Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

“I did not think ...” he began. “Did not know that you would be so ...”

“How could you not know?” she nearly cried.

He knew she should lower her voice, but he did not dare warn her.

“You stayed for Wynn,” she said flatly.

Osha hesitated. “Yes.”

She did not appear eager to continue, but he took no relief when she sank down the wall to sit.

He slowly crouched to face her and, not wishing to spare himself the truth, he asked, “Was it horrible, being left in the care of Brot’ân’duivé?”

“Horrible?” she repeated. “No ... lonely. Magiere and Léshil are so kind, but they are bonded and must come first for each other. The greimasg’äh was never unkind, though he only saw to my welfare, and that was all.”

She looked at him before continuing.

“Our people would find this shocking—perhaps profane—but the majay-hì has been more to me than anyone else, even for how unsettling it is to hear him in my mind. Once, up in Chathburh, when I felt so alone, he stayed up all night with me looking through a book about artisans among the others of our kind ... the ones called the Lhoin’na.”

Osha would have found this shocking in the past. Though he still saw the majay-hì as sacred guardians of his people, he had learned to see Shade as more ... as Wynn’s companion and confidante. Wynn had called Shade “sister” more than once in recent times.

“When we arrived here ... in this city,” Wayfarer went on, dropping her gaze again, “only then did everything become horrible ... and I would have let myself die ... if not for ... for Chap.”

The guilt almost broke Osha. “I should have been here ... should have stopped it.”

She raised her chin slightly, perhaps to look at him ... his legs, his hands, his chest. But not his eyes.

“I am free,” she said quietly, “and Wynn has said that she would not have recovered the orb of Spirit without you. That matters greatly to Magiere.”

“I will not leave you again,” he promised. “I swear.” He pivoted to drop and leaned against the wall beside her. “Can you ... will you ... tell me how you came by your new name?”

After a short silence, she nodded.

Ghassan’s venture outside confirmed exactly what he expected. City guards—mixed with a few imperial guards—patrolled the outer areas of the city, and all exits had been blocked, including the port. Anyone leaving was examined and questioned first.

Whoever Khalidah now inhabited was either in a position of power inside the imperial guard or had the ear of their highly placed officers. Useful as this might seem, the problem was that it still left a number of possibilities.

Even outside the imperial court, there were those who had influence over its policies and actions as well as the imperial guards, such as High Premin Aweli-Jama. Ghassan wished he could converse with the prince and ask who had been making recent military suggestions. But Ounyal’am had not initiated contact, and Ghassan would not risk doing so yet, as he had no idea what was going on inside the palace.

He was still trapped in such thoughts when he arrived at the tenement.

He had used this place for so long now that he no longer gave much notice to the poverty-stricken people along the street. He had also taken to dressing as shabbily as them, to blend in. After pressing the latch on the crooked front door, he stepped inside to find the entryway empty. Closing the door, he paused in the quiet to still his mind.

The hidden sanctuary upstairs had become too crowded, as it was never intended to house so many occupants at once. In this brief solitude, he pondered how soon to reveal more of the plan he had devised. The others could not be given too little, or they might question him, and if given too much, this might invite changes, suggestions, or demands. And how much longer would it take for Magiere to recover adequately?

With a deep breath, he headed onward, but he barely neared the turn upward when someone stepped out around the corner of the stairwell. He halted in the dim passage but had no chance to make out a face inside the cloak’s hood. He did not exactly hear someone else drop behind him but rather felt the weight through the floor.

The white metal glint of a stiletto appeared in the hand of the one before him, and he recognized the overly tall elder an’Cróan.

“Don’t turn around,” Leesil said from behind him.

Though slightly shaken—but only at having been caught off guard—Ghassan raised one eyebrow and tried to sound amused. “How dramatic. I assume you wish to speak with me alone ... though you could have asked.”

“We are curious why you wish to use Magiere as bait,” Brot’an said. “By our reasoning, you would be the more immediate concern to the specter.”

Ghassan dropped his amused tone. “I never said otherwise.”

“What?”

Ghassan did not look back at Leesil’s one growled word. “We have not discussed all details involved. For that, I needed more information ... which none of you could acquire.”

He waited silently as Brot’an studied him, blade still in hand. The tall assassin half turned, sidestepping out of the stairwell.

“Then we should return upstairs,” Brot’an said. “The others will wish to hear anything new as well.”

Ghassan disliked being herded like a goat at blade’s point, but he turned the corner under those large, unblinking amber eyes.

Once they entered the sanctuary, it appeared the pair of sudden “greeters” were not the only impatient ones. Everyone but Chane was waiting for Ghassan.

Three more days and nights passed, and in that time Magiere began to feel both better and worse. Though physically stronger and relieved to have Leesil again at her side, the spark of hate grew inside her.

She’d always lived in a smoldering state, but this time was different. She’d been made helpless, tortured within her own mind, but didn’t remember how. What she remembered was pain, rage, and suffering under those voices in her head, until she could do nothing but cower amid the whispers scratching inside her skull.

Khalidah had taken everything from her.

Leesil thought she’d agreed to hunt the specter so they would be free to search for the orb of Air. He didn’t—wouldn’t—understand the truth. Rage that burned was a tool, a weapon to be wielded, but the burning inside her had turned everything to ash.

Ashes turned cold.

There was no more heat of rage. There was only cold hate. She wanted to smother Khalidah’s life with her hands, no matter what host he used. Perhaps then, hunger and heat would return. She had to believe this. She knew she needed to heal first, but the waiting felt endless.

Only one unexpected effect of their confinement gave her a shadow of peace.

In the early evenings, not long before dusk, Wynn would bring a blanket to cover them both. She would sit with Magiere, as they did now, against the one bare wall of the main room so they could talk. It had been a long time since they’d done anything other than run, hide, fight, and hunt for or hide orbs. And when they’d last met in Calm Seatt, they’d been at odds with each other—over Chane.

Magiere eyed Shade, who lay in the far front corner, and couldn’t help wondering why the young majay-hì took such efforts to avoid Chap.

“You’d think she’d miss her own kind,” Magiere said quietly, “or at least her father. And what about her mother?”

Wynn sighed. “I don’t know everything. Chap took Lily, the white majay-hì, as his mate before we all left the an’Cróan lands. Somehow he gave instructions to send one of their children to watch over me. Shade blames him for having to leave her home, mother, and siblings ... everything. I understand though I’d be lost without her now.”