Epiny was still breathing hard, her shoulders rising and falling with it. “And Amzil,” she demanded. “What about Amzil?”
“I think it is better that she continues to believe that I am dead. ”
“Why?” she demanded.
I hesitated. My reason sounded vain, even to myself. “Because she is a stubborn woman. I think she might attempt to come after me and rescue me, if she thought I had given up everything to save her. If she knew how I loved her, she might risk herself. ”
Epiny rubbed her hands over her eyes. The soot and tears combined to smear a mask across her face. “Perhaps I know her better than you, in some ways. She is also a pragmatic woman. She puts her children first in her life. ”
She paused, and I bowed my head. She had said enough. I understood. Then she added, “But I think it would mean a great deal to her to know that she had been loved that way by a man, at least once in her life. ”
I thought about that. I thought about how much Amzil’s whispered words in Gettys the night she had helped me escape meant to me. Epiny was right. It was good to know such things, even if they could have no consummation.
“You may tell her also, then,” I conceded. “And you can tell her that I loved her. Love her still, even though I must leave her. ”
Epiny gave a strangled laugh. “I not only ‘may,’ I can, and therefore I shall, Nevare. I have not forgotten how shamed and foolish I felt to discover how long you and Spink had kept a secret from me. I will not do that to Amzil!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.
She glanced away from me to Soldier’s Boy. He was glaring, a flat-eyed intimidating stare. He wanted to blame someone for his inability to see Tree Woman but could not decide whom. It startled me to realize that my face could look so mean. The expression deepened the lines in his face; that made me wonder if it was a look I had often worn without being aware of it. Epiny looked from him to Lisana. “Does he know what’s going on? That you’re letting me talk to the real Nevare?”
“He has never been stupid,” Lisana said, with some pride in her voice. “But like Nevare, he has suffered from being incomplete. That can happen when a soul is divided; part becomes impulsive, and the other half indecisive. Half can be given to dramatic shows while the other half expresses next to no emotion at all. One acts without thinking; the other thinks without acting. ”
Epiny looked from one to the other of us. “That makes sense,” she said calmly.
Soldier’s Boy spoke. “I know what is happening here. I do not know why she is permitting it. Make the most of it, Gernian woman. It will not happen again. ” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“What are you waiting for? We’ve put out the fire. You should kill that woman and leave. Look at her. She’s sickly. She looks like a string with a knot tied in it; how can any woman that skinny be pregnant? Do it and be done with it, Soldier’s Boy. You are wasting strength that you will need if you are to quick-walk us to the People tonight. ” Olikea spoke in Speck. I do not think Epiny understood her words but her disdain was unmistakable. Epiny smoothed her hair back from her face and turned aside from Olikea without making any response or even seeming to notice her. I wondered if Olikea even recognized that Gernian snub.
“He is right,” Lisana said. “Your time is short. Nevare, you begged this from me. You said you could send her home. Speak whatever final words you have to say to her, and then you must be on your way. ”
“Send me home!” Epiny said, sparks of anger kindling in her sunken eyes. “Send me home? Am I a dog then, to be told, ‘Get home!’ and I obediently trot along?”
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“No!” I said hastily. “No. That’s not it at all. Epiny, you have to listen to me now. You can do no good here. Go home to Spink and Amzil and her children. Do what you can for them, comfort them with the truth, if you think it will be comfort, and above all, have a care for yourself and your baby. Do whatever you can for my little sister. Yaril is beyond my reach now. ”
“What? What are you going to do? And why are you speaking to me like this, instead of—Why does he have your body?”
“I don’t really know. I think that his part of me is the stronger half now, and so he gets his way. I am where he was after I first defeated him. ”
Lisana was nodding silently.
