The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) (25 page)

"Are you going to tell them?"

Sukata's fingers closed on the hem of her coat—a tiny giveaway to make up for not being able to look nervous.

"We are to spend the night in vigil in the resting place of the Ten," she said, her thin voice even more muted than usual.

"Are you going to tell the Ten that letting them die could make you stop being Kellian—maybe even kill you?"

"To do so would be to influence their answer."

"You think they wouldn't want to know?"

"To protect ourselves by prolonging their cruel state is not possible, Kendall. Who we are…we cannot buy our existence at the expense of the Ten."

"And what's it going to do to Herself? Even if absolutely nothing happens to you, you're asking her to kill your…your grandmothers! And if—!"

Kendall made herself stop, an immense consciousness that she was hurting Sukata washing over her. Now wasn't the time to pick an argument. All it did was make it harder to find a way back to the time when there was nothing more natural than ranging herself at Sukata's side, because the pair of them were allies in dealing with a full-of-herself mage too powerful for her own good.

"Sorry," she said. "You go do your…whatever."

She was saved from the temptation to add a barbed "Since it's nothing to do with me," by Captain Faille, coming out of the room he shared with Rennyn. He gave Kendall one of his Looks, easily translated as "You're on duty," before going off up the hill. Sukata, after a moment's hesitation, followed without another word.

"Bugs and rot," Kendall muttered, but so low even a Kellian probably wouldn't have heard, then went and scratched on Rennyn's door, and opened it.

Kellian mightn't hold much with ranks, but Duchesses—or Captain Faille—still warranted what was probably one of the prime rooms, with windows looking out over the fields and gardens. Pointless, since they'd straight away been firmly shuttered and barred, and a heavy curtain pulled over them against any hint of autumn chill, with a brazier added to make sure the room kept toasty. Herself was still up, dressed for bed, but sitting cross-legged on it, not doing anything noticeable with the hairbrush she held.

Kendall had only once seen Rennyn Claire cry: right after she'd told the Kellian that she technically-not-really owned them, and they'd all gone from sort of liking her to flinching. In the months since then her slow recovery from the broken ribs and the hole in her side had led to plenty of fits of black sullens, and some days of sheer had-it-up-to-hereness, but even at her worst she'd mainly responded with gritted teeth and thinning patience. The Kellian asking her to kill their grandmothers, back around when she'd been made Duchess, must have been the cause of those days when she'd been all withdrawn and distracted.

Head tangled in her own concerns, it took Kendall an entire handful of moments to study the still profile of the most powerful mage in the world and read devastation.

What? Why? Rennyn had to have known about the Kellian plans for the Ten before they'd even started the trip. But this almost waxen stillness, the grey pallor, the exhausted set of her shoulders...

"Give me that," Kendall said, and took the brush because there was no way Rennyn was going to be this unhappy and want to admit it. Kendall began working on Rennyn's hair with deliberate vigour, dealing with tangles briskly enough to smart. Minor distraction, but that had long been part of the reason Herself kept Kendall around.

Had Rennyn and Captain Faille had their first really bad argument? No, Sukata would have been able to hear that, and would have leaked distress from every pore. And there was no hint of the faint metallic tang of worked magic in the room, so Rennyn hadn't been using one of the silence castings she occasionally put up. Nor had the Captain looked at all angry. Not that Kendall could ever tell much of what Captain Faille was feeling.

There weren't a whole lot of things that Rennyn Claire cared about enough to knock her this hard. Only Sebastian, really, and there's no way word of any hurt to him could have beat them here. The introduction to the people living at Aurai's Rest had been awkward, but there'd been no suggestion of stone throwing. And, really, Rennyn could probably put up with all the Kellian cold-shouldering her so long as Captain Faille stuck around.

Kendall worked on braiding, waiting until she was close to the end before speaking.

"What would happen if you ordered the Kellian to not obey your orders?"

The jerk of Rennyn's head told Kendall she'd guessed right. An accidental order, and a descent into a blather of guilt and doubt. Probably a whole self-sacrificial thing telling herself she couldn't stay married to Captain Faille

"The next order cancels it out," Rennyn said, after a long moment. "You really can be astonishingly observant, Kendall."

