The Rogue (31 page)

My body is the vessel
, she told herself, then she sought that expanding of awareness that she had experienced before. It came back to her instantly, and she felt a rush of excitement. She sought the block. It was still there.

But now it was irrelevant. The block protected the place she had been taught to reach for magic, but her
whole body
was full of magic. She could tap into it from anywhere …

Lilia opened her eyes. She reached for magic and felt it respond. She channelled it out and used it to lift Welor’s books from the table. A rush of triumph went through her.

I did it!

She jumped out of the chair and hurried to the door.

“I did it!” she exclaimed. “You were right!”

“Well done. Now get away from the door and be quiet,” Lorandra said in a low voice. “I can hear someone coming.”

Lilia’s heart skipped a beat. She backed away from the door and listened. Sure enough, the faint sound of a single set of footsteps could be heard.

“Dinner,” she said. “I’ll come talk to you afterwards.”

“Good girl.”

Turning away from the door, she moved toward the little table where she ate her meals and waited for Welor to enter, one moment exhilarated by her achievement, the next pushing away guilt over what she was intending to do.

I’m doing it for Naki
, she told herself.
It doesn’t matter what happens to me afterwards, so long as she’s safe.

It seemed like Lorkin had been waiting for someone to kill him for days now, never knowing if he had minutes or hours to live. Though he successfully fought the panic that constantly threatened to overwhelm him, nausea was relentless. Each time the prick of a blade on his skin heralded the draining of his recovering powers, he wondered if this time he would be dragged past exhaustion to oblivion. Each time the draining stopped, he felt a bitter relief.

I doubt the guards will be the ones to finish me off
, he told himself.
Kalia will want to do it herself.

Or would she? It was probably safer if some lesser magician dispatched him. Then she could argue that
she
hadn’t been the one to kill him, if his death was found to be suspicious. If her mind was read, however, he could not see how she could hide the fact that she’d given the order to kill him.

A new sound sent his heart pounding: that of the door opening and closing. Then came the sound that sent shivers of terror down his spine: Kalia’s voice.

“Is it time?” a guard asked.

“Not yet. I want to be sure I have everything I need.”

Lorkin’s stomach sank. He heard footsteps draw closer and wasn’t surprised when a force pinned him to the floor. Hearing the grunt of effort as Kalia crouched gave him a small sense of satisfaction. Cold fingers touched his forehead and he shuddered as her vile presence filled his mind.

At once he sensed that she was in a hurry. She probed his memories hastily, grasping those of Healing as soon as they rose, then she seemed to force herself to take more time, examining what she had learned the day before. He knew that she could see that the application of the knowledge had to be shaped and refined according to the illness or condition, but she didn’t have time to draw the details out of him. She would have to learn the rest by trial and error. Right now she only wanted to know how best to avoid doing harm.

“Speaker …”

The guard’s voice sounded distant, as if spoken from the other side of a wall or door. Kalia paused, then reluctantly released Lorkin’s mind and vanished from his senses.

He felt a tired, simmering anger.
If you ever find out the truth, Tyvara
, he thought,
make sure she gets what she deserves.

“There’s no other way ou—”

“Be quiet,” Kalia snapped. She sounded close, as if she was still leaning over him.

Then he heard what they were listening to. Footsteps. Voices.

Kalia cursed.

The sound of the door opening reached him. Someone drew in a breath in shock.

“
Get
OFF
him!
”

“No, Tyvara,” another voice commanded.

Tyvara!
Lorkin’s heart leapt. The force holding him down vanished. He struggled up into a sitting position and tried to rub the blindfold off against the rough wall behind him. Suddenly there were fingers roaming over his face again, only this time they were warm.

“Wait. Let me get this off,” Tyvara’s voice murmured. The blindfold slid upwards, releasing him reluctantly. He blinked in the brightness, then grinned as he saw Tyvara crouching in front of him, her face full of concern.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Not now you’re here.” He couldn’t stop smiling. “Are you going to get into trouble for talking to me?”

