Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (18 page)

Which is to say, hiding under the bed of a rogue-hunter and high mage. After magically drawing poison from that same mage’s wound in the middle of a school of sorcery. That also happens to be the current home of the High Council of Mages.

I stare sightlessly at the tightly strung rope underpinnings of the bed. Stupid. Stupid stupid
stupid
. How could I have used magic in the middle of the Mekteb? On a mage? One who met me before and now knows that I’ve been hiding a magical talent?

Whatever he thinks, he offered me an escape. Unless I can find another way out from under the bed, I’ll have to face him in order to get away. At least I can be grateful for small things…
.
Embracing his desert heritage as he does, Stonefall will have his honor to think of. He owes me his life, and in return I intend to gain his help getting out alive
.

The voices from the connecting room grow louder, and then bodies fill the doorway. Four sets of leather slippers enter, two of them crowded around the third, and the other hurrying ahead to the bed. I’m not surprised that third set is the plainest of them all. Stonefall did not strike me as the type to want metallic embroidery and tassels all over his shoes.

The ropes holding up the mattress creak as Stonefall eases himself down. I lie perfectly still, listening to the muted conversation. No, he doesn’t require anything. A guard outside the door is fine, but he does not wish to be disturbed. No, for the final time, he didn’t recognize the mage who’d helped him. Nor did he recognize his attacker.

“At all?” presses one of the mages. Her voice is the calmest of the lot, steady and cool.

“I have an idea of who sent him,” Stonefall tells her. “But without proof, I would hardly speak of it.”

“I understand.”

“A healer should be here within a few moments,” one of the other mages says.

“I am fine,” Stonefall assures them. “Go back to your work. With the door guarded, I doubt my attacker will return.”

After a little additional urging, the mages depart. The cool-voiced mage offers one last time to remain in the outer room, but Stonefall refuses. They shut first one door, then the other, their voices growing fainter as they proceed down the hall.

The room lies quiet. It seems wisest to let Stonefall decide when it’s safe to speak. I use the time to figure out what I will say to him when the time comes. I run through various explanations, but the best ones are the closest to the truth. I need Stonefall to tell me what really happened to Stormwind, and where she is now. There is even the smallest possibility that, as her friend, he will help me reach her. Because, unless she confessed to murder, I will not sit by and let her be sent to Gereza Saliti.

“You’re under the bed,” Stonefall says.

I frown. “How did you know?” It’s a little strange to have this conversation around the mattress.

“I have no trouble focusing on any part of the room, and you wouldn’t have been so foolish as to hide in the wardrobe.”

The idea never occurred to me, though if it had, I probably would have dismissed it at once. The space is too tight, and a bunch of clothes pressed around an unseen shadow would have made a mage stop and think, no doubt.

“How did you know about the charm?” I ask.

“Stormwind made it before we traveled through the portal. I knew it was still in her charm pouch.”

“What is it, exactly?”

“A look-away charm. It cloaks the wearer in shadows and turns away the eyes of those around them.”

I run my fingers over the thin wire, the single bead. Look-away. An apt name.

Faintly, someone knocks.

“That will be the healer,” Stonefall says. “Stay where you are.”

I raise my eyes to the mattress and grin. I didn’t really plan to introduce myself, even to a peaceable healer.

Stonefall calls for the healer to enter. She comes through at once, walking swiftly. Her shoes are a dark blue with pale blue embroidered flowers and leaves curving over the top. She is efficient, quietly and quickly assessing her patient to ensure he is past the point of danger.

“This is the dart,” Stonefall tells her when she finishes examining him.

“I’ll have to test it,” she says. I can’t quite place the musical lilt of her accent. “Perhaps we can learn something from the type of poison used. Now, tell me about the spell that saved you.”

“The, ah, mage called up memories of her life to draw the poison away.”

“
Memories?
” the woman echoes, her tone astonished. “She could not have been a healer then.”

“No,” he agrees. “She then channeled the poison into this.”

There’s a short silence. The healer, I imagine, is studying the glowstone I used.

“Unconventional,” she says with a hint of approval, “but it clearly worked.”

