‘If I ran, would you need to use a crystal to catch me?’

It felt as though they had been scuffing through the long grass for hours, but Llew supposed it had more than likely only been one, if that. She was hungry. She hadn’t had breakfast.

‘No.’ One side of Braph’s mouth lifted. ‘I am Karan. You are merely Aenuk.’

‘Syaenuk.’

‘So, you know what you are. Very good.’

‘You tried to have me killed. Of course, I know!’

Braph said nothing.

‘It was you, wasn’t it? You tried to kill me.’

‘I believe I succeeded.’

‘How did you know Jonas wouldn’t kill me?’

Braph was silent.

‘What would you have done if he’d made it permanent?’

Braph pressed his lips tighter.

Llew gave up. ‘How far are we going?’

A chill wind blew, but whatever snowy peaks Turhmos had, they were too distant to rise above the horizon.

‘The closest town is a day’s walk. From there, it is a couple of days riding.’

‘You couldn’t have flown us a little closer?’

‘I took us as far as the crystal could carry us,’ he growled. ‘Do you know how huge Turhmos is?’ Llew shook her head. ‘And that’s the last piece of Orinia I had. You had better be worth it.’ He continued muttering, but the only words to reach Llew with any clarity were ‘father’ and ‘dilute’. Llew’s hand went to the hard shape in her pocket. Suddenly she stopped walking. As soon as he sensed her no longer beside him, Braph stopped too, and looked back to her.

‘You used to . . . own my mother?’ She had believed her mother dead for all these years and had made peace with that. But now she was having visions of her mother in this man’s cage, of him coming to drain her blood once a day, or week, and leaving her in the dark. Her sorrow was colored by guilt for the times she’d cursed her mother if she were still alive. It had never occurred to Llew that her mother might have been kept against her will.

Braph walked back, turned her and pushed her onward. ‘It’s a long way,’ he said. ‘I didn’t own her. We loved one another.’

Her mother loving this man? She couldn’t believe it; he clearly did.

‘But you kidnapped her.’ She still remembered the day, even twelve years later, waiting for her mother to return from the store. Her father thought she might have been captured by the Quaven authorities, and he kept Llew indoors for several days before bundling her up and leaving Quaver forever. Quaver had no reason to keep an Aenuk alive. But there had been no rumors, no stories of an Aenuk in Quaver, and as Llew grew that lack had grown in significance, and she had clung to it – her mother hadn’t been captured, she must have left.

‘I . . . I captured her to study, yes. But it grew into more than that.’

‘She was married. And had a child!’ She spun to face him again, but he grabbed her arm roughly, turning her and propelling her forward with a shove.

‘Move!’ Llew tried to pull her arm free, but his grip was too strong. ‘You’re beginning to fray my nerves, girl. Don’t forget that I have been working with Aenuks and Syaenuks for half my life. I know how to hurt you in extremely interesting ways.’

Llew mentally cringed. She didn’t know the full extent of Braph’s powers, but his arrogance both infuriated and intimidated her.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked as they trudged on.

Braph didn’t answer immediately, and when she looked at him, he was struggling to control his emotions.

‘She was taken from me,’ he said.

‘By who?’

‘Turhmos.’

‘She’s still alive?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘You want her back, don’t you? Is that why you came for me?’

‘Initially. I was on my way to find you when you made quite a splash on the telegraph with that rather public reincarnation in Cheer.’

‘I didn’t exactly have a choice . . .’

‘That’s beside the point. Once that news was flying down the wires, I knew Turhmos would make their move. And Turhmos doesn’t know how to take care of their Aenuks like I do. It’s just lucky for you they had no idea what they were looking for.’

There it was. He was talking about her like she was an animal, a possession, again. When would people stop doing that? ‘Lucky for me I met your brother first.’

‘Perhaps.’ He looked at her, reading her. ‘Do you know how close he came to killing you in Stelt?’

A familiar chill settled on Llew. ‘No.’

‘He thought about it. I was watching. While you lay dying, he put this blade to your back. If he’d decided to do it, I would have tried to stop him, but I’ve yet to find out if I could have succeeded.’