“Don’t be silly. Turn around.”

He obeyed, and felt the bindings around his wrists fall away. At the same time he felt a little part of his mind freed from a constraint he’d been barely aware of. Looking down at the bindings, he saw a pale yellow gemstone among a pile of bandages.

They tied me up with bandages.
That they’d used materials meant for healing as restraints made him despise them even more.
Did the stone stop me from calling out mentally? I suppose they’d need to create something like that, in case they had to stop a prisoner revealing their location.

Tyvara rose and helped him get to his feet. He felt giddy. Relief at no longer having to worry what would happen swept over him. He resisted a sudden urge to kiss her. She had turned to face the room, and he reluctantly dragged his eyes away from her to look at the other Traitors in the room.

Two Speakers faced Kalia. One was Savara. The other was Halana. More Traitor magicians stood in the corridor behind them.

“Did you learn how to Heal with magic from him?” Savara asked.

Kalia shrugged. “I might have.”

Savara looked at Lorkin. “Did she?”

He nodded, then shivered as he remembered the mind looking through his memories. The relief and elation at his rescue faded.
That’s something I’m never going to forget
, he thought. It would come back to him in nightmares.

“You have broken our law,” Savara told Kalia. “You will be judged.”

“Of course,” Kalia replied. “Let’s get on with it, then.” With chin held high, she walked out of the room. Halana followed.

Savara glanced back once, to look at the two guards. “Take them as well,” she ordered. The waiting magicians entered the room and ushered the pair out.

Tyvara did not move to follow. Lorkin looked at her. She was staring at him with a strange expression on her face.

“What?”

She smiled. Then she took his head in both hands and kissed him.

Desire rushed through him, followed by dizziness. He took hold of her as much to pull her closer as to stop himself falling over. She chuckled and pulled away a little.

“You’re not completely unhurt, are you?” she asked. “They’ll have been keeping you drained. Did they even feed you?”

“Um,” he replied, then forced himself to think about her questions. “Yes, yes and no.”

“Drained is not what I’d call unhurt,” she told him.

“I doubt your fellow Traitors would agree with you.”

“Even Kalia would agree that to be drained against your will is to be harmed. Which is why we have laws against it. She’ll—”

This quibbling was too much. He cut off her words with another kiss. It was long and lingering, and to his surprise it was he who broke it.

“The books have it all wrong,” he said.

She frowned. “Books? What books?”

“The ones Kyralian women like so much. Women are always being rescued by men in them. They say the stories are never the other way around because that’s not thrilling, and nobody would read the books.”

“And you don’t agree?”

“No.” He grinned. “It’s
very
thrilling.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled out of his arms, ignoring his protests. “Come on. There’s a very thrilling scandal about to stir up the whole of Sanctuary, and people are going to want to hear your side of the story.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Very well. I guess I’m afraid you’ll not want to kiss me again if we leave this room. What made you change your mind about me?”

She smiled. “I haven’t changed my mind about you. I changed my mind about what to do about you.”

“Sounds like I ought to thank Kalia for that.”

Tyvara pushed him out of the room. “Don’t you dare.”

It was very warm in Administrator Osen’s office. Too warm, Sonea decided. She wondered if Osen had made it this way, or one of the other Higher Magicians was to blame. It was easy to produce heat with magic, but much harder to cool things down.

The Higher Magicians had settled into their usual places. As always, this meant she and Kallen were standing either side of Osen’s desk. All waited quietly, expressions grim.

The door to the office opened and all turned to watch as Captain Sotin and a young guard entered the room, accompanied by the Warrior who had been on duty at the Lookout last night. All three went a little pale at the scrutiny of the Higher Magicians. The trio moved to Osen’s desk, then stopped, clearly unsure if they ought to be facing the Administrator or the rest of the magicians.

The captain chose to bow toward Osen, and the guard hastily followed suit.

“Administrator,” the captain said briskly.

“Captain Sotin,” Osen said. “Thank you for coming here. This is?” Osen looked up at the guard.

