The Traitor Queen (The Traitor Spy Trilogy #3)(70)

“But if you shaped magic into a sliver of force and send it out from yourself like a strike, overcoming the barrier, would it work?”

His eyebrows rose. “Perhaps. I guess if a strike is strong enough …” He frowned. “It would be difficult to test. The subject would have to be willing to be harmed, perhaps quite badly … though if you first gained some skill in forming a small, stabbing strike that only penetrated a tiny distance it would be no worse than a small cut.” His eyes narrowed in thought, then he looked at her appraisingly. “It is an interesting idea. We should explore it.”

She nodded, before the idea of letting him stab her could overcome her satisfaction at thinking of something that hadn’t occurred to him before.

“Well … that will do for today,” he said. “Tomorrow I will begin your training in mind-reading. We will need a volunteer for you to practise on. Once you have satisfactorily achieved that skill, I’ll teach you how to make a blood gem.”

A blood gem! Lilia resisted a smile, not wanting to seem too eager to learn more about what had once been forbidden magic. She rose as Kallen stood up and followed him to the door.

“Should I meet you here?” she asked.

He nodded, then gestured to the corridor. “Yes. Until tomorrow, then.”

She bowed and set off toward the outer rooms of the University, and her next class, unable to help feeling a thrill of excitement.

For the first time, knowing black magic doesn’t feel like a … a punishment – or a disease. The Guild wants me to learn it. And it’s actually interesting.

As the morning sun rose higher and brighter, the colours of the wasteland began to bleach away. Sonea clasped her hands together around her knees, wistfully remembering how she had once been able to hug her knees to her chest. It had been a long time since she’d been that flexible. Life as a magician – and wearing full robes – tended to demand more dignified sitting. It was little losses like these that told her she was getting older.

Regin rose and moved to their packs, which were looking somewhat emptier than they’d been two evening ago when they’d arrived at the Traitors’ meeting place.

I followed the instructions strictly, she told herself. They’d made perfect sense. Regin agrees with me. We must be where we’re supposed to be.

And yet, no Traitors had appeared.

She looked to the right, where the mountains curved away to the south-east. When she and Akkarin had entered Sachaka twenty years before, they’d travelled that way. Across the slopes of the mountains with no supplies, no home and with Ichani hunting them. This time she and Regin had travelled northwest, still across the harsh mountainside, but with plenty of food, no Ichani to worry about and a Guild waiting to welcome them home.

Amazing the difference some basic necessities and not fearing for your life can make.

Still, the wasteland was a harsh place. Below, the rocky slopes plunged into dunes stretching off toward the horizon. The first day they’d waited here, they’d watched a sandstorm move across the land to the north, obscuring all in its path. They’d been worried that they would have to endure the storm, but it died out when it hit the northern mountains. Turning to the left, Sonea considered the peaks extending into the distance, each crouching behind the other, growing paler the further away they were.

Somewhere beyond them lies Sanctuary, the Traitors’ home. From what Lorkin says, they were much kinder captors than King Amakira.

Not that anybody had described what Lorkin’s imprisonment in the palace had been like. She was almost glad that she had not been able to read his mind through her blood gem. She swung from wanting to know to thinking perhaps it would be better if she never did. If he’d suffered, she was not sure what she would feel or want to do, but she was sure neither would be good.

He’s free now. Free and alive. I must take care that nothing I do changes that.

“Sonea.”

She dragged her eyes away from the view and turned to regard Regin. “Yes?”

He gestured to the bags. “Should we keep rationing?”

She nodded. He was asking more than that, she knew. He was asking if they would stay here or give up and return to the Fort soon. We could hunt for food, like Akkarin and I did. Memories rose of a meal gathered, cooked and eaten in a little hidden valley. She smiled as she remembered what else had happened in that place.

“At least we have plenty of water,” Regin said, turning to look at the spring. “And it’s clean now.”

She followed his gaze. The trickle of water seeped through a crack in the rocky ground and gathered in a small, smooth pool before brimming over into a tiny stream. The water had obviously been attracting animals. When they’d arrived they’d had to wash away accumulated bird droppings. The stream did not continue for long, swallowed up by a crevasse in the rocky ground.

If we hide, maybe birds will come to drink. We can catch and eat them.

Standing up, she walked to the pool and regarded it. Clearly the wasteland had some water, but even here, right by the spring, there was no life. She crouched beside it and dipped her hand in the pool. Concentrating, she sought the scattered sense of energy within water that came from ever-present tiny life forms in it.

Nothing.

She frowned. When they’d arrived she’d checked if the water was safe to drink. Despite the bird droppings, the water had been pure. Which was … odd.