Chapter 24
SINAN
H is cloak thrown over underbrush and tree roots didn’t make for a comfortable hospital cot, but Sinan was more concerned about Valentina using her magic on him when his own Gift was gone, leaving him no way to defend himself.
“I don’t think this is necessary.” Sinan lay on his back with his shirt off.
He would have been uneasy shaking gloved hands with a medica as powerful as Valentina, much less remaining still while she spread her spellwork over his vital organs.
She had arranged sigil-marked bandages over the black and blue mess that was on the right side of his chest and was tapping her fingers over the symbols like a musician picking out a tune on an instrument.
He couldn’t even sense her magic, much less tell if she was doing something horrible to him. “I heal fast anyway.”
“Stop squirming and let her do her job.” Meri was awake and upright now, although in a terrible mood.
The medica had been able to restore the Lioness to consciousness with the sigils Sinan had carried from Karakoncolos, along with her medicus abilities to manipulate living tissue.
Then she worked on Gallmau. Her success in healing the two of them had transformed Valentina.
Her eyes were bright and focused, and the sigils on her recovered simar glowed with power.
As she used her magic on Sinan, the scratches on her arms and face from her panicked flight into the woods faded away.
He hoped she wouldn’t want to backslide by taking revenge on him when there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop her.
Meri took another long drink of water and shoveled food she had taken out of Gallmau’s pack into her mouth.
She looked better than Sinan would have believed possible a mere hour ago, and he was grateful Valentina had helped her.
The sight of her limp body on the ground had affected him more than he wanted to admit.
He was less grateful Meri was enforcing Gallmau’s orders that Sinan allow the medica to heal him.
Meri, for her part, was furious Gallmau had insisted the four of them stay under cover in the grove through the night, both for her to rest and to avoid them being spotted again by the Azhdarchid. Gallmau’s harping on Meri’s theoretical pregnancy wasn’t helping matters, either.
She jabbed one of the remaining marzipan candies from the chateau in Gallmau’s direction. “We’re stuck here for hours, instead of heading out to hit them hard while they’re recovering from losing four men.”
Gallmau was busying himself setting up a rough camp for the four of them.
He had ventured out to examine the site of the attack on Valentina and Jacques, retrieving Valentina’s pack and her simar in the process, but had returned quickly when he had spotted the Azhdarchid flying overhead.
“With your—delicate condition, you need to rest.”
“Not the baby thing again.” Meri rolled her eyes.
“I’m not going to be like my father, bedding whoever he wanted and tossing women away like a set of clothes he wore once.
” Gallmau arranged the firewood he had collected with more force than necessary.
“Your baby will be in the line of succession for the throne of Soissons, and I don’t want it to be a bastard like me.
As soon as we save Rixende, we need to go back to Lutecia and get married. ”
Meri laughed. “I’m five and twenty and haven’t been knocked up because I know what herbs to take if my courses don’t come on time. Also, Valentina healed me, and she didn’t say anything about a baby.”
Valentina gave a polite cough and paused her work on Sinan. “If the two of you had intercourse only last night, I would have no medical or magical way of determining if Meri was with child.”
“It was the three of us.” Meri’s words choked a surprised noise from Valentina.
Sinan opened his eyes to see if the medica was yanking out part of his lungs or healing him.
She frowned, her face scarlet. He went back to squeezing his eyes shut and trying to shut out the conversation the two Tomb Fighters were having.
“I don’t want to marry you, Gallmau.” Meri sounded even angrier, and Sinan didn’t want to be pulled into this argument. “You don’t like women. You like to fuck men. Pretty men, like Sinan. Who, by the way, I also fucked. So maybe this imaginary babe of yours will be his.”
Sinan opened his eyes again, and this time he and Valentina had matching expressions of dismay at the awkward turn the argument had taken.
“That Azhdarchid had a shadow affinity, like I have.” Sinan tried to shift the conversation from the sex last night to strategy and tactics against their unknown enemies. “Like the catfish had. We have to be facing a beast master.”
Gallmau ignored that gambit, his voice rising in concern. “It could be a little Bone Lord baby. All of those Noviodunam witches would try to kill it, and I’d have to fight them. That’s even more reason for us to have the wedding right away.”
