“No,” Stix rasped.
Kahina’s face twitched at that word—a movement Stix would never have detected without her spectacles. As it was though, she saw the creasing around Kahina’s eyes. Awkward lines that she didn’t use often because she was not a woman used to disappointment.
The expression departed as quickly as it had come, and with it came a false calm. A loosening in her limbs as she emptied her pipe onto the mud. Tap-tap-tap. Ash floated down near Stix’s head. “I had hoped we would not come to this, Water Brawler. I had also hoped you would be the one I thought you were, but…” A brittle smile. “I should have realized the truth of you. Baile would never forget the tide comes at midnight. Bring her out!”
It took Stix a moment to realize Kahina didn’t shout her final words at Stix. That they were instead directed toward the wooden stall, to where a figure with broad shoulders now formed in the shadows.
The Hammer emerged a moment later, and stumbling behind him, her mouth and hands gagged by stone, was Ryber.
Stix instantly grabbed for her waters, even as Ryber shook her head. Even as Stix felt Kahina touch the jade ring and fresh flames awaken in her muscles, her veins, her soul. But then flames ignited around Ryber—real flames from a Firewitch—and she vanished in an instant. The entire wooden stall did.
Stix screamed, Douse!, with her throat and her mind, but her magic couldn’t answer. Not while Kahina’s pain stabbed though her.
“Enough.” Kahina’s voice bent into Stix’s ear, crackling like a fire’s heartbeat. “I have your friend, Water Brawler, leaving you only one choice: tell me where the blade and glass are.” At this command, the pain in Stix’s body receded enough for her to see Kahina’s eyes, blazing with reflected flame.
And enough for her to frantically scour her mind for some other lie. Some other trick of words to fool Kahina and her blighted ring. Perhaps if she said the tools were somewhere in Saldonica. Or that she didn’t know precisely where they were. Or maybe if she said they’d been broken …
Stix never got to speak. Not before the Hammer lifted his arms, revealing a shattered blade and a shattered glass. “The girl was carrying them with her. They were right beside you all along.”
Somewhere in the flames that imprisoned Ryber, Stix thought she heard a muffled scream, thought she felt a wordless apology vibrate through what little water still remained in the arena. Which was wrong, all wrong. None of this was Ryber’s fault. It was Stix’s and Stix’s all alone.
Now Kahina had the tools that would destroy her. The tools Eridysi had made so Paladins like Kahina would never rule the land, while Paladins like Stix would always remain to protect it.
Kahina had the blade and glass. Kahina had won.
FORTY
The night was cold, the wind sharp. But the woolen cloaks Leopold had chosen for himself and Safi were thick, and Zander at Safi’s back blocked the brunt of the wind’s bite.
The only words exchanged in the past two hours had come from Leopold. “How do you feel?” he would ask. “Fine,” Safi would answer, hoping no lines snaked up her neck or across her face. Leopold always accepted her answer, though, and the Hell-Bards never noticed anything.
A good sign, so long as she continued to feel herself—and she did, even with the frost snapping at her organs. Digging into her bones. So long as she kept moving closer to Iseult, closer to Uncle, she could ignore this strain.
Snow fell all night. Soon, a thick dusting had replaced all melt from the day before and managed to wriggle into any exposed spots on Safi’s body. The tops of her boots, the edge of her collar, the tips of her sleeves. Until eventually, she was too cold to keep going.
“I need a fire,” she called to Leopold on the gelding. Her first words in hours.
“We’re almost there,” Leopold replied.
“Almost where?”
He twisted in his saddle to look at her—and to her shock, a smile played on his lips. A real smile with familiar mischief to sparkle in his eyes. “To the transportation that will get us over the Ohrins.” He bounced his eyebrows. “You did not think we would ride the entire way, did you?”
Safi hesitated. Leopold’s declaration—the flash of humor that accompanied it—made her uneasy, even if her Truth-lens did not buzz. Hours ago, he had hated her. Now, he was charm and boyish wiles.
“Continue on then,” she told him, and on the chestnut behind, Lev said, “Thank the gods. My ass hurts.”
Leopold led them up a winding, poorly tended path. When it grew too steep for the horses, they dismounted, gathered their packs, and sent the noble steeds back to Praga. It was nearing dawn before they finally reached their destination on foot: a decrepit, half-collapsed barn.
“That,” Zander said dubiously, “will get us across the Ohrins?” He had insisted on carrying Safi’s pack, while Caden carried Leopold’s.
“Ah, but Hell-Bard.” Leopold twirled his arms like a maestro. “Wait until you see what’s inside. Though first…” His attention shot to Safi. His eyes thinned. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she lied. “Nothing’s changed.” Then she waited until he’d spun away to adjust her collar and quickly peek beneath her gloves.
The lines were worse. Ropier, darker. But you feel the same, she told herself. So there is no need to worry.
“The rest of you?” Leopold’s gaze slid over the Hell-Bards. “No tugs from the Emperor?”
Murmurs of no and headshakes, but it was clear no one considered this much comfort, and the words “not yet” floated with the snowflakes around them.
Leopold led Safi and the Hell-Bards around the back of the structure, where a door sagged on its hinges and boards hung over three windows. The hinges bore no rust.
“Someone has been here recently,” Caden observed as Leopold began tapping out a complicated rhythm on the door.
The prince didn’t answer. All his attention was on the beats and pauses, on the eventual soft click! that whispered out. Three more clicks sounded, as if bolts all the way around the door were sliding free. Then the lock-spell finished its work, the door swung wide, and snow-reflected moonlight spilled over a massive ship-like device.
Safi had no idea what it was. A white canvas spiraled around a single mast, like a sail that had been twisted and coiled into a nautilus. Rather than attach to a boat, though, the mast attached to a circular platform surrounded by a wooden railing. There was nowhere to sit, only a place to steer—or that was what Safi guessed the central lever must be for.
“Behold,” Leopold declared, gazing at the wood and canvas with the adoration of a parent, “the flying machine that will get us across the Ohrins.”
“A … flying machine,” Caden repeated at the same moment Lev blurted, “A what now?”
“It is perfectly safe.” Leopold hurried into the barn’s shadow. “The sails are imbued with Windwitch power, and I have tested it myself several times. We can cross the entire mountain range in hours.”
While all three Hell-Bards followed Leopold inside, Safi lingered back, snow gathering on her shoulders. “Where did it come from, Polly?”
“I made it.”