The Man In The Wind (5 page)

       Iris crawled past him, inspecting the walls of her tent for weaknesses. Finding none, she straightened, perfunctorily wiping the dust from her hands. “Well, we’re all sealed in here. What do you think we should do?” Since this whole ordeal had begun as her personal mission, it felt a bit odd to be deferring to the prisoner she had just happened to acquire along the way, but although she was headstrong, the Deleone girl was not an idiot. She knew when to concede command.

       Rai finished tamping down the still-glowing coals inside the stove, and he pondered the question as he shut the door. “I expect him to call in a team of Seers who will attempt to place me,” he said. “How I got out is less important to him than where I am now, so it’s possible he won’t focus on you for a certain length of time.” He looked at her pensively. “Don’t be fooled, though. Once he thinks he has a plan, he’ll turn on you. He might think he’ll be able to use you to get to me. I’m not sure.”

       “It’s not my policy to work with disgraced rulers,” Iris answered, a touch of pride in her voice. Rai cracked a small smile. “What?”

       “You won’t work with a cranky old king, but you’ll team up with his highly illicit personal necromancer?”

       She shrugged. “It’s a matter of circumstance.”

       “I see.” He stopped talking then, and she followed suit, sensing that an idea had been hatched. For the third or fourth time since she’d met him, her eyes wandered over his face, taking in the sharp, almost artistically defined lines of his mouth and nose, the angle of his chin against his neck. He was like some kind of living sculpture, a being not quite of the secular world. He had pressed his lips together in thought; she observed them depress and part. The edge of his teeth was briefly visible. “I want to try something,” he said.

       There was a short pause while she recollected her attentions, during which he seemed to realize that she’d been staring. He eyed her closely. She coughed. “Go ahead. I’m not sure we have many other options.”

       “Okay. But it necessitates my total concentration.” He hesitated for effect. “Without distraction.”

       Iris arched her finely shaped eyebrows. “I have no idea why you think this warning applies to me.” She swiveled herself a hundred and eighty degrees on the mattress so that her back was to him. “Here, I won’t even look at you.”

       “That’s fine. But keep an eye on the walls. The last thing we need is for those to cave in.”

       “Wait, what?” His answer was only silence, and so she shut up obligingly and waited.

       The effect was not overt, but once she had noticed it, it was profound. A deep hush grew over the tent, curiously weighted, like it was something tangible. Upon hearing the muted crush of snow, Iris’ eye was drawn to the sides of the tent. They showed no signs of stress, but she felt a weird pressure that was akin to the sensation of diving far underwater. Behind her, Rai let out a long, steadying breath.

       “I think we’re good,” he said.

       She rotated to face him again. “What’d you do? I felt…whatever that was.”

       “I buried us,” he said, without thinking, and when he noticed her appalled expression, he cringed internally. “In snow. I packed the snow around the tent. No one should be able to see us.”

       “Oh.” Her eyes were reproachful. “You scared me.”

       “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “We’re fine. It hasn’t stopped snowing, so any traces of energy the Seers might pick up will be muted by the fresh layer. I’m not sure how much they’ll be able to get.”

       “If you say so.” Iris had no choice but to trust him. He’d sealed them in a snow cave, and she knew there was no alternative. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it. Then she said, “Are you sure they won’t find us?”

       “Reasonably.” He watched her as he answered, wondering if she was really afraid.

       “That’s what I wanted to hear.” Her voice was flat, but he could kind of tell she was hiding behind sarcasm.

       “If they do, I’ll protect you.” He didn’t really know why he said that. It was the first time he’d actually offered protection since becoming Serberos’ war slave. Normally, it was expected of him. It felt strange to be operating of his own free will. But it was a feeling he could get used to.

       “Let’s not forget who saved who, buddy.” Though she spoke sternly, the corners of her lips turned upward in a tiny smile. She opened her eyes for a second. “Are you tired? Do you sleep?” When he shook his head, she let her eyelids fall back down. “I figured.” A beat of silence followed, and he thought she’d drifted off. He was startled when she continued. “If you want to rest, you can share the bed. It’s big enough.”

       He had not been expecting that, and he was unable to find the words to formulate an answer. Fortunately for him, she didn’t seem to be waiting on one, and she rolled over, away from him. He turned toward the door. There was no clock inside the canvas; he had to guess what time it was, but he was positive the king already knew he was gone. In a matter of hours, he’d have the whole country covered by search parties. People would likely be turned out of their homes. It was possible that villages would be torched. These were all things Rai had seen before, and the thought of them happening because of him made him feel hollow inside. He clenched his teeth. He’d have to bear it. He was not a victim anymore, and that was worth it all. Right?

When Iris awoke, Rai was stationed at the foot of the pallet, his icy eyes trained on the entrance of the tent. “What’s up?” she asked, somewhat sleepily. He glanced over at her.

       “I haven’t heard anything all day.” She raised her eyebrows.

       “I’m sorry, did you just say ‘all day?’ How long was I out?”

       He shrugged. “A while.”

       The girl rolled her eyes for what felt like the millionth time. “You could have gotten me up.”

       “I didn’t want to.”