“Tell him Sinan can’t make babies, just to shut him up.” Meri directed this comment at Valentina. Sinan would prefer the medica wasn’t distracted while she was doing magical things to his organs, and besides, Valentina wasn’t the necromancer expert here.
“I am the son of a venefica.” Sinan realized after the words came out that this wasn’t what Meri wanted to hear. “It’s not impossible, only unlikely. Let’s talk about the beast master instead.”
“Sinan’s mother is a sex demon.” Gallmau sounded vindicated. “Which means he’s half sex-demon and could be the father.”
“You should know all about that, since you were fucking our new sex demon friend through most of the night.”
Valentina broke in before Meri could escalate things further. “I’m close to finishing up my work. Sinan, tell us what you know about beast masters.”
“They have an affinity for Touched animals and can use them against their enemies, even at a distance.” Sinan thought back to the two attacks with grudging admiration for their unknown enemy’s skills.
“The one we’re facing must be powerful, if he can control a catfish underwater and an Azhdarchid in the skies. ”
“Jacques and I were attacked with water-enhanced weapons, so that also tells us something.” Valentina shifted to direct medicus healing as she talked, pressing her palm against Sinan’s ribs, the warmth of her skin soaking into his chest. His breaths eased, the awful air hunger he had been enduring dissipating.
“What, exactly, does that tell us?” Meri’s tone was sharp.
Valentina had hit upon a topic that shifted the focus of the conversation. They all knew there was an aquamage in Terra Amata, and a powerful one at that—Abarsam.
“Unlike beast magic, aquamancy is hardly a common affinity in necromancers.” Valentina spoke like an authority on the subject, which was annoying, even though she was correct.
“Not to mention that the men who attacked us looked like Shields of Thaschus. How does any of this make sense if we’re dealing with a single necromancer? ”
“It doesn’t.” Gallmau laid out a small feast of cheese, hard sausages, and more of the marzipan candies on top of his bedroll, making sure a lioness’s share of the food was close to Meri. “We’re facing a team of witches.”
Valentina gave a satisfied nod at Sinan’s chest and left to sit next to Gallmau and the food. Sinan propped himself up and took a gulp of air, waiting for the searing pain that no longer came. He accepted water and a sausage from Gallmau, finding himself to be both ravenous and thirsty.
“Do you think Abarsam is helping the necromancer who took Rixende?” Gallmau asked Sinan the question, but it was Meri who answered it, her eyes blazing in fury.
“The Grand Vizier would never work with a Bone Lord.” Meri came to Abarsam’s defense with a startling heat.
Sinan knew she had met the aquamage before, but he was surprised she felt so protective of any sorcerer, even one from her own country.
“ You’re working with one.” After Sinan pointed this out, he slid away from Meri, since injured or not, she was frightening when she was this angry. “Abarsam handled Jacques’s temper tantrums in the Synod meeting room easily enough.”
“The Grand Vizier is loyal to the Sultana and to Kush.” Meri was glaring daggers, but at Gallmau, not Sinan.
“He’d have no reason to abduct a princess of Soissons, and attacking Jacques makes no sense.
He wins no matter who finds Rixende. Xiaolian would have to reward any foreigner who risked his life and that of his son in her daughter’s rescue. ”
“We could be up against a group of necromancers, or however unlikely, mages working with a Bone Lord.” Valentina accepted some cheese from Gallmau, which made the prince flash one of his dazzling smiles in her direction.
Sinan had no idea how Valentina could not all but melt at the sight, but she barely seemed to notice.
“Could it be the Order of Katil?” Gallmau asked. “Cliona was one of them.”
“The Order could pull something like this off.” Sinan wanted this mess to come from the Noviodunam, but the evidence was damning that they were fighting a beast master, and at least one of the Order’s assassins had been involved in the plot.
Cliona had accepted a contract on Sinan’s life, and that couldn’t be a coincidence.
“They have the resources to hire sellswords who could look like Shields, and they have beast masters among them. But at a basic level they’re independent contractors who compete against one another for money.
They sometimes work in small groups on larger contracts, but they like to get in, kill someone, and get paid. ”
“The throne of Soissons has many enemies, domestic and abroad, who could have hired the Order.” Valentina directed this at Gallmau, making the point that Kush was not among them. “I also wouldn’t put it past some of the former benandanti to work with a necromancer if it fit their agenda.”