All Leesil could do was hold Magiere down and hope she didn’t lose control.
Every one of her muscles was rigid beneath him, and he looked to the tear in her pant leg. This ability to just call up her inner nature was new—and how she’d learned to do so in the northern Wastes wasn’t something anyone else should know about. He lay atop Magiere as Chap watched them both, standing by and ready to lunge in. Leesil grew numb and couldn’t even look at Magiere’s face anymore. He just kept looking down at the blood-soaked rent in her pant leg.
The blood wasn’t flowing anymore. He couldn’t be certain amid the mess, but he knew the wound would begin closing.
Magiere whimpered and went limp beneath him. Osha and Leanâlhâm still watched as one last exhausted exhale escaped Magiere.
“What ... what ... ?” Leanâlhâm, now on her feet and peering around Osha’s side, stammered.
“It’s all right,” Leesil said, his voice flat. “She’ll need water and food soon.”
Leanâlhâm remained there, hiding behind Osha.
Leesil swung his head back to see Magiere’s face. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was slack enough for him to see that her teeth had returned to normal. She was covered in sweat, and he reached for the scrap of cloth Leanâlhâm had dropped to wipe Magiere’s face.
“It’s all right,” he whispered gently in her ear, not knowing what else to say.
Then Chap began growling.
Leesil looked over to find the dog staring toward the window. He felt the smallest breeze and quickly rolled over on the bed’s edge and reached to his thigh for a blade.
Brot’an’s head hung down in the open window. One arm followed as he grabbed the upper edge of the window’s interior, squirmed through, and dropped lightly to the floor.
Leesil didn’t let go of his winged blade’s handle.
Brot’an rose to his feet, glancing first at the bed and then at Leanâlhâm, who still cowered behind Osha. When he took off the wrap, a frown already covered his face.
“Why does she have no bandage yet?” he demanded.
“I ... I could not,” Leanâlhâm stammered. “She is no longer—”
“I’ll deal with it,” Leesil shot back, suddenly angry but uncertain at whom. “Leanâlhâm, get some water.”
“You find ... them?” Osha asked in Belaskian, turning on Brot’an. “Find hiding ... place?”
Still half focused on Magiere, Brot’an shook his head. “No.”
Osha turned away, bent down, and picked up the tin pitcher. He placed it carefully in Leanâlhâm’s hands. She started out of her frightened trance and turned for the door, but her wide-eyed gaze remained on Magiere until the door closed after her.
Leesil had had enough and stood up.
“Osha, what are you all doing here? Why have those other anmaglâhk come all the way here after Magiere? And don’t tell me ‘not now’!”
Something about Osha had changed since Leesil last saw the young elf more than a year ago. His feelings, sometimes even his thoughts, had always been so plain on his face, but not anymore.
“Protect you,” Osha finally answered. “Protect you from them. Most Aged Father ... he send—”
“I was against his strategy,” Brot’an interrupted.
“Against?” Osha spit out, and wheeled on Brot’an. He cut loose with an angry stream of Elvish.
Brot’an spit out one harsh word in Elvish, and Osha fell mute. There was no awe left in the young elf’s expression for the elder of his caste. In spite of their outbursts at each other, Leesil wasn’t letting any of this drop.
“Protect us?” he nearly shouted. “From your own kind? What do they want?”
Nobody needed to answer.
Leesil wasn’t even sure why he’d asked. Most Aged Father had sent some of his caste after them when they went to find the first orb. Sgäile died defending them and killed one of their shadow-grippers—like Brot’an. Most Aged Father wanted the orb, or at least to know what they had and where it was. None of that decrepit old elf’s assassins had ever seen it.
That still didn’t explain why Brot’an, or maybe Osha, had dragged Leanâlhâm along. The girl could hardly be of any use to “protect” Magiere. Worse than that, Leanâlhâm was in danger because she was with Brot’an—and now with Magiere.
Leesil glanced sidelong at Chap. He knew exactly how to get some solid answers—or, rather, how to make sure Chap got them. But the dog wasn’t watching Brot’an.
Chap was staring at the long, wrapped bundle Osha had tossed in the corner. Anything that held Chap’s concern more than Brot’an’s presence began to worry Leesil.
“Chap,” Leesil said.
Chap didn’t look up.
Chap barely heard Leesil. He became vaguely aware of the others when Leanâlhâm returned with a full pitcher of water. Even as the girl crept hesitantly toward Magiere’s bed, his thoughts were elsewhere. He had been trying to understand the consequences of what he had heard in Osha’s Elvish rant just before Brot’an silenced the young elf.
Brot’an had tried to kill Most Aged Father.
The implications were too varied to even guess, but had Brot’an started a war, this time among his own kind, between dissidents and other anmaglâhk loyal to Most Aged Father? Had he done this on purpose? Oh, yes, even failure could be an intentional tool for that deceiver.
And as much as the Anmaglâhk had come after Magiere for the orb or its whereabouts, without actually knowing what it was, this situation was also about Brot’an. It was about them getting to Magiere before Brot’an did. That much Chap could deduce.
Now that deceitful butcher stood in the same room with her.
If only Osha had stood up to Brot’an, kept arguing, then Chap might have learned more. But he had also picked up something confusing connected to the bundle Osha had tossed in the corner.
A fleeting memory had flashed through the young elf’s mind. It seemed to take place only a moment after Osha’s memory of the dark, searing-hot cavern. Chap recognized that place, as he had once been there. It was where Sgäile had taken Magiere, Leesil, and him before they had headed south from the Elven Territories in search of the orb.
Osha had knelt on ragged stone somewhere still dim and dark but not quite as hot. Perhaps it had been in one of the outer passages leading into the cavern. Osha’s hands shook as he held a hiltless blade, a sword made of the same white metal as anmaglâhk stilettos. The same metal as the winged punching blades Leesil now carried. The same metal as the burning dagger Magiere wore on her hip opposite her falchion.
The Chein’âs—the Burning Ones—had somehow called for Osha and given him a sword like none Chap had ever seen.
Anmaglâhk did not use swords, so what did this mean?
The last glimpse Chap saw in that memory was a flicker of Osha’s face reflected in the sword’s metal. Looking at the blade, his long features twisted in overwhelming grief, as if he had lost someone precious to him.
That blade was now in the cloth-wrapped bundle in the room’s corner.
Chap wheeled around as he heard Brot’an take a step. As soon as Brot’an reached the bed’s foot and looked down at Magiere, tension filled the room to the rafters. This close to Magiere, the tall elf once again had Chap’s full attention as he crept in on the bed’s near side.
Why were Brot’an and Osha dressed as traveling civilians—humans?
“Is she all right?” Brot’an asked.
Leanâlhâm was cleaning the blood from Magiere’s leg. The more she removed, the more her fright grew, for there was no wound—not even a scar. She did not answer Brot’an.
“She’ll be fine,” Leesil cut in, just as attentive and watchful as Chap.
Osha was not the only one who seemed different to Chap. Back in the an’Cróan homeland, Leanâlhâm had nearly fawned over Leesil. He was the only other elf of mixed blood she had ever met—ever even heard of. Now she barely spoke to him or to anyone. Perhaps Leesil noticed this, as well.