‘But he didn’t.’ The thought brought a small smile to her lips. The breeze picked up and Llew shivered, hugging herself. She was only wearing her shirt and the cold cut right through her. She turned to Braph. He wasn’t looking at her, and walked with his head down. With his whiskers growing again, he looked so like Jonas had when they’d been traveling the length of Aghacia: the same straight profile and strong brow over expressive brown eyes.

‘Why do you need my blood? You must have Aenuk blood already. What do you plan to do with mine?’

Now Braph looked at her. ‘I must kill him,’ he said. ‘It is too great a risk for me to attempt it without Syaenuk blood. I’ve seen him move. I’ve seen him fight. I’m strong and fast, and with my magic I could do things to him he would have no defense against. But I don’t know if I could do it for long enough to bring him down.’

‘Why must you kill him?’

‘To get Orinia back.’ He half smiled at her and Llew saw love for her mother in his eyes. Then he turned his head away, lazily observing the empty expanse around them. ‘And to know that I could.’

‘Please, sit. Eat some breakfast.’ Lord Tovias beckoned Jonas to join them. ‘You won’t get far on an empty stomach. And it’ll give my kitchen time to prepare rations for your journey.’

Eager as Jonas was to get going, Gaemil was right. If he didn’t eat, he would need to stop sooner to find something, and it would only hold them up. If he ate now, he could ride all day without stopping. They might even make the Turhmos border. It was frustrating: Braph and Llew had flown and for all Jonas knew they could be halfway to Turhmos already.

Jonas nodded. He sat at the table and started filling a bowl, while Lord Tovias motioned to one of the servants to carry out his orders.

Jonas could feel Anya staring at him.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll find her,’ he said and filled his mouth with fruit and cooling oatmeal as he looked at the girl, his hair curtaining his face. She relaxed at his calm tone; he wished he felt the same. Just how far could Braph fly? Could it be possible they were over the border already? And, if so, what sort of trail would there be to follow? No-one would have seen them so there would be no-one to ask. He wondered how well known Braph’s home was. But he suspected Braph wasn’t especially popular in Turhmos or else he would have been traveling with the soldiers and Llew would have been in real trouble a lot sooner.

He sent Cassidy and Alvaro to grab what they needed for the mission, shoveled the rest of his breakfast into his mouth, then, with thanks to his host and a nod to Aris, he gathered the supplies from the kitchen, and took some clothing from his room. Then he headed back to the stable. Hisham waited with five horses saddled and ready to go.

‘Got to stay optimistic that we’ll find this girl of yours.’ Hisham grinned and nodded at Llew’s gold and white mount, saddled. Jonas smiled back.

He’d known Hisham since they were sixteen, the usual age for recruits, usually Kara, with obvious promise in the Quaven army. They weren’t expected to go to battle that young, but Jonas had been in the army two years by then and Hisham was eager. They fought alongside each other for five years, until Jonas’s family had been killed and Aris forbade Jonas’s return to the Turhmos border.

The day Jonas had returned to his home in flames and the news that his pregnant wife was dead had seemed to him like the end of the world. He might have only been married a little over a year, and it might have been arranged, but he had grown to love Kierra. She was a beautiful woman, who seemed to glow with life when she became pregnant. She loved him. Yes, he had continued to do Aris’s bidding, but he always returned to her arms.

As soon as Aris returned the knife to him, Jonas had sprinted into Turhmos and taken his revenge on many, many Aenuks before he even stopped to think what the knife back in his hands meant: that his brother was to blame. Now Turhmos wanted him dead even more than before, and they had a case to have him prosecuted for, and found guilty of, murder. Aris and other Quaven authorities had managed to avoid retaliation against Quaver itself – most likely due to the large dent in Turhmos’s Aenuk ranks – but Jonas was still a wanted man. He was a little surprised Aris was letting him go, but his commander wanted Llew out of Braph’s and Turhmos’s hands as much as Jonas did, if for different reasons. The simple fact was that if Turhmos had her, it wouldn’t be long before they would move on Quaver and crush it once and for all. And Jonas was the only way to get her back without sending a whole army after her.

Cassidy and Alvaro joined them, along with a teary-eyed Anya, who gave them each a hug and pleaded with them to be safe and to bring her friend back. A stoic Aris stood aside; arms folded.

