licked his lips and rolled his eyes to look at Olikea. Epiny didn’t hesitate. She pressed the blade more firmly to his throat. Distantly, I felt it slice my skin and more intensely, I felt the hot/cold kiss of iron against my flesh. It made my magic bleed, and that was more painful than the fine cut it scored on my skin. ‘Please, don’t!’ Soldier’s Boy croaked. Epiny eased up but didn’t move the blade.
‘Tell them,’ she said quietly.
‘Olikea. Likari. Go down the ridge to the stream. Wait for me there. Don’t do anything else right now, just wait down there until I come.’
Epiny’s glance flickered to me. I confirmed that she’d been obeyed. ‘He did as you told him. He’s ordered them to go down to the stream and wait.’
Olikea looked rebellious. Likari wriggled in an agony of curiosity, but then obediently turned and started away. ‘Shall I leave you here, at her mercy?’ Olikea began in protest, but Soldier’s Boy broke in on her words with, ‘Go. Just go now, or she’ll kill me. I can manage this situation better if you are not here, Olikea. Go down to the stream. Wait for me there.’
‘Oh, you look so much in control of the situation!’ Olikea snarled. She glared at Epiny and kept the obsidian blade at the ready as she backed away. ‘Some day, Gernian woman. Some day it will be just you and me.’ Then she turned angrily on Likari. ‘Why are you still standing there? He told us to go wait by the stream. And that is what we must do.’
‘He told her to go away, and she and the boy are leaving.’ I hastily interpreted before Epiny could look at me. I wanted her to keep her wary gaze on Olikea. ‘But she threatened that some day she’d get back at you.’
‘That’s fine,’ Epiny said, almost absently. There was strain in her voice. She kept her gaze fixed on Olikea and Likari, watching them until they were out of sight. Crouching over me, pressing the knife to my throat was uncomfortable for her. Her pregnant belly got in her way. I could see that it was hard for her to remain still, the hatchet blade pressed lightly to my throat, and all her weight on her bent knees.
‘And now what?’ Lisana asked in a low voice. ‘What will you do now? Do you think this is over? That Soldier’s Boy will let you just walk away after you have threatened the forest?’
Epiny blew the hair away from her eyes and then looked up at Lisana. ‘And do you think it’s a good idea to ask me that question while I’m in this position? The simplest way for me to resolve it would be to cut his throat and go my way. By the time they realize he’s not coming, I’ll be long gone.’
‘Do you think the forest would allow you to escape that easily?’ Lisana countered.
Epiny sighed. ‘No. I don’t think the forest or the magic will allow any of us to escape. It wants the impossible. It wants to reverse the flow of the years, it wants to go back to when Gernians came here only to trade for furs and then to leave. It won’t happen. It can’t happen. And as long as the magic demands that, there will never be a resolution. Not for any of us.’
I looked from Epiny’s bowed head to the sweat drops rolling slowly down my own face and then up at Lisana. Epiny was right. As the thought came to me, I felt as if my existence wavered. The magic was weakening. Lisana was weary and there was little magic left in my own body for me to draw on.
‘Epiny! I’m fading. I’m sorry. I did what I thought was wise, but it helped no one. Not even me. Farewell. I loved all of you the best that I could. Get away if you can. Get all of you away.’
Suddenly I was in my body, looking up at Epiny. I think she saw me in Soldier’s Boy’s eyes, because she said softly, ‘You stopped him from killing me. Remember that you could do that. Believe you’ll eventually find that strength again, that you’ll master him again. Until then, I’m sorry, Nevare. I’m sure you’d do the same thing in my place. And you know, you really deserve this.’
She lifted the hatchet from my throat, but before I could stir, she reversed her grip on it. The blunt end of it hit me squarely between the eyes, and I knew nothing more.
When I became aware again, Epiny was gone. I didn’t immediately realize that. With Soldier’s Boy, I felt woozy and disoriented and unable to focus my eyes. My gut heaved with nausea. Being struck on the head hard enough to cause unconsciousness is never a joke, and my body had endured two such assaults in rapid succession. I could barely breathe past the thickness in my mouth, and I could not stir my limbs. I felt Soldier’s Boy’s frustration as he used yet more of his rapidly dwindling magic to speed the body’s healing. Even so, we lay motionless and queasy for a good hour before he felt well enough to sit up.
That was when he discovered that Epiny had taken a few precautions before she left. The leather strap of her bag was tied securely in my mouth as a gag, and strips torn from the draggled hem of her dress were knotted about my wrists and ankles. Soldier’s Boy rolled onto his side and began working against his bonds. Tree Woman spoke to me as he did so.
‘Your cousin is more resourceful than I thought. Truly, she would have made a better servant to the magic.’
Little as I wanted to serve the magic, the comparison still stung. ‘Maybe if my self hadn’t been divided, I would have been a better tool for the magic. Or a better soldier.’
‘That’s likely,’ she admitted easily. Soldier’s Boy didn’t hear her. He wasn’t looking at her tree stump, so I couldn’t see her. But I could imagine her gentle, rueful smile. I hated what she had done to me, I hated how the magic had twisted my life away from my boyish dreams of a glorious career as a cavalla officer, of a gentle well-bred wife and a home of my own. I’d forfeited it all when I’d battled Lisana and lost. She had been the engineer of my downfall. Yet I still felt tenderness towards Lisana, my Tree Woman. It was no longer based entirely on Soldier’s Boy’s love for her. I sensed in her a kindred spirit, someone who had come unwilling to the magic’s service but, like me, saw a need for it.
‘So. What will happen now?’
She sighed, light as wind in the leaves. ‘Eventually, Olikea or Likari will come back and help you. Or you’ll wriggle free on your own. And then you must eat heartily, and quick-walk to join the People at the Wintering Place.’
‘I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, what will become of Epiny and Spink? What will happen to them?’
She sighed again. ‘Let go of that life, Nevare. Embrace the one you are in now. Join the sundered halves of your soul and become one.’
That hadn’t been what I was asking her. ‘Will you try to harm Epiny?’ I asked her directly.
‘Hmf. Did she try to harm me? A few more minutes of that fire, and we would not be having this conversation now. I’ve told you before, I cannot control the magic or what it does.’ A pause. Then her voice was gentler. ‘But for whatever peace it gives you, I’ll tell you that I will not be attempting any revenge on her.’ She made an odd sound that might almost have been a laugh. ‘The less I have to do with your cousin, the better for both of us, I think.’
‘Thank you.’
Olikea did not come to find me. Jodoli did, stumping up the
