Taniel touched his fingers to the tender swelling on his face from the beatings given to him by Ket’s gendarmes. “I’ll keep it as a reminder.”
“I ask,” Mihali said, standing up, “that you consider my request. In exchange, I have a gift – freely given.”
Taniel was wary of any gift given by a god. After all, nothing was free. “What?”
Mihali removed a handkerchief and a knife from his pocket. He pressed one thumb against his knife, then into the handkerchief for a moment, and then handed it to Ka-poel.
His blood. The blood of a god. Taniel felt his heart beat a little faster. What could Ka-poel do with this? Could she control Mihali? Kill him?
Ka-poel tucked the handkerchief silently into her satchel, her face unreadable.
Mihali stepped away from them both and busied himself putting the remaining cornbread and eggs on a tin plate, which he handed to Ka-poel. He lifted his empty platter and gave a bow. “Please,” he said, “consider my request – my plea – for help.” He bowed low and then left.
Taniel took a shaky breath and looked down, only just realizing that he still held the letter regarding his house arrest. He was to be escorted to Adopest early in the morning. They’d assigned him eight provosts – four from the Wings of Adom, four from the Adran army.
There would be no fighting the Kez or killing their gods for Taniel.
Ka-poel reached out and touched Taniel’s chest. She thumped him several times above the heart.
“What?”
She pointed to him and then spread her hands, questioning. Then back at him.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, girl,” he said, trying to quell his frustration.
She indicated his heart again and pointed emphatically.
“What do I want?”
A nod.
Taniel took a deep breath. “I want to kill something right now. I’m furious. I should be out there fighting. I was born to fight – born to protect Adro.”
She pointed at him again, then at the floor. What do you want now?
“I want to protect you.”
Ka-poel smiled then, and Taniel felt his heart jump. She leaned toward him and pressed her lips to his.
“I’m going after Kresimir’s blood,” Taniel said.
Mihali paused over an immense pot of soup, the ladle halfway to his lips.
“I see.”
“Ka-poel has agreed to subdue him, but she needs his blood. I’ll need help getting into the Kez camp.”
Mihali considered this for a few moments before taking a sip of his soup. “Mmm. That’s good. Needs a little more pepper, though.” He brought a jar of whole peppercorns from his apron and poured a measure into the palm of his hand. He ground his hands together, watching the pepper fall into the pot. He stirred the soup, then took another sip. “Perfect.”
“It can be hard to take you seriously sometimes,” Taniel said. “No. I misspoke. All of the time.”
Mihali chuckled, but Taniel hadn’t been making a joke.
“The Kez camp,” Taniel urged.
“I can conceal you so that you walk right through the Kez sentries,” Mihali said, moving to a wide iron grill in the middle of the cooking yard. He began flipping turkey legs with practiced speed.
Taniel ducked as he heard the sound of a shout behind him. A glance over his shoulder told him it wasn’t directed at him. Walking through the Adran camp was dangerous, even in civilian clothes with a tricorn hat pulled down to conceal his face. He was supposed to be under guard by the provosts right now.
“They won’t notice you here, either. Have a turkey leg.” Mihali picked up a leg with his tongs and handed it to Taniel.
“That looks hot.”
“Nonsense. A chef would never give a guest something that would burn them.”
Taniel took the turkey leg with some trepidation. The bone was only warm, despite having just come off the flames, and when he bit into it, juice ran down his unshaved chin. He didn’t speak until he was done eating. “How can you make me unseen?” Taniel asked. “Before, you had to ask Ka-poel’s permission to touch my mind.”
“I just did,” Mihali said.
Taniel froze in the midst of picking the last bits of flavor off the turkey leg. He looked around. “I don’t feel unseen.” He glanced down at the turkey bone. “Did you…”
“Yes,” Mihali said. “Doing any kind of constructive sorcery directly to the human body is one of the most difficult things a Privileged can accomplish. That’s why healers are so rare. I figured out about a thousand years ago that the easiest way to get a spell into a person was through their stomach.” Mihali picked up a turkey leg and took a bite. A sudden look of worry crossed his face. “Let’s have that be our secret, hmm?”
Taniel snorted. “I won’t tell on you.”
“Oh, thank you.” Mihali finished his turkey leg noisily and then lifted another off the grill. “Care to take one to Ka-poel?”
“Will it make her unseen? And if I’m unseen now, how will she see me? Or how are you seeing me?”
“I can see you because I’m a god. Ka-poel will be able to sense where you are, and the spell doesn’t muffle your voice.”
“If I sneeze?”
“Uh” – Mihali tapped the tongs against his apron, leaving a greasy stain – “Don’t. The spell does have its drawbacks. For instance, it is designed to drop as soon as you get close to Kresimir’s sphere of influence. It would backfire to have Kresimir sense my intrusion.”
Taniel looked at his hand. He certainly didn’t feel unseen. “How long did it take you to come up with this?”
“A few moments.”
“Really?”
Mihali raised an eyebrow. “We’re not called gods necessarily because we’re the most powerful Privileged – though that is an interpretation. We’re called gods because the things that regular mortals struggle for days, weeks, or months to accomplish take us only the effort of a thought.”
“Ah. Well, I’m going now.”
“Wait.” Mihali produced a deep pewter mug seemingly out of nowhere and crossed to his pot of soup. He ladled the mug full and set a lid on it. “Take this to Ka-poel. It’ll help her sleep while you’re gone.”
Taniel turned to go, when he thought better of it. “Adom – Mihali?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you protect her?”
“I feel after giving her my blood, that it is I who need protection,” Mihali said. He winked. “That girl is like a glass teapot filled with gunpowder. So fragile, but with such a power for destruction.” He straightened up and swung the ladle into a salute. Soup spattered on his apron. “No harm will come to her.”
“Thank you,” Taniel said. “Now I’m going to get some of your brother’s blood.”
Chapter 33
Tamas watched Olem rub down his horse as the camp settled in for the night. A low fire of brush and prairie twigs crackled in a stone ring in front of him. The sun still shone in the western sky, lighting the plateau with a brilliant hue of reds, oranges, and pinks.
Their second day on the plateau, and their supplies were already running low. They’d slaughtered thousands of Kez horses after the battle fourteen days before, but only been able to carry a limited amount. What little food they had needed to be rationed. A pound of meat per man per day was not much.
Tamas lifted his head at a sound carried on the wind. He waited a few seconds, then returned to gazing at the flames. Beside him, Olem was snapping twigs and feeding them into the fire.
His rangers still hadn’t found this mysterious Adran army, but there were plenty of signs of their passing. Stripped bean fields, burned farms. The dead and the dying, the old and the infirm of what was left of the farmers of the Northern Expanse. The plateau was already a dry, exhausted land. Whatever army had come through two weeks ago had killed everything living.