The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,143

Simon said softly. “A mark-binding is an excellent means of control, but to be unbreakable, the link must be formed at the deepest level.”

“Behind his defenses,” Kiran said. “You’ll bypass them all. That much power...it’ll...”

“Incinerate Ruslan,” Simon said, with vicious satisfaction.

Kiran’s horror deepened. Simon’s casting would serve a double purpose, binding Kiran and destroying his will the moment it obliterated Ruslan. And Simon’s spell wouldn’t only kill Ruslan. The power would blast through Mikail’s mark-binding link, destroying him as well. Unexpectedly, a lump rose in Kiran’s throat. He’d never forgive Mikail for his betrayal, but he couldn’t hate him, not the way he hated Ruslan.

Worst of all, Mikail’s death would only be the prelude to a bloodbath in Ninavel. Icy panic threatened to drown Kiran. He forced it back. One piece was still missing. “This won’t work, not with only you to cast. You can’t force me to take in the power without both a channel and focus, and no drug will help you.”

“Once again, you lack imagination.” Simon’s smug air intensified as he bent to lay out more silver.

Kiran didn’t doubt it, after the muddled mess the drug had left of his head. He studied the pattern with desperate intensity. If his magic was unbound for even a single instant during Simon’s casting, he had to be ready to seize the opportunity to disrupt the spell. The alternative was too terrible.

***

(Dev)

The sun’s final rays warmed my back as I lay flat to peer over the edge of a rock outcropping. In the steep-sided valley below, the silver thread of a stream tumbled over short cliffs and wound its way through pine groves and meadows. The find-me charm pulsed with warm urgency on my arm. Kiran was somewhere in this valley. Not hard to guess where, either. In one meadow, a horse grazed. Its color and size matched Simon’s mount, and the log wall of a cabin showed through the screening trees at the meadow’s edge.

Kiran’s amulet dug painfully into my skin, trapped between my chest and the rock. Kiran had implied the amulet would work even when worn by an ordinary guy like me. I sure hoped so. Otherwise, this’d be one short rescue attempt.

Even with the amulet, I didn’t dare enter the valley in daylight. At this altitude, the forest was much thinner than down in the Elenn Gorge. Far too easy to get spotted by Simon or his guardsman, and the amulet wouldn’t help me then.

I willed the sun to set faster. Suliyya grant Simon hadn’t finished his preparations yet! I’d lost precious time in Kost finding and bargaining for the items I needed, and barely made it through the border gate before the deadline I’d given Cara. The whole time, I’d cursed myself for leaving Pello alive, my imagination conjuring up visions of him getting free and finding some new way to fuck me over while he laughed at my gullibility. Yet in the end, I’d passed the gate without incident.

Unbidden, my thoughts turned Cara’s way. By now, the Alathians would’ve questioned her under truth spell and realized she wasn’t crazy or pulling some prank. I entertained a brief, happy fantasy of an entire force of Alathian mages rushing into the valley below and taking Simon down without me having to lift a finger.

Yeah, right. No doubt the Alathians would be bound up for days arguing over the political consequences of a raid into Arkennland. Cara’d be stuck giving testimony ten times over. Hell, they might even take her to Tamanath, to speak before the Council.

Just where I wanted her, far distant from Simon’s deadly magic. But gods, it’d been hard to leave, knowing I’d likely never see her again. One hug, and a quick, fierce kiss...I’d wanted to hold her longer, but she might’ve realized the truth of my intent.

At last, the sun slipped below the western hills to leave the valley in shadow. The sky remained pale, only a few bright stars glimmering above, but I judged the forest dark enough for what I had in mind.

When I’d sent Cara to coax mage war stories out of Jerik, I hadn’t expected much. Sure enough, most of what he’d said was useless—exciting but uninformative tales like the ones we’d all heard growing up—but one thing had caught my attention.

You always knew when the mages really got to fighting, because it was like fireworks going off. Not the Ninavel kind that make sky-pictures, but those nonmagical ones Sulanians sell, that go off in simple colored flashes