Nocren flinched, his hands digging into the tree’s bark. He didn’t need to put himself through this again.
“Not the way you deserve.”
He blinked. The wind whistled in his ears, Change pressing at the edges of his mind.
It was… different.
A different outcome. The outcome the wind had been teasing him with for weeks. While not without pain, it was different. And, for the wind to still be so insistent, did that mean it was still a possibility? Rarely did the wind spend time on what had been, and when it had, it always showed him true memories.
But this, this alternate meeting with Calya, had not yet come to pass.
Could still be.
The sounds of a door being shoved open and voices nearby had Nocren shrinking back against the tree’s trunk. Carefully, he looked down—and nearly lost his grip.
Three men moved swiftly down a path, headed for the cove. One was Avenor, and he spoke in low, urgent tones to a burly man carrying something over his shoulder: “…with the others.”
The burly man grunted a question, but Nocren couldn’t make out the words.
Avenor shook his head. “…yet. I’m checking… others.”
Avenor and the third man split off, keeping on toward the water and leaving the big man to take a different path winding back into the underground base. As he passed beneath a torch, Nocren gasped, shock robbing him of common sense. Fortunately, the wind blew the sound away, and the man carried on, ignorant to Nocren hidden above.
Slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour was Calya. She flopped limply with his every step, no sound or struggle from her. The sight was ice through Nocren’s heart. Made his mind come to a standstill as it tried to process what his eyes saw. She couldn’t be…
No. Her wrists were bound. They wouldn’t bother to bind a corpse.
The burly man was nearly out of sight, his path leading through another door in the rock.
Nocren didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think about warnings or consequences or lessons from the past. Didn’t consider whether what he did was safe or inviting true catastrophe.
Golden sparks jumped from his fingertips, caught up in a rush of wind that raced away toward the ground. Toward Calya, as she disappeared before his eyes.
“Help her. Let her see. Make her,” he whispered, pushing his last drops of magic into the wind. “Whatever it takes.”
He tore out of the tree, taking the last dozen feet in a slide-fall the consequences of which reminded him he wasn’t quite so young anymore. He didn’t care.
All other thoughts and plans abandoned, Nocren ran back into the mountain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Someone was shaking her. It started out gentle, with a light touch on her shoulder and soft words murmured into her ear. A civilized approach, as if she’d fallen asleep in a coach. But, gods all, she was so tired. Her mind resisted the nudge to wake from the dark. Calya had never understood the appeal of sleeping in, seeing it as a waste of perfectly good working hours. Until now. Cocooned in the peace of darkness, with nothing to make demands of her in time or energy, she saw the merits. Would’ve continued enjoying them, too, if not for the progressively more determined hand on her shoulder.
If the original attempt had been one of courtesy, the rough jolt she received now was akin to the way she’d kicked the side of Anadae’s bed to wake her when they were children. As wakefulness was forced upon her, Calya felt a touch of compassion for her sister’s past disgruntlement.
“What?” she grumbled. Or, rather, meant to, as she shrugged off the offending hand. The croak that emerged from her dry throat was closer to a sound of protest than an intelligible word.
“Got to wake up, girl,” a deep voice said above her. “They’re coming back soon.”
Calya forced her eyes open, wincing as she struggled to adjust to the room’s light, weak as it was. She was lying on her back, and when she moved to sit up, she found that her wrists were tied. She stared at the thin rope, her brain sluggish as she tried to recall previous events.
Strong hands helped her upright. A dark-skinned man, his coal-colored hair shot through with gray and coiling to his shoulders, peered into her eyes. Satisfied with whatever he saw, he gave a brisk nod. “Avenor put you out, miss. Anything broke?”
“It’s Calya,” she replied, coaxing moisture back into her papery mouth. “I’ll live. Who’re you?”
“Matthias,” he replied. “Why’s Avenor so interested in you?”
“My winning personality.” Calya rubbed the side of her head. “I feel like shit.”