“For which I am grateful.”

Did he say that for me or her? Or both of us?

The healer prescribes Stonefall an herbal tisane and a day’s rest and leaves as quietly as she came.

Stonefall waits until the outer room’s door clicks shut, and then murmurs, “Come out. There’s no one here but me.”

I slip the look-away off my finger to preserve its magic as long as possible and work my way out. It is exceptionally embarrassing to have to wiggle out from under someone’s bed while they’re peering over the edge at you. I sit up, run one hand through my rumpled hair, and attempt to look dignified as I finish sliding out my legs and clamber to my feet. Master Stonefall rests on his bed, propped against a pile of pillows, his face slightly sallow beneath his natural tan. His features are smooth, the faint hint of crow’s feet by his eyes the only sign that he feels any strain now.

We eye each other for a long moment.

“She said you were her servant.” His voice is quiet, measured, like the gentle tread of a hunter approaching his prey. My mind flashes to his wall of weapons, to the array of blades he’d worn when he’d come to fetch Stormwind. He’s a rogue hunter, and I must look a lot like a rogue right now.

I shrug. “I do help out around the house.”

A slight line appears between his eyes. Apparently humor will not do me any favors right now.

“Indeed. That was an impressive casting you made. One of the mages who came sits on the Council. He said he felt it halfway through the building.”

I feel the blood drain from my face. “The High Council?”

His eyes glint as he dips his chin. “He could tell as well as I that it wasn’t any of our students. Or mages.”

It doesn’t even occur to me to lie, to try to deny his words. I know enough of magic and the safeguards Stormwind kept in place for me to realize he must be telling the truth. “How?” I ask instead. His answer might at least help me disguise my magic in future.

“The casting itself was very unusual. To use memories as a basis for a spell is … uncommon.”

“You saw the memories?” I ask, interrupting him.

“I believe so,” he says, and continues unperturbed. “Then you channeled the poison, as if it needed to be contained.” He turns over a smooth gray object in his palm. With a start, I recognize my glowstone, its light diminished.

“I was calling to the poison, and it was coming to me. I needed somewhere to put it. The glowstone was all I had.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Most mages would have burned the poison away.”

“I don’t know about most mages, but I didn’t want to accidentally burn you.” There is a very, very small possibility that he’ll mistake me for— what? A journeyman? Certainly not a full mage. Which raises the question of why Stormwind was harboring a student in secret. I have no doubt he’ll get to it.

“Ah.” He studies me for a moment, then continues, “Every apprentice also learns to add just a faint touch, their own signature, to their work. It builds accountability and becomes so habitual that a journeyman of your skill would have included it without realizing it.” He meets my gaze, his voice disturbingly calm. “Unlike ‘most mages,’ you have no signature.”

I watch him silently, focusing on keeping my breath even, my expression neutral. I can think of no lie, no half-truth, that would explain all he knows of me. But there’s no one else here, and he offered me refuge, so I have some reason to believe he will not turn me over to the High Council. At least not immediately.

He sighs. “Come and sit,” he says, gesturing to a chair beside his bed. “For Stormwind’s sake, I would hear what you would tell me, including why you came to my rooms when you did.”

To take the chair will mean being within easy reach of him, and much farther from the door. But he is a master mage. The distance that remains between us now would hardly make a difference. I walk stiffly to the chair and perch on its edge.

“Water?” Stonefall gestures to a pitcher and three small ceramic cups on the bedside table.

I shake my head.

“You don’t trust me,” he says, eyes crinkling.

I shrug, glance at the water again. “If you wished to hold me here, you wouldn’t need to drug me. No doubt you have a spell that could bind me to this chair until you released me, or something of the sort.”

The faint trace of humor leaves his face, and he is a rogue hunter once more, shrewd, dangerous. “Yes.”

I think of Huda, refusing to share the food of her enemies, and find myself reaching for the pitcher. I pour out two cups, handing one to Stonefall. He takes it, sipping once as if to show me the water is harmless. I don’t need to see it. I take a sip, study the movement of the water in the cup. This conversation, these moments — I will need to navigate them carefully. And I don’t yet understand Stonefall well enough to gauge how to approach him.

