Текст книги "Blood Warrior"

Автор книги: Lindsey Piper

Соавторы: Lindsey Piper
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CHAPTER

TWELVE

Tallis stood at Kavya’s back as her bodyguard trudged away. The only dejected thing about the woman was a sense of having failed to win an argument. Her back was straight, her strides confident. If he hadn’t been privy to the spoken portion of their conversation, Tallis wouldn’t have guessed she was anything but a determined soldier. Off to do her duty. And apparently off to get married.

“Where does she live?”

Kavya touched the bottom curve of one eye. A tear? Tallis didn’t want to be moved, but if this was real, he wanted to know what it looked like and how it felt. Whatever was blocking her telepathy might not last. He wanted as many details as possible about her true self.

“Far north of the Rohtang Pass, in a city called Leh—nearly the northernmost city in India. Her family believes themselves personally touched by the Dragon because of their proximity to the Chasm. I don’t know of any other Dragon Kings who live nearer.”

“Yet she followed you?”

“No, she fled. As we all do. Mumbai and Delhi are cities where one can blend in and start new lives.” She shrugged—a jerky motion, as if yanked by a careless puppeteer. “There’s nothing else we can do. As a people. Unless I . . .”

She shuddered. When Tallis moved nearer, she held out a warning hand. “No,” she said. “I don’t want you near me.”

“What was that you told her, about how you could count on me to keep you safe?”

“What else would I have told a friend who didn’t want to leave my side? That I think you’re delusional and dangerous? That as soon as you’ve untangled the brambles in your head, you’ll do something stupid like maul me in my sleep?”

“Depends on how you define maul.”

Her expressions were gaining so much candor. Right now her face showed a combination of disgust and embarrassment. “Chandrani had to go, and I’ll leave as well. Heading south. Hopefully Pashkah will assume I’ve gone to Delhi, back to the streets where I grew up. He’ll have learned that much about me now.”

“After just a few minutes together?”

“Do you have siblings, Tallis?”

“Five.” He twitched down to the bones. “Well, four now.”

Kavya’s brows drew together. “Four?”

“Leave it,” he said sharply.

Just when Tallis was convinced she’d keep probing, Kavya only nodded. “Would you know their thoughts and feelings after only a few moments?”

He closed his eyes and remembered green—so much bright, kelly green touched with the mind-blowing purple of heather in bloom. He remembered his brothers and sisters. Then he tried to imagine telepathy between them. He couldn’t do it, but fact overlaid his sudden, choking flush of memory. “Yes, I could. A long time ago.”

“Then know that even in combat, Pashkah learned more about the last twenty years of my life than I’ll ever know about another person.”

“Did you learn the same from him?”

“Yes.” Her face paled. It looked sickly, unnatural compared to her usual golden coloring.

“And you’ll keep that to yourself?”

“As a kindness.” She shuddered and pulled deeper into the under-armor padding Chandrani had left behind. “So . . . anywhere but India.”

Tallis exaggerated his movements as he looked up and down the valley. “How do you expect to get out? By sailing down the Beas?”

She tipped her head, frowning. “How did youget here?”

“By sailing upthe Beas.”

Her laugh was like the soft song of birds or the ringing of church bells in celebration. He was transported back to an evensong performance at Bath Abbey. The unfiltered waters of the Roman baths had still flavored his tongue with salt and oil. Children’s voices had raised in song. He hadn’t believed the words intoned by the vicar, but his cadence had calmed Tallis’s soul.

That was Kavya’s laugh.

“There’s an airport ten kilometers south of here, you ridiculous lout. Outside a village called Bhuntar.”

“An airport.” Tallis laughed, too. He let out the sound, as if grinding tension could be released so easily. Maybe it could be.

“Did you think we use magic spells and rafts made of inflated animal hides?” She shared his grin. “Not anymore. Unless you’d rather walk or sail, I suggest you get your mind out of medieval times. We’re not all Tenzing Norgay helping Englishmen climb Everest. Come on.” She nodded to indicate the heart of the city. “We can take a shuttle to the airport and decide where to go to regroup.”

Tallis shook his head and followed the Sun—who’d suddenly decided to find a sense of humor.

She turned to glance at his profile. He could feel the weight of her inquisitive eyes, not just then but every time her gaze sought his face. There was curiosity and confusion and wariness. He wanted other reasons for her to look at him, but Dragon be damned if he could name them.

“You really think we’re banished up here in the peaks, backward people like Sherpa herders and folks bunkered down in Himalayan igloos . . . don’t you?”

