The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,163
cheer, the friendly smiles...all an act meant to manipulate a useful mark. The minute their game was done, they’d cast you into a viper pit without a backward glance.
“So? If it means he helps you, then good.” She leaned in and whispered, “Four guards outside your door, and they keep a mage lurking around, too.”
I was in no condition for any daring escape attempts, either. Khalmet’s hand, I could barely sit up unaided. Cara was right. If Martennan had some game in mind, I had little choice but to play.
***
It wasn’t Martennan who showed up the next morning to collect me for the hearing, but his first lieutenant, a young mage named Lena. In truth, she’d given her name as an impossibly long mouthful. Alathians in Tamanath held to a bizarre custom of only using formal family names in public, like their first names were some Council secret. She wouldn’t tell me her first name, but after listening to me stumble over her full family name a couple times, she shook her head and told me to call her by the short form. Lena wore her dark hair in a tight crown of braids, and her skin was nearly as brown as an Arkennlander’s, with an incongruous smattering of dark freckles. She carried herself with a rigid precision that matched my expectations of an Alathian mage, as opposed to Martennan’s casual slouch.
Pevennar wanted them to haul me to the hearing in some kind of glorified stretcher, but I insisted on walking, hoping to loosen frighteningly stiff muscles. Lena was surprisingly patient, adjusting her pace to my slow shuffle and making no comment when I stopped to rest, which I did often.
A matched pair of soldiers tromped along with us, to my combined annoyance and amusement. Here I was, barely able to stagger ten steps without stopping, and they treated me like I might singlehandedly overpower Lena and vanish through their border.
If only. I slowed to a crawl once I made it outside, turning my face up to the sun. The warmth did little to ease the queasiness of my stomach. They hadn’t let Cara come with me. Lena told me the Council didn’t need any further testimony from her. She’d said I’d see Cara again, regardless of the hearing’s outcome, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.
Not much I could do about it, between her magic and those damn guards.
Behind me, Lena gave a small, polite cough. I sighed and let the soldiers help me into the waiting carriage.
The building I’d just exited was a gray, forbidding bulk. Pevennar had told me it functioned as both a hospital and a teaching facility for Alathian healers. An inscription was carved in stern-looking block letters in the stones above the door.
“What does that say?” I asked Lena, pointing.
“It’s a quote from Denarell of Parthus.”
Lena must’ve seen from my face I’d never heard of the guy. “He was the leader of the expedition that founded Alathia. It’s in his native language. He was originally from Harsia, over the eastern sea.” She looked thoughtful. “The closest translation is probably ‘To heal is to add to the world’s harmony.’”
As the carriage pulled away, I couldn’t keep myself from a small snort. How very Alathian—pompous and flowery all at the same time.
“You don’t think much of us, do you?” Lena didn’t sound angry, only curious.
I shrugged, watching the city street outside the carriage window. I had to admit that Tamanath was a lot nicer than Kost. The buildings were still mostly squat and wooden, but they were painted in neat shades of white and had beautifully carved balconies full of colorful flowerboxes. The streets were wider, too, and graceful trees and flowering bushes had been planted at intervals along the way. No fog, no woodsmoke, and the rolling hills of central Alathia formed a soft green backdrop under the distant shining peaks of the Whitefires.
Lena was still watching me steadily. “You prefer Lord Sechaveh’s credo, that profit and power are all? You’d rather be in Ninavel, where a man like Ruslan Khaveirin can walk the streets with impunity, doing whatever he pleases?”
True enough that I’d cursed Sechaveh’s name over that. Yet even so...I looked out the window again. The passers-by wore formal clothing in dull shades of gray and brown, and when they spoke to each other, their faces remained composed and calm. Nobody burst into laughter or gestured emphatically the way they might in similar gatherings in Ninavel. Tamanath had no street performers, no catcalls