“Nevare, you must try to be stronger! You must fight him and take control of your body again. Come back to Gettys. Look at you. You’ve lost the fat. You could be a real soldier now. ”
“Epiny, think! I could also be hanged for escaping from my cell, once they realized that they hadn’t killed me the first time. There is nothing left for me back in Gettys. ”
“He cannot prevail against Soldier’s Boy,” Lisana said quietly. “His time is past. He had his chance and he failed. His solutions have not solved anything. It is time for him to let go, to become a part of Soldier’s Boy and time for Soldier’s Boy to try his way. They need to unite their strengths. ”
Epiny’s face changed. Her expression hardened and something very like hatred shone in her eyes. “I will not let you destroy him,” she said. “He will fight you and I will fight you. We are stronger than you know. He will take back his body, and he will come back to us. I know he will. ”
Lisana shook her head. She spoke calmly, patiently. “No. He will not. You would be wiser to listen to him. Go home. Take care of what is yours. When your child is born, leave this place and go back to your own lands. ”
Epiny stared at Lisana levelly. “I won’t give up on Nevare. If you want me to leave, you will have to give me back my cousin. ”
Lisana didn’t smile or snarl. Her face was impassive. “I believe that when they are one, they will succeed where both failed before. I believe that then he will accept whatever magical task he must do, and that when he does it, the intruders will leave our land. What I am offering you is a chance to save yourself and your child. Go now, before you are driven out. I do not know how the magic will rid our lands of the intruders, but I do not think it will be gentle. Gentleness and persuasion have been tried without success. The time for that is past. ”
“I won’t give up on Nevare,” Epiny repeated. She said it as if perhaps Lisana had not heard her or had not been paying attention. “I don’t believe he will give up. He will keep trying, and when he is strong enough, he will take back his life from Soldier’s Boy, and he will come back to us. ”
I tried to think of some response.
She smiled at me and added, “And if he does not, then come next summer, when the days are long and hot and the forest is dry, I will burn it. All of it. ” She was suddenly calm. She folded her hands together and held them in front of her. She did not look at me at all. Her face and hands were dirty, her dress smudged and torn, and her hair was falling down all around her face. But it was as if all her sorrow and pain had drained out of her, as if nothing was left but the determination; she was like a shining steel blade drawn from its worn scabbard.
“This is the gratitude of a Jhernian,” Lisana observed coldly. “The magic kept its word to you. I have shown you your cousin, alive as promised, and even interceded that you might say farewell to him. I have offered you a chance to escape to the west with your baby. And in return, you threaten to destroy us. ”
I knew that Soldier’s Boy could not hear Lisana’s words, and yet he seemed to reply to them. “I will kill her now,” Soldier’s Boy announced, and Olikea, grim-faced, nodded.
Epiny probably did not understand the words he spoke in Speck, but she recognized the threat. It did not move her. “You can kill me,” Epiny said. “I doubt it would be difficult for you. ” She lifted her chin, as if baring her throat to him. Her eyes remained locked with Lisana’s. Epiny didn’t say anything else. Yet danger hovered in the air, unspoken and all the more worrisome that it was undefined.
“Kill her,” Olikea said quietly. There was fear and desire in her voice
. “Use this. ” She drew a knife from a sheath on her belt and offered it to him. It had a glittering black blade, obsidian. A memory stirred. It was as sharp as a razor, a knife fit for a mage who must not touch iron.
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Soldier’s Boy took it from her, then looked about helplessly, as if seeking guidance. He could not hear Lisana. He could not seek her guidance and Epiny’s fearless acceptance of her position clearly bothered him. I saw him decide there was something he didn’t know. I wondered if there were, or if Epiny was bluffing. I longed to ask her and knew I could not even look as if I wondered. I tried for a small smile to match hers. I probably failed.
Soldier’s Boy decided. He struck with the knife.
I felt his decision a split moment before he acted. Two things happened in the next instant. I stopped him. I didn’t know how I did it, but I stopped him in midlunge. It startled him, and worse, it burned more of his small reserve of magic. I’d actually used his magic against him, to prevent him injuring Epiny. I was as surprised as he was.
