The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,150
to match my own. He looked around at the scorched and broken lines on the floor, as if seeing them for the first time. His eyes lifted to the pile of rock and crushed wood. He paled, looking sick, and his lips formed my name.
I didn’t dare give him any sign I’d survived. Whatever Ruslan’s game, I couldn’t play against a blood mage. Simon had proved that beyond a doubt.
Kiran’s gaze shifted to the drying blood on the stone. He twitched, one hand going first to his stomach, then to the sigil on his chest. Shock harrowed his face.
“The backlash—I should be dead. But Lizaveta’s binding, with a pattern so close to what I needed to disrupt Simon’s spell—that was deliberate, wasn’t it? And when I warped her pattern, a deeper spell triggered that diverted the worst of the backlash away from me through the mark-binding link...” Kiran’s voice died away to a whisper. “You...from the beginning, you planned this?” He pushed himself to his feet, his eyes wild.
My stomach seized as nagging familiarity resolved into memory. The blood mage I’d seen after leaving Bren’s place, his cold amusement when he’d held my gaze—the same man stood before me now. Awful certainty filled me. When Ruslan had seen me that day, he’d known exactly who I was. Shaikar take him, I’d been a blind token from the start. My only comfort was that I wasn’t the only one. Pello hadn’t known Ruslan’s plan, which presumably meant Lord Sechaveh hadn’t either.
Ruslan’s face was full of arrogant triumph. “It was a difficult task, that heart-binding. Subtle enough to escape detection, yet strong enough to reflect enormous power, and leave you alive...oh, we spent many long nights working on it, Liza and I.” A faint, reminiscent smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Everything else was easy. I merely arranged with the nathahlen you contracted with for passage—Bren, I believe his name was?—for word to reach Simon of your intention to go to Alathia, and he did the rest.”
Bren and Gerran, working direct for Ruslan...oh gods, that explained so much. I’d thought them crazy for dealing with a mage like Simon, but Ruslan must not have given Bren a choice.
“But...you tried to stop me! The avalanche, and the storms!” Kiran’s face was gray.
Ruslan shrugged. “I had my part to play, lest Simon grow suspicious. I also wanted to keep you...motivated.” He gave Kiran a gently condescending look. “Do you really think you could have left Ninavel and reached Alathia so easily, had I desired to prevent it?”
Gods all damn it, even after I’d realized Pello hadn’t been the threat he seemed, I’d still thought myself so clever for beating Ruslan to the border. Blind token, ha. Total fucking idiot, more like. I’d had not a glimmer of anyone’s true intent.
Kiran pointed at the lines on the floor with a shaking hand. “If Simon had detected Lizaveta’s binding and broken it—or if I hadn’t realized how to enhance her pattern—this spell would have worked. Simon would have destroyed you, and Mikail with you. You wouldn’t take such a risk.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
A predatory gleam lit Ruslan’s eyes. “I counted on Simon believing just that.” He laughed. “Poor Simon, always so cautious, so meticulous...he never understood that to win the long game, a man must sometimes gamble everything on a single throw.”
Doubtless it didn’t disturb him a whit that he’d gambled the lives of everyone in Ninavel along with his own. I didn’t think Sechaveh would be so sanguine about the risk of the city falling under Simon’s control. If I survived this night, I’d make sure Sechaveh found out the full tale of Ruslan’s game.
Ruslan’s expression softened again, into fond pride. “As for the chance you’d fail to grasp the heart-binding’s possibilities—that was no risk at all. You forget, akhelysh, I know your abilities to the last ember. I knew you would not fail me.”
Kiran jerked as if struck, his eyes full of new horror.
“Is that why you killed Alisa? To drive me to Simon?” His fists were clenched at his sides, his entire body rigid.
Ruslan’s eyes narrowed. “I used her life for your akhelashva ritual because it was necessary to show you that disobedience will not be tolerated. It was only afterward, when Lizaveta came to me and told me she feared you would do something foolish if we did not prevent it, that I thought to turn the situation to our advantage.”