“No!” I said hastily. “No. That’s not it at all. Epiny, you have to listen to me now. You can do no good here. Go home to Spink and Amzil and her children. Do what you can for them, comfort them with the truth, if you think it will be comfort, and above all, have a care for yourself and your baby. Do whatever you can for my little sister. Yaril is beyond my reach now.”
“What? What are you going to do? And why are you speaking to me like this, instead of—Why does he have your body?”
“I don’t really know. I think that his part of me is the stronger half now, and so he gets his way. I am where he was after I first defeated him.”
Lisana was nodding silently.
“Nevare, you must try to be stronger! You must fight him and take control of your body again. Come back to Gettys. Look at you. You’ve lost the fat. You could be a real soldier now.”
“Epiny, think! I could also be hanged for escaping from my cell, once they realized that they hadn’t killed me the first time. There is nothing left for me back in Gettys.”
“He cannot prevail against Soldier’s Boy,” Lisana said quietly. “His time is past. He had his chance and he failed. His solutions have not solved anything. It is time for him to let go, to become a part of Soldier’s Boy and time for Soldier’s Boy to try his way. They need to unite their strengths.”
Epiny’s face changed. Her expression hardened and something very like hatred shone in her eyes. “I will not let you destroy him,” she said. “He will fight you and I will fight you. We are stronger than you know. He will take back his body, and he will come back to us. I know he will.”
Lisana shook her head. She spoke calmly, patiently. “No. He will not. You would be wiser to listen to him. Go home. Take care of what is yours. When your child is born, leave this place and go back to your own lands.”
Epiny stared at Lisana levelly. “I won’t give up on Nevare. If you want me to leave, you will have to give me back my cousin.”
Lisana didn’t smile or snarl. Her face was impassive. “I believe that when they are one, they will succeed where both failed before. I believe that then he will accept whatever magical task he must do, and that when he does it, the intruders will leave our land. What I am offering you is a chance to save yourself and your child. Go now, before you are driven out. I do not know how the magic will rid our lands of the intruders, but I do not think it will be gentle. Gentleness and persuasion have been tried without success. The time for that is past.”
“I won’t give up on Nevare,” Epiny repeated. She said it as if perhaps Lisana had not heard her or had not been paying attention. “I don’t believe he will give up. He will keep trying, and when he is strong enough, he will take back his life from Soldier’s Boy, and he will come back to us.”
I tried to think of some response.
She smiled at me and added, “And if he does not, then come next summer, when the days are long and hot and the forest is dry, I will burn it. All of it.” She was suddenly calm. She folded her hands together and held them in front of her. She did not look at me at all. Her face and hands were dirty, her dress smudged and torn, and her hair was falling down all around her face. But it was as if all her sorrow and pain had drained out of her, as if nothing was left but the determination; she was like a shining steel blade drawn from its worn scabbard.
“This is the gratitude of a Jhernian,” Lisana observed coldly. “The magic kept its word to you. I have shown you your cousin, alive as promised, and even interceded that you might say farewell to him. I have offered you a chance to escape to the west with your baby. And in return, you threaten to destroy us.”
I knew that Soldier’s Boy could not hear Lisana’s words, and yet he seemed to reply to them. “I will kill her now,” Soldier’s Boy announced, and Olikea, grim-faced, nodded.
Epiny probably did not understand the words he spoke in Speck, but she recognized the threat. It did not move her. “You can kill me,” Epiny said. “I doubt it would be difficult for you.” She lifted her chin, as if baring her throat to him. Her eyes remained locked with Lisana’s. Epiny didn’t say anything else. Yet danger hovered in the air, unspoken and all the more worrisome that it was undefined.
“Kill her,” Olikea said quietly. There was fear and desire in her voice. “Use this.” She drew a knife from a sheath on her belt and offered it to him. It had a glittering black blade, obsidian. A memory stirred. It was as sharp as a razor, a knife fit for a mage who must not touch iron.
