“Be safe and come back to us, my brother.”
CHAPTER 4
SILENT AND SWIFT THEY FLEW, headed toward an eastern horizon that was beginning to be limned by a band of soft golden light, fading up to a still inky, star-studded sky.
It took Iolanthe some time to realize that she was shaking.
They had been in a rush, selecting fresh carpets and other tools and supplies that they might need. And then there had been the anxiety, glancing behind—and all around—every few seconds to make sure that they hadn’t been spotted.
All throughout, however, the image of wyverns plucking dead riders off one another flashed again and again in her mind. She had been calm enough as she described the Bane’s twisted reasons, but now, with immediate dangers fading, the anger that had been kept to a low simmer threatened to boil over.
Her experience with Atlantis, though harrowing, had been on an extremely personal level: Master Haywood’s imprisonment, Titus’s Inquisition, Wintervale’s death, Atlantis’s relentless search for her in the Sahara—not to mention the horrifying knowledge that her capture would lead to her being used in sacrificial magic to prolong the Bane’s life. All this and more sometimes made it feel as if her family, her friends, and the Bane were the only ones involved in this struggle.
Even though she knew otherwise.
The sight of all the dead Atlanteans, however, at last brought the point home. Hundreds of soldiers who had served the Bane loyally and valiantly, dead because he could not allow even a smidgen of truth to tarnish his reputation at home. Because if they knew the truth about him, they—or at least some of them—would risk their own lives to end the travesty that was his rule.
Titus nudged his carpet closer. “You all right?”
“It has always been about him, hasn’t it, this empire he has built?” she said, still seething. “He wanted control over the mage world not for the greater glory of Atlantis or the honor of the Atlanteans, but only so that he could immediately get his hands on the next great elemental mage.”
“Oh, I do not doubt he also enjoys power tremendously,” said Titus. “But I agree that in the end it has been driven by fear, by his unwillingness to leave this world because of what might await him in the next.”
She glanced at him. He too was driven by a fear of dying. And he too had at times sacrificed personal integrity in order to further his goal. At the beginning of their partnership, a relationship then fraught with distrust, she had demanded angrily what the difference was between Atlantis and him, as they were both happy to hold her against her will.
But beneath the Master of the Domain’s sometimes caustic manner and streak of ruthlessness was a boy of active conscience and fundamental decency. A boy who, if anything, judged himself too harshly for his imperfections.
As she studied him, her despair began to fade. They were not impotent bystanders. They would take on this tyrant and, should Fortune smile upon them, topple him from power.
Besides, it was almost impossible not to be filled with hope when she looked at her beloved.
They were still alive, still free, and still together.
He leaned against the upright side of the carpet, his shoulders slumped forward—he must be unbearably weary, having been on the run since their arrival in the desert, hauling her mostly unconscious person alongside without even knowing who she was.
But she knew that if she suggested he needed rest, he would brush it aside. Fortunately for him, she was not above playing the damsel in distress. “I hate to admit it, but I’m getting a bit tired. Can we stop for a minute?”
“Of course,” he said immediately. “Let me find a good place.”
A suitable place, however, was not immediately to be had. There was nearly enough light to see, and the patch of desert they were traversing was flat and featureless.
As they searched, Iolanthe asked Kashkari, “Why did our allies contact Durga Devi during the battle? Do they all know one another?”
“You took the question right off my tongue,” said Titus.
“She does know, after a fashion, some parties with a good deal of power from the Domain,” answered Kashkari. “Remember when I was late coming back to school at the beginning of the Half?”
Terms at Eton College were referred to as Halves. For reasons that made sense only to nonmages, there were three Halves every year: Easter Half, which began in January and ended before Easter; Summer Half, wedged