And Epiny, despite her ungainly pregnancy, ducked down abruptly and then lunged toward the hatchet that Olikea had dropped. She hit the ground harder than she had planned; I heard her grunt of pain. But she came up gripping the hatchet, her teeth bared in triumph. “Let’s see what happens when you get hit with cold iron!” she threatened him, and she threw it, as hard as she could, at Soldier’s Boy’s head. It made a nasty solid noise as the butt of it hit his forehead. He dropped. I do not know if it was the force of the impact or the iron hitting his body, but he shuddered, twitched, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Likari’s mouth hung open in an O of shock. Olikea screamed like a scalded cat and rushed Epiny.
And I watched, helpless. Not only was I disembodied, but the only body I could have hoped to affect was unconscious. Olikea was taller than Epiny, heavier, accustomed to more physical activity and unencumbered by clothes or pregnancy. She flung herself on Epiny as a cat leaps on prey. Epiny dodged to one side but still went down beneath her onslaught. Both women were shrieking, the most unhallowed sound that I had ever heard. Epiny used language I would not have suspected her of knowing, and fought with a strength and ferocity that astounded me. She fought to defend her unborn child as much as herself. Olikea was on top but Epiny writhed in her grip to face her and drew first blood, raking her nails down Olikea’s face and breast. For all that Epiny’s clothing encumbered her, it also protected her from casual damage, and when Epiny rolled to one side, drew her leg up and then managed to kick Olikea in the belly, her boots became a definite advantage.
As Olikea gasped, Epiny crawled frantically away. I thought she was trying to escape, but as Olikea recovered and went after Epiny, my cousin once more snatched up the fallen hatchet. Olikea, thinking herself threatened, grabbed the flint knife that still rested in Soldier’s Boy’s slack hand. But Epiny did not come at her; instead, she pressed the blade of her weapon to Soldier’s Boy’s throat. “Back off!” she snarled. “Back off, or neither of us gets him. He’ll be dead. ” They did not share a language, but the threat was as obvious as the blade held to his throat.
In that moment, I suddenly realized that it was me they were fighting over. I was astounded.
Olikea froze. Epiny remained as she was, crouching over Soldier’s Boy, the cold iron of the hatchet not quite touching his throat. She looked feral and predatory, hunkered over my body. Then she caught her breath, gave a small grunt of pain, and put her hand on her belly and rubbed it softly, almost reassuringly.
“You won’t kill him,” Olikea asserted after a moment. “He is your cousin. ”
Epiny stared at her and then looked at me. I translated for her. “She says you won’t kill me because I’m your cousin. ”
“No,” Epiny retorted bluntly. “Right now he isn’t. My cousin is over there. ” With her empty hand, she pointed to my disembodied essence hovering near Lisana. “This, this creature in his body is something that Tree Woman and the magic made. It might have been part of my cousin once, but she twisted it into something completely foreign to what Nevare is. And rather than see that creature masquerading as Nevare, I will kill him. Without compunction. I will not let this beast pretend he is Nevare Burvelle. ”
I watched Olikea listen to the flood of foreign words. None of them were needed; she knew all she needed to know by the blade that hovered over my throat.
Lisana spoke. “Soldier’s Boy is as much your cousin as Nevare Burvelle is. When he came to me, sent by that old Kidona to be his warrior-champion, I captured him and divided his soul. Deny it as you wish, but Soldier’s Boy is not a separate creature from your cousin. Both parts of him are needed to be a whole. You cannot cast him out of the body. Kill him, and you kill your cousin, the Nevare you know, just as surely. Have you the will to kill Nevare to keep Soldier’s Boy from using the body?”
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Olikea could not hear Lisana’s words. She had risen and was slowly circling Epiny, her knife low and ready. “Now what will you do, you skinny Jhernian wretch? Kill him and I’ll kill you. I’m bigger than you, and stronger. You know I’ll win. How long can you crouch over him, threatening him? What will you do when he wakes up?”
“I don’t know,” Epiny replied, but she answered Lisana, not Olikea. “It seems we are at an impasse. ” After a moment, she added, “If my cousin Nevare is never to regain his body and his life, and I am to be attacked and killed anyway, then neither of us has anything to lose if I kill him now. Do you agree with that?”
