The wilder.
Should I tell him? Is Raith right? Will it make a difference?
She didn’t know, and she couldn’t stop the questions from cycling through her head. Not until Firedancer gave a sudden spook, nearly jarring her out the saddle. She gasped, heart racing. Then, recovering quickly, she glanced around, looking for the source of the noise that had so startled her horse, only to find nothing.
For Shades’ sake, Kate, what’s wrong with you? She forced thoughts of Corwin from her mind and reached out with her magic. Something must’ve caused the noise, a falling rock perhaps. Only what had made it fall? She swept for the presence of someone else, either human or animal, but found nothing. Perhaps it was the wind. Even now it moaned high above the cliffs that rose up on either side of her.
At least the shock had put her mind back on the task at hand: finding the drakes and their handlers. Urging Firedancer forward, Kate stretched out with her magic again, doing it in sweeps, to the front, the sides, even behind, where she could just make out Corwin and the others.
There were few animals around—a mountain cat, some squirrels, and birds, of course. But nothing else. Not for nearly twenty minutes as she rode along, keeping Firedancer at a walk. Then finally, she sensed it: that oily, multiple-minded presence just ahead. But—it was impossible. There was nowhere for the drakes to be. Nothing but cliff face on both sides and an empty path stretching straight onward. Even still, she slowed Firedancer to a halting walk, her magic telling her one thing and her eyes telling her something else.
When she drew parallel with the drakes, her magic unequivocal, Kate reined Firedancer to a halt. She craned her head back, trying to see if they were above, or if they might be on the other side of the cliff, in a different pass. Yet she couldn’t see how. This was the only path. All the maps said so. She scanned the left wall, searching the cliff face for some explanation of why she could sense them there.
Then she saw the line running down the height of the rock wall, far too straight and precise to be natural. Dismounting, she gave Firedancer a command to stay put. Then she approached the cliff, stretching her hand out toward the line. When her fingers should’ve met stone, all she felt was air. It’s an illusion, Kate realized, her eyes finally making out the lie. There was a passageway hidden here, easily large enough for a horse—or a drake—to pass through.
Pulling out the revolver from the holster at her side, she stepped into the opening. Her heartbeat quickened with each footfall, the drake presence growing stronger. Seeing the end of the passage ahead, she stopped, aware of the mistake she was making. It wasn’t the drakes she was after but the people controlling them. She’d let them distract her with their multiple-minded presence. Pulling away from them, Kate closed her eyes and raised the tenor of her magic, attuning it to that higher, human plane.
Nothing. All she could sense was the distant minds in the caravan. Guessing the drakes must be caged here, as they’d been in the Wandering Woods, she steeled her courage and rounded the corner.
Her breath caught in her throat, awestruck fear rising up in her. Ahead more than fifty daydrakes were crammed into a small gorge cut into the cliffs. There was nothing visibly restraining them, but even when they caught her scent, they didn’t move toward her. Something held them caged in the gorge, which wasn’t a natural formation but a perfect circle as precise as a bullet in shape. Only wilder magic could’ve carved it.
Needing to warn the others, Kate turned around but froze at the sight of a man blocking the path. Short and slight, hardly bigger than herself, he carried a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. Around his throat shone a black magestone, the magic pulsating dully.
Kate raised her hands in surrender, but the man aimed his pistol, his intent clear. Knowing she had no chance of avoiding the shot at this close range, she seized the only weapon left to her and turned her magic on him. She entered his mind easily, but a moment later, she felt her consciousness flung from his thoughts. She stared at him, dazedly, realizing he had the gift of sway, too.
“Nice try, my little wilder girl,” the man said, and she recognized the slight lilt to his words—he was a native of Penlocke, the port city south of Norgard. “But your skill ain’t close to as strong as mine.”
Maybe not, Kate thought, but I’ve more than one trick to play. Kate called to Firedancer with her magic, urging the horse into a run as she coaxed her into the hidden passageway. The man pulled back the hammer, ready to fire, but he swung around at the sound of hoofbeats. Kate couldn’t use the revolver, afraid of hitting the horse, and so as Firedancer came charging toward them, she pulled a flash stone from her pocket and flung it at the man. The stone exploded in a bright burst, the effect of the magic not affecting her, the one who cast the spell.
The man jumped in alarm, pulling the trigger by accident, but he didn’t fall. He wasn’t even blinded. Somehow he was shielded from the flash stone’s magic. As he turned back to her, Kate saw that the magestone around his throat glowed brighter now. She suddenly remembered what Raith had said—how magics met directly will cancel each other out.
With his only bullet now wasted, the man dropped the pistol and raised his sword. Kate urged Firedancer to safety, quelling the mare’s panic over the flash stone’s effects, while she raised her revolver. Not wanting to kill the man, she aimed for his shoulder and fired. The bullet flew true, and the man dropped the sword as the shot severed his grip. He shrieked in pain, rage flashing in his eyes.
When he lunged for her, Kate fired again. The bullet struck him in the side, but he had too much momentum. He barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. The revolver fell out of her hand and went off, discharging another shot into the air.
The man’s body pressed down on Kate, and she felt the hot stickiness of his blood pooling over her from the wounds in his side and shoulder. He would bleed out soon, but somehow he still had strength enough to wrap his uninjured hand around her throat. Kate tried to pry him off but couldn’t. Panic began to roar inside her, driving away her ability to think. Desperately, she reached for the magestone around his neck and began to twist, hoping to choke him. Terror filled his gaze as he struggled to pull her off. She sensed his emotions now, rage and pain like a tempest inside him.
Aware that he was weakening, Kate focused the strength of her magic and screamed into his mind, Get off me!
He froze, his fingers slackening. It was the moment she needed to free herself enough to reach the gun. But the man recovered all too soon, pushing her out of his mind as he grabbed for the gun as well. They struggled, hands grasping for control of the weapon. It went off with a bang so loud Kate felt it in her teeth. By pure chance, the bullet struck his throat, and blood began to gush from the wound like water from a pump.
He was dying fast—and taking his secrets with him. Desperately, Kate plunged into his thoughts, fighting off the horror of what she was doing. Images flooded her mind, faces of loved ones, regrets, and a terrible soul-deep fear of what was happening to him, his inability to stay when he could feel the life leaving him. Through it all though, she managed to glean a recurring memory at the front of his mind: that he had been arrested by the Inquisition for being a wilder.
And then he was slipping away. . . .
With a cry, Kate pulled back from his thoughts, terrified of what she would feel when the last of his life fled his body. She scrambled out from underneath the dead man and rolled onto her stomach, ready to be sick, then froze in terror at the sight of the drakes moving toward her.