The Pearls (30 page)

A bird flew at them, its wings flapping close over her head. Lea ducked but Shadrael watched it fly over and inexplicably laughed.

“Yes, raven!” he shouted. “You have your answer! Tell your master to await us.”

Lea felt a shiver go through her that had nothing to do with the cold air. Suddenly afraid, she turned away, but Shadrael caught her, moving faster than she'd believed him capable, and gripped her wrist when she would have pulled free.

“You had your chance, and you didn't take it,” he said. The strange moodiness was gone from his voice. “Come on.”

“But you're hurt—”

“I'm not dying, if that's what you're hoping for,” he said. “And I'm not too weak to deliver you, as hired.”

She stumbled along, unable to quite keep up with his long stride. “But you just said you wouldn't take me to your brother.”

“The highest bidder has won,” he said and laughed without mirth.

He led her across the stream to where the horses were grazing. Warily lifting their heads, they were skittish about being caught, but Shadrael drew them to him.

He pulled the bridle off Hervan's horse and released it before boosting Lea onto the other one.

“You're strengthened by the dark, aren't you?” Lea asked.

“Lady Lea, I
am
darkness.”

“That's not true,” she said. “I know better now.”

“You know nothing about it,” he said angrily. “I've warned you not to try to redeem me. It can't be done.”

He climbed into the saddle behind her with a grunt of pain, his breath hissing between his teeth a moment until he recovered.

She thought he would turn south to find his men, but instead he swung the horse northward, toward the rough mountains. Surprised, Lea looked back. “Your men! Aren't you—”

“They'll catch up,” he said indifferently. “Why didn't you run when you had the chance?”

She lifted her hand to brush her cheeks. There were no more pearls to weep. Not now. “You don't really want to know. You said not to talk about it.”

He stared at her, his gaze temporarily honest and unguarded. “I am not worth it,” he said softly.

She nodded, not hiding her sigh. “It doesn't matter what you believe now. It's what I know.”

I
n
New Imperia, the vision faded before Caelan's disbelieving eyes. He turned away, scowling, feeling a little dizzy from the lingering effects of the Magria's magic. “That bird,” he said, puzzled by the last thing he'd seen clearly. “Was it an omen? What did it mean?”

The Magria looked grim. “The gray raven is a symbol of the Vindicants.”

“Great Gault!” Caelan said in horror. “He's taking her to them?”

“It appears so. I beg your forgiveness for the weakness of this vision. It would be stronger in our place of—”

“If only we could have heard what they were saying.” Fretting, Caelan began to pace back and forth. “Can you not follow them, discover where they are going now?”

“No.”

“I've heard rumors that the Vindicants took refuge in Ulinia, but it's not proven. If we knew for sure, knew where to dig them out.”

The Magria's gaze flickered. She looked almost plain in her weariness. “I cast the visions I am given, Excellency. I do not conjure them up to order.”

“But a dream walker, can it not follow her? Find her? Isn't there some way to know where she is?”

“Lady Lea's thoughts are not open to us, Excellency. I have shown you all there is. Should another vision come to me, I will of course offer it to you.”

Frustrated, he flung up his hands. “How am I to help her?”

“Clearly she does not wish your help.”

“She reached out to me, Magria. She asked me to come to her. I heard her most clearly.”

The Magria seemed not to believe him. “And you have seen for yourself in
this
vision that she did not flee her so-called captor, not even after he killed her rescuer. She went with him willingly, and she is staying with him. She has made her choice.”

“But before—”

“Do you still trust your vision over mine?” the Magria asked sharply. “You are no trained seer, Excellency. Do you believe you alone understand the correct interpretation of these sightings? Will you not admit that what you saw before was born of your worry and desires and what I have shown you now is the truth?”

Furious and offended, Caelan bit back what he really wanted to say. “You may withdraw, Magria. I've heard enough of your suppositions.”