       She clambered over the opposite side of the cushion. For all its comparative luxury, the tent had no real bathroom, only a “drainage gap” in the far back corner. Hunting around in her pack for something to pee in, she became acutely aware of just how weird the situation was. “Don’t look over here,” she told Rai. “And don’t listen.” Obediently, he covered his ears. She suspected he was making fun of her, but that didn’t stop nature from calling. Once she was done, she sealed the container and put it on the floor, scowling. “Sorry if that was weird.”

       “Don’t worry about it.”

       She returned to the bed and sat behind him. “Sure you don’t want to lie down for a while? I’ll feel less guilty if we take shifts.”

       He looked around at her. “All right.” Places were switched, and Iris listened to him settle down. The moment he stopped moving, the quiet closed in. It was suffocating.

       The snow insulation was so adequate that Iris could practically feel the hush against her lips, preventing the sound from leaving her mouth. She made a valiant effort to listen, but she had no magical senses like Rai, and she doubted she could have heard an air horn through the barrier. Slowly, the minutes turned into hours. She began to feel a queer, creeping loneliness, despite the fact that Rai was close enough to touch. Was this what his life was like before now? She sincerely hoped not. If he was telling the truth about having no biological obligations, that meant that he hardly ever left the tiny room where she’d found him, unless Serberos needed him to do his devil’s work. The girl shuddered, suddenly cold. How had he not become a monster? She tilted her head to one side, and then she realized for the first time that she couldn’t hear him breathing.

       “Rai?” The tremor in her voice was unmistakable.

       “What?” He sat up. “Do you hear something?”

       “No,” she said. She was alarmingly pale. “Can I ask you a question?”

       “Yes.” He noted that she did not look him in the eyes when she spoke.

       “Are you dead?” The concern on his face faded into thoughtful perplexity.

       “Not really,” he said. “Why?”

       “I was just…curious.” Presented with his frank and not at all uncomfortable response, Iris felt more embarrassed than anything. “I’m sorry. That was rude.” She tried to smile.

       “It wasn’t,” he said, mostly to reassure her. Clearly, she had been shaken by something. He felt bad for her. “It’s easy to forget after so many years that there are people out there who don’t know your story. Or that there are other people at all.” She nodded, and he reached out, resting a hand on her shoulder. “We won’t be stuck here for long. As soon as they feel like they can say for sure we’re not here, it’ll be safer to travel.”

       “Okay.” She was plainly unconvinced. He wondered what was having such an effect on her. The quiet? The isolation? Her own thoughts?

       “Come up here,” he said. She blinked, startled. “Stay close to me. It’ll make it easier.”

       “I don’t know why this is so tough.” He gave her the blanket and she pulled it up over her knees, bunching it under her chin.

       “It was hard for me, too, in the beginning.” He lowered his voice a little. “If all goes well, you won’t get accustomed to it like I did.”

       The stirring note of sadness in his words made her want to touch his hand.

---

       The wind ran its frigid witch’s fingers through King Serberos’ thinning hair as he stood on the stone court at the top of his castle, watching the search for his necromancer begin. Long ago, in times he could only vaguely remember, he had presided over the austere landscape of his nation with a sense of triumph and purpose. Now, he felt lost, defenseless. It angered him that so much of his arsenal depended upon the child he had stolen when he himself was still relatively young. The boy had since become a man, but unlike his master, the handsome youthfulness had never left his face. Perhaps he was eerie, perhaps a bit unsettling, but he was eternal. And it had been Serberos who had made him that way.

       Such a powerful gift—and this was the thanks the king received. His flinty eyes darkened in anger. Had he not, in his own strange way, provided for the boy? Yes, there had been a death, but only so that he could come back stronger. Did he not see that it was because of him that Volikar’s army was unstoppable? Was there no draw to power? It was beyond Serberos’ comprehension, for he had never known anything except for a gnawing, hungry greed. Even when there was enough, he needed more. Beneath the earth, his coffers were ever expanding. Until the day he died, he would conquer whatever there was to conquer. He would beat down all who strayed across his path.

       Or at least, that had been the plan. Alone against the cutting gale, reality was like a slap in his frail, sour face. He was nothing without the necromancer. By himself, he was completely inconsequential. A spring of self-loathing erupted within the king’s hard breast, and he frantically searched for someone on which to turn the focus of his contempt.

       “Sir.” His ruminations were interrupted by a captain coming from behind. “We’ve concluded that there was an outside party. A window in the Queen’s bedroom was broken.” The old sovereign’s lips tightened. His wife had been gone for ages, and her former quarters were now not much more than a dilapidated storage area, but the notion of someone disturbing them only increased Serberos’ ire.

       “Is that all?” he demanded.

       “No, sir. The hole was pretty small. Too small to fit a man’s hand.” Serberos’ eyes gleamed.

       “A child?” he mused. “Interesting.”

       The officer could hardly believe what he’d just heard. Did the king of Volikar really think a kid had weathered the snowstorm, scaled the wall, and managed to disappear without very much of a trace? There may be no hope for a nation ruled by a man like this. He coughed, concealing his opinions behind a placid, subservient mask. “Actually, Your Majesty, we believe it was a woman.”