Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

Valara tried to read his expression, but the moonlight had changed his face into a mosaic of blue shadows. “Of course.”

Miro drew an audible breath and swung away. “There is no of course. Not in anything we do. Not today, not in all our lives before.”

The ragged note in his voice brought Valara to her feet. “Miro, wait.” She crossed to him quickly, stopped a pace away, breathless. The air itself had changed with speaking his name.

“I lied,” she said. “At the Mantharah, the gods…” She discovered she was rubbing the scar on her palm, where she had gripped the three jewels. Her skin prickled at the memory of magic flooding her veins when she plunged her hands into the Mantharah’s strange lake. “I cannot cross the magical plane, because I have no magic left to me,” she whispered. “The gods took it.”

Her eyes burned with tears. She refused to weep, however. Lir and Toc had exacted their price. So be it. Oh, but she hated this void inside her, and the sense she would have to live the rest of her life unbalanced, incomplete.

She swiped a hand across her eyes and made to turn away. Miro captured her hand in his. Then the other. Valara inhaled sharply. She did not dare to move.

His hold was featherlight, his palms rough with calluses from sword work.

“Trust me,” he said. “Please. I promise to deliver you safely to your kingdom.”

He lifted her hands to his lips. Stopped. Held them for a single moment that to Valara felt like infinity. All the careful blankness had vanished. She could tell by the strange smile on his face that he had stepped to the precipice of a decision. And leapt.

He loosed her hands. On impulse, she reached up to touch his face. Miro’s eyes were like dark moons. Very slowly, he bent down and touched his lips to hers. Warm. His breath like a cloud of magic against her chilled face. He kissed her again, a solemn, most thorough kiss that spoke of an intimacy she had not guessed at.

Miro stepped back. No need to read his expression. She could taste the passion from that lingering kiss. Without another word, he left her chamber, as secretly as he’d come.

CHAPTER NINE

FOR ILSE ZHALINA, it was a day and night spent in anxious preparation.

She sat at a table in her bedchamber, surrounded by stacks of books and scrolls on the floor, on the table, and some on her bed, all of them smuggled from Karasek’s enormous library over the past week. In front of her lay a nearly complete copy of a map showing the southwestern quadrant of Károví

’s plains, along with its towns, highways, and garrisons. One parsimonious candle lit her workspace. She had wanted to use magic, but she did not wish to draw attention to her activities. Magic, she expected, was particularly suspect by these new visitors to Taboresk House.

Her candle guttered. Ilse lit another before it died.

Two more left. Several days ago, when she had first formed her plans, she had advertised her love of reading at night, thus ensuring a plentiful supply from her maid. Once the search began, it would be obvious how she spent this night, but by tomorrow afternoon, it would not matter. She only had to escape the house and its immediate grounds. From there she could—she hoped—vanish into the wilderness, while Karasek’s visitors kept him occupied until she was truly beyond his and their reach.

Ilse finished off one last notation about troop movements, then set the map aside to dry. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. Her head ached; her shoulders were stiff from hours bent over this makeshift desk.

If only I could walk the magic planes.

But she could not. She had attempted once, and nearly lost herself.

All throughout the remainder of that morning, she and Valara had talked. Talked to little purpose. They were both lying to each other, but they continued to pretend an alliance. When Valara at last departed for her own rooms, Ilse felt only relief. She had not set to work at once. Instead, mindful of spies, she lingered an hour or so in a small parlor, reading a novel, then took a walk through Taboresk’s formal gardens. As soon as she dared, she dismissed her maid for the night and set to copying maps.

From far away came the muted tolling of an hour bell. Three, four, five …

One more hour until dawn. She would have to hurry before the household woke.

She dressed in her warmest riding costume—the silk shirt, the wool trousers, socks and boots and gloves and quilted jacket. A knitted cap went into her pockets, along with several inkstones, a few brushes, and the rest of the blank pages. She had a moment’s regret for soap and a dozen other amenities, but that passed quickly enough. Her expectations had altered a great deal since she ran away from Melnek.

Her last task was to collect the coins and gems from her jewelry box. Karasek had wanted her to appear the proper wealthy young woman; to that end, he had provided her and Valara with pins and pendants, earrings, and jewels for their hair. She felt a prick of guilt; thief was not a name she liked. But she would need money for supplies, possibly bribes as well. She would repay him once she rejoined Raul.

She stashed the jewels and coins in a pouch, which went inside her shirt. By now the moon had dipped below the horizon. The stars were little more than pale specks. The hills, just visible, showed as a black smudge against the dark gray sky. Morning was rising whether she liked it or not. Ilse was glad she had anticipated this moment, and did not need to seek out provisions or gear.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

She lit a new candle. The copies of her map she folded into a square packet and tucked them into her belt for now. The originals she scooped up in her arms. She surveyed her rooms one last time. There was nothing left to incriminate her or point to the route she chose, unless someone knew her intentions.

Outside her rooms, she scanned the corridor in both directions. No movement in the shadows outside her circle of candlelight. Not a sound except the thrumming of blood at her temples. She took a deep breath and glided toward the nearest stairwell, then down and around to the next landing, along now-familiar passageways, the candlelight leaping over the stone walls. She deposited the maps in the library, then sped down another set of stairs to a doorway she seldom used and which led to the courtyard where the sentries drilled.

Here she paused to recover her breath. This, this was a dangerous moment. She had no good explanation for her presence here, especially at this hour.