They left the estate without fanfare and rode well into the night, pushing the horses as fast and far as they could and making only the briefest stops on the way.

‘You shouldn’t have done it.’ Alvaro broke the uneasy silence over a late meal before they camped for the night. The tension had been there all day, but with a common goal it hadn’t been an issue while they rode. ‘You shouldn’t have touched Llew.’

‘Shut up, Al. It’s got nothin’ to do with you.’

‘Nothing to do with me? You knew I liked her. She went to the ball with me.’

‘Let it go, Al,’ Cassidy said, putting a hand on his cousin’s arm.

‘If you hadn’t done it, Llew wouldn’t have had to go after you. She would still be in Brurun.’

‘If I hadn’t been with her, Braph likely would’ve taken her last night and we’d be even further behind.’ Jonas was struggling to keep his temper under control. ‘If she’d been with you, she’d still be gone, and you’d be dead.’

Alvaro glared at him across the low flames of their fire, looking like he wanted to fight. Jonas raised his eyebrows and Alvaro looked away. Sometimes it was frustrating being known to be so strong; it meant fewer chances to vent anger than he might have liked.

‘What will you do if Aris finds a Syakaran woman for you to marry? He don’t condone you and her, anyway.’

Jonas filled his mouth with tough jerky and set about chewing it into something he could swallow, all the while leveling a flat look at Alvaro until Alvaro finally turned away again. They finished their rations in silence, the tension easing little despite Cassidy and Hisham’s efforts.

Knowing they still had at least a half-day’s ride to the Turhmos border did nothing to ease Jonas to sleep. If he were traveling alone, on foot, he could have made the border by now. But once he was in Turhmos, he was almost entirely useless on his own. He couldn’t risk asking about his brother or Llew, he was simply too well known and too despised. If he could have brought Cassidy without Alvaro, the trip would have been more pleasant. There was one benefit to having Alvaro along: he wanted to find Llew as much as Jonas did.

‘We stop here for the night.’

Llew let herself fall to the ground, exhausted. They had walked all day and well into the night, and the landscape hadn’t changed. They were still in the middle of a huge plain where there was no shelter from the freezing breeze that whipped up periodically.

‘Lie down.’

Confused, she did as she was told. Braph lay behind her and, lining his body up with hers, he pulled her tight against his chest and stretched his leather coat as far over her as he could – which wasn’t much as it was already a tight fit.

Part of Llew wanted to pull away, but he was warm, and she didn’t have enough clothing to survive the night. The thought formed that if she froze to death and healed off Braph, she would be free. But he was fully clothed, and even his hands were gloved in leather. With what she knew of her power, she would more likely draw power from the ground around her, and then she would still be in his custody and would still be cold. And if she died more than once, where would the next ghi come from? Or from whom? It wasn’t a pleasant idea, so she let herself snuggle against his warmth. His breathing soon suggested he was asleep. Shivering, Llew pressed her freezing hands between her thighs and tried to relax. Her stomach grumbled, protesting its emptiness; her lips tingled, dry. She licked them, but the relief was only temporary.

The night was long, and when they woke the plain was hidden under a low haze. Ice crystals cracked as each blade of grass bent underfoot. Llew’s body had little interest in moving, but Braph pushed her on. He seemed unfazed by his own hunger and thirst, although it took a while for his voice to lose its dry morning rasp. They walked in silence for several hours, the hiss of wind-blown tussock a constant presence. Eventually Llew felt the need to break the silence.

‘So, what’s a Quaven boy doing performing magic in Turhmos?’

‘You know of the difficulties between the countries?’

‘Some.’

‘And you know of Kara and Aenuks, of course.’

Llew nodded.

‘Do you know what it is like to grow up in the shadow of a brother, a younger brother, who is revered by your entire country?’

Llew shook her head. ‘This . . .’ she said, ‘This is all because of Jonas?’

‘Not just Jonas. Aris. All of them. Did you know Aris brought Jonas’s parents together?’

Llew shook her head again.

‘Jonas was his little project. The only two Syakara known at the time. Obviously, he got lucky since, finding Jonas a wife. Aris’s chance to guarantee another generation. Oh, Jonas was his darling. He began Jonas’s training when he was a child, until war took him off the scene for several years. That’s how he missed claiming Jonas when his mother and our father were killed. We were placed with relatives, together at first, but none were really prepared to take on two Karan boys. Eventually, we were split up and I guess Aris re-claimed Jonas sometime.’

