Are you sure?He nodded toward the book held in his brother’s hand as he talked to Gharek.Did you not say you might have help to offer against the ghost-eater? Help I might not want because it’s necromantic?
Estred interrupted their silent conversation. “Can I touch you?” she asked Kalun. She stretched out a bare foot, one hesitant toe a hairsbreadth from where he stood. He nodded.
“He won’t be solid,” Siora told her. “More like a cold mist to you.”
Kalun held still as Estred ran her toe across and then through his leg. She snatched her foot back for a moment before approaching again, this time pointing all five toes. Once more her foot glided through his misty shape. “Does it hurt?”
Kalun grinned and Siora translated for him. “No, it doesn’t hurt. Maybe a tickle here and there.”
Estred grinned back, no longer as hesitant and far morefascinated. A tiny frown creased her forehead, and she eyed Siora with suspicion. “How come your hand doesn’t go through his when you hold it? Is that what a shade speaker can do when they talk to ghosts?”
Siora had never seen another shade speaker touch a ghost and make them visible to others. If they possessed the same capabilities she did, they didn’t make it known to all and sundry for fear of hanging or burning or suffering any number of gruesome executions for the crime of practicing magic and not just fortune-telling. “I don’t know how it works like it does,” she told Estred honestly. “Sometimes we can’t explain why things happen the way they do.”
“You said something like that to me when people were throwing rocks at us,” Estred said. “You just saidpeopleinstead ofthings.”
Siora tightened her mouth and looked away, blinking hard to chase away the tears blurring her vision. Estred had brought up the first time Siora had met her, a frightened child on the verge of being stoned to death. Siora wished that memory was nothing more than a wispy cloud of fading recollection, but if Estred remembered what her savior had told her regarding why people would try to hurt her when she’d done nothing wrong, then she remembered the events of that day with the same crystal clarity that Siora recalled them.
She wished she might bend to hug the girl, but Estred, like her father, wasn’t quick to forgive, and Siora didn’t doubt she’d squirm away with a snarl and a warning not to touch her. “I did say that, didn’t I?” She glanced at Kalun, who gave her a measuring look.
“Siora saved me from people who were throwing rocks at me in an alley one day,” Estred told him.
A ghostly eyebrow rose.Is that so?he said.Very brave of her. You must mean a lot to her to face down a mob to defend you.
“Kalun says those people probably regret what they did,” Siora translated instead.
Liar.The word boomed in her thoughts, and Kalun’s scowl matched hers.Why didn’t you tell her what I said instead of that horseshit?
Because she doesn’t need to be burdened with a sense of obligation or the idea that I’m something more than what I am. I’m not brave or a hero. People just shouldn’t be throwing rocks at children.
A brush on her free hand made her turn. Estred frowned. “Are you two arguing? Your faces are crinkled ugly.”
Siora eyed the ghost with a half smile. “Kalun is a very stubborn ghost and likes to argue with people.”
Kalun’s indignant snort was even louder in her mind than his previous accusation. Instead of relying on her to translate for him, he used exaggerated hand motions and facial expressions that conveyed very clearly to the now grinning Estred that he wasn’t the only one who was stubborn and enjoyed arguing.
The loud flutter of the tent flap as it was slapped aside heralded the arrival of Zaredis’s enigmatic sorcerer. Rurian took in his surroundings with a sweeping glance, pausing briefly on Siora and Kalun. He joined Gharek and Zaredis at one of the tables where a large sheaf of parchment had been rolled out. The cat’s-paw was sketching something there with a combination of broad strokes and more careful scratches with a shaving of coal. The map of the palace in Domora and the path to the Windcry.
Siora turned to Estred, pressing a finger to her lips. “Let’s hear what the sorcerer has to say,” she told her charge.
Zaredis had Gharek repeat what he’d told him about the palace and the Windcry’s protection spells. Rurian listened in stoic silence until Zaredis held out the book the master librarian had given Gharek in Domora.
His strange eyes lit up, and his long fingers curved over the book with the touch of a lover. Unlike Zaredis, he didn’t flip carelessly through the pages with only brief pauses to scan arcane words or note a sigil drawing. Instead, he turned each page slowly, fingertips gliding along the edges as if he listened to as well as read the words written there.
Gharek’s eyes were narrowed as he watched the sorcerer. “Can you read?”
Rurian’s answering smile held no amusement but plenty of dislike. “Better than you, I’d wager.” He ignored Gharek after that, concentration firmly seated on the book’s contents. The cat’s-paw went back to drawing, and Zaredis back to watching him and occasionally asking questions.
Once, the sorcerer lowered his head to peer closer at one page, his mouth moving in silent speech. He finally straightened, only to pin Siora to the spot where she stood with a long stare that did its best to peel her skin back for a look inside her soul. He didn’t have to say anything for her to know he’d just come across the section on necromancy.
In her mind she prepared a denial of being anything other than a lowly shade speaker. A true voice for the dead but not a wielder of death magic. Instead Rurian returned his attention to the book, speaking up only after reading a few more pages and stopping on a particular one for a long moment.
“Lord,” he said, holding the book out to Zaredis, thumb holdingup the pages to the spot he wanted the general to read. “This spell might work to break the ward that guards the Windcry, though the advantage of an ambush attack would be lost once the ward is broken. I can do it, but even then the cat’s-paw will find it a challenge to steal the Windcry and not get caught.”
“I’m very motivated to not get caught,” Gharek said.
Kalun’s chilly grip on Siora’s hand tightened.Tell my brother I wish to speak with him with just you to hear and translate.
She nodded and relayed the message to Zaredis. Gharek’s and the sorcerer’s eyebrows rose, but the general didn’t hesitate. He crossed the tent in a few strides, passing Estred, who took advantage of the interruption to be with her father again.