“No,” he said. “Just because I trekked up from Punjab and missed what I assume will be a five-star deluxe airport doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of your people. I’ve been here nearly three months.”

“Stalking me?” Although Kavya’s eyebrow was arched with sarcasm, he couldn’t return her jest.

“Yes. I was actually surprised when I found your followers’ camp. I hadn’t expected anything so organized. I’ll admit to expecting little burrows or hideaway shelters in a forest like this.”

Kavya’s mouth tightened until the blood drained away. “I should have. That would’ve been safer.”

“How? It took me months to find you because I don’t follow brainwaves and Indranan witchcraft.”

“I’m not a—”

“In other words, I didn’t have the gift Pashkah does. All he needed to do was open up his mind and fish out the largest collection of Dragon Kings in India, Nepal, wherever.”

Late rays of light shone on her face, adding artificial color while she was still pale. The ground was slippery and steep. He instinctively reached out to steady her with an arm around her waist. She flinched. “I don’t need your help,” she said.

“Look down.”

Kavya at least listened that much. She inhaled quietly but sharply. The instep of her slipper was mere inches from landing squarely on a broken bottle’s sharp edges.

“We’re not the Garnis with their senses and reflexes,” he said, “but the Pendray aren’t too shabby when it comes to the physical world.”

“And all without telepathy.”

“None. Just . . . looking. Keep your eyes open, goddess. We’re going to need it for both our sakes.”

She glanced down at where he still held her around the waist. “Think I can walk now?”

“Remains to be seen.”

Relinquishing her small, warm body was harder than he would’ve liked, and it was certainly harder than he would admit to her. She was like holding fire. Not for the first time, he was glad she couldn’t parse his thoughts.

“Do you still want me?” she asked.

Now Tallis was the one to stumble. He let go so as not to drag her down with him. That meant he landed alone on his ass, smearing his coat in the gooey pavement grime left by the end of the rainy season. “That was mean.”

She laughed again and headed down the slope without his assistance, although she watched her steps with more attention.

Tallis pushed himself up. He pulled the tail of his coat around and grimaced at the slash in the leather. But he couldn’t bring himself to raise a temper. There were so many other reasons to let his temper off its chain. Right then, Kavya wasn’t one of them.

“Yes,” he called. “I still want you.” He caught up with her in a minute. “Besides, I bet your impression of the Pendray homeland is little better than my misconceptions.”

“Let me see . . .” She posed her head as if in deep thought. “Highland people wearing skins and living in grass huts. Sacrificial lambs. Faces painted blue before battle where the field of combat is overrun with berserkers spinning like helicopter blades. Oh, and some live by the sea. Boats that withstand the worst storms. Myths of gods that say only the bravest make it to . . . where is it?”

“Valhalla? Depends on who deified us.” He cocked one brow. “Withstand the worst storms? That sounded almost appreciative.”

He took her hand, just because he wanted to. Let her fight him off.

She didn’t.

“Assume the worst if you want,” he said. “I’d rather you keep that note of admiration. It does a poor dumb Pendray’s soul good.”

–

Taking the shuttle to the airport should’ve been a simple affair. Short. Bumpy. Full of people. It was anything but simple with Tallis crammed beside her on a seat upholstered with ripped, stiff leather. Springs stuck into Kavya’s back. She tried to arrange tufts of stuffing to cover the worst of the metal, but it didn’t help. She sat very straight and tried to focus on the scenery that passed through a mud-splattered window.

She’d been born near here. These foothills had once been her home. An innocent home, despite the tension that warped her parents—the parents of triplets. She wondered how it must’ve been for them, counting down the days until their children’s gifts manifested. For years, Kavya had lived in blissful oblivion. The sensible thing for Indranan parents to do would be to separate their children at birth, and some did. Most lived in hope that history wouldn’t repeat itself. For their clan, however, history meant making the same mistakes, no matter the generation.

She, Pashkah, and Baile had been raised together. Played together. Loved one another. Baile had been the princess, always dressing up in their mother’s saris and insisting on flashy decorations in her long, long hair. Pashkah had been rough-and-tumble, with a smile no one but his sisters could resist, even when strange moods had distanced him from everyone. Kavya had been the quiet one . . . especially when she learned of the trials that would await them. No one had told her. She’d learned in that way children learn things their parents aren’t prepared to explain: through rumor and whispers. She’d even warned Baile and Pashkah.