“Guard Welor, Administrator. He was in charge of seeing to the Lady Lilia’s needs. He was not on duty for all of last night, but is – was – the only guard to have regular contact with her.”

Osen nodded and gestured to the rest of the magicians. “Tell us what you know, Captain.”

The man turned to face the room. “The men on duty report that none noticed anything and all swear that none of them fell asleep, were drinking or were otherwise distracted from their duty. No sounds came from the prisoners or from outside the tower. But at some point, the door to Lady Lilia’s room was opened, as was the inner door between Lady Lilia and Lorandra’s rooms.”

“How were they opened, do you think?” High Lord Balkan asked.

“I cannot say. There was no sign they were forced. The keys are not missing. So either they were picked or magic was used.” The captain grimaced. “We had a second lock on Lorandra’s door, out of reach so it could not be picked, but we did not have one on the inner door.”

“And the main door to Lilia’s room?”

The captain shrugged. “We used to keep it double locked as well. Once she was there … well, we assumed she would not know how to pick locks.”

“Since neither can use magic, we must assume Lorandra picked both the inner door and the main door to Lilia’s room,” Lady Vinara said. “Once they got out of their rooms, how did they get out of the tower?”

“They could not have escaped via the stairway to the ground floor, as it ends at the office and that is always occupied by my men,” the captain said. “We think they went up to the roof. We did not keep guards up there, but the hatch to the roof was locked on the inside and blocked by magic—”

He looked at the Warrior who had been on duty.

“Both were intact,” the young man murmured.

“—but we found that the old observatory dome had come loose and could be levered upwards enough to allow someone of a small build to crawl out,” the captain finished.

“It is made of glass and very heavy,” Lord Peakin pointed out, shaking his head. “I doubt Lady Lilia and the old woman would have been able to lift it, even together.”

“They must have,” Vinara said.

“Then how did they get off the roof?” Lord Garrel asked. “Is there any sign of the use of ropes or ladders?”

The captain shook his head.

“You are confident that your men are telling the truth,” Lady Vinara asked of the captain.

The man straightened and nodded. “I trust them all. They are rare honest men.” He paused. “And if they weren’t, and had allowed the prisoners to escape, surely they would have made up a story about being drugged, or some other excuse. They are puzzled and ashamed, and I have had to talk some of them out of resigning.”

The guard beside him bowed his head.

“Guard Welor,” Osen said. “Did you notice anything in Lady Lilia’s behaviour to suggest she may have been planning an escape?”

The young man shook his head. “I don’t think she had time to think about it yet. She was still getting a grasp of what had happened to her. I found this note this morning.” He brought a piece of paper out of his chest pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Osen. “It was in a book I gave her, so I think she meant me to find it.”

The Administrator read the note and his eyebrows rose.

“
Must find Naki. Will return by morning
,” he read.

“She hasn’t,” Vinara said. “Either she lied or she has been prevented from returning.”

“Why lie?” Peakin asked.

“Perhaps she thought it would gain her more time,” Garrel replied. “If we’d discovered her missing last night, we might wait to see if she returned.”

“But how did they get off the roof?” Osen asked. “How far is it to the ground – or the nearest trees?”

“If they had climbed down they would have been noticed by the guards below. The trees are considerably further down the slope and therefore are lower than the tower,” the captain said. “A rope would have to be strung very tight, and it would be more of a matter of sliding than climbing down it. Then there’s the matter of getting one end up there in the first place without anyone noticing.” He shook his head. “We have always expected that if Skellin attempted to rescue his mother via the roof he would levitate up there.”

“I’d wager he did, and nobody noticed,” Vinara said. “Why would he take Lilia …?” Her expression changed to one of horrified realisation. “Oh.”

The room went very quiet. Sonea looked at Kallen, wondering if he had already considered what Vinara had just realised. His expression was one of forced patience.
Yes, he’s well aware of the danger – and itching to do something about it.
She resisted the temptation to smile, knowing it would be taken the wrong way.