A dagger. The shape of the blade struck a chord in Destin’s memory.
Lyle barreled into Clermont, carrying the much larger man all the way to the ground. The blade rose and fell, twice. The truthteller reared back and met Destin’s gaze defiantly. He turned the blade, gripped the hilt with both hands, and buried the blade in his own chest.
“Lyle! No!” Destin lunged at the boy, got a grip on his wrists, tightening his hold until the dagger clattered to the floor. The dragon hilt was gaudy with rubies and garnets, the blade dulled with blood.
Destin realized, with a sick recognition, where he had seen that sort of dagger before. He knew that if he wiped off the blood, he’d find runes along the blade.
He pushed Lyle down on his stomach on the floor, straddling him to keep him down. All of this was instinct. His mind was still trying to catch up, to divine why the boy was so distraught over the death of an innkeeper who had treated him with little more than indifference. Why a truthteller would carry a dagger encrusted with jewels, the sort of blade carried by the Carthian bloodsworn guard. Was the truthteller working for Cele, looking for the girl on his own? Did that explain his strange magic?
And then it came to him.
He reached for the hat first, the ridiculous velvet hat, and pulled. It was tightly secured with pins, and he had to yank at it several times before it came away in his hand, exposing a mass of hair pinned underneath. He raked his fingers roughly through it until it came free and tumbled down, pins clattering on the floor. A thick braid that was much too long for anyone in Delphi to be wearing these days.
When he shoved it aside, the neck beneath was nearly black, smudged with dirt or coal dust, artfully so. Spitting into his hand, Destin scrubbed vigorously away at the dirt on the back of the boy’s neck. And, gradually, there was revealed, just below the hairline, a shining web of gold, centered by a faceted stone, embedded in his skin. A magemark.
“Clermont!” he shouted hoarsely. “It’s her!” When he got no response, he looked over to where the captain lay on his back in a pool of blood.
Hartigan, squatting next to him, shook his head. “He’s gone, sir.”
That’s too bad, Destin thought. I intended to kill the bastard myself.
“Get everyone out of here and lock the doors,” he said. Gently, he rolled the girl over. Her breathing was wet and labored, and she kept her golden eyes fixed on Destin’s face as if memorizing it. “Go to the Breaker, you heartless bastard,” she gasped. “You’re too late.”
No! Destin ripped open her velvet coat and the linen shirt underneath to get at the wound. The blade had entered just beneath her rib cage. Blood welled from the wound, trickling onto the stones beneath her. He put his ear to her chest, listening for the wet sound that would tell him she had hit a lung. Her breathing was clear, but the flesh around the gash was oddly cold, something only a mage like himself could have detected.
Icy fear channeled through him. The girl was damaged, despite all his efforts to prevent it. Worse, if what he’d heard about this bloodsworn blade was true, she was as good as dead already.
The question was: should he let her die or move heaven and earth to save her? There were things he needed to know before she died.
He gripped the lapels of her coat, lifting her a few inches off the floor. “What does it mean—that magemark on the back of your neck? What does it signify?”
“You tell me,” she whispered. “Damned if I know.” Her eyelids fluttered, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
“Who are you?” he growled, wanting to shake her. “Why is Celestine hunting you? What does she want with you?” That answer, if he had it, would have helped him decide.
But he didn’t have it. Since he couldn’t raise the dead, and he had to answer to the king, he’d have to save her if he could.
Though he was a mage, Destin knew nothing about healing. He’d never been encouraged to develop that skill. And he wouldn’t trust anyone in Delphi enough to put her into their hands.
He had to get her to Ardenscourt. If anyone could help her, it would be the healers there.
He looked up at Virdenne and Hartigan, who were standing by for orders. “I’ll need a carriage and team on the double, and supplies for a week on the road. Also a dozen men ready to travel.” He said this, even though he suspected that if it took a week to get to Ardenscourt, he’d be delivering a corpse.
21
ASH MEETS THE KING