Kendall sniffed. If seeing noses on faces was being observant.

"The family that lived next to me, back in Falk, there were so many of them they were three-a-bed," she observed to the air. "One day, Nina Lippon showed up with a black eye, and it turned out Jessamy—that was the youngest—had elbowed her in the face when she was asleep. Nina's face was really sore, and Jessa felt a bit bad about it, but no-one was acting like Jessa had gone after Nina with a knife or anything."

Kendall twined one of Rennyn's ribbons through the end of the braid, and tied it off firmly.

"I'd tell you not to sit in here digging your own pit of gloom, but I know you're going to pass out before you get more than a foot down. I want to know, instead, whether you think the Kellian should tell the Ten what might happen if they all die."

That got no response at all, so Kendall busied herself making sure there was a jug of water, and a few sweet biscuits within reach. But Captain Faille had already set everything up before leaving, so Kendall had nothing left to do but set the brush on top of Rennyn's small case of toiletries and head for the door.

"No, I don't," Rennyn said, just as Kendall gripped the door handle. "I also don't truly believe Solace's casting will break—the chance is only remote, and nothing compared to the likelihood that Solace's line ending will cause it to unravel. Faint possibilities should not be a factor in deciding whether nine women endure a half-life."

Those possibilities were still going to keep everyone up half the night—and if the original Kellian chose to die then there was nothing faint about how Rennyn would feel about what came next.

Too worked up for an early night, Kendall left Rennyn to her stewing and wandered about the settlement, avoiding the library-sitting room-hall where most of the mages had congregated. No-one seemed to have a house to themselves here: it was all laid out in large buildings with lots of rooms, one big central kitchen, and even something resembling a Kolan bath-house. Kendall spent some time there, not comfortable enough to strip off, but giving herself a more thorough wipe-down than she'd managed before dinner.

Emerging into the chill night air, Kendall narrowly avoided running right into Dezart Samarin, obviously getting himself a good look around while there were no Kellian to keep an ear out for him. Stepping back, Kendall waited until he had more of a lead on her before following.

The Sentene mages should have thought to put a proper watch on him. Maybe it was true that there was nothing particularly secret about Aurai's Rest, but there was sure plenty dubious about His Imperial Smugness. And while he wasn't actively breaking into anything, he more than once stopped to make a very particular survey of places that didn't look at all interesting to Kendall. At the third of these he pulled a little book out of an inner pocket, and made a note with a stub of a pencil.

As if he'd found what he'd been looking for, he abruptly turned and walked briskly back to the building where Rennyn's group had been given rooms. Kendall stayed as close as she dared, turning over schemes to get hold of that book and…but it would be written in Kolan. She'd have to show it to someone, and how would it be if it were in code as well, and looked like a laundry list?

He seemed to have had enough skulking about for now, at least, heading inside and straight for the room he'd been assigned. But then, just as he opened the door, he turned his head and looked directly at her peering around the corner. He was smiling—
smirking
—completely full up with smug on smug as he met her eye and she knew, just knew, that he'd seen her from the very start, as soon as she stepped out of the bath-house.

If Kendall had been holding anything she would have thrown it at the door that closed behind him. Of all the jumped-up, snot-nosed—! Making a game of her! She'd…she'd…

A picture of how silly she must look, practically stamping her foot in an empty corridor, punctured Kendall's fury, and she let out her breath, then snorted.

"Don't think that's going to make me let my guard down, scut. None of us are fool enough to trust you."

About to turn and head back outside, a loud thud stopped Kendall in her tracks. That hadn't come from Samarin or Rennyn's room, but—

A crash pinpointed the Pest's room, though before Kendall could do anything about it, Samarin flung open his door and dashed out into the corridor, a sword in one hand.

"Where—?" he started to say, but had his answer in the Pest, trailing a sheet and staggering like he was drunk.

"The music!" the Pest gasped, clutching Samarin's arm. "The music!"

