Sword Sworn

She had told me this before. I wanted her to stop. Wanted not to listen.

"I have no magic," she said. "Only the sword. Only the song." Her fingers traced the back of one hand. "But you . . . you need nothing but yourself."

I shook my head.

"It's a part of you, Tiger. Just like your sword skill. Don't deny it."

Eventually I untangled fingers and looked at her. "I have to."

"No."

If I don't …" But I let it go. I shook my head again, releasing pent breath. "It's too late for that, isn't it?"

"I think so, yes."

I sighed heavily, scrubbed wearily at my face. My eyes felt gritty. The beginnings of a headache throbbed at the base of my neck. "Did you really bury the necklet?"

'I cut the wire into pieces with my knife, then buried each bone in a different place."

Relief was palpable. Then comprehension followed, and amusement. No wonder it had taken her so long to find the appropriate bush. I wasn't certain anything in the necklet had controlled me or was meant to control me, but self-awareness had returned only with distance from Oziri and separation from the necklet.

"Good." I could not meet her eyes, so I stared hard at the stars for a long time. I heard the coals settling, the faintest of breezes skimming the surface of the soil, the restless shiftings of the stud and Del's gelding. "Four weeks," I said. "Give or take a day."

Del was puzzled. "What?"

"Since the sandtiger attack." I was certain of it, as much as I could be. It felt—right.

Del smiled. "Yes."

"There's something I have to tell you. Something you must understand." I swallowed heavily, aware of pain in my throat, the fear she couldn't, or wouldn't, accept it. "Bascha—you really were there. Atop the spire in the Stone Forest. With me."

Her tone frayed. "Tiger—"

"In my dreams," I told her. "And that's what saved me. That's what kept me sane. So long as I could hold onto the memory of you, could conjure you in dreams, I knew I would survive. I lost myself for a while, even lost two fingers—but I came back from ioSkandi, came back from the spires." I took a deep breath. "I'll come back from this."

It was Del's turn for silence.

"I don't—I don't remember what Oziri did. What he told me, or taught me. Enough, obviously, to find and refine whatever was born in me, what bubbled up from time to time before going dormant again, until Meteiera. Apparently he brought it back into the open." I laughed sharply. "If I couldn't remember what day it was, how can I be expected to remember what he did? But what I don't understand is why."

Del pondered it. "Perhaps he realized what was in you, and wanted it for himself," she said. "I think as long as you denied what you were, he could use you. Perhaps he felt your magic might augment his, make him something more than he was. But if you knew what he wanted, you would have resisted."

"Would I?"

"Oh, yes. You let no man use you, Tiger. Not Nihko, not Sah-dri, not Oziri."

"But they have. Each of them." Others as well, over the long years. "For a time."

"And you have walked away from them all."

Or been dragged away by a very determined woman. I sighed. "So, you think if I admit what I am, I'll be safe from manipulation?"

"Maybe."

I scowled. "That's not much of a guarantee."

Del's brows arched. "With the kind of lives we lead, that's the best I can offer."

True enough. I ran a hand through my hair, scrubbing at the chill that crept over my scalp. "Dangerous."

"What is?"

"A man with a sword who lacks proper training." I grimaced, said what I meant: "A man with magic who lacks proper training."

Sahdri had said it, atop the spires. Umir's book set it into print. Oziri had proved it.

"Unless he is strong enough to find his own way."

I grunted. "Maybe."

Del smiled. "I will offer a guarantee."

I laughed, then let it spill away. "I can't believe that all dreams are bad, bascha. Everyone dreams. You dream."

"But I am not a mage."

She had said it was born in me. So had Nihkolara, and Sahdri. Oziri. Even Umir's book. Dormancy until Skandi, from birth until age forty—except for a sensitivity to magic so strong it made me ill; until ioSkandi, when Nihko took me against my will to Met-eiera, to the Stone Forest; to others like him, like me. Where, atop a spire, a full-blown mage was born.

Denial bloomed again, faded. Was followed by the only logical question there could be.

What comes next?

TWENTY-THREE

I AWOKE with a start, staring up into darkness lighted only by stars and the faintest sliver of moon. Sweat bathed my body. I swore under my breath and rubbed an unsympathetic hand over my face, mashing it out of shape.

"What is it?" Del's voice was shaded by only a trace of sleepiness.

We lay side-by-side in our bedrolls with the dying fire at our feet. Desert nights are cool; I yanked the blanket up to my shoulders. Muttering additional expletives, I shut my eyes and draped an elbow over my face. "I was dreaming, curse it."

After a moment, with careful neutrality, she queried, "Yes?"

"I'd just as soon not, after my recent experiences." I removed the arm and looked again at the stars, shoving both forearms under my head. "How in hoolies am I supposed to go through life without dreaming?"

"I don't think you can not dream," Del observed, shifting beneath her blanket. "You'll just have to get used to it."

I grunted sourly.

"Well—unless you can learn to control them. Make them stop." She was silent a moment. "And perhaps you can. Being you."

I chewed on that for a moment, then shied away from the concept. That "being you" part carried an entirely new connotation, now.

"What was this dream about?"

I scowled up at darkness. "Actually, it was a piece of one I had before. At least, I'm assuming it was a dream. Before, that is. You swore up and down it didn't happen."

"I did?"

"The dance," I said. "The dance where you walked away."

"Ah." She was silent a moment. "No. It didn't happen. But– are you saying you dreamed about a dream?"

"I didn't think it was a dream at the time. In which case I'd be dreaming about something that did happen. But it didn't, so I guess I was dreaming about a dream."

Her tone was amused. "This is getting very complicated, Tiger."

"Then there's the dream about the dead woman . . ." Oh, argh. I hadn't meant to tell her.

Del's voice sharpened. "Dead woman?"

I tried to dismiss it as inconsequential. "Just—a skeleton. Out in the Punja."

"It's a skeleton, but you know it's a woman?"

"It's a woman's voice."

"This skeleton speaks?"

Now she'd really think I was sandsick. "It's not the kind of dreams I had with Oziri. This is just a dream. A dream dream. You know. The kind anyone has."

"I don't dream of skeletons who speak with a woman's voice."

I put a smile into my voice. "Of course not. You dream of me."

"Oh, indeed," she murmured dryly. "What else would a woman dream about but a man? It is her only goal in life, to find a man to fill her thoughts during the day and her dreams during the night."

I rolled over to face her, hitching myself up on one elbow. "So. What kind of man did you think you'd end up with?" It wasn't the sort of thing I'd ever asked before. Nor had I ever heard a man, even dead drunk, mention curiosity about it. But that didn't mean we weren't curious.