Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [134]
“Why?” I felt bewildered. “Were they trophies?”
“Trophies?” Erdene gave a forlorn laugh. “No. Oh, perhaps at first. But after Bao left…” She lifted her shoulders in a faint, weary shrug. “In a strange way, they were all I had to remember him by.” Reversing the dagger, she held it out to me hilt-first. “Take it. It’s yours, as surely as he was. I’ll bring the rest tomorrow.”
Warily, I eased my drawn bowstring and reached out to take the blade. I had not forgotten that Erdene had held a dagger to my throat and threatened to cut out my tongue during our only previous conversation, nor that she was quick and strong.
But she only smiled sadly and let go of the hilt. “Tomorrow, then?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll be camped along the river in the southern pastures. And if you’ve sworn falsely, I will kill you.”
With that, I unspun the twilight around her, leaving only myself cloaked in it.
Erdene blinked at the return of true darkness and my sudden absence. “Tomorrow,” she said to the seemingly empty air, an edge of defiance in her voice. “And you will see! I am no oath-breaker.”
I hoped it was true.
FORTY-SEVEN
Dawn came, breaking golden over the steppe.
It did not bring a Tatar princess with it.
I waited restlessly, torn between staying and going. I’d slept poorly, anxious that I’d made a bad decision once more, wishing I had pressed Erdene harder to tell me about this mysterious Falconer fellow.
Why, oh why, had I trusted her?
I was an idiot. Oh, I could cloak myself in the twilight when I saw the Khan’s hunting-party come searching for me, and like as not I’d get away; but they would know I was there. They would pursue me. And sooner or later, I would have to sleep—and my campsite and I would be vulnerable.
I thought wistfully of home. I’d not had time to learn all the myriad possibilities that the gift of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself possessed, but I remembered that when my mother had taken me to attend the vigil at Clunderry, where we remembered Morwen’s folly and Berlik’s cruel sacrifice, there had been a celebration in a glade afterward, and the entire glade had been wrapped in the glimmering twilight.
It must have been a ward of some sort, for no one was minding it, no one was concentrating on holding the cloak in place. No, they had been reveling in the aftermath of the grave vigil, drinking uisghe, feasting, playing music, and dancing—a rare party for my folk, who seldom gathered in numbers.
I wondered how it was done.
My mother hadn’t taught it to me. Mayhap it was a gift she didn’t possess, or mayhap she hadn’t thought it necessary. I didn’t know.
Trying to distract myself as the sun inched higher above the horizon, I breathed through the cycle of the Five Styles and pondered the matter. I drew the twilight deep into my lungs, and flung it out as far as I could, encompassing the whole of my campsite, my neatly laden packs and gear.
Pushing myself, I extended it farther, encompassing my grazing horses, doing their best to find fodder in the abandoned pasture. To be sure, I had grown stronger; but I had to hold it, mindful and conscious. The moment I let my awareness lapse, it faded.
So how did they keep it in place?
Remembering Master Lo’s teaching, I forced myself to stop thinking about it, to stop worrying at it. To let my thoughts arise one by one, one thought giving birth to another. Once again, I sat cross-legged and breathed the Five Styles, accepting what thoughts came.
I would figure it out, or I would not.
Erdene would betray me, or she would not.
I would find Bao, or I would not.
A sense of calm settled over me; and strangely, it was Aleksei’s voice that nudged at my thoughts. A memory of a passage from the endless scriptures he had read to me merged with an image in my mind, an image of a compass rose etched on a map, the