‘Doesn’t feel like much of a win.’
From fifty feet below, Ji-yeong glanced up at the two of us, then walked across towards where Vihaela had fallen. ‘I mean, we did just beat Richard’s entire force,’ Luna said. ‘Yes, people died, but it sounds as though if you hadn’t been there we would have lost a lot more. Even Keepers that I thought hated you were admitting it. I know you had to kill that adept, but I’m really glad you convinced the rest to surrender.’
In the courtyard below, Ji-yeong reached Vihaela’s body and stopped. ‘It’s not about the adept,’ I said.
‘Then what is it?’
‘I killed Ilmarin,’ I said. It was hard to say it, but Luna was maybe the only one left in the shadow realm that I could talk to. ‘Got him killed, I mean, but it comes to the same thing.’
‘Ilmarin’s dead?’
I pointed. ‘Over there, on that rooftop. Last seconds of the battle with Vihaela. I saw her getting away, and Ilmarin was the only one in position to stop her. I knew if he did, there was maybe a seventy, eighty per cent chance she’d kill him. I ordered him to do it anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if I hadn’t, we’d have lost her,’ I said with a sigh. ‘She was just too good. If I’d played it safe, Vihaela would have made it into the mausoleum, and once she was out of sight she’d have used her mist cloak and we wouldn’t have been able to track her. Probably. But the truth is, that’s just a guess. Maybe once she was inside she wouldn’t have been able to find a way out, and we’d have been able to trap her. Maybe she’d have decided to do what Richard did and just break off and disappear. I wasn’t willing to take the chance and so I rolled the dice and they came up wrong, and Ilmarin’s dead.’ I looked at Luna. ‘Do you think I was right?’
‘. . . I don’t know.’
We sat in silence for a little while. ‘Ilmarin was one of the witnesses from my apprenticeship ceremony,’ Luna said eventually.
‘He was, wasn’t he?’ I said. It had been six years ago. ‘You know, when I found out about Nimbus’s plan this morning, I was furious. I was so outraged that he was going to sacrifice those men to buy time. But I just did pretty much the same thing. I knew what was going to happen when I gave Ilmarin that order, and I still did it. He was one of the only Keepers from the Order of the Star who always treated us decently, and now he’s dead because of my decision.’
Below us, Ji-yeong was still looking down at Vihaela’s body. ‘I’m still thinking about that ceremony,’ Luna said. ‘You remember who was there?’ She began ticking people off on her fingers. ‘Talisid swore me in; Anne was my second; Ilmarin was the other witness; Sonder was there too; and we all went to Arachne’s afterwards. Now Sonder’s dead, Ilmarin’s dead, Arachne’s gone, Talisid tried to kill you last week, and Anne . . .’ Luna tailed off, a sad look on her face. ‘We’ve lost so much.’
The simple way that she said it hurt. I wished I could tell her that the worst was over.
I looked away from Luna, down at the courtyard. ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘I’m not cold enough to keep doing this.’
Luna reached out, her curse pulling back, and put her hand on my shoulder. She left it there a few seconds before taking it away again, letting her curse flow back out to her fingers. We sat together in silence for another minute or so.
At last, Luna got to her feet. ‘I’ll tell them you’ll be there soon,’ she said, then hesitated. ‘Alex? About whether you were right . . . I still don’t know. But for what it’s worth . . . these decisions, about who lives and who dies? I’m glad you’re the one making them, and not Nimbus or Talisid. And not me.’
Luna walked away. The disposal team at the far end of the courtyard was bagging up the body of the soldier Vihaela had decapitated. As for Ji-yeong, she hadn’t moved.
I picked up the ring and lattice, then pushed off the roof and let myself float down to the courtyard below.
I landed a little way from Ji-yeong. She glanced over, then went back to staring down at Vihaela’s body. I walked to her side.
‘Did you know her?’ I asked when the Korean girl stayed quiet.
Ji-yeong shook her head.
‘But?’
‘I knew about her,’ Ji-yeong said. ‘She was a legend. When we’d talk about the most powerful death mages and life mages, we’d argue about numbers two and three, but never about number one.’
‘Did you want to be like her?’
Ji-yeong hesitated. ‘I don’t think so?’ she said at last. ‘But she was the strongest.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘She might have been the best battle mage I’ve ever known.’ I nodded down at the body. ‘You’ll end up like that some day.’
Ji-yeong looked up, startled.
‘The only way to be as strong as her, and as feared as her, is to walk the same path she did,’ I told Ji-yeong. ‘That’s where it ends. Anything else you need here?’
‘. . . No.’
I nodded and turned away. Ji-yeong took a last look down at Vihaela, then as I kept walking she abandoned the body and followed me.
17
After the battle came clean-up. Soldiers cleared away the bodies while medics and members of the healer corps tended to the wounded. Richard’s surviving adepts were searched and disarmed, then put under guard.
‘That’s the plan,’ I said. ‘Thoughts?’
Landis, Rain and I were back at the projection table with half a dozen of the more senior Keepers. The rest were out supervising the clean-up work and standing guard; a few of Richard’s mages were still at large, not to mention the jinn. The projection table was showing a close-up of the keep at the centre of the castle. Four white diamonds within the corners marked the ward anchor points we’d failed to destroy this morning.
‘Well, Compass, it’s your call,’ Landis said. ‘How close do you need to be to those wards?’
‘Two hundred feet would be nice,’ Compass said. ‘I can manage three, but the closer the better.’
Rain glanced down at the projection. ‘So . . . ?’
‘Here,’ I said, pointing to an L-shaped building off the keep’s south-east corner. ‘Two hundred and twenty feet at the closest point. If we can’t make it that far, second best building is the one to the south-west.’
‘South approach, then,’ Landis said.
I nodded. ‘Start from the courtyard, sweep north. I don’t see much point trying anything fancy. We need to secure the area and that means eliminating everything in our path.’
‘What are we looking at?’ Rain asked.
‘Jann and shaitan,’ I said. ‘They’ve got a skirmish line out to here, and once we hit it they’ll reinforce fast. Main problem is going to be the three ifrit. Sagash, Caldera and Aether.’ I touched my finger to a tall, ornate building to the south of the keep. It was huge, more than half the height of the keep itself, and loomed over the southern section of the castle. ‘If I had to guess, they’ll occupy the cathedral. It’s got an elevated view over the whole southern approach.’
Landis nodded. ‘We’ll have to take it. Barrayar’s ifrit?’
‘Hasn’t been re-summoned, at least not yet.’
‘And the marids?’ Rain asked.
It was the big question. ‘I don’t think they’re leaving the keep.’
‘Heard that before,’ Tobias observed.
‘I know,’ I said with a nod. ‘And I know last time they caught us by surprise when they did. But so far – so far – I can’t see any futures in which Variam or Anne’s marids go outside the keep walls. I think the sultan prefers to use lesser jinn whenever it can. As far as it’s concerned, jann, shaitan, even ifrits are all expendable. It loses any, it can just re-summon them. Losing Anne or Variam is another story. I have the feeling it won’t deploy them unless it feels under threat.’