Theywould never hurt one another. At the age of ten, they’d sworn it. They’d even gone so far as to tell their parents of the oath they’d made, in hopes of relieving the palpable anxiety ballooning in their home.

Two years later, Kavya had found Baile and Pashkah fighting. At first she’d been able to convince herself it was play. Jest. Fun. Their thoughts, however, had been black with rage and burning hot with the need to survive—and to take.

Baile lay dead. Pashkah stood triumphant. Kavya ran.

Now she was leaving again. This time felt different, as if she was being pulled toward a conclusion that would mean ending the last of her old life. One way or another.

“Are you scared of him?” Tallis’s query dragged her free from that downward spiral of thoughts. The topic, however, was still Pashkah.

“I’m not scared of dying, if that’s what you mean. But this is my life, my gift. I won’t give them to him just because he’s a spoiled bully. Two-thirds of a gift from the Dragon isn’t enough for him, but it’s twice as much as he should have.”

“What was her name? The triplet he killed.”

“Baile.”

Maybe her delivery stalled further questions, as had his warning tone when he’d discussed five—then four—siblings of his own.

Or maybe he was looking at the sky.

Tallis had leaned over her lap, supporting his arm against the seam where the window met the metal frame of the bus. Cold air seeped in through that poorly sealed crack. He dipped his face low, as if he were preparing to lay his head in her lap. Kavya lifted her hands. Fingers spread wide and tingling. She forgot to breathe. Although Tallis’s clothes still bore the grit and pungency of the forest, she caught the scent of his freshly cleaned skin. Again her attention was drawn to that strip of skin between his hairline and collar. That’s what she smelled, what made her mouth water. She wanted something as reckless as it was elemental. Just . . . Tallis. She swallowed and banked a heady shiver, unsure whether to push him away or touch the wild mass of silver-tipped hair that had fascinated her from the first.

Yet he hadn’t been seeking refuge in her body, even if she’d been willing to offer it. Instead he peered through the glass, toward the rocky mountaintops and on toward the sky. Gray layered over his features. The shadows were banished as he stared straight up toward the light source, but the light wasn’t clear.

“Tell me, Glinda, Good Witch of the North, what does that sky say to you?”

“Glinda?”

“Never mind. Just look.”

Only, Tallis didn’t shift position. He didn’t retreat to his half of the seat. Neither had he let go of her hand while they’d traversed Kullu’s knotted yarn streets and surrounding forests. Apparently once he pressed into her space, he decided to stay there. She should’ve minded. Instead she stared at the strong, corded tendon that angled down from his arrogant jaw to his throat. A glimpse of collarbone and a touch of masculine hair were visible where his shirt gaped.

Tallis had touched her bare arms, which had been surprising enough. The rush of heat circling like blood through arteries and veins said touching would be very different than being touched. Already she’d learned that kissing was different than being kissed. She wanted that control and to let her curiosity seek what it would—to solve the mysteries of how a man’s skin felt beneath her hands.

Tallis’s skin.

“Kavya,” came his sleek, low voice.

She blinked to focus on his face, which remained brightly lit by the pallor of pale light. Gray over blue intensified the notion that his eyes would match the color of an icy ocean she’d never seen. Her hands were still poised above his head. Being bold and without asking permission– he never had—she lowered one to his temple and petted silken hair back from his face. Briefly he closed those haunting, haunted eyes.

In doing so, he released her from his spell. She still stroked his wild, gorgeous hair, luxuriating in her reward for being bold, but she glanced up as he had.

The sky was filled with snow.

It wasn’t falling yet, but swift clouds were sweeping across the valley. The sun was just as powerful but hidden behind a layer of icy mist the color of dirty cotton.

“That.” She tightened her grip on his hair, only noticing when he winced and laced his fingers through hers. “That’s trouble.”

“How long?”

“Thirty minutes. Maybe.”

“How much longer till the airport?”

“Not enough time to commission a plane and take off today.”

“Commission? What, no tickets? No cute stewardesses?”

“No flights. The runway is short and dangerous. Air India and Kingfisher no longer offer regular service. It’s all private pilots.”

“I told you it’d be five-star deluxe.”

“I could push you into the river so you could float to Karachi. The Beas makes it there eventually. Youwouldn’t.”

“Been to Karachi. I’m just a tourist, goddess. Wouldn’t want to waste time repeating the same sights.”

“You’re a jester without an audience.”

“You’re here with your hands in my hair.” He glanced up through the window again. “What’s your strategy? Personally, I don’t like the idea of a blizzard. Wasn’t on my travel brochure. Not in mid-October.”

