She felt a familiar pang of guilt. “The Guild wouldn’t have let you. I wouldn’t have let you.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “No?”
“No.” She avoided his eyes. “It took a lot before I really decided I wanted to stay and learn magic. It would take a lot more to make me change my mind.”
He paused. “Do you... do you think you would have been tempted?”
She thought back to the day they went to the spring together, and his kiss, and she couldn’t help smiling. “A little. But I hardly knew you, Dorrien. A few weeks isn’t enough time to be sure about someone.”
His eyes flickered over her shoulder. She turned to see that Akkarin was riding toward them. With his short beard and simple clothing, she doubted he would be recognized. Anyone looking closely would notice he rode too well, however. She would have to point this out.
“And you’re sure now?”
She turned back to Dorrien. “Yes.”
He let out a long breath, then nodded. Sonea looked at Akkarin again. His expression was grim and hard.
“Though it took a lot to convince him,” she added.
Dorrien made a choking noise. She turned, cursing herself for making such a thoughtless comment, only to have him burst into laughter.
“Poor Akkarin!” he said, shaking his head. He looked at her sideways and shook his head. “You’re going to be a formidable woman one day.”
Sonea stared at him, then felt her face grow hot. She tried to think of a retort, but the words refused to come. Then Akkarin reached them and she gave up.
As he handed her a bread roll, Akkarin looked at her closely. She felt her face warming again. His eyebrows rose, and he looked at Dorrien speculatively. The Healer smiled, tapped his heels against his horse’s flank and started forward.
They moved on, eating as they rode. An hour later, they arrived at a small village. She and Akkarin dismounted and handed the reins of their horses to Dorrien, and the Healer left to find fresh mounts.
“So what were you and Dorrien discussing before?” Akkarin asked.
She turned to regard him. “Discussing?”
“Outside the farmhouse when I was buying the food.”
“Oh. Then. Nothing.”
He smiled and nodded. “Nothing. Amazing subject, that one. Produces such fascinating reactions in people.”
She regarded him coolly. “Perhaps it’s a polite way of saying it’s none of your business.”
“If you say so.”
She felt a flash of irritation at the knowing look on his face. Was she so easy to read? But if I can guess his moods now, he can probably read mine just as easily.
He yawned, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked more alert. When was the last time we slept? she thought. The morning after we slipped through the Pass. Before then? A few hours’ sleep each day. And for the first half of our journey, Akkarin hadn’t slept at all...
“You haven’t had any more nightmares,” she said suddenly.
Akkarin frowned. “No.”
“What did you dream about?”
He gave her a sharp look, and she instantly regretted the question.
“Sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Akkarin drew in a deep breath. “No, I should tell you. I dream of events that happened when I was a slave. Mostly events concerning one person.” He paused. “Dakova’s slave girl.”
“The one who helped you, in the beginning?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. He paused, and looked away. “I loved her.”
Sonea blinked in surprise. Akkarin and the slave girl? He had loved her? He had loved another? She felt a growing uncertainty and annoyance, then guilt. Was she jealous of a girl who had died years before? That was ridiculous.
“Dakova knew it,” Akkarin continued. “We dared not touch each other. He would have killed us if we had. As it was, he enjoyed tormenting us any way he could. She was his... his pleasure slave.”
Sonea shivered as she began to understand what that must have been like. To always see each other, yet never be able to touch. To watch as the other was tormented. She could not imagine what Akkarin had felt, knowing what the girl endured.
Akkarin sighed. “I used to dream about her death every night. In my dreams, I tell her that I’ll distract Dakova so she can get away. I tell her I’ll stop him finding her. But she always ignores me. She always goes to him.”
She reached out and touched the back of his hand. His fingers curled around hers.
“She explained to me that the slaves considered it an honor to serve a magician. She said the slaves’ sense of honor made their life easier to bear. I could understand that they might allow themselves to think that way when they had no choice, but not when they did have a choice—or when they knew their master intended to kill them.”
Sonea thought of Takan, of how he had called Akkarin “master,” and of the peculiar way he had handed the Ichani knife to Akkarin across his upturned wrists, as if he was offering something more than the blade. Perhaps he was.
“Takan has never stopped thinking that way, has he?” she asked quietly.
Akkarin glanced at her. “No,” he said. “He could not let go of a lifetime of habits.” He paused to chuckle. “I think in the last few years he persisted with the rituals just to infuriate me. I know he would never go back to that life willingly.”
“Yet he stayed with you, and would not let you teach him magic.”
“No, but there were practical reasons for that. Takan could not join the Guild. Too many questions would have been asked. Even if we invented a past for him, it would have been difficult for him to avoid those lessons that involve mind sharing. It would have been too risky to teach him magic secretly. If he had returned to Sachaka, he would not have survived unless he knew black magic. I don’t think he trusted himself with that knowledge, in that place. In Sachaka, there are only masters and slaves. To survive as a master, he would need his own slaves.”
Sonea shuddered. “It sounds like an evil place.”
Akkarin shrugged. “Not every master is cruel. The Ichani are outcasts. They are the magicians the King has banished from the city—and not just for being overly ambitious.”
“How did the King make them leave?”
“His own powers are considerable, and he has supporters.”
“The Sachakan King is a magician!”
“Yes.” Akkarin smiled. “Only the Allied Lands have laws preventing magicians from ruling, or having too much influence in politics.”
“Does our King know this?”
“Yes, though he does not understand how powerful the Sachakan magicians are. Well, he does now.”
“What does the Sachakan King think of the Ichani invading Kyralia?”
Akkarin frowned. “I don’t know. If he knew of Kariko’s plan, he would not have liked it, but he probably believed it would never work. The Ichani were always too busy fighting each other to think of forming an alliance. It will be interesting to see what the Sachakan King will do when he has a neighboring land ruled by Ichani.”
“He’ll help us?”
“Oh, no.” Akkarin laughed grimly. “You forget how much Sachakans hate the Guild.”
“Because of the war? But that was so long ago.”
“To the Guild it is. The Sachakans cannot forget, not with half their country a wasteland.” Akkarin shook his head. “The Guild should never have ignored Sachaka after it had won the war.”
“What should it have done?”
Akkarin turned his head and gazed at the mountains. Sonea followed his eyes. Only a few days before, they had been on the other side of that jagged line.
“It was a war between magicians,” Akkarin murmured. “There is never any point in sending armies of non-magicians against magicians, especially magicians who use black magic. Sachaka was conquered by Kyralian magicians, who promptly returned to their rich homes. They knew the Sachakan empire would eventually recover and become a danger again; so they created the wasteland to keep the country poor. If some of the Guild magicians had taken up residence in Sachaka instead, freed the slaves and shown that magicians can use their powers to help the people, the Sachakans might have been guided toward becoming a more peaceful, free society, and we might not be facing this situation today.”