Will it be enough? she asked him wearily. Their bond to one another remained even when their power was as weak and floppy as a dead fish.
We cut off all he had. Sandry was at the end of some of it. We’ll hear her soon enough. “Can we get some food in here?” Briar yelled. “I’m starving!”
Sandry was moving. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that a man sat with her in his arms, one easy tan hand holding a horse’s reins. She saw the reins, and the hand, when she opened her eyes just a crack. Little weights struck her lightly all over her body, clinking when they hit one another. All around her she heard men talking and joking. Someone asked if he could actually bring himself to wait three days, and the man who held her laughed.
“I want her in my little love nest, all nice and cozy, where I won’t need all these charms Quen put on her to keep her tame,” a too-familiar voice said.
Charms, Sandry thought. That’s what the little weights are, and the clinking noises. Someone has tied a basket full of charms all over me, as if I were some nomad’s bride to be protected from spirits.
“With the potions I have for her to drink, and the spell patterns he gave me, she won’t be able to lift a finger against me once we’re inside.” Lips kissed the back of her neck, making Sandry’s skin crawl. Shan added, “She’ll get accustomed. She was half in love with me before some idiot gossiped to her. I just have to convince her that Her Imperial Majesty was a relationship of convenience, while she is my own true love. Trust me, you tell a woman things like that, and she’s putty in your hands.”
“Her Imperial Majesty won’t kill you when she learns?” someone inquired.
“She needs every copper this lady’s lands provides. All that adventuring along the Yanjing border has stretched the imperial treasury very thin,” Shan explained. “If I make a big enough present to Her Imperial Majesty, she’ll let me be.” The confidence in Shan’s voice made Sandry want to scream. Instead, she continued to flop in front of him, limp and supposedly well asleep.
It’s morning, if not afternoon, she realized, hearing birdsong and feeling the sun’s heat on them as they rode. There’s a river nearby, and lots of echoes. We’re in the canyon people spoke of, I think.
They rode on for some time. Shan had just called for a break to rest and water the horses when a thin magical voice filtered through the spell that still lay on Sandry’s skin like a film. Can you hear? Daja asked. It’s taken hours for the workings to wear off enough for me to find you. We’ve been trying since dawn. Why do those charms even have magic still?
Maybe he bought them from someone else, Briar put in. We undid all his spells to keep us all under wraps, but it didn’t touch the extra charms he used.
I’m waking up, Sandry replied. Yes, there’s still a bit of power in these charms.
Shan let Sandry drop into another man’s arms. This captor placed her gently on a patch of grass. Don’t worry about me, she told Daja. The charms are on my outside, but I’ve all my magic still, and the pig-swiving bleat-brain tied the charms to me with ribbons. I suppose it didn’t occur to him ribbons are made of cloth. I’ll come to you when I’m done. Quen did all this magic?
Our little friend Quenaill, Briar said with contempt. He spelled us asleep. If I hadn’t been wary, thanks to Zhegorz…We owe old Zhegorz a big apology. He tried to warn us, and just because he talked crazy, we didn’t listen. He paused for a moment, then asked gruffly, Do you need our help? We know you like Shan—
Used to, Sandry interrupted. I used to like him. She sank into her magic, and spoke a word of command. The knots that tied those carved-stone charms to her clothes and body came undone at once. They slid to the ground with a soft series of clinks.
She waited for a moment until she knew that she had the strength to stand, then did so, lashing out with her power. The six men and one woman lingering on the riverbank dropped whatever they held as their sleeves flew together and fused, binding their arms from wrist to elbows. Before they could do more than blink, their riding breeches did the same thing, the thread of each leg weaving itself with the opposite from knee to lower calf. They fell forward helplessly.
The woman and one of the men began to mutter. Silvery tendrils rose from their bodies.
Magic, Sandry thought disdainfully. Try mine.
Threads shot from the mages’ collars and jackets, darting into their wearers’ open mouths. Their upper garments continued to unravel into their mouths until they couldn’t even close their jaws. Sandry relented at the last minute, making sure that the thread inside their mouths simply wove itself into a tight ball rather than choke them. It then attached itself to a strap wound around the mages’ heads. She didn’t want to kill them. She just wanted them silent and out of her way. A hard gag would do the task.
Sandry heard a thud. Shan was fighting to get to the knife in his belt. A twist of her will sent his sleeves down over his hands and into the fabric of his breeches, weaving them together.
Sandry gathered up a blanket of her power and flung it over them all. It separated as it draped over each person, trickling down into that man’s or that woman’s clothes. Threads in their garments broke free and linked themselves together. With her magic to shape them, the fibers sped as garments unraveled and rewove. She was so angry that her will did not falter once, even when the people on the ground began to spin in place. Seeing that her cocoons were coming along nicely, Sandry looked for appropriate places to display them.