spun through the narrow opening. A thread of perception connected magic with its wielder, and as the current rose toward the sky, Karasek saw the black expanse of night, a brilliant spangle of stars, a raptor floating high overhead. Higher yet, and he could pick out the buildings and walls of the garrison city, now washed in moonlight. Within, the souls of the inhabitants glowed. A few bright points, like suns among the stars, caught his attention. He recognized Valara Baussay’s magical signature.
I knew her before, in lives past.
The knowledge had come to him like a shock when his soldiers first brought the Morennioùen queen before him as a prisoner. She had been queen in that previous life, and he, he had been a representative of the empire.
The memories served no purpose, he told himself. He turned away from Osterling and commanded the magic to lift him away.
The current whirled him back toward the hills where his body lay. A blink, a shudder, and spirit rejoined flesh. Karasek drew a last breath of the magic current and savored its taste and smell. Then he spoke the words to wipe the surrounding area clean of his signature.
So. There were no patrols yet. Would there ever be? He had killed the only witness to his escape. Or so he had thought. He remembered throwing the girl to the ground, her head striking a stone. She lay so still, he thought she must be dead. But he had killed so many in the past few days, he might have misremembered. A careful soldier would have run her through with a sword. He used to be careful, before this mission.
Karasek rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. A month of dangerous travel stood between him and the border. From there, it would take him another ten days of hard riding to reach Rastov. Was that fast enough to satisfy the king?
You must make haste, Leos Dzavek had commanded.
He had, sailing three hundred leagues in twelve days using magic. Time spinning backward through the barrier, then leaping forward on the return trip. It was as if his time in Morennioù existed in a bubble, like a soul’s multiple lives, compressed into a single short month.
The king is a thorough man, his father once told him. Karasek had seen the proof—the months of planning and maneuvers, all for an unknown enemy, in an unknown land.
It had started last summer. The king had summoned Miro Karasek to his private interview hall. Karasek had found him immersed in reading.
“You have new orders, your majesty?”
Dzavek looked up from his stacks of books. His gaze was diffuse, as though he saw images beyond Zalinenka’s white rooms. “I found him. I found my brother, Andrej.”
Karasek felt a river of cold pass over his skin, as though Károví’s brief summer had vanished into winter. Andrej Dzavek had died centuries ago, in the wars between Károví and the empire. Apparently that did not matter. Perhaps that was the key to understanding Leos Dzavek. All moments, past or future, were equal. All lives were now. It would be, he thought, like swimming in time.
The king explained. Andrej had returned to another life as a woman. His brother—this woman—was searching for the jewels in the magical plane of Vnejšek, just as Dzavek himself was.
What followed anyone might have predicted. The two brothers, no longer brothers, quarreled again. Andrej escaped before Dzavek could do anything more than injure him. In the aftermath, Dzavek had discovered more clues, which led him to the second of Lir’s jewels, the ruby.
But he was not satisfied with one. He required all three. His health had ebbed in the past ten years. It was a sign that, even with the greatest magic, he could not evade death much longer.
And so, in meetings with Karasek, Markov, and Černosek, Dzavek set out detailed plans for an undiscovered destination, an unknown enemy. Duke Miro Karasek would lead the invasion, Dzavek said, while Duke Markov would take temporary command of all the armies.
Drills and preparations followed throughout that summer. Karasek had thought their plans would come to nothing, when Dzavek summoned him a second time. Andrej had proved careless, had woken the jewel. Emerald had spoken to ruby, one magical creature to its other self. Through their speech, Dzavek discovered where his once-brother now lived.
More preparations and meetings followed. The final week passed in a blur of lists and reports and maps. Letters dispatched to his home in Taboresk. The ships stocked. The