“We won’t freeze. We’ll get to Bhuntar and stay the night. If it’s a blizzard, we stay a few nights. The runway is hazardous enough without snow and ice as an added dare to the Dragon’s mercy.”

Tallis sat back on the creaking old seat and crossed his arms in that defiant gesture of his. He adjusted his shirt collar and the layers of his coat, while Kavya coped with the loss of his warmth beneath her palms. His mouth was motionless now, locked in a mocking expression that said she was going to regret his next words. Regret them, or be angered beyond the ability to retaliate.

“Please tell me Bhuntar is smaller than Kullu.”

She frowned, wary. “Why?”

“Because I want a tiny bed-and-breakfast. Breakfast optional. And I don’t want there to be anyplace else for you to sleep other than in my bed.”

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Bhuntar was even smaller than he’d pictured. Tallis decided that was a very, very good thing. The snowstorm struck with speed more akin to lightning than a blizzard. Then again, he had no experience with the ferocity of a blizzard in the foothills of the Himalayas. He was a man of the Highlands and a man of the sea—even a man of the world. He was not born to storms that sounded like planes crashing into tarmac.

Great analogy.

The shuttle had only just crested a hill overlooking Bhuntar when the storm obscured everything in a blast of white. The driver pumped what sounded like brakes forged during Clan Sath’s reign as lords of the Egyptian Bronze Age. Ice beneath the wheels, or perhaps snow in the treads, made the bus fishtail. A car climbing the steep road swerved to avoid the collision. Several on the shuttle gasped. One woman screamed, and a baby started to cry. For the most part, the occupants were silent.

“This happens to them all the time,” he muttered. His knuckles were white as he gripped an armrest. “Tell me that.”

“Not allthe time.” Kavya’s voice held the intention of humor, but taut skin across her cheekbones gave her away. “Sometimes we close down the highway and ski down the ice. Much more efficient.”

“I nearly believed you. Your sarcasm is getting pretty good.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

The bus didn’t move. The driver pumped the accelerator as the engine turned over and over. It was the sound of helplessness: a vehicle that wouldn’t start, when a half mile separated them from the nearest shelter.

Tallis wanted to smack himself in the face. What in the name of the Dragon and the Chasm am I doing here?

He was sitting next to the Sun, who was a flesh-and-blood woman unlike any he’d ever known. He was enjoying her company. He remained suspicious as hell as to her motives—and suspicious as to why he felt such an attraction. He couldn’t trust whether his reaction to Kavya was of his own making, or some wiggling, undetectable nudge of an idea that wasn’t his at all.

But . . .

The beast inside him had not lied and could not be deceived. Rather than spend the next twenty seconds listening to the driver try to resuscitate a dead engine, he closed his eyes. He let his mind reopen the memories he’d accumulated during his berserker fury—the feel of teeth sinking deep, the foul taste of Pashkah’s blood. Spitting out the piece of flesh would be an insult too disgraceful and revolting for Pashkah to forgive.

Tallis wasn’t in the mood to forgive him either.

Past that, through that, he remembered kissing Kavya. Yes, there had been lust and need. But his soul, if he still had one, had experienced a soothing rightness he’d never thought possible. It was as right as coming home. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t even depend on his deepest instincts. Tallis had no idea what it was to go home, or to be accepted with open arms. Why would he equate that fantasy with a woman he couldn’t trust?

Fanciful, ridiculous bollocks.

“How much time before we’re snowed in and can’t leave this bus?” he asked.

Kavya searched the sky. Eerie pewter clouds lightened her amber irises. Flecks of gold glowed like burning flames. Her lush lips parted.

No matter the reason, no matter the insanity of bedding the woman against whom he’d sought revenge, he didwant her.

So he would have her.

“This isn’t good,” she said. “The snow’s collecting too fast. We stay or we go. Your decision, Pendray. You seem to think you and the earth are on friendly terms. Figure out her intentions, and make a choice.”

“You’re no fun when you’re being condescending.”

“Just returning the favor.”

He frowned and took a deep breath. “Advantages of staying?”

“Warm for now. Lots of bodies. Guaranteed shelter.”

“Disadvantages?”

Kavya glanced around the bus. “Lots of panicked minds if things get worse and stay that way.”

“Is that the likely way of things? Get worse and stay that way?”

“October storms are freakish. No gauging if they’ll stay for a few minutes or a few weeks.”

“Then we go.”

“Agreed.”

