Page 63 of Truth's Blade

He turned on her, face feral with rage. “Move.”

She moved, walking toward him, still gauging her surroundings, and when she got within reach of him, he slapped her. Hard.

She stopped again, astonished. Her cheek throbbed at the hit, and she knew her mouth had fallen open.

“You will listen, or you will be punished, understood?”

She gave a nod, fighting back the tears that stung her eyes.

He stared at her. “I had a feeling you were the main contributor to the glow that night I found you, but your individual light is weak, now I can see you again in the darkness. What can you do?”

“I can fight,” she said, trying to keep the relief that her braid spell had worked from her voice. “All Cervantes can.”

He started to shake his head, and then went still. “I have seen a glow from the Kassia and Cervantes soldiers, some stronger than others, but I always put that down to the shirts.”

The shirts.

Viviane tried not to look sick. Her mother’s shirts had been out in the world for more than fifteen years. Of course this creature had come across people wearing them.

“The shirts are a special gift for entering the army,” she said. “I hope to earn one, one day.”

“But some of the soldiers are Kassian, aren’t they? And others are Cervantes.” Marchant began to circle her, muttering to himself. “Maybe the stronger ones are just Cervantes in the shirt. A natural magical talent for fighting, added to the shirt’s protective magic. That’s why some glow brighter.” Suddenly he stopped, as if remembering something. “Your cloak.”

She had almost forgotten about her cloak. “Yes?”

“It was full of spell work. Protection of every kind.”

“My aunt gave me that coat for my birthday,” she said.

“And who is your aunt?” He looked disbelieving.

“She is Massi of North Grimwalt. The wife of Duncan, Keeper of the North.” She hoped this did not come back in a bad way to Aunt Massi. She knew her favorite of her parents’ friends would hug her and tell her, whoever was causing her to make up stories to protect herself should be worried nothing bad came back onthem. And then she would notch an arrow in her bow.

“Massi of the North.” He stopped cold, staring at her in astonishment.

“My father and her are family,” Vivi said, and although they really weren’t blood siblings, they had forged a bond in the Chosen camps that made them brother and sister in all but blood. And they would probably say enough of their blood had spilled and mingled to make that part true, too.

“I wonder where she got it,” he said, walking over to a table covered by a tarpaulin. He drew it back, stepping away a little as if seeing something she could not.

Finally, in the weak light, she recognized that it was a pile made up of their clothing, that he’d stolen from them.

He stepped back to the table, sorted through the pile, and lifted up her cloak. “It’s a work of art.”

“I see you’re a thief,” she said. She couldn’t help it.

He stopped, turned and looked at her speculatively. “I am. A very good one. Of people and magical things.” He touched theshirt he was wearing beneath his coat. “I’m wearing a Kassia and Cervantes’ soldier’s shirt right now. I take them whenever I can.” He fingered the collar. “Not that it helped me the other day.”

He had been injured and the shirt hadn’t protected him.

“Spell work only lasts so long,” she said. “And those shirts are for soldiers in the army. Not the thieves who take them.”

He studied her for a beat. “Maybe. Spell work is tricky like that. That’s why I prefer to deal in people, not things. The magic inside them lasts for their lifetime.”

Having it said so starkly, knowing how well-oiled his system of feeding and confining his prisoners was, brought it home to her that this man had taken a lot of people in his time.

It was a horrifying thought.

Even in the dim light her face must have shown that horror, because he stared at her, watching her with a passive, almost curious expression.

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