‘I think he was fourteen . . .’ Llew offered, trying to remember what Jonas had said of his life. Not much prior to Aris locating him and he had avoided talking about Braph at all.

‘Well, when I was fourteen I found myself in the perfect situation as far as I was concerned. A cousin gave me a roof over my head and left me to my own devices.’ He smiled to himself. ‘You see? I’m not just a magician. I’m the first. I invented the technology.’

‘You hated your brother so much?’

Braph’s face darkened. ‘It wasn’t about him. Not everything is about Jonas.’

It sure sounded like it was.

‘How did you . . . invent it?’ She sought to keep him talking, it beat walking in silence.

‘I found your mother when I was about sixteen. I had the knife, which helped. I wanted to study Aenuks, to learn how to defeat them, and it was by accident that I discovered the power of her blood. I tried to sell the idea to Quaver, but no one was interested. That’s how much Quaver hates what your kind does. They won’t even use it for their own gain.’ He paused. ‘Turhmos on the other hand . . .’ The familiar smirk returned and disappeared again in a moment. ‘Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the same results with other Aenuks. I thought it was just that I was Karan. But it wasn’t long before we worked out what your mother was. Is.’ A faraway look came to his eyes, then he gave a small nod, as if convincing himself of Llew’s mother’s continued well-being. ‘Of course, they wouldn’t let me keep her, even though they’ll never get the same results. Karan,’ he said, pointing to himself and giving a smile. Llew didn’t smile back. He didn’t need to keep reminding her what he was. But, she supposed, after growing up being compared to Jonas, he had to keep reminding himself he was special.

‘So, you see,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing personal, at all. It is business. Just business.’ Something flitted across his face; something so similar to Jonas’s customary expression: guilt.

‘Killing his wife, pregnant with his child, was personal.’

‘It’s not as though he doesn’t have others.’

Llew bit down on her anger. He was trying to provoke her, and he was succeeding. Of course, it only made her more angry to feel herself react. Why should it bother her that Jonas was just a man like every other man?

‘But he loved her. And he already loved that child. And you took them from him.’ Braph was suddenly expressionless. Llew watched him for a moment and realization dawned. ‘You didn’t intend to, did you? You went to fight him. You went to fight him, and he wasn’t there.’

‘I think it would be wise if you stopped talking now,’ Braph warned.

Llew was silent. It was time to return to planning an escape. She didn’t think she could do anything while she and Braph were in the middle of nowhere; he had superior speed even without the enhancement of his magic. But she had spent years sneaking through the streets of Cheer and had honed her skills not just in pickpocketing, but in making speedy getaways. She was almost certain that once they arrived back among civilization, she would be able to make a break for it.

‘Are there any free Aenuks?’

‘No.’

That meant that if she healed while on the run in Turhmos, she might as well paint herself red, pass round maps and wait for Turhmos to find her. Oh, and be ready to bear children for any number of unknown Aenuks. Her eyes settled on Braph’s jacket at about waist height, beneath which Jonas’s knife was tied.

The sparrow hopped in close for the crumb before flitting away again, head tilting this way and that, assessing the risk Jonas posed: far more than any other human physically, yet he wouldn’t hurt it. He pulled off another tuft of bread and threw it at the bird’s feet. It fluttered into the air for a few seconds, landed long enough to catch the bread with its beak and danced away again with its prize.

Jonas smiled.

‘Explain it to me,’ Hisham said, pulling Jonas’s attention from the bird.

Having crossed the Brurun-Turhmos border about mid-morning – a quiet affair, as most of Turhmos’s population lived toward the south-east of the country, avoiding civilian casualties when Quaver and Turhmos clashed – they ate their lunch in a clearing off the road. Jonas was almost surprised to find lush green grass within Turhmos’s borders. He had always assumed it would have been killed off by Aenuks. But grass didn’t take long to grow, and it had been months since Turhmos and Quaver had last faced each other in battle.

‘Why are we in Turhmos trying to rescue an Aenuk?’