The Magria matched him angry look for look. “Be warned, Excellency. I spoke to you before of betrayal. I told you that you would not like what I had to show you.”

“But Lea would never…he has coerced her somehow. He must have.”

“His magic is weaker than hers. And with her necklace, she—”

“Why didn't she take it?” Caelan asked, clenching his fists. “Why?”

The Magria said nothing. Her blue eyes held steel.

After a moment he forced himself to meet the woman's gaze. Sadly he nodded.

“The portents of war are clear,” the Magria said. “Prepare yourself for it. The betrayer has been revealed to you. Accept it. There is no more to be said.”

She walked out then, leaving him baffled by what he'd witnessed and angered by what he'd been told.

“Ah, Lea, Lea,” he said aloud in heartache. “What are you doing, little one?”

I
n
the steel-hued light of dawn, a solitary horse and rider came out of the trees into a clearing where a mountain stream ran shallow and clear. The corpse of an officer in black boots, white gauntlets, and a crimson cloak lay sprawled on the trampled gravel. Animals had been at the body in the night. A vulture took lazy flight now, its dark wings lifting into the air.

Dismounting stiffly, Thirbe knelt beside the stream to drink thirstily of the sparkling cold water. He had fever, and the throbbing ache of his wound made him light-headed. He'd ridden all night, pausing now and then to prop himself against a tree trunk and doze a little before his horse shifted and roused him. He'd dared not dismount and take a good rest for fear of being found by roaming mercenaries and killed in the woods. Dying alone and unburied, his body fodder for carrion eaters, was not how Thirbe intended to go.

This morning, he felt stiff and incredibly sore. The dew falling on him was icy cold, and he shivered as he drank some more, then sat back on his heels to stare at Captain Hervan's ravaged gray face. Handsome no longer, Thirbe thought, but then death was never pretty.

Angered, he tossed a pebble into the water with a little plop. “Cheated, by Gault,” he muttered. “I make a vow of revenge, and what do I get? Beaten to it.”

His voice made the birds rise from the trees, flying about before settling into the branches once more. He hurt and he hungered, and his thirst could not be quenched. His little quest had kept him going through the night, kept him alert and wily until the last straying mercenaries had passed him by, moving fast through the dark woods like the devils they were.

So his quest was over. He felt empty and too tired to think. Was he to perish in this Gault-forsaken forest, the wolves and vultures to gnaw on his bones?

The light was growing stronger, and the last sigh of night seemed to lift above the trees and breathe itself into day. The first rays of glittering sunlight rose above the hills, shining on something small and white near Hervan's torn hand.

Thirbe frowned, hesitating only a moment, before he crossed the stream and bent down for it.

A stone, smooth and pale, shimmering iridescent in his fingers. “The opal,” he muttered in wonder.

As his fingers closed on it, he felt his despair shift inside him, fading into new determination and energy. The stone began to glow, milky white, as though it had life of its own.

He knew what it was, all right. He'd seen Hervan hold it over the map as they tracked Lady Lea. He'd heard the talk among the cavalrymen, knew from Poulso the priest that it was a cursed stone and that the ghosts of Lady Fyngie and Lady Rinthella had haunted the captain's sleep, with one urging him to avenge them and the other urging him to turn back.

But Thirbe had seen Lady Lea's hand draw this stone from the waters of that little stream in the valley. And there was nothing cursed about the maiden, nothing evil that could touch her hand.

His heart leaped in hope, and he straightened, swinging his gaze north toward the Ulinian badlands. There was still a chance of finding her.

It was all the purpose he needed. He searched Hervan's body and found the doeskin map, and tucked both it and the opal carefully away.

Kneeling there on the graveled bank, he held his sword hilt to the heavens and vowed before Gault that he would not surrender this quest to see Lady Lea safely found and restored to her family.

This mission was his penitence, his punishment, and perhaps his future glory. He would not, he swore on all he held sacred, fail her again.