“Qown … no. I won’t let them hurt you.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to have to trust me when I say they won’t.” His crooked smile made it clear he understood the irony of asking me to trust him. “Besides. It’s my decision. Leave me one thing that is my decision.”
I exhaled, fighting back my own sadness and despair. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I’m under orders from Relos Var to try,” he said. “When do you want to descend?”
“We’re looking for specific circumstances. For one, Aeyan’arric has to be here in the mountains, and two, none of the wizards should be present.”
Qown blinked. “Aeyan’arric? Why do you care about Aeyan’arric?”
“Because…” I sighed. “You really don’t need to know that.”
“Wait, I thought you were cleansing the Spring Caves so the Yorans could use them again.”
“That’s the side effect, not the goal.”
“Aeyan’arric wouldn’t matter unless you…” He stared. “You’re going to try to kill her, aren’t you? Even if you could—and you can’t—what good would it do?”
“It will keep her from icing over any more villages in Jorat or attacking any more of my—” I stopped. “It needs to be done. Stop asking questions. When are we going to do this?”
He thought for a moment. “Now.”
“What?” I blinked. I wasn’t ready or expecting now.
Qown nodded. “Now. Relos Var and Senera left this morning. I’m not sure where, but it seemed important—and they left Aeyan’arric. It’s as good a window as we’re likely to have.”
“Thurvishar’s not scheduled to have classes with the Spurned, but then he does make his own schedule.” I pondered the strange D’Lorus mage. “Still, even if he’s here, I don’t know he’d interfere. It’s not his pasture or his horses. But what of Gadrith?”
We had talked about Gadrith on many occasions, once Qown found out his real identity. We wanted nothing to do with him. There was a sort of sick humor to the fact Xivan kept herself alive in a very similar manner to Gadrith, and yet Xivan was beloved—at least among the Spurned. Maybe because Xivan wouldn’t murder everyone around her just because she felt peckish. I guess the fact she wasn’t a wizard—who presumably burned through far greater quantities of tenyé due to spellcasting—worked to her advantage.
“Gadrith hasn’t visited in weeks,” Qown said. “So if you’re going to do this…”
“Yes. Best to do it now.” I looked around his room, which still managed to feel monastic in the middle of a palace. I wasn’t ready, but maybe it was best this way. No chance to say goodbyes and thus betray my goals. No chance to accidentally let something slip.
Qown cleared his throat. “I’m afraid you’ll need to disrobe.” He handed me one of his robes for my modesty.
My mouth quirked. As if Qown hadn’t seen all of me at one time or another. I turned my back toward him and stripped down so he could examine the sigil and—hopefully—remove it.
“Give me a moment,” he said.
“Take all the time you need.”
However, it didn’t take very long at all. Then I heard him sigh.
“It didn’t work?” I looked over my shoulder.
“It didn’t work,” he agreed. “Whatever’s creating the mark, it’s not coming off just because I asked.”1
“Are you sure cutting off the skin will be enough?”
“Of course I’m sure. I—” I heard him pause. “Oh sun, what if it isn’t?”
I half turned toward him. “We’ll find out. Hopefully it will be like you said and you won’t have to remove all the skin.”
“Right. Lie down over here. I’ll just, uh … okay, I’m going to dull the pain. It’s going to feel odd, but it shouldn’t hurt.”
“I’d say knock me unconscious, but it’s nighttime so you wouldn’t be able to wake me again.”
“Oh, good point.”
I felt his fingertips against the skin, and then I couldn’t feel his touch at all. It did indeed feel odd, a numbness around the edges of my back, but I couldn’t feel my back’s center.
“You’re going to feel tugging. You might also feel some wetness.”
“That won’t by chance be blood, will it?”
“It might be, yes. Now let me work.”
I put my hands under my chin and tried not to think of how my dearest friend was skinning me alive.
So that was all I could think about.
“Okay, it goes a little deeper than I’d like, but not all the way to muscle. We should be able to excise this. Don’t move. When I’m finished, I’ll still need to heal you.”
“Oh yes, please do. I don’t feel like fighting a dragon while missing all the skin from my back.”
“Look, about that…”
“Me missing the skin off my back? Will it scar?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “No, I mean, about killing Aeyan’arric. Have you ever thought about just … fixing the poison in the Spring Caves instead? I mean, you’d be a hero. They’d erect your statue in every cave system.”
“And Relos Var would keep right on asking Aeyan’arric to freeze villages. Damn it, Qown, what’s gotten into you—”
“I said don’t move!”
I felt his hand shove me back down to the bed again.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“I can’t stress how important it is that you don’t move,” he said after a long pause. “This is tricky work, and I’d like to make sure you don’t scar … or anything else.”
I’ll be honest, I didn’t like that “anything else.”
I stayed still, but I thought about what he’d said. Yor had never been the least bit expansionist before Quur had come in and messed up their entire country. I remember the stories from my childhood about Suless and Cherthog, how necessary it had been to free the Yorans from their enslavement by god-kings. I think Quur was just running with what they knew: slay the god-kings, take their countries, add them to the empire. They’d done it with Jorat (albeit with actual cooperation), and they’d done it (much less willingly) with the city-states that made up the area once called Zaibur, now called Marakor. Of course, Quur had gone on to conquer Yor next. Had there ever been any doubt they would?
How disappointing it must have been to whichever emperor ruled back then (Gendal? I think it must have been Gendal) when all the god-kings had been conquered. South lay nothing but the Korthaen Blight, which no sane person would want, and the Manol, which no sane person would be fool enough to invade a second time.
But back to my point: Yor had every reason to hate Quur, didn’t they? Even if being freed from Cherthog and Suless might have been a blessing under other circumstances, Quur had literally poisoned the ground under Yoran feet. How many had died in agony for Quuros generals to break their siege? Didn’t Yor deserve to have that fixed?
I felt … I felt an odd solidarity. I wasn’t Yoran, in many ways didn’t understand the Yorans either. And yet, I knew what it was like to be played as a piece in someone else’s game. In everyone’s game.