I was silent, considering the question. I didn’t know what would become of me if Epiny killed my body. Did I care? Just the fact that I had no immediate answer to that question made me mute. For most of my life, I’d had goals that had driven me. What did I have now? Perhaps, like Epiny, I’d reached a dead end. Briefly, my cousin’s gaze met mine. I saw love in her eyes, but also resolution and resignation.
It did not look good for my body. Slowly I nodded at her. She shifted her gaze to Lisana. “You see?”
Lisana was quiet for a time. Then she asked abruptly, “What do you want, Jhernian? What will it take to make you leave this place and never return?”
Epiny was silent for a moment. I could see her hand trembling. I think the hatchet was getting heavy in her grip. “I assume you mean without killing him,” she said after a pause.
“Yes. ” Lisana bit off the word.
“Talk to ME!” Olikea abruptly demanded. “I am the one who is here. I am the one who can kill you!” She made a menacing motion with her knife.
“Shut up!” Epiny barked at her, and touched the hatchet blade to Soldier’s Boy’s throat. He made a small sound in his throat. Olikea took a step back, glowering at her.
“She’s dangerous, Epiny. Be very careful. She’ll kill you if she can. ”
“I know that,” Epiny said hoarsely. “I may have to kill your body. ” Tears filled her eyes and spilled but only anger showed on her face. “How can it be any worse, Nevare? Shall I go down whimpering and begging for mercy? I doubt any would be shown. If I must lose it all, then at least I’ll extract a price from them. They’ll know I was here; I won’t be stepped on like an ant. ”
The desperate courage in her words moved me. “You should have been your father’s soldier son,” I told her quietly.
“He’s waking up!” Likari cried aloud. I’d almost forgotten the boy was there. He’d hovered at the outskirts, watching everything but saying and doing little. Now he pointed at my body. My eyelids fluttered and Soldier’s Boy’s hands twitched against the mossy ground.
Epiny might not have understood Likari’s words, but the tone alerted her. She lowered the hatchet until its blade rested against Soldier’s Boy’s throat. He made an incoherent sound. I did not know if he protested the bite of the sharp edge or the burn of cold iron against his throat. Epiny leaned forward over him, so close that all he could see was her face. I watched his eyes bl
ink bewilderedly and then focus on her. She spoke in a low growl.
“Don’t move. Listen to me. Tell that woman with the knife and the boy with the water skin to go away. Tell them that you don’t want them to hurt me. Send them down to wait by the stream. Tell them to stay there until you come to them. Say only those words. I will know what you say. If you say any more than that, or any less than that, I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
He licked his lips and rolled his eyes to look at Olikea. Epiny didn’t hesitate. She pressed the blade more firmly to his throat. Distantly, I felt it slice my skin and, more intensely, I felt the hot/cold kiss of iron against my flesh. It made my magic bleed, and that was more painful than the fine cut it scored on my skin. “Please, don’t!” Soldier’s Boy croaked. Epiny eased up but didn’t move the blade.
“Tell them,” she said quietly.
“Olikea. Likari. Go down the ridge to the stream. Wait for me there. Don’t do anything else right now, just wait down there until I come. ”
Epiny’s glance flickered to me. I confirmed that she’d been obeyed. “He did as you told him. He’s ordered them to go down to the stream and wait. ”
Olikea looked rebellious. Likari wriggled in an agony of indecision, torn between curiosity and obedience. “Shall I leave you here, at her mercy?” Olikea began in protest, but Soldier’s Boy broke in on her words with, “Go. Just go now, or she’ll kill me. I can manage this situation better if you are not here, Olikea. Go down to the stream. Wait for me there. ”
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“Oh, you look so much in control of the situation!” Olikea snarled. She glared at Epiny and kept the obsidian blade at the ready as she backed away. “Someday, Jhernian woman. Someday it will be just you and me. ” Then she turned angrily on Likari. “Why are you still standing there? He told us to go wait by the stream. And that is what we must do. ”
“He told her to go away, and she and the boy are leaving,” I hastily interpreted before Epiny could look at me. I wanted her to keep her wary gaze on Olikea. “But she threatened that someday she’d get back at you. ”