He grabbed her hands—then hesitated. She was dressed in a patchwork of silk and cotton padding. Slippers. No gloves. Skin exposed to the elements.

As a species, the Dragon Kings feared the inability to continue procreating. Extinction by slow measures. No more babies. No powerful future generations. They certainly didn’t fear a bit of cold. But pain was still pain, even if their bodies quickly healed.

“You keep your mind trained on the town,” he said. “Find us minds. Guide the way.”

“And you?”

“Wind block.” She laughed with a mocking tone he didn’t understand. “What?”

“You’ll see,” she said, still smiling, but the tautness across her cheekbones had claimed the corners of her eyes. On the inside, she wasn’t laughing at all.

Tallis hefted his pack, checked his weapons, and headed toward the front of the bus. Other passengers started talking in that low buzz noise of gathering panic. The hairs along the back of his neck lifted. He’d heard that same buzz when Pashkah had stepped onto the altar. Worry, building on worry, building on worry . . .

The snow was going to be ball-bustlingly cold, but he didn’t want to be stuck in a group of freaked-out innocents when his sense of claustrophobia kicked in. The Pendray loved open spaces and sweeping Highlands. Tight little shuttles crammed with panicking humans was enough to spark a flare of red across his vision.

The bus driver said something he didn’t understand. Tallis glanced back at Kavya for explanation. “He says he’ll have it started any minute now.”

“Does that change your decision?”

She shook her head. “Out.”

He yanked on the lever to open the bus door and jogged down three steps. Wind smacked his face like a punch. Unlike any Tallis had ever known, this wind held nothing back. If he hadn’t been gripping Kavya’s hand, he’d have thought himself alone in a swirling maelstrom of pure ice.

She pressed her mouth against his ear. “Block that wind, Pendray. Dare you.”

Tallis grinned into the worst of the snow. “I’m doing a piss-poor job at it. I admit it. Lead on, goddess.”

Her fingers became five small vises. She wasn’t letting go, and neither was he.

“You find our direction,” he shouted. “I’ll guide against the worst of the here and now.” He caught his foot on a rock that poked out of what was already a half inch of snow.

Kavya rolled her eyes. “Like that?”

“Shut up.”

The next thirty minutes were longer than they should have been. Tallis was certain they’d walked for at least six days. The hairs in his nostrils were frozen. He knew he should breathe through his nose, to better protect his lungs, but he was panting. Pain gathered in his chest. The cold pounded a beat meant to rip him open from the inside out. He focused on keeping Kavya from harm as she focused her gift on the tiny speck that was Bhuntar. Sometimes the fool woman closed her eyes. Sometimes she talked to herself in the strangely singsong language of the Indranan.

He was equally strange in thinking he’d like to hear her talk to him with those melodic syllables. Warm and safe and close.

Frostbite must be reaching his brain.

She swayed. Tallis reached out to find soft skin caught in a deathlike chill. “Dragon damn, Kavya. You think not saying anything will keep it from happening?”

“Hmm?” Her eyes were glassy, although he couldn’t tell whether it was from concentration or the hazy sleepiness that preceded losing consciousness. “Damn you? What?”

Tallis wasted no time in opening his coat. The cold shocked his body like machine-gun fire. He hadn’t realized that being cold and being cold while wearing a big leather coat would be so different. He swept her into his arms and tucked as much of the wool lining around her limbs as he could. Too much of her skin remained exposed.

“Go,” he said near her ear. “Tell me the way. Pound it into my brain with a hammer if you can. Just show me the way and I’ll get you there.”

–

Kavya focused on two things: the collective warmth of hundreds of active minds in Bhuntar, and the very personal warmth of being held by Tallis. She couldn’t decide which was more seductive. She only knew that to have more of his warmth, she needed to get them to safety.

Passing images into his mind would’ve been simpler. Half out of reflex, she tried twice before giving it up as a lost cause. She didn’t want to risk losing the way. Instead she had to make her numb lips and stiff cheeks form words.

“Close,” she said, teeth chattering so badly that her temples hurt. Her eyes stung, and a headache burrowed into her skull, using her ears as convenient entrances. “Another two hundred meters. First building.”

“Dragon-damned, lonayípsonofa bitch.” Rather than stop, he picked up the pace and held her even closer.

Winding her arms around his middle, where the coat retained the heat of his body as it worked to its maximum potential, Kavya nestled close. She offered words to guide him. When was the last time she’d spoken so much to one person? To groups, sure. They needed a clear, sure tone to rise above the din of other voices. Otherwise she spoke with her mind. Another mind would speak back. Here it was the intimacy of how his chest rumbled when he replied, and how his breath was a welcome flash of damp heat against her temple. This was the intimacy of speaking with bodies—tongues and lips and the thousand other things that went into verbal communication.

