Karis narrows his eyes. “Explain?”
“The entire point of the feint is to let everyone know I’m in Melody.” Ronan shuffles the collected cards in a perfect arc, a cloud of golden dust puffing from the edges, and returns them safely to their case. “Mistress Johanna won’t be the only lure, but she’ll be one of the quickest. She was happy to smuggle us out of Ostaris for coin, and she’s smart enough not to mess with us until we reach Melody. Her escort isn’t a match for us. But once we’re out of her cart, she’ll be just as happy to curry favor from soldiers and clergy.”
Karis pulls his legs in front of him and hugs his knees. “Do you wish you were going to Fort Tarhaeg instead?”
Ronan’s eyes lower in a sweep of dark lashes. “Perceptive,” he says neutrally. Not an insult, but definitely not a compliment. “If I could trust a disguise spell well enough, yes, I’d be going for the Dravansword. But since I can’t, I need to give them the best possible chance for success. Like loading the dice. I owe that to all of them, and Leth especially.”
The cart rolls over a large bump, knocking them around. Karis checks that the array’s still intact before asking, “Why Leth especially?”
“Leth ka Tariel,” Ronan says, like the name explains everything. He sighs. “The ka Tariels have worshipped Ka Dravos since long before the binding. Generations of warlords and sword-witches. Since the binding, they’ve been soldiers. His brother, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles.” Ronan’s face is calm, his voice light, but there’s tension in the way he doesn’t look Karis in the eyes. “Leth is betraying his family for this. BecauseIconvinced him to. Whether he succeeds or fails, he can’t go back.”
“That must be difficult,” Karis says. He’s not sure whether he means Leth’s situation, or Ronan’s.
Ronan still isn’t quite looking at him. His voice is still light when he adds, “Same as you, betraying the order.”
Karis laughs sharply. Ronan finally looks at him again, a question clear in his silence, but Karis doesn’t know how to explain. Hecan’texplain, because he trusts Ronan enough to betray the order, enough to follow him to Melody, but not enough to reveal the voice in his head. It’s his turn to avoid eye contact. “I’m not betraying them.” He stares up into the crisp blue sky. “I’m saving them.”
An autumn breeze rustles through the surrounding trees, and the sun beats down on their heads and shoulders as if the rays of light have weight.
Before Ronan can reply, Mistress Johanna calls out again. “Travelers ahead!”
Karis swiftly moves towards the front of the cart, where he’s better concealed by the half-up roof. Ronan smudges away the paprika and squeezes in next to Karis, trapping him against the sturdy wooden wall of the cart. They jostle together, elbows colliding, as the cart slows to a halt at the roadside.
Horse hooves and rattling wheels announce another cart approaching. It’s not the first time they’ve crossed paths with other travelers and merchants, but Karis always gets nervous. Or excited, it’s hard to tell which. Especially when Ronan’s body is blazing hot against his, driving distracting impulses through his nerves.
He twists and reaches. Brushes the streak of paprika from Ronan’s forehead, and breathes, “You have something here.”
Ronan catches his arm, his thumb kissing the pulse point in Karis’s wrist. He doesn’t let go as they listen and wait.
The other travelers stop too, calling out to Mistress Johanna and her man. Karis strains his ears but can’t make out what the strangers are saying, just Johanna’s replies: “What’s that? Is that so! Moon Mother’s tits, what is this world coming to. How many? Well, fuck me sideways. That’s great, thank you kindly. You take care.”
A few minutes later, the other travelers’ cart rumbles off again. Only when the rattling wheels fade into the distance does Johanna pass the reins to her companion. She hops from the front seat and comes around the back of the cart.
“Trouble up ahead,” she says, looking more gleeful than they’ve seen her.
Ronan squeezes Karis’s shoulder, then stands up between Karis and Johanna, so all Karis can see is the breadth of his back. “What sort of trouble?”
“There’s a vaidkos sighting a few miles northeast.” She sucks air between her teeth. “A troop of Dravan soldiers are on their way to hunt it down, that’s who that merchant heard from. I don’t fancy running into demons or Dravans right now, so we’re going to pull over and camp a few hours, hope that clears up.”
Karis’s mouth drops open in shock, and even Ronan sounds surprised when he answers. “Vaidkos, this far south? Are they sure?”
“Could just be a big fucking lizard with seventeen heads,” Johanna says, still gleeful. “But I don’t want to run into that either.”
Karis doesn’t want to believe it either, but he remembers Anton ka Tariel mentioning them during a scry. Vaidkos, the collective name for a variety of demonic beasts, cross between realms in rifts of wild magic. Unknown numbers of vaidkos stalk the broken mountains of Lyrisenia, but the Northern Barrier is supposed to keep them out of Charain. Some slip through in flares of wild magic, of course, but never this far south.
While Ronan and Johanna talk, Karis calls on Radiant Vara to stretch his awareness out as far as he can. Sure enough, a bloodstain of dark energy spills to the northeast. As expected—but worse is the absence of divine magic. There are no Radiant paladins in range, and the soldiers Johanna mentioned must not have much power.
Karis frowns. He thinks about risk and reward, altruism and pragmatism. He thinks about how sick he is of being in this cart with these strangers, with Ronan refusing even to kiss him. About whether he’s ready to show off his magic a little more.
He keeps thinking and talking with Vara until the cart starts moving again, and Ronan’s grip on his shoulder shakes him out of his silent conversation. “Something wrong?”
“I’m fine.” Determination surges through him. He grabs Ronan’s hand and stands up, the better to look him in the eyes. “How far are we from Melody?”
“Half a day,” Ronan answers. “The safe house is even closer.”
“Great.” Karis takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know whether Ronan will agree to this plan. Certainly Captain Tanner and the rest of his instructors in the order would tell him to sit back and stay safe. But Ronan’s different, and Karis wants to try his hand at loading the dice too. “I have an idea.”
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