I hissed at Cara.
Cara blinked furiously and squinted down the bow, her finger hovering over the release as she fought to track the running man.
Simon slashed a hand in the air. Kiran’s legs gave way. Even as he fell, he threw himself forward, one hand extended in a desperate reach.
The guardsman covered the final distance in a furious leap and snatched at Kiran’s collar, jerking him backward. Kiran landed in a sprawl at the man’s feet, his outflung limbs rigid.
I forced Cara’s bow down. Too late, gods all damn it. If she shot now, she’d only get us killed by Simon.
In the clearing, nobody moved. Then Simon let out an explosive breath and spat out a vicious string of words in a language I didn’t recognize. He rounded on the guardsman. “Get him away from there,” he snapped.
The guardsman dragged Kiran backward toward the carriage. Simon followed, fury mixing with relief on his face.
Cara’s face was white. My fault, she mouthed, and tapped the bow’s sight, then her still watering eyes.
I pressed her wrist and shook my head. No surprise she’d been lagging too far behind the guardsman to shoot, after that flash. Wait, I signed. Try again.
Though I wasn’t feeling too optimistic a second chance would come. The frantic desperation on Kiran’s face as he ran, and that bizarre charm of Simon’s...I had a nasty suspicion those damn border wards weren’t so impenetrable as everyone thought.
Below, Simon halted in front of Pello. “How did the boy get a gemstone?” His voice was soft and deadly.
Pello turned the color of old parchment. “I don’t know. I searched his clothing, as you asked, but if the stone was small...he might have concealed it beneath his tongue, until he was in the carriage. I warned you it was safest to use yeleran in addition to the hennanwort. You were the one who said yeleran would extend the hennanwort’s effects for too long.”
Simon’s hand twitched, and I thought to see Pello fall dead at his feet. But Simon’s gaze wandered to the carriage, and his hand relaxed. “We will see,” he said, his voice still soft. “Once in Arkennland, Kiran will tell me whose failure this was.”
He must still need Pello for something. Though from Simon’s tone, Pello’s death would come the moment that need ended.
Pello surely knew it, too. His stance radiated tension. My mind raced, chasing new possibilities. Maybe we could use Pello somehow.
Simon knelt at Kiran’s side. He said something to Kiran too quiet to hear, and drew a dagger from his belt. He nicked first his palm, then Kiran’s, and pressed Kiran’s bloody palm against his own.
Kiran’s muscles slackened, released from their rigid paralysis. For an instant, I thought that was all Simon meant to do.
And then Kiran screamed. Screamed like he was being burned alive, his body convulsing on the ferns. Sickened, I wanted desperately to cover my ears, but I didn’t dare let go of the cinnabar branches. It went on for what felt like forever, and the whole while Simon wore a savage smile, his eyes locked on Kiran’s agonized face. At last he sat back, and Kiran’s ragged shrieks died away into silence. He collapsed into a limp huddle, his eyes closed.
Simon glanced at the guardsman. “Search him—thoroughly this time!—then bind his wrists and ankles. And you—” he turned to Pello. “Get the carriage ready to leave. Quickly, in case anyone traveling the southward road heard that and comes to investigate.”
Hope bloomed. Maybe he still meant to cross at the gate.
Simon stood and extended his arm. The charm flashed and glowed a deep, poisonous green. A matching wash of color rippled outward from a point in the air some ten feet in front of him, until it appeared he stood in front of a shimmering, semi-transparent wall. The guardsman continued to search Kiran without even looking up, but Pello paused in the midst of lashing trunks to the carriage roof, his eyes gone wide.
Awe and dread made my stomach lurch. Mother of maidens, if he could get through the border magic...
Strain tightened Simon’s face. Directly in front of him, the airy glimmer of the wall shivered and faded. A hole appeared, spreading outward.
I nearly snapped off a screening branch. Cara gripped my shoulder. She tapped my belt where my boneshatter charm lay, and jerked a thumb at the border.
I shook my head, my jaw clenched, and brought my palms together in the sign for not enough rope. No charm I carried would bring the Alathians