Mirian dug the heel of her free hand into her eyes. “I didn’t mean for everyone…”
“I know.” He twisted one ear back the way they’d come, that silence suddenly shattered by a single raised voice although he couldn’t make out the words. Time was running out. “Come on.”
They left the city on a footpath, north of where Old Capital Street joined the broader, newer Capital Street. Tomas could smell horses and oxen and see a cloud of dust rising behind a carriage down near the river, but this section of the road was empty. He got them across it and immediately down another lane. The low building to the right was a dairy; in spite of lunch, the smell of cow was almost overwhelming.
“When we’re past and we’re upwind, you’ll have to keep my scent from reaching the cattle, or they’ll panic and lead anyone following right to us. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can.”
“Of course you can? You blew a bunch of trees down and passed out for two days. There’s no ‘of course’ about it.”
She shifted so less of her weight was hanging off his arm. “I did it that first night in the cave. I can do it.”
And she did.
At least he assumed she did. Nothing blew down or over or away, but the cattle didn’t panic, and that was all Tomas cared about. If the two women whitewashing one of the outbuildings, or the man with the manure fork noticed them, well, it stood to reason that strangers had to walk out of cities as often as they walked in.
They began to pass farm lanes, then fields, and as the sun began to set the lane they followed ended at a pond where geese hissed a warning from the opposite shore. To the south, the land sloped down toward the river.
“Karis is that way.” Mirian pointed to the northeast, then knelt and began tugging at the laces of Jake’s old shoes. “We have enough light to run for a while.”
Tomas heard I need to run and began to undress.
His feet stopped hurting after he changed, but he still sat down to spend a minute or two chewing his pads.
“Come on.” Mirian was standing now, her own feet bare. She took a step and he saw the grass part, opening a path in front of her. When she ran, she ran with her whole body. He almost didn’t recognize the girl he’d resented, who’d stumbled and limped and winced her way to the forest road that first day. This Mirian ran like…
…like she was trying to outrun something.
Her scent was too strong for him to run behind her, so he ran beside her until it grew dark, then he lengthened his stride and cut her off.
She slammed into his side, caught herself with two handfuls of fur, and laughed. “My feet know where they’re going.”
There was something hiding behind that laugh. He changed so quickly, she still had one hand on his shoulder, and he stepped back before he could close the distance. “Your feet need to sleep.”
“My feet,” she began, yawned, and surrendered.
They tucked in under the low branches of an evergreen. Mirian pulled the branches closer to the ground on one side and rooted them, creating a living cave. They shared the food and then, when Tomas would have normally changed to sleep he stayed in skin and poked at the dirt with a piece of stick. “If you need to talk…”
Girls needed to talk. He’d heard Danika yell it at Ryder. We have to talk about it! You never want to talk about it!
He thought Mirian wasn’t going to answer, was about to thank the Lord and Lady for small mercies, when he heard her shift and take a deep breath.
“I think…” Her voice had a quaver he’d never heard in it before. He didn’t like it. “I think I’m going blind.”
“It’s dark.”
“Not right now!” So much for the quaver. “My eyes have been getting worse ever since this started.”
“This?”
“Since the Mage-pack was taken. This last time, when I…”
“Put half of Tardford to sleep?” The stick broke. He found another.
“You’re exaggerating, it wasn’t even close to half. That aside, yes, when you were getting us out of the market, I could barely see at all and then it got cloudy and by the time we reached the pond it was mostly better, but the ducks were fuzzy…”
“Feathery,” he said without thinking. “Sorry. And they were geese.”
She poked his shoulder. “I started thinking about when I’d noticed it before and the only logical conclusion is that it’s the mage-craft.”
“Is hurting your eyes?” Tomas knew a Fire-mage in the artillery who wore spectacles, and his grandfather also wore them…but his grandfather was old.
“Maybe it’s because I have no mage marks. Maybe mage marks protect a mage’s eyes from damage. So without them, every time I do something—and according to Gryham I’m doing something all the time—my vision gets worse.”
Tomas thought about telling her what he’d seen in Tardford and didn’t because she already sounded so upset. “Did Gryham tell you anything about mage marks?”
“No.”
“So you could be wrong. It might be lack of sleep or lack of vegetables.” He knew non-Pack needed more vegetables than Pack and they’d been mostly living on rabbit. “Or the air is different here.”
“I’m not wrong. I went over and over and over it while we ran. Using mage-craft is blinding me. It’s the only logical conclusion.”
“So what do we do?” He couldn’t make out her expression, but then he already knew what it was. He knew her shoulders had squared and her chin had gone up.
“We’ll do what we set out to do. Save the Mage-pack.”
“But if you can’t use mage-craft…” He paused, suddenly aware of the breeze clearing her scent from their shelter so he could function. She was using mage-craft even while she talked about it blinding her.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t use it. Or that I wouldn’t.”
“But if it’s…” He stopped when he felt her hand close around his.
“We’ve come too far. And when you weigh squinting and tripping against saving Lady Hagen and the rest…it’s not even worth considering.”
Shifted his grip, Tomas ran his thumb up the inside of her wrist. He could feel her pulse racing under the thin layer of soft skin. “Unfortunately, you’re right.”
The way she sighed, he realized at least part of her had wanted him to disagree. “Stay in skin.”
“What?”
“Don’t change tonight.”
The only time since this started that he hadn’t slept beside her in fur, there’d been a roomful of very fragrant people to help his control. “I don’t think…”
“So don’t think. I don’t want to hold you,” she continued. “I need you to hold me.”
She was asking for comfort. Tomas had to breathe for a moment, the air smelling of sap and earth and Mirian—in spite of her breeze—before he could trust his voice. “I need to put my trousers on, then.”
“You don’t need to.”
The emperor was scheduled to spend the morning being briefed on the results of several recent international trade agreements and, as Reiter was not on the list of staff he wanted to attend him, he had another morning off. This time, he stripped off his court uniform, regained his anonymity as just another Shield officer, and left the palace. He had money enough to visit a barber or a coffee shop but not both, so he chose the barber. After, as he hadn’t been in Karis with the Shields long enough to make friends, he walked for a while, enjoying the noise and the smells and the complete lack of manners. He reflected on how unfortunate it was no one went to a whorehouse before noon, and reminded himself it didn’t matter as Mirian had taken his purse.
When he returned to the palace to dress for the midday meal, he felt almost normal and more like himself than he had since he walked into that Imperial debriefing. The emperor’s attention was intoxicating, but he’d been in the army long enough to know what followed extended intoxication.