mistake. He’d never have known of her, otherwise. But I can’t think what I did, and it tears at me so badly I can hardly breathe—” His voice cracked, and he broke into a racking set of coughs, his throat burning.
Mikail stood silent, watching him. When he spoke again, his voice was so low it was barely audible. “You were careful. It was I who told Ruslan you had a nathahlen lover.”
“What?” Kiran’s ears buzzed with shock. Mikail had vowed his silence. Had covered for Kiran for years, without a single protest. Had always been the one Kiran could turn to for help, for protection.
“I thought your nathahlen girl a harmless infatuation that you’d outgrow. But years passed, and you only became more entangled. When you started to parrot her ridiculous ideas about the worth of nathahlen lives, I feared a simple case of childish rebellion might turn into something more dangerous.” Mikail shook his head, his eyes hooded and dark. “I was right. Look what’s come of this—it’s nearly destroyed you! I should never have waited so long. Better if I’d told Ruslan years ago.”
Horror combined with fury to darken Kiran’s vision. “You told him, knowing what he would do?” He shoved to his feet, his body trembling.
“I knew he’d put a stop to it. I didn’t know your reaction would be so...extreme.” Mikail wore the slight frown of one who had made a minor but annoying miscalculation in a spell exercise.
“You’re not even sorry...” Kiran whispered, staring at Mikail. His rage grew to a searing blaze so bright he could no longer contain it. Blind to everything else, he struck at his mage-brother with every ounce of magic born of fury and betrayal.
Only to collapse, gasping, as the wards encircling him blazed to life and reflected the strike in a burning backlash.
“You see?” Mikail said softly, as Kiran writhed in pain. “You’re no nathahlen. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
Kiran jerked his head off his knees. The dim light of morning filtered through cracks in the cabin walls. He must have slept, though he didn’t feel rested. Anguish and grief still lanced his heart, Mikail’s face alternating with Alisa’s in his mind. He forced the images away, and reached for the blindfold lying in a tangle at his side.
Distant but approaching, a heavy clomping of hooves. Kiran sprang to his feet, the blindfold dangling forgotten from a hand. Awful certainty gripped him. Dev had betrayed him, exactly as Kiran had feared, and now the Alathians had come to arrest him.
The maddening itch deep within checked his instinct to draw power. Ruslan would pounce on even the slightest opening; and if forced to the choice, Kiran would prefer captivity in Alathian hands to Ruslan’s.
Kiran hurried to the cabin door, braced to run for the forest in a last desperate bid for escape. But when he yanked the door open on squealing hinges, he saw not the uniformed Alathian riders he expected, but Dev, perched on the frontboard of a dilapidated wooden cart drawn by a sway-backed draft horse with a shaggy gray mane and legs thick as pine trunks.
Amazed, joyous relief sent Kiran racing across the clearing with an ear-to-ear grin. Dev had kept his word, and safety remained within Kiran’s grasp—it felt too good to be true. “You came back,” he blurted.
Dev swung down off the cart with a bemused grunt. “I said I would, didn’t I?” A fleeting, shadowed expression crossed his face. “Khalmet’s hand, you look like you spent all night fending off bears.” His eyes narrowed. “Turn and face the trees, not the cart. How close is Ruslan to breaking through?”
“The block yet holds,” Kiran said, hastily obeying. “But we shouldn’t delay.” He frowned, thinking of the cart behind him. It was far smaller than the convoy wagons had been, with low sides and large wheels. He didn’t see how he could remain hidden from the Alathian guards, let alone a mage.
“Turns out it’s Sulanians, not Alathians, who make the right drug for the task.” Dev held up a vial filled with an unpleasant-looking green paste. “Hennanwort. Word is, it’ll suppress your magic, no problem. But will it mess with that block of yours against Ruslan?”
Kiran traced a cautious finger down the vial. He sensed no magical residue; a drug for the body only, then. “Does it truly suppress magic, or merely a mage’s aura?”
Dev shrugged. “The herbalist I talked to wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. She said it’s grown by a religious