it.

  “If you don’t, my barriers will soon fail and my enemy will find me. Believe me, that’s not an outcome you want. He cares nothing for the lives of the untalented. Or lesser mages.”

  A bitter flicker of a smile crossed Teo’s face. “My aid may not be what you hope. You say you have reason not to cast. So do I. If I help you and your friend, it will be with herbs and charms such as any ordinary healer might use, not with spells. The same as I do for all who seek my aid.”

  Kiran stared at him, flummoxed all over again. “You’re in hiding?” If Teo had never cast any spells here, it would explain why Kiran had felt no warning traces of spellwork when approaching the house.

  “Not the way you mean it.” Teo’s shuttered expression said he had no intention of elaborating. Kiran wanted to press him harder, but the fading ember of Dev’s ikilhia beneath his hand was a reminder that he dared not waste more time.

  “If you save him, I don’t care how you do it. But either you help him, or I cast to force you.” Simple enough to rip away those frail threads of magic guarding Teo’s ikilhia and cast a will-binding. Kiran drew in a deep, shaky breath. He summoned his concentration even as dread turned his gut to ice. Don’t make me do this…

  “Stop!” Teo jumped back, his hands coming up. “There’s no need for casting. You want such help as I can provide for both you and your friend? Cast no spells while you are here, say nothing to anyone of my…abilities, and I will give it.”

  “Keep my secrets, and I’ll reveal nothing of yours.” Kiran’s legs shook so badly he could no longer stand. He sank onto a cushion, hoping Teo wouldn’t realize just how exhausted he was.

  His mouth a thin line, Teo strode to the table. He touched Dev’s chest, then yanked his hand back, the taut planes of his face slackening with surprise. “What is this binding he bears? Is it your doing?”

  “No,” Kiran said. “It’s the work of a different enemy.” He hurried through a halting explanation that left out all mention of demons, though he admitted how he’d used the binding to save Dev’s life in the gorge, and why it had been necessary.

  Listening, Teo’s expression hardened again. He felt the pulse at Dev’s throat, skinned back Dev’s eyelids and peered at the whites of his eyes. He said over his shoulder, “I’ve saved men this close to death, but not many. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t promise you success.”

  “If he dies because you would not cast—”

  “If he dies, it is your doing! You claim he is your friend, yet you leave him bound with an enemy’s magic and disrupt his body’s functioning with no care for his illness.”

  Kiran flinched. His face hot, guilt thick in his throat, he protested, “I never intended to harm him. If you know a spell that would heal him, then tell me. I’ll cast without hesitation.”

  “You mean without a care for what havoc your enemy would visit upon us in response,” Teo said acidly.

  Kiran drew breath, but Teo slashed a hand in a disgusted gesture. “Spare me your threats. Perhaps if I had an inferno burning inside me, I would’ve learned spells that can so easily banish death. Those of us ‘lesser mages’ are not so fortunate. The healing charms I possess contain spells as strong as any I know how to cast.”

  “But if charms aren’t enough—”

  “Hush,” Teo snapped, turning to the archway. “Raishal returns. Good. I need that gods-cursed carro root.”

  Kiran unwillingly subsided as Raishal hurried in carrying a linen-wrapped bowl. He watched with burning, gritty eyes as Teo rifled through a copper chest of charms and rattled out orders that had Raishal measuring powders and liquids to add to her bowl. Kiran barely noticed when Zadikah returned with saltwort in hand. All his attention was on Dev’s sunken-cheeked, ashen face, as Teo settled a charm on Dev’s brow and spooned drips of the hastily mixed potion into his mouth.

  Don’t fail, he willed Teo. Otherwise… Kiran shied from the thought, unable to even imagine an otherwise. If he failed to save Dev now, after all the times Dev had saved him; if he lost the one friend whose bond had proved true…the idea was a black, looming wave waiting to drown him. He saw once again the old trader’s sly grin, the godspeaker’s fierce triumph, and the dark whirl of his exhaustion and fear transmuted into a vicious blaze of rage. If Dev died, then whatever Kiran’s fate, he would first ensure that every one of the black-daggers regretted their treachery.

  And once again, he heard the echo of Ruslan’s dark, delighted laugh.

