The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,102

held up a hand, as Pello brightened. “On one condition. You must allow me to search your thoughts, to verify the truth of what you say.” A tiny, unpleasant smile touched his mouth. “One can never be too careful.”

Behind his back, Pello’s hands fisted so tightly I thought blood might drip from his palms. I grinned, fiercely. He’d thought he was so clever, yet he’d been trapped neat as a blacktail in a snare. If he let the mage touch him, gods only knew the result.

Pello’s shoulders stiffened. He jerked his head in a nod. I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. He might be a rat bastard, but he had balls.

The mage held out a hand, palm up.

Pello edged forward, reluctance clear in every line of his body. He hesitated, then extended his arm.

Swift as a striking snake, the mage clasped his bare wrist. Pello gave a strangled, agonized cry and collapsed, dangling from the mage’s grip like a bone doll. I waited for the mage to cast his dead body aside, but instead the mage held his pose, his eyes distant and his hand locked over Pello’s wrist.

He wasn’t killing Pello, but searching his mind. My stomach lurched. Shaikar take me, this was what I’d left Cara and Jerik to face, back at the convoy.

Pello’s face had gone gray, and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. The mage’s face stayed as serenely calm as a Varkevian idol’s. At last he released Pello’s wrist with a contemptuous flick of his hand. Pello dropped flat on his face, his body spasming in little hitching jerks. I winced, imagining Cara in his place.

The mage strode to the door and called for Gerran, who slid into the room with the wary caution of a man entering a sandcat’s lair. The mage waved a hand at Kiran, unconscious in the chair, and Pello, who still lay twitching and gasping like a man brain-burned. “Have your men take them both to my carriage,” he said, and stalked out.

I eased myself away from the crack in the boards. Oh, gods. I should never have come to Gerran’s warehouse. Far from lightening the black weight in my gut, what I’d seen and heard had only made it worse. I hadn’t only betrayed Kiran to a fate he’d rather have died than face. I’d handed a monster the key he thought he needed to bring a second war down on Ninavel.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

(Dev)

I dropped my forehead against a roof truss, wishing to all the gods I could forget what I’d just seen and heard. Every instinct screamed at me to get the fuck away from the Shaikar-cursed blood mages before I got myself killed. I should run back to Ninavel, use my hard-won coin to free Melly, and get us safely out of the city before it erupted in magefire. I could warn my city friends a power-hungry blood mage meant to strike down Sechaveh and claim Ninavel—some of them might even believe me...and even if they thought me a sun-blinded, jabbering idiot, Sechaveh would surely win in the end, just like he had before. Right?

Yet the desperate defiance on Kiran’s face and the agonized fear in his cry haunted me. If I left him to a slavery bad as anything Melly faced...what kind of man did that make me?

One every bit as soulless and cold as Jylla had claimed. If I ran, I’d prove her right, and earn every harsh word Cara had shouted at me.

But Melly...I’d promised Sethan I’d save her. No matter the cost.

My skin burned against the cold metal of the truss. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew full well Sethan would never have wanted me to keep my promise to him this way. He’d have been horrified by what I’d done to Kiran, let alone the idea of me sneaking off while a blood mage worked to start a war that might kill thousands.

I could see the way he’d look at me with fierce, earnest eyes. You can still make this right, he’d say. Sethan had always believed in second chances. All you need do is free Kiran, before the mage can make use of him.

Yeah, sure. How the fuck was I supposed to do that? Even in my Tainted days, I’d stayed well clear of mages. Magic couldn’t detect or prevent the invisible grip of the Taint, which gave Tainters a chance at breaking wards—but ward magic was passive, bound to a single purpose. Red