Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

Because you think she is dying.

“Bela,” she whispered. “Live. Live, damn you.”

From behind, came the sound of bickering—Damek insisting he must stay. Maryshka urging him outside. The parents in conference with their daughter. All the while, Bela’s breathing grew fainter and harsher, each delay between inspiration and expiration longer than before.

Markyshka laid a hand, warm and steady, on he

r shoulder.

“I have sent them all away,” she said softly. “But your friend—if you know magic to save her, use it now.”

“I can’t,” Ilse whispered. “I tried before.”

All her studies had been bent upon rediscovering the jewels, learning how to launch herself in spirit and flesh into Anderswar. The jewels no longer existed in this world, and all her knowledge meant nothing, nothing, nothing. She wanted to weep, to shout her fury to the gods. Except she knew the gods did not care. They could not, at least they could not care as much as she did.

Maryshka took hold of Ilse’s shoulder and shook her. This was no kind and gentle grip, but someone who would not take a careless answer.

“Try,” Maryshka insisted. “You have nothing to lose but her life.”

All the old explanations rose up, how her father despised magic, how even her grandmother spoke of it with fleeting reserve. For all her life, she had believed this was her heritage, no matter what she once told Raul Kosenmark.

Ilse swallowed a laugh. It no longer mattered what she or anyone else believed. She drew a shaky breath, held it long past the burning in her chest, then loosed an exhalation slowly. Nothing changed except the pressure within her skull. She repeated the exercise a half dozen times before she called upon the current itself.

“Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane Lir unde Toc…”

The current gathered around her, the air thick with a green, pungent scent. So many ways to describe the scent, the texture, the fury and rush of magic, all of them right, all of them inadequate. She felt the familiar grip against her chest, the sense of tipping forward from the ordinary into the extraordinary.

“Ei rûf ane Lir unde Toc. Komen mir de strôm…”

Ilse laid her hands over Bela Sovic’s forehead and thigh. Here the flesh burned with fever. Dimly, she felt a hand laid upon hers, another cupped around her neck, fingers lightly pressing against Ilse’s throat. It was Maryshka. She must know about magic. Or perhaps she had only guessed, and hoped to aid one stranger to heal another.

Bela, can you hear me?

Nothing. Then a faint echo. I can.

Then live, Ilse commanded.

Bela answered with laughter. Are you a queen? A king? To order me so?

Does that matter?

More laughter. A shudder. No. I must live. If you could just … Let me show you …

Rest, said another voice. Maryshka’s. I can show her what to do.

Now Ilse felt a great pressure, as if a vise gripped her neck, forcing her to look downward, ever downward to a point between vein and muscle and bone. She stretched out a hand, felt the mass of broken vessels and flesh. Maryshka had disappeared from view. The small room enclosing them had transformed itself into mist and fog, with bright points marking the worlds upon worlds, which occupied the wheel of life. She reached out and …

… felt the touch of gods. Of a longing she could not identify …

Heal me, said the god.

She recognized the voice as Toc’s, as he lay helpless and blind under the newborn stars. As Lir’s, as she bathed her dead lover’s face with her tears.

Live, she commanded Bela.

She drew a deep breath. Held it. Felt the ache of flesh bound by blood and muscle, then released the breath again as Lir once had, as she gazed upon her brother, hoping that he lived again.

“She lives,” Maryshka said.