A different sort of gift.

Tallis followed the long line of what appeared to be a warehouse. At least for those moments, they were both protected from one direction the wind used to attack. Kavya rubbed her ears. The blizzard lived there in a perpetual cacophony. She would scrape it out if she could—grab one of Tallis’s seaxes and hand it to him with the command that he dig out the mind-numbing sound.

“Cross to that building with the high gable,” she said past numb lips. “People eating and drinking. There’s a fire. A couple is . . .”

Another chuckle rumbled out of his chest, where she pressed tighter with every step. Only his embrace kept her from shattering into chunks of ice. “A couple is what, goddess?”

“Naked together. Upstairs. There must be rooms.”

“Is that all? Naked?”

Even as he teased her, he crossed the wind-whipped street toward an inviting orange glow. A few more strides and she could make out windows lit from within. A tavern? A bed-and-breakfast? Dragon be, just anything.

“Not just naked.” Her relief was so close and potent that she said aloud what she’d only ever thought. “They’re fucking.”

“Very nice.” Surprising admiration shone through Tallis’s wind-scoured voice. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I have a lot in me. Your thick Pendray brain can’t hear much of it.”

He gave her bottom a quick pinch. “Then you’ll just have to show me instead. The Dragon Kings play charades. The world’s worst potential game show.”

Kavya giggled, made half hysterical by their intimate, dangerous trek. “The Tigony would refuse to play because it would be too debasing.”

“If they did, they’d charm the audience and win hands down.”

“Garnis, of course, wouldn’t show up.”

She could become addicted to the way he laughed, with the whole of his body, yet centered where her ear pressed against his sternum. She didn’t like admitting such vulnerable thoughts, but they remained front and center.

He laughed that way now.

“The producers wouldn’t even put out a chair for them,” he said. “The Sath would know everything because they’d have found out the questions in advance.”

“Thieves,” Kavya said without malice. Yet she knew their kind. A Sath would trade just about anything for a secret. “The Indranan would either learn the answers telepathically or kill each other trying.”

“I like that you can laugh at your own people, no matter how grim.” Tallis kissed the top of her head. “And the Pendray would tear the place apart in a child’s tantrum when they didn’t get their way.”

He put her down as they reached the building. The snow was cold against her feet, which remained barely covered by her shredded slippers. Her knees were unsteady after having been carried. She righted herself using the solid steel of Tallis’s upper arm. “And thus ends our attempt to cast the Five Clans in a game show.”

“We didn’t do very well.” He smoothed hair back from her temples. The wind took it, scattered it, and he smoothed it again.

“No, but everybody needs a hobby,” she said, returning to their first shared jest. “And we saved ourselves the embarrassment of looking like fools in front of potential investors.”

“We’ll save our skills at persuasion for getting a room at this inn. I’m notsleeping in a manger.”

“You’re going to be picky in this storm? I’d trade your seaxes for a chair next to the fire.”

“And then I’d trade you and the chair back for my weapons.”

They pushed in from the storm. What had been frigid and noisy became fireplace-warm and relatively quiet, filled with the soft chatter of two dozen voices. Kavya felt as if she’d been sucked into a vacuum. No screaming wind. No biting ice. She was standing on her own, but she didn’t let go of Tallis’s arm.

“Witchcraft,” he whispered. “Have at it.”

His expression was unexpectedly bright and teasing, with a dark pink flush across his features. He was half-sweating, half-covered in melting snow. His dark, silver-tipped hair was sprinkled with ice crystals that were quickly turning to gleaming droplets.

“On a small scale, maybe. Unless one of your hobbies means you’ve learned to pilot a Cessna off a short, slick runway that leads right over the Beas—you take off, or you drown—then I suggest we stay friendly with the locals. That means as little obvious manipulation as possible. I can’t force them to behave out of character, or someone will notice. The more they notice, the more foreign and threatening we’ll appear.”

“Wait, how do you know it’s not one of my hobbies?”

“This isn’t the time for sarcasm. We need a pilot. That means being fair to the innkeeper and getting recommendations.”

Tallis made a face that was complete slapstick. Scowling mouth. Deep frown. He looked like a child on the verge of a fit . . . until he grinned. “Very well. Play by the rules. You’ll be the first Indranan in the history of our race to do so.”