“It doesn’t matter now,” Karl said. “We’re leaving.”
Brenna’s eyes widened. “But… that’s the Lesser Barrier. You can’t-”
“Yes,” Karl said. “I can.”
With another boat heading their way Karl couldn’t take time to explain, couldn’t explain, didn’t even know if what he hoped would happen would happen. All he knew was that if Falk had truly eliminated Mother Northwind, then Brenna would die as soon as he could get her back to the Cauldron. And if Falk had discovered the truth about him, then his life was also forfeit: he might be impervious to magical attack, but he was pretty sure a crossbow bolt or dagger blade wouldn’t care that he was the Magebane.
He might only be buying them a few days-maybe just a few hours-before Falk tracked them down, but that was better than nothing. He knew-or thought he knew-that he could pass through the Lesser Barrier. But could he take Brenna with him?
Could he take Teran?
Only one way to find out. He held tight to Brenna’s hand, held his other hand out to Teran. “Take it,” he said.
Teran refused it. “No,” he said. “They won’t have seen where you went. It’s too dark. I’ll get back in the boat, lead them away. Buy you some more time.”
“Falk will kill you.”
“Maybe. But I will have done my duty.” Teran’s face was grim in the dying light. “I swore to protect you, Your Highness.”
“I’m not-”
“Whether you are or not, I swore an oath. An oath I have failed twice now. An oath I violated in spirit every time I reported to Falk about your actions and conversations.” Teran stepped back. “Go, Your Highness. Let me do my duty.”
Karl hesitated. Teran’s voice hardened. “Karl, go! Take Brenna. Good luck. And… farewell.” And then he turned and ran back through the bushes toward the boat, leaving Karl still reaching out with a futile hand to try to stop him.
“Farewell!” He called after his friend, then, tears stinging his eyes, turned to Brenna. “Hold on,” he said. He grabbed her, pulled her tight to him in a lover’s embrace, felt her stiffen-
– and with a twist and a thrust of his legs, hurled both of them at the Barrier.
Bursting into the cold air felt like plunging into an icy bath. A moment later they were rolling together in the snow.
Karl scrambled to his feet, pulled Brenna up, then spun back toward the Barrier. In the fading light, he saw Teran rowing away, his boat a long dark streak on the pale water.
Then he grabbed Brenna’s hand and led her at a run through the snow toward the yellow lights of New Cabora.
CHAPTER 29
Brenna, stumbling through the snow in stocking feet, her boots having come off in the mud on the lakeshore, could barely grasp what was happening. Less than an hour had passed since the magecarriage had pulled up to the front of the Palace and Falk had jumped down and stalked inside. The appearance of the Prince, boarding the boat, his revelation that he, too, knew Mother Northwind’s plan-then the explosion in the Palace, the frantic rowing across the lake, the mud, the loss of her boots, the Prince’s embrace, the sudden shock of the wintry air, and now the cold tearing at her feet and face and hands. .. it had all happened with blinding speed.
She ran, despite the pain in her freezing feet, because she couldn’t not run, not with the Prince pulling her along and the cold more of a threat than even Falk, left on the other side of the Barrier. He really is the Magebane, she thought. Mother Northwind spoke the truth. He really can negate magic.
But Mother Northwind might very well be dead in the rubble of her rooms back in the Palace, and her plan to bring down the MageLords with her. Which left only Falk, who would surely kill Prince Karl if he knew he was the Magebane, and would just as surely kill her when he had reconstituted his own Plan and could once more get her to the Cauldron.
Running seemed an eminently sensible thing to do, except where could they run that Falk couldn’t find them? He had already found the Prince once, and that was when he had been tucked away in the Common Cause’s most secret safe house. Who would shelter them now?
In a dark alley on the other side of the park, Karl looked back at the way they had just come, and swore. Their footsteps were clear in the snow. “Stay to the cobblestones,” he said. “Or Falk will track us with ease.”
Brenna shivered. “I ca… can’t. I l… lost my b… boots in the mud.”
Karl glanced at her feet. “I know what that’s like,” he said. He straightened. “Then I’ll carry you.”
“What? No! You can’t-”
“Piggy-back,” he said. “I’m strong, Brenna. I can do it. It will save your feet… and save, us, too. If you cut your feet on the cobblestones and leave a trail of blood…”
Feeling self-conscious, Brenna climbed onto his back as he bent before her. He staggered a little as he straightened, but she could feel hard muscle in the shoulders she clung to and the hips she straddled, and though he moved slowly off into the darkness, he didn’t falter.
Karl carried her through the streets, staying in the shadows, pulling her aside once into a doorway when someone passed the mouth of the alley they were in, silhouetted against the ghastly yellow illumination of one of New Cabora’s gaslights. But few people were abroad, kept inside both by the cold and, she suspected, the recent crackdown in the city by Falk’s forces.
Despite her being carried, her stockinged feet were almost numb by the time they reached their destination, an ordinary doorway in an ordinary alley like a dozen others they had traversed. Karl let her slide to the ground, and she winced as her feet landed in snow. Not completely numb yet, then, she thought.
Karl knocked, a complicated pattern. Nothing happened. He knocked again, varying the pattern. Still no response. Finally he put his mouth close to a closed eye-slot and said, so loudly her heart leaped in terror for fear someone would overhear, “Open, whoever is in there,” he said. “It’s Prince Karl. I seek the protection of the Common Cause.”
The door opened so abruptly Karl almost stumbled through it-and almost onto the sword point that, catching the light from outside, seemed to hover in the darkness. “Get in,” snarled a voice from the darkness.
Karl grabbed Brenna’s hand and pulled her through the door. It slammed shut behind them and she heard the bolt shoot into place. In absolute-though blessedly warm-darkness, they crept forward. A second door suddenly opened, revealing a firelit room with a table and chairs. Beyond it Brenna glimpsed another room with beds and blankets, and beyond that, a kitchen.
The man who had admitted them waited until they were both inside, then came in behind them. The door clicked shut, and Brenna turned to see a man about Karl’s height, bright blue eyes blazing above a barely-healed wound that had laid his cheekbone open, bared blade glinting red in the firelight. “Tell me why I shouldn’t run you through here and now and save myself a hell of a lot of trouble,” he growled.
“Vinthor?” Karl said. “I thought you were dead!”
“More than one secret way out of that farmhouse. I killed two guards in the kitchen, then got out while the getting was good. But I was the only one. Denson, Goodwife Beth-”
“Beth survived,” Karl said. “She’s in the Palace.”
Vinthor’s face paled, putting the cheek wound into stark relief. “Beth’s alive? I thought…” He stiffened, face flushing again. “If that’s a lie-”
“No lie,” Karl said. “Vinthor, Brenna needs to sit down and warm herself. It’s not as cold as the night you brought me here barefoot, but it’s cold enough. Her feet…”
Vinthor hesitated, then sheathed his sword. “All right,” he said gruffly. “I’ll hear you out. Brenna, is it? Sit down and let me take a look.”
Brenna sat gratefully by the fire. Her feet were beginning to burn and itch with returning circulation. She felt embarrassed and self-conscious, having this strange man pull off her stockings and hold her naked feet in his callused hands, but his touch was gentle, and when he straightened, he said, “No frostbite. Not like yours.”