“Why did you seek me out?” he asks, breaking the silence between us.

I consider my cup, the simple white inside, the turquoise and cobalt flowers flowing around the sides, then look back up at him, echoing his own words. “For Stormwind’s sake.”

His brow furrows. He’s clearly taken aback. “You came here to learn what happened to her.”

“Yes.”

“Did you trust so much in my friendship with Stormwind that you thought I would not report you to the High Council?”

“I didn’t intend to use any magic here.” I eye him warily. “Who shot you, anyway?”

He waves his hand, dismissing the question. “You’re dressed as a mage. What was I supposed to think?”

I glance down at my robes and almost laugh. “That was just to get in. These aren’t even mine.” I lift the hem, showing him where I’d turned up the extra cloth. “They’re Stormwind’s.”

He chuckles. “A mage hiding in mage’s robes. The perfect disguise.”

“It worked well enough to get in here, though I doubt it will help if I’m caught.” Which I kind of am right now.

“No,” Stonefall agrees. He seems on the verge of saying something, then purses his lips.

“Tell me what happened to Mistress Stormwind,” I say.

He nods, but he doesn’t look at me as he speaks, his gaze distant. “She faced charges of treason against the High Council. She was found guilty and will be sent to Gereza Saliti, to remain there until she dies.”

“I’ve heard that already. What was she actually convicted of?”

He counts them off. “Conspiracy to overthrow the High Council, conspiracy to assassinate the first mage of the High Council, perjury under oath, and failure to renew her oaths of allegiance.”

The charge of developing alliances with creatures inimical to the High Council seems to have been dropped, but the rest still stand. I shake my head. “That’s absurd.”

His dark eyes fasten on me in cool appraisal. “She was found guilty and sentenced accordingly.”

“By whom?” I ask, matching his tone. “Blackflame?”

Stonefall’s expression hardly flickers. “Blackflame is not on the High Council.”

“Then he has a very long arm.”

“That he does. However, he missed the one charge that would have been accurate: training a student in secret.”

“How do you know she didn’t register my apprenticeship?”

“You’re an
apprentice?
”

Oh, hell. He thought I was a journeyman. I
wanted
him to think I was a journeyman. “Whatever — register my journeyman-ship,” I flounder.

He stares at me. He knows. And he’s not at all sure what he thinks of me.

“I’ll leave now,” I say.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. There are guards posted by my door to prevent a second attack. For all that they are there for my protection, I think they are much more interested in meeting you.”

“The windows?” I set my cup down and rise, moving toward the windows.

“Guards below them by now, and far too many mages passing by to try anything so foolish as climbing out.”

I let my hand drop from the curtain and turn back to him. “Do you speak truth?”

He turns the gray glowstone over in his hand, studying it. “I owe you a life debt. That is not something my people take lightly. I will not endanger you.”

That doesn’t mean he won’t keep me here by trickery, though. But I’m losing focus on why I came here. I’ll find a way out. The question is whether Brigit Stormwind will. I need to find out what help I can finagle from Stonefall.

I take a deep breath and plunge ahead, “You wanted to know why I came here, to you, instead of finding out Stormwind’s fate from afar. Do you believe she’s innocent of the charges brought against her?”

Stonefall doesn’t answer at once. When he does, his words are hardly comforting. “I believe her largely innocent, yes. But this is Stormwind we speak of. You know her past, you know how close she kept her secrets. Perhaps some of what she was charged with was based in truth.” He pins me with a hard gaze. “Certainly to train an unregistered apprentice, to
hide
a magical talent, would be considered treason among mages.”

“Then they should have charged her with training me.”

I don’t know Stormwind’s past as Stonefall thinks I do. I have no idea who she was before she secluded herself in her mountain valley, keeping company with no one and nothing but her secrets, until I came along. By then
,
silence had become her way of life, her secrets so strong a shield that even if I wanted to, I could not have broken them open to learn what lay beneath. No, I don’t know if she’s innocent.