Evain snorts. Freya clearly already scored last night; she doesn’t need to keep trying so hard. It’s cute, though. Humans can be so enthusiastic.
The picnic blanket remains safely packed, and the party eats their lunch standing while the horses rest and graze at the roadside. Evain takes the opportunity for a theory lesson, as promised. “First, have any of you encountered rifts before?” he addresses his gathered audience. Once again, he wishes he had a table with a good, comprehensive map to point at, like Ronan always managed. Natural leader, Ronan. “Nightven?”
“Not many, and I’m grateful for it.” Shae stands close enough to Arthur that their arms brush. “One opened up nearby when I was a child. My father kept me inside while my mother warded our homestead against the vaidkos. She was out there for three days before the rift closed. More recently, Arthur and I have seen two while riding with the Riverswords.”
“We turned tail and ran,” Arthur says, without shame. “Radiance, those things feel nasty.”
Rifts surely would feel nasty to an acolyte of Vara. Evain would prefer to be repulsed by them too. Instead, he’s drawn to them, like his homeland’s hateful claws are trying to drag him back.
“All right, and has anyone besides Shae summoned a demon before?” Evain shoots a glance at the sword-witch leaning against a nearby tree. “Not you, Leth. I know you would never do something so crass.”
“I’ve banished plenty.” Marta squints at her copy of the array. “The core circle of this looks very similar to banishing arrays I’ve used before, but not quite.”
“It’s banishing a place, instead of a being,” Leth suddenly says from the edge of the group. “The array doesn’t just close the door. It disperses the energy safely and banishes the slice of the demonic realm that made it through the rift.”
Evain’s heart thuds. Why is it so fucking sexy for someone to read his array correctly? “Exactly.”
Leth’s voice lowers. “It’s cleverly done.”
With Leth’s gaze fixed on the ground, Evain is free to beam at the praise. “Leth has it right. I prefer to think of the rifts not as an open door, but an invasion. If a ship has a hole in the bottom, plugging the hole isn’t sufficient, is it? You have to bail out the water that’s already flooded in.”
“And the water has sharks,” Freya says.
“Clever as it is, does this array actually work?” Haldis asks. All traces of her earlier exhaustion gone, she’s back to her usual no-nonsense self. “Have you used it? I was under the impression you haven’t returned to Lyrisenia in years.”
“A fine question, Sir Haldis.” A fine question Evain will have to answer carefully. Who knows how much falsehood the Varans can sense without an active truth spell? “I sealed a rift once when I was younger, using a far worse array. The drawing in your hands is a refined version. Fewer side effects. If it doesn’t work, I’ll owe you a fancy dinner.”
A far worse arrayis a tremendous understatement.
Two hundred fifty years ago, he was indeed younger than he is now. A rift spat him out in a dark Lyrisenian forest. Before it could suck him back in, Evain cut a plain circle into the ground. Unused to the mortal realm, with only that bare-bones symbol to guide his powers, sealing the rift nearly killed him. The backlash felled every tree in a half-mile radius.
“It should work.” Marta leans against Haldis’s shoulder.
Evain glances towards Leth again, half-expecting more input. Spell theory is one of his specialties. But Leth just leans silently against the tree. His lashes are lowered, and his face is paler than usual. Strange. A mild hangover should be better by now. Evain has never had a hangover himself, but he knows how they work for humans.
“Anyway, just practice drawing the array when you have a chance,” Evain says. “We should move on for now, so we can make the next town by dark.”
As they all gather their horses and mount up, Evain pays covert attention to Leth. He’s the only one who sees that when Leth hooks his foot into the stirrup and jumps up, he fails to make it into the saddle. Staggering back to the wet earth splatters flecks of mud onto his boots and the hem of his coat. Leth’s back heaves with a deep breath. He makes it into the saddle on his second try, his hands barely trembling on the reins.
Evain swings onto Daziroth and rides up next to him. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” Leth snaps, kicking his mare forward.
Unconvinced, Evain frowns and follows.
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CHAPTER NINE
LETH
The ache in Leth’s head only worsens as the day continues. Thankfully, Star is well-behaved and happy to follow the rest of the horses. Leth’s attention keeps straying away from the road, catching on a particular tree clawing at the sky, or the long ends of Marta’s scarf flapping in the breeze. The memory of red silk, slipping beneath his hand and thighs, threatening and promising to fall away completely.
Leth doesn’t believe Evain embraced him on purpose. For all Evain’s teasing, he’s never crossed boundaries like that. Why bother, when there are plenty of fools ready and willing to bed him? No, now that his shock has cooled, he’s merely annoyed with Evain. He reserves his anger and disgust for himself, for not waking up sooner. For his first thought upon waking being howcomfortablehe was.
He’s not at all comfortable now. Winter cuts to his shivering bones. Damp sweat at his temples only makes it worse. Pulling his coat tighter doesn’t do anything, and Leth wonders how the others are standing this. They don’t seem to be feeling the cold like he is.
How pathetic. A few beers and he’s useless the entire next day. As weak as he’s ever been—as weak as Anton always said he was.