Maybe he was drunk. Before His Smugness could respond, the Pest ducked past him and threw himself at Rennyn's door, so frantic and off-balance that he seemed to have forgotten how handles worked, fumbling and scrabbling before finally getting it open, and almost falling over again.

Kendall stared. At a rumpled and very empty bed. At curtains pulled back, shutters unbarred…and the Pest, staggering but still headlong, scrambling out the window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Sukata!" Kendall shouted it, so loud her throat hurt as she turned to face toward the entrance of the building, and up the hill to where all the Kellian had gone. "Sukata,
HELP!
"

Then she was running, shoulder-to-shoulder with Samarin, so that they almost jammed in doorway and then window. The drop was short, and the flowerbed beneath already mangled. Samarin had gotten ahead of her, but slowed as he hunted out direction. There was noise—the Pest seemed determined to trip over
everything
—and then Kendall saw something a good deal further out. Just a sliver of white off toward the edge of the circle, and she pelted toward it, wishing the moon was out, or she could enchant herself to see in the dark, or knew a single useful Sigillic.

Ahead, magic twisted, shifting from beyond her hearing to a strong knot of force. Kendall couldn't guess at intent at all, felt it more as a shape, something stretching away from her, away from the figure directly ahead of her. And it
was
Rennyn, walking unhurriedly, and entirely alone. Casting? Had the damn-fool woman climbed out her own window and gone for a walk without a word to anyone, and not even wearing a coat? Kendall would kill her herself.

"What—?" A cry from Kendall's right and behind her—Lieutenant Meniar, pounding into the chase from the direction of the stream. "Your Grace!"

"Stop her!" the Pest shouted. "She's not awake!"

A tunnel. It felt like a tunnel. Kendall didn't understand at all, but she wasn't close enough to stop Rennyn from continuing her steady walk forward, and somehow each step seemed to take Herself dozens of feet: already she was once again no more than a smudge of white in the distance, and the tunnel was narrowing behind her, as if the roof was dropping down.

Fearing that she would bounce right off whatever it was, Kendall reached out, trying to push the roof back up. She couldn't see it at all, could make no sense of what it even was, but she could grip it, a slippery nothingness, and somehow lighter even than necklaces and bowls and all the things she had practiced holding.

"Keep moving!"

Samarin grabbed her arm and hustled her forward, and Kendall tried to walk and hold the roof up at the same time and felt it sliding.

"Carry her!" Samarin somehow tucked himself beneath Kendall's shoulder, and Lieutenant Meniar was on her other side. They lifted her like a doll and ran and Kendall let them because all her attention had to go to the tunnel, and it was rocks now, boulders, a mountain trying to close down on them.

"A travel casting," Lieutenant Meniar said, turning his head, and Kendall realised he was talking to someone in the tunnel behind them, more than one person, breathing harsh, though she couldn't hear any footsteps. None of them were standing on anything, they were running on air and she'd lost track of the slip of white ahead, and the mountain narrowed down into a knife-hammer of pain behind her left eye, and she lost her hold. They fell.

Kendall shuddered, and rolled off a lump of person into a rustle of dry leaves. She clutched her head, glad for the velvet of darkness, but equally glad when a skitter of worked power became a glow of green light clinging to the ring Lieutenant Meniar wore. And she was intensely relieved to see Sukata. Sukata, Captain Faille and his mother, looking like they'd been running a week as they picked themselves up. And even that Tesin Asaka, all tangled up with the Pest. Kendall hadn't been sure any of the Kellian would even hear her, let alone be able to reach them before the tunnel thing closed. Kellian could move lightning-fast, but they couldn't keep it up over distance, though obviously they'd tried, and now could barely stand.

"Before everyone starts shuffling about," Samarin said, "try to mark the exact direction we were travelling."

Kendall had no idea, so didn't bother to try, but she was not surprised at all when the Kellian immediately agreed on the same direction, and arranged an arrow using branches. Even as they did so, they were searching the blackness, trying to spot any hint of white, any trace of movement.

"How far ahead?" Captain Faille asked, and his voice told them all the things his shadowy face did not.