Chapter 224: Most Costly Lie

Safira understood what it was in an instant.

It was the thing he had always liked about her.

She did not ask where it came from; she did not stop to wonder who had thrown it; she saw the keys, and her eyes went to Huda.

In that same moment, she glanced at the Invaders around her, and ended them with a single swing of her hand, cutting the air and thus their necks.

That attack displayed a little more of her strength than she intended, but that didn’t matter to her, for those before deserve the most merciless deaths.

And yes, it was merciless, for not all died instantly.

Some, close enough to get hit but not cut by the air, had their body get mangled up, their bones crushed into each other.

That left them as easy pickings for the cohort.

They never stood a chance.

While they fell one after another, Safira ran back into the camp, crossing the distance with two steps.

Reaching the post, she dropped to her knees.

"Huda."

The girl lay curled at the end of her chain, shivering.

Her eyes were still on the place where the stranger had been, and she did not seem to hear.

"Huda, it’s me. Look at me."

Pink eyes slid towards her, slowly.

"It’s Safira."

A flicker of recognition crossed that ruined face.

It was brief, a single ray of light through a cracked shutter. Then it was gone, the darkness returning.

"He said it was fake..."

Huda’s voice was beyond hoarse.

"The head. He said... it was fake. Is it? Is it fake?"

Safira’s hands shook on the keys.

She had stood before a crowd and promised them that he was alive. Again and again that scene repeated. She had held it as a rope in her own hands and had not let go.

Now a hundred weeks of dread, packed into the space of four heartbeats, pressed against the back of her throat.

"I don’t know, but we should believe him."

She slid the key into the first cuff.

"Teacher said that he wouldn’t die."

It turned.

"He would never lie to us."

The cuff fell open with a heavy clunk, and the rune on it flared white and died.

A rush of warmth wept across Huda’s skin, and the girl’s whole body jerked.

Color seeped back into her face.

The second cuff came off.

The third.

The fourth.

Her wind woke.

It came up out of the ground, gathering in the dry riverbed from every direction.

Dust whirled.

Banners snapped on their poles.

Safira ducked her head and held the girl tight, and for one moment the whole camp was inside a spinning gray column.

"Not yet."

Safira said sharply.

"Huda, not yet. Keep it small; they’re listening."

The wind sulked and shrank.

It dropped back to a breath as Huda’s chest heaved.

She raised her hands, free of iron, and stared at them as if she had never seen them before.

Safira scooped her up.

"We’re leaving now!"

The shout easily carried over the riverbed, prompting the entire cohort to restructure.

It was the cleanest withdrawal Malik had ever watched.

The wagons on the road wheeled and started rolling, awnings flapping, mules braying.

Behind them, in the haze, the faction was in ruin.

Malik went down the slope at a walk, joining the others.

He took his time, keeping his head bent and his sleeve flapping; soldiers swept past him on the right, none gave him a glance.

Safira’s orders were absolute.

The third wagon waited at the edge of the camp.

The mule had waited too. It looked at him over its shoulder with a long-suffering expression.

"I know, but do not worry, I will take the blame."

Malik climbed up onto the seat, took the reins in his left hand, and clucked his tongue.

The wagon lurched forward, its wheels bit into the packed earth, and the riverbed fell away.

All that ruin they left behind was a most obvious signal, directing whoever was watching towards them and their camp.

But, strong as he was, Malik could do nothing about it.

His fire could end all that was, even the... signature of spells made by other Magi, but he knew better than to use that fire.

The Angels would find him the instant such fire left his Soul, in spite of its signature ending properties.

So, unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.

Because of that, he did not bother to look back, missing a most... curious scene.

A beautiful tree sprouted from the rock.

Its roots slowly spread, devouring all that was around it... even the signature of Rukh used.

No traces of a fight remained.

Only a tree.

...

The cohort all but disappeared from that region in under a minute.

They could now be seen in a winding cut between walls of red stone, deep enough that the Suns had not yet reached the bottom.

The wagons rattled through in a line while Faraja ran on either side, boosting them forth.

Safira rode at the front on a horse, with Huda wrapped in a blanket against her chest.

The girl’s head lay on her shoulder, and her eyes were open.

She was staring over Safira’s arm, back down the line.

Back at the third wagon.

Malik drove with his gaze on the road.

He kept the rag in place, and the hood pulled low.

The mule trotted along, doing it as commanded, despite being annoyed.

But that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t have its revenge, intentionally leading the wagon over the rougher parts of the terrain, bumping its wheels on one rock after another.

With each bump, the sleeve on his right flapped.

A pair of pink eyes always followed it.

He felt it for a long while.

Eventually, when the open desert stretched out in front of them further, the Suns lifting over the rim of the world, pouring gold across the plain, the wagons slowed to a walk.

Nobody had followed, a fact that surprised them all.

They were expecting it, dreading it, but they had not lost a single Soul.

Safe.

That was what they all felt at that moment.

Enough so that Safira turned her horse and rode back down the line.

She paused beside the third wagon, right next to Malik.

For a long moment she said nothing.

She only looked at him, the stranger in the gray cloak, with dust still clinging to his clothes.

Her eyes were warm and tired and very, very sharp.

"Thank you for the keys."

"I don’t know what you mean."

"No."

She smiled slightly.

"Of course not."

As it always was with her, she did not push it.

Instead, she turned the horse and rode away.

Huda’s head lifted from her shoulder as they went.

The girl was looking at him still.

Her lips moved.

It was a small movement, and no sound came from it, but Malik did not need the sound.

"Brother?"

Her big brother faced forward.

Giving no answer, he lifted the reins and drove on, with the rising Sun in his pale eyes.

It was an ordinary morning, with an ordinary road.

It was the easiest lie he had ever told.

It was also the one that cost him the most.