Drawing on it, Solène focussed her thoughts again, willing Leverre’s body to heal itself. He groaned in pain and she flinched. Was she making it worse? Panic welled up in her gut. She closed her eyes and concentrated with every fibre of her being as she tried again. She could feel Leverre’s body tense, then relax. When she opened her eyes, Leverre’s eyes were empty, staring up at a sky they could not see, just like those of the men and women they had left to the crows on the road.
She rolled onto her back and let her mind drift. She hadn’t saved him. She might have made his last moments worse. She tried to cry, but had no more tears, no more strength. She struggled to breathe, as though her lungs were too exhausted to continue working. When her eyelids slid shut, she didn’t have the strength to open them again.
CHAPTER 41
Solène woke with a start. Confused, she had to fight through the muddle of her mind to recall where she was. The river. The bridge. Leverre’s body, next to her. She took some small comfort in the knowledge that the threat to Guillot had been stopped. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and she still felt exhausted, so she concluded she had not slept for long. The horses were eating grass close by, so she hauled herself up and into the saddle.
She cast a glance back at Leverre’s body, knowing she didn’t have the strength to bury him and still reach Trelain. She could send someone for him when she got there. She clung to the saddle with all her strength, and urged the horse on.
Guillot sat by the fire in the Black Drake, alone with his thoughts. He had not shared more than a few words with dal Sason since getting back from Villerauvais. The wait for Leverre to return was becoming unbearable. Guillot had even begun to consider loading himself up on brandy and riding back to the dragon’s cave for another try.
He supposed he was being a little unfair on dal Sason for keeping to his room. He had broken a few ribs himself, years before, and remembered only too well how painful it was. Even taking a breath was something you came to dread. The sooner the Order’s healers arrived, the better it would be. Too much time spent thinking about what he had still to do wasn’t good for his sanity or his courage. A fast horse could get him to Humberland in no more than a week, and the dragon could be someone else’s problem.
Thinking further, he supposed the entire western seaboard could fall within the dragon’s range—fleeing would only delay the inevitable. The best option was to ride for the coast and take a ship for anywhere in the east. There were legends of dragons in the northern mountains on the far side of the Middle Sea, though. He hadn’t heard the same said for the south, so that might work. He couldn’t abide Ostians, so it would have to be farther south. Auracia might work, but the independent city-states spent most of their time fighting one another, and when not doing that, teaming up to find someone else to fight. The chances of getting drawn into their squabbles were too great, so he crossed Auracia off his mental list.
That left Shandahar, famed for its seraglios … although someone had told him they frowned on alcohol, so that meant Shandahar was out also. The Spice Isles had pirates, but also a tasty sugar spirit called rhon, and clement weather for most of the year. He could learn to sail a brig, and make his life trading and adventuring between the isles. Still, pirates, and as romantic as it sounded, it was a dangerous part of the world. He crossed the Spice Isles off the list. Humberland in the north saw rain for two-thirds of the year, so he didn’t consider it for more than a moment. That left the far east, countries forgotten since the days of the Empire. He wouldn’t be able to speak the language, and was too old to learn new things, so that was off the list too.
That left Jahar or Darvaros. Jahar was filled with hot jungles, and Darvaros, arid plains. Neither particularly took his fancy. No, he was destined to be in Mirabaya, and if he wished to enjoy a long and content life here, he would have to deal with the dragon. He had just turned his mind back to that problem when the door opened, sending a blast of cool, fresh air through the taproom.
“Guillot?”
He turned, startled by the use of his name. Solène walked toward him, looking exhausted and wearing cream clothes liberally splattered with blood.
“Solène? What are you doing here? Are you all right? Did the Prince Bishop send you? Where’s Leverre?”
“Hold on,” she said. “Let me sit and catch my breath. I’ve been riding hard all day.”
She slumped into the chair opposite him and he thought she was about to pass out. He waved to the barkeep, who brought over a carafe of water and a couple of glasses. Guillot filled one and pushed it over to Solène. She drained it, then nodded to the empty glass. He refilled it, wishing he could find that level of satisfaction in the tasteless liquid.
“Leverre was with me, but he’s dead,” she said between gulps. “The Prince Bishop sent men to kill you. We chased them down and stopped them, but they killed Leverre.”
Guillot arched an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “I know Amaury doesn’t like me—rest assured I’ve little love for him myself—but try to have me killed?”
She nodded. “It’s a long story. Complicated, too, but the gist of it is he was going to have you killed, blame it on the dragon, then use your failure to give the people a reason to welcome the Order and its mages with open arms.”
“All right, I can sort of see how that makes sense,” Guillot said, still trying to digest the news. “You stopped the assassins though?”
“We did,” she said, and let out a series of great, wracking sobs. “I killed three people. I used magic to do it.”
Guillot leaned forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. “If they were on their way to murder me, it was the right thing to do. We live in a world where sometimes people need killing. It’s never easy, and it never feels good—at least, it shouldn’t—but sometimes it needs to be done.”
“I know,” she said. “I … I just had no idea how it would happen. The way I did it, I mean. It was horrible. So horrible. You can’t imagine.”
He gave her a wry smile, thinking back to a day many years before, and a bridge filled with men. He didn’t have to imagine—he simply remembered.
She did her best to stifle her tears.
“The horror of it will fade with time,” Guillot said. “I promise you that.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I never want to have to do anything like that again. I’ll never use magic to kill again. Never.”
“There are things worth killing for. You saved my life by doing what you did, and I’m grateful to you. If you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll never have to kill again, but now you know what it’s like, and that you can if you have to. Never say never.”
She shrugged. “Where’s Nicholas?”
“He’s up in his room, licking his wounds,” Guillot said. “He got knocked about pretty badly by the dragon.”
“Leverre said he broke some ribs?”
“Three at least, I’d say,” Guillot said. “Is there anything you can do for him? Have they taught you how to heal? His condition has worsened and I’m starting to worry about him.”
She shook her head. “People are complicated things. It’s easy to make a mess of it if you don’t know what you’re doing. I might be able to ease his pain a little, but I need some rest first. An hour should do.”