his blue eyes were huge in his pale face, and his hands had locked in a death grip on the cart’s side.
“Shouldn’t be long.” Or so the herbalist had claimed. “Why don’t you get down and stretch your legs some while we wait?” Nothing for settling nerves like a little movement.
He scrambled off the cart and paced between cinnabar trees, his shoulders rigid as iron. I tied and re-tied idle knots in the reins, trying to ignore the rapid thudding of my heart.
Kiran stopped short and put a hand up to his head. “I feel dizzy.” He swayed on his feet. I jumped down and crossed to his side.
“Come back to the cart and sit down.” I reached for his arm, hesitated, then forced myself to take it. If Ruslan got hold of him, I’d die whether I was touching him or not.
“My head...oh, gods...” He staggered and fell to his knees despite my grip. “Dev, I can’t—” his voice rose, the panic in it unmistakable.
“Shit!” I dropped his arm fast as a burning firestone. “Is it Ruslan?”
“No, my barriers hold, but...” his voice was slurring. His head fell back, his black hair coming away from his face. His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints, making his eyes look eerily blue. “I can’t—” he repeated, and clawed at his temples.
“Kiran! Stop!” I grabbed his wrists. He twisted and thrashed in my grip like a panicked animal. I yelled at him, trying to make him focus on me. He quieted, though his breathing remained fast and shallow.
“Kiran. Listen to me. Is the drug suppressing your magic?” I tried to speak slowly and clearly. Obviously the hennanwort was doing something unpleasant to him, but I’d no idea if we could safely pass the gate wards.
He blinked at me, struggling to focus, and I repeated the question, even more slowly. “I think...yes...it feels...” he said finally, his voice thick. He shuddered hard, all over, and didn’t finish the sentence, his eyes going wide and blank again. I sighed. Clearly that was all the reassurance I’d get. At least the hennanwort hadn’t brought Ruslan down on us—or so I assumed, from the fact I was still breathing.
I coaxed Kiran back onto the cart with the soothing voice I’d once used on scared young Tainters. “Kiran, you’re doing fine...now crawl on up...”
His teeth were clenched, and I had to pry open his mouth to pour in the yeleran extract. He tried to spit it out, but I forced his jaw shut and pinched his nose tight, so that in the end he swallowed. He fought me after that, but his movements were sluggish and weak. I had no trouble holding him still until the yeleran dragged him under.
I sat back and released the breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. Fuck, I hated this job. I sure wished that herbalist had mentioned hennanwort could cause a full blown panic. But then, maybe that was only true for a blood mage, or even just for Kiran—hell, what did I know? I wiped my hands on my leathers, as if by doing so I could erase my growing sense of uncleanliness.
Only the white of Kiran’s eye showed when I peeled back an eyelid. He was well and truly out, his limbs limp as a doll’s. Time to get this over with.
I arranged him comfortably as I could in the long, narrow space of the compartment. The ward-sealed box containing my personal charms and the rest of Bren’s items went in the corner beneath his feet, beside the engraved plate of Bren’s blackshroud ward. I pricked a finger and smeared blood on the blackshroud, packed hay around Kiran and the box as a cushion against the jolts the cart would take on the trail, then slid the main panel back into place.
I stacked the false ore sacks to cover the panel and made sure the sack openings were all easily accessible. If I had Khalmet’s favor, the guards would open the sacks without bothering to move them around. I whispered the blackshroud’s activation word. A flicker of carmine red raced over the wood of the driver’s box.
Warded, sealed, and ready...but would the drugs truly fool the Alathian mage at the gate? Only way to know was to try.
The trip to the bridge went uneventfully, if slowly. I exchanged nods with a few passing riders on the settlement trail, who didn’t give me or the cart more than a glance. But once we reached the main road and faced