shoulder, and they followed along meek as kittens. We never saw them again, but Jerik found the spot where the mages must’ve cast a spell. The rocks were black with blood for a hundred yards, he said. What did you do, to bring that on us?”
I shut my eyes. Steffol I knew; he’d handled wagons for Goranant House for years. Joreal I didn’t. The stab of guilt wasn’t any less.
“I fucked up. Badly.” I sucked down a ragged breath, and then I laid it all out for her, all the way from the moment I’d taken the job.
Cara’s expression alternated between stunned and furious as I spoke. “Khalmet’s bloodsoaked bony hand,” she said, when at last I finished. “You brought a gods-damned blood mage along as your apprentice? All to sneak him past the Alathians so you could sell him out to a second mage who means to start a war? That’s not a fuck-up, it’s a catastrophe. How many good men are dead now, because you wanted some extra coin?”
“I told you, I didn’t know—!” I choked back the rest of my denial. If I let Cara push me into an argument, I’d never keep a cool head. And in the end, she wasn’t far wrong. If I’d refused the job, Steffol, Joreal, Harken, and all those killed in Ruslan’s avalanche would yet live.
“Nothing can make up for the dead,” I said, tightly. “But maybe I can stop more from dying. And Kiran...I wanted him to pay for killing Harken, no matter that he did it to save the convoy. But oh gods, the way Simon looked at him, like...” I struggled to find words to describe the mixture of lust and hunger and unholy delight I’d seen in the mage’s face, and failed. “Kiran might be a blood mage, but he doesn’t deserve whatever Simon intends.”
Cara ran a finger along the blade of her knife, and gave me a sour look. “Funny how you didn’t have this little attack of conscience until after you’d been paid.”
“Yeah, I should’ve thought earlier. But better late than never, right? Sethan...” My throat closed and I had to force out the words. “Sethan would never forgive me if I walked away now.”
Cara’s glare could have pierced granite. “Don’t pull that shit with me. Now you care what Sethan would’ve wanted? You sure as hell didn’t when you ditched the convoy. Or took the job in the first place, for that matter.”
“I’ve always cared what Sethan wanted,” I snapped. “I didn’t take the job out of greed. I needed that money for Sethan’s sake.”
A skeptical scowl darkened Cara’s face. “Dead men don’t need money.”
I braced my back against the wall, as if that might give me strength. I’d known when I’d decided to come that I’d have to tell her everything. I’d kept my vow of silence to Sethan all these years, but surely he’d understand if I broke it now.
“Sethan’s dead, but his daughter’s not.”
“Sethan’s daughter?” She looked at me like I’d claimed Sethan could jump over the Kanyalin Spire.
I knew why she was so surprised. Sethan had been born and raised in Piadrol, the stronghold of the Dalradian church, down south near the Sulanian border. Dalradians had lots of crazy ideas, but maybe the craziest was their obsession over the purity of bloodlines. Any half-caste kid was considered an offense against their god, and the Dalradian parent damned, all because their priests were so concerned not to pollute the blood of the so-called sacred ancestors. Sethan wasn’t so crazy as most Dalradians, and gods knew he’d defied his family to come to Ninavel, but that was one law he’d never meant to break.
Cara’s scowl returned, fiercer than ever. “Sethan told me he ran from Piadrol before the priests could betrothe him. If you expect me to believe he lied—”
“No! He wasn’t married, just gullible. Sethan was a nice guy, but sometimes he was too nice. He had that soft spot for hard luck cases...”
“Like you,” Cara said, darkly.
“Yeah. Well, thirteen years ago he met a girl in Acaltar district, and she played him for all she was worth. Batted her eyes at him, acted all sweet and helpless, got him to fall in love with her, and then sabotaged her fertility charms. Once she got herself with child, the claws really came out. She threatened to send word to the priests down in Piadrol if he didn’t pay her a regular share of his earnings.”
“Oh, hell.” Cara lowered the knife, at