  Chapter Six

  (Dev)

  I was lying on something soft. Too soft. Not even blankets could make rocky ground feel so yielding. But it didn’t make sense for me to be in a bed. I wasn’t in Ninavel. Was I? I struggled to open my eyes, but they felt gummed shut. I raised a hand to swipe at them, panting with effort. My arm—no, my entire body—felt a limp, leaden weight. Gods, what had happened to me?

  A choked whimper broke the silence. The sound hadn’t come from me. Who, then? Propelled by rising worry, I scrubbed at my eyes and got them open.

  A dim blur of orange resolved into a cracked clay ceiling. I turned my head and squinted blearily at a wall made of jutting stone shards. A rough-cut window framed distant domes of sandstone. Their crests glowed a bloody gold—with the sun’s first rays, not its last, given the cool stillness of the air and the pale clarity of the sky beyond.

  Memories trickled in, frustratingly jumbled. Kiran, the clanfolk, something about water…?

  The whimper came again. I rolled, groaning, and peered over the edge of the bed.

  Kiran lay on a thin pallet on the packed dirt of the floor. He was huddled on his side in a tight curl of limbs, his black hair fallen in wild disarray over his pallid, dreaming face. He jerked, one hand clawing into the clean but ill-fitting shirt covering his chest. His other hand flailed out in a warding motion. Another despairing noise escaped him.

  This, at least, was familiar. If Kiran had ever enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep, I sure hadn’t seen it.

  “Hey. Kiran.” My voice was little more than a croak.

  He thrashed again, rolling onto his back. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing me. His stare was glassy and blank, his pupils mere specks in a sea of blue iris.

  Abruptly, he spoke—an eerie, sibilant rush of incomprehensible words that set every one of my neck hairs standing on end. I’d heard that foreign tongue once before. From a similarly glassy-eyed Kiran speaking to the demon in the Cirque of the Knives.

  I glanced around wildly. No coldly beautiful demons grinned in the little room’s shadowed corners or shoved through the threadbare curtain blocking the single entryway.

  Kiran spoke again, his eyes staring, his teeth bared.

  “Kiran!” I wanted him awake, right fucking now, but I didn’t dare lean down and shake him. Khalmet only knew what’d happen if I touched him. Wait—beside my bed was a protruding stone shelf stacked with books, a few figurines of carved bone, and a battered tin cup. The cup was perched on the end nearest me. I strained to reach it, cursing my sluggish, frighteningly uncooperative body. My fingers snagged the rim.

  I grabbed the cup and flung it at Kiran. “Wake up!”

  The throw was weak, but my aim was good. The cup struck him square in the chest. Kiran sat bolt upright, releasing a startled yelp. Awareness flooded back into his ey
es, which went wide the moment he spotted me.

  “Dev?” He scrambled to his feet. “You’re awake again. Do you know who I am?” The question held a painful hope that set me wondering uneasily just how long I’d been lying in this bed.

  “Kind of hard to forget the stubborn idiot I’ve dragged over half the Whitefires and far too much of the desert. The part I don’t know is—” I broke off, coughing. “Aggh. Got any water?” My throat and eyes felt full of sand.

  Delight dawned in Kiran’s eyes, growing until his whole face blazed with it. “Water? Of course, let me—” He snatched up the fallen cup, grabbed a jug off a gnarled little ironwood table in the room’s far corner, and started pouring. “You’re truly awake this time! I sensed your ikilhia growing stronger, but every time you woke you were still delirious, I was terrified you wouldn’t—” He gave an abashed laugh. “I’m sorry, I know I’m babbling. It’s just…it’s very good to know you’re recovering.”

  Offering me the cup, he beamed at me, the old, heart-stoppingly joyful smile I remembered from before Ruslan stole his memories. My throat closed. I’d thought I might never again see him smile like that.

  I gulped water until I could speak. “I remember getting sick. It was the water those clan bastards gave us, right?” An echo of agony cramped my gut at the thought. “Then…right, we found shelter, but…” I had a vague recollection of trying to hold a conversation with Kiran over a magefire while my head pounded and my stomach threatened to turn inside out. All I could summon past that was a scattering of splintered impressions: my hands unsealing a waterskin with feverish haste; a circle of wet sand beside a magefire; a wild-eyed Kiran shouting at me.