Jonas couldn’t help smiling. Less than a month ago, he would have thought he was crazy, too. ‘What did they tell you?’

‘Not much. Only that you’d found trouble and needed support. I only guessed what she was when Braph turned up. Still working for Turhmos, is he?’

‘He was alone on Aghacia. I think he’s workin’ for himself.’

‘So . . .’ Hisham pulled a piece of bread from his bun and stuck it in his mouth. He was trying to act relaxed, but the reason for their mission had clearly been bothering him. ‘This Aenuk . . . that you, the last known Syakaran, slept with . . .’

Alvaro shifted uncomfortably at the reminder, though Jonas doubted he’d been thinking of much else for the past couple of days.

‘You’re still baffling me,’ Hisham said. ‘Explain it to me. Why are we here?’

‘She’s Syaenuk.’

‘Syaenuk,’ Hisham repeated quietly. ‘You mean— Shit, man. She could kill you.’ He pulled off another bite of bread but didn’t lift it to his mouth; instead, he waved it in front of Jonas. ‘If that—’ He stilled his hand, pointing to Jonas’s jaw ‘—had been her, you’d be dead.’

‘I know,’ said Jonas, but he still couldn’t fully suppress his smile. He ignored Cassidy’s rolling eyes. ‘But she’s a girl who survived on the streets somethin’ like six years. She’s a sneak, a pickpocket. Once she knew what she was and what I was, she could’ve taken her chances on her own. But she didn’t. She chose to go with a man who could kill her rather than risk fallin’ into the wrong hands. That says somethin’.’

‘I guess,’ Hisham said, less than convinced.

‘But I let her down. And now Braph’s got her.’

‘Damn right you did!’

Jonas didn’t look at Alvaro.

‘Not just her. That damn knife, too.’

‘I know. But Braph doesn’t want her dead, does he? He won’t use it.’

‘But she could use it on herself. You said yourself she’d die before letting Braph or Turhmos use her.’

Alvaro was right. She’d asked Jonas if he would be willing to kill her if she needed him to. He hadn’t answered because he didn’t know. But Llew was strong, capable of doing what needed doing. He didn’t know if that would extend to her taking her own life before allowing Braph or Turhmos to use her. If either of them succeeded, he would come up with a plan to deal with it. But if Llew died . . .

‘Speaking of knives, where’s yours?’ he asked Hisham. A select few Kara were trained in the use of the Syakaran knives, since Syakaran numbers were so small. Aenuks could be successfully killed without the knives, as could a Syaenuk, if they could be moved away from other living things – the center of a road, or indoors, for long enough. There was a time limit on when life could be recovered. But there was always the risk that an Aenuk could be brought back if enough healthy Aenuks were around. Quaven knife-wielders were meant to ensure it wouldn’t happen, but carrying the knives was extremely dangerous. If used on an Aenuk still physically fit enough to lash out, then that knife wound became a sinkhole for the attacker’s own jin; that jin drained, though it could not be used by the Aenuk. If the wound wasn’t fatal, the Aenuk could go on to kill with a mere touch.

‘Na, man. They locked them all up till there’s another war. Don’t want anyone doin’ what you did.’

‘I heard about that,’ said Cassidy. ‘Is it true you killed thirty or forty Aenuks single-handedly?’

‘Somethin’ like that.’ Jonas hadn’t been counting. All Aenuks were a part of the Turhmos army, so it wasn’t a difficult task to find a large number of them together. Jonas had been fast enough to get a knife in most of them before they knew what was going on and could retaliate. It had been reckless, though, and he’d come closer than ever to being killed. He brushed the knuckles of his right hand across the scar under his jaw.

On top of the danger involved in going in solo, he’d since realized that those Aenuks he’d killed had nothing to do with the deaths of his wife and unborn child. He’d stooped to the same level as the Aenuks who killed his parents; he’d killed away from the battlefields. He’d murdered.

The sparrow hopped in closer and chirped. Demanding bread now, was it? Jonas hadn’t eaten his last bite and supposed that subconsciously he’d been keeping it for the creature. He tossed the chunk. The sparrow dived in and, bread in beak, fluttered from sight. Jonas scowled after it, lips pressed together. Ungrateful bastard.