The Margrave by Catherine Fisher

she’d been captured, that they could be torturing her! Or worse, that she’d gone back! And you knew all along!”
    “Explain,” the Sekoi said tightly, sitting on a table.
    Raffi swung to it. “It was all a plan! Their plan—the two of them. You were right—she let herself be taken—and she’s using relics to mark her route for him, to pinpoint where she is. But I don’t understand why!”
    He rounded on Galen, who was watching him, ominously calm. “Don’t you realize what danger you’ve put her in! If they find out, if they find the relics, they’ll burn her alive. After all she’s done to them, how could you put her through that!”
    Galen looked grim. “You know I can’t make Carys do anything she doesn’t want. It was her idea as much as mine.”
    “She wouldn’t say no! She’s as hotheaded as you. But you should have had more sense!”
    Galen’s temper snapped. “By God, Raffi, don’t lecture me. We’ve got our backs to the wall here! We need every bit of information we can get—”
    “About the Margrave!” The truth leaped into Raffi’s mind like a flame; he crouched and grabbed the paper and thrust it out. “That’s what you want her to do. To lead you to the Margrave!”
    Sparks of energy snapped and coiled between them. The Sekoi watched, fascinated.
    “What better way is there?” Galen snarled. “We need to find the creature.”
    “You do! You need to find him because of that stupid, stupid oath you took! You swore to kill him and now you’ve put Carys into Maar! Because that’s where she’s gone—just like you told her to!”
    Galen’s mind-flare struck him hard between the eyes; he hissed with pain, staggering back.
    “Galen!” The Sekoi leaped up instantly.
    “Stay out of it!” The keeper snatched the letter, his eyes black with fury. All the great hall seemed crammed with an inky, crackling darkness; they were both lost in it, swamped by months of pent-up wrath.
    Raffi hit the wall and crumpled. He felt so sick and furious, he could hardly see, but Galen came after him, crouching, grabbing his coat and dragging him up so that his head jerked back.
    “Yes, I swore that oath! What else was I to do? He destroyed Solon. He mined right into the heart of us, infected us, Sarres, everything, and we never even knew it! All the planet is tainted with his crimes, all of it!”
    “You didn’t know,” Raffi croaked. “That’s what makes you so angry. That you didn’t know.”
    Galen flung him down. Then he turned and shoved the anxious Sekoi aside with one hand, stalking down to the other end of the hall. They stared appalled as he flung a table over, picked up a jug, and smashed it viciously against the wall.
    When he turned, he was someone else. The glossy darkness of the Crow had overwhelmed him. Even the fires died down before it; his face was shadowed, long hair fallen loose, the black and green awen-crystals tangled around one hand. “Think about me for once, Raffi,” he breathed, his voice painfully harsh, unrecognizable. “How it is for me. I have this presence inside me and it burns me, consumes me, and I have to use it, allow it to work, and I daren’t. Yes, I should have known about Solon, and the torment of that is bitter. All the things I’ve done may be wrong. I let Solon go through the Door of Air, but I don’t know where he is or why the Makers haven’t kept their promise. Where are they? Why don’t they come?” He dragged both hands over his face and through his hair. “Haven’t I done enough? God knows, I’ve tried. For years we’ve struggled, living like animals, hunted, burned out, always running, always trying to keep the relics, to keep the people close to what should be true. Have we become relics now? Where is Flain, and Soren, and Tamar? Are they dead, have they forgotten us, don’t they care about our agony? Why don’t they come? ”
    The sweat on Raffi’s back was cold. For a moment he thought a stranger was there; then Galen