melted, fragments of white hot clay and parboiled jewels, and take a fragment in
its beak and speed away.
When she looked away, she saw that Randal, face beaded with sweat and freckles
standing out black as soot, had seen it too.
The mage gave an uneasy shrug and smiled bleakly. “Let’s not tell them,” he
whispered, leaning close. “Maybe it’s not … her.”
“Perhaps not,” Ischade replied, looking up at the smouldering sky.
The morning after the sky caught fire, Tempus was sitting with Niko when Randal
came to call.
“I’ll see to him. Commander,” said the mage, who touched his kris, from which
healing water could be wrung.
Jihan had applied the powdered placenta of some unlucky cat, and Niko’s eye was
healing.
But these wounds would take a while, even with magic to help them.
And beside the stricken fighter, in the nursery, two children lay in sleep from
which no one had yet managed to rouse them.
That, Tempus knew, was really what Randal must do here. But he had to say,
“Stealth and I have reaffirmed our pairbond. Can you tend him in good
conscience, with a minimum of magic?”
Randal himself had once been paired with Stealth, at the Riddler’s order, and
loved the western fighter still.
The mage looked down, then up, then squared his shoulders. “Of course. And the
children, too… if I have- their father’s permission?”
“Ask the god that; he’s the stud, not me,” Tempus snapped and stormed out.
He had a woman to rape to placate the god within him, a necromant to thank in
person, and a welcome to prepare for Theron, emperor of Ranke, when he arrived.