Lupi 04 - Night Season

choice?”
    â€œHe’s lupus, so I thought…it seemed that if I could hold his thoughts together, keep him there a little longer, his magic would finish healing him.” Now she twisted to look at him. “I didn’t do it by myself.”
    â€œYou asked me for power. I gave it to you.”
    That’s what she’d thought—though she hadn’t asked out loud. Her own well had emptied too quickly, before the lupus’s body had finished purging itself of the poison.
    She’d been deeply in fugue. She’d touched Nathan’s thoughts with one of hers—just a touch, nothing that would stay trapped in his thoughts and confuse or influence him. She’d asked, yes. And power had flooded into her.
    Kai chewed on her lip. “You didn’t know what I was doing. Shit, I didn’t know what I was doing. I could have hurt you, taken too much—”
    â€œI will always give you power if you ask. You wouldn’t ask for evil reasons. For unwise ones, perhaps, but not evil.”
    â€œIt was a lot of power.”
    Nathan smiled, the glint in his eyes pure amusement. Sometimes his sense of humor escaped her. “I have a lot of power, Kai. Better that you asked me than Dell. Her magic is strong, but shaped for her own use. And she doesn’t replenish it as readily as I do mine.”
    It hadn’t even occurred to her that she could draw from Dell. “I have so much to learn!”
    â€œYou are learning.” He paused. “I’m glad the sorcerer lives. I think they may need him.”
    â€œYou still think…”
    â€œOh, yes.” He was certain as only one of his kind could be. “They are the ones my queen spoke of. They will find the medallion. Then, if necessary, we will take it from them.”

TWENTY-FOUR
    T HE staterooms straddled the middle of the barge, with four on one side of the hall, three and a bathroom on the other side. Cynna followed the two guards who were carrying Cullen to her stateroom. She was chilly. Her coat and boots, contaminated by poison, were still on the deck. Her father had offered to scrub them with the salt and ash that neutralized the poison. He’d been upset, asking her over and over if she was okay, and seemed glad to have something to do to help.
    One of the guard would show him how after their ceremony. They weren’t as callous as it had seemed when they tipped their dead into the river. Not sentimental about bodies, obviously, but they mourned their dead.
    Gan was right behind her. “I don’t know why Tash is so mad. I checked out the tritons, didn’t I? Even though it’s very dangerous in the river, I did it.”
    After Tash threw her in. “You were brave. Did you catch any fishies while you were there?”
    â€œOnly one. And the tritons were dead, like I figured, so what was the point?”
    The slug-men—obab, they were called—had taken out the tritons first. No one was sure how they’d pulled that off. Tritons meshed minds with their mounts, but were also able to sense life directly, making them hard to sneak up on. Somehow the obab had managed it, leaving the barge tethered to riderless sea oxen.
    Cynna supposed they were lucky the obab hadn’t killed the sea oxen, too. Huey—turned out he was the barge’s captain—had sent one of the two remaining tritons to ride the sea ox in turn, keeping them calm while the barge was at anchor.
    â€œThe point,” Cynna said, “was that the tritons’ bodies had to be released from their harnesses. You’re immune to the poison since you’re not fully converted, so—”
    â€œThat’s what they say.” Gan glowered. “But they can lie.”
    â€œYou think the gnomes lied about your immunity? You’re not dead, so—hey, careful!” she snapped at the two guard, neither human, who were maneuvering Cullen’s stretcher through the narrow doorway. They’d nearly spilled him.
    â€œOkay, they were right about the poison, but they could lie if they wanted to. Bilbo doesn’t like me. He wouldn’t care if I got killed.”
    Cynna didn’t know what had Gan’s tail in a twist. At the moment she’d didn’t much care. She followed the guard with their sleeping burden into the tiny stateroom. Instead of a bed it had a padded, wraparound sofa-bench like the ones back at the Chancellery. Two sides were long enough for a