Month: November 2020

Hadella went first to her rooms, when she emerged, she was carrying a dark bundle. I kept a distance, moving at a hopefully innocuous pace but keeping just a glimpse of Hadella in sight around this corner or that. I picked my hair out of my night braid in case she’d noticed me in the Countess’s chambers. I’d look a little different out of the corner of her eye. Druskin wasn’t far behind me. He made more noise than I did since I was still barefoot and he was wearing boots. I was also still wearing the dressing gown cinched closed over my rumpled night stalking attire. Thankfully, though, the entire Palace was making up for their late night of dancing and lack of lunch entertainment, we saw very few people and mostly servants.

Hadella left the Palace through the main gate. I hesitated in sight of it. Here I wished for shoes and a coat or cloak. But if I lost her now, I had no way of finding her again. Druskin caught up with me where I stood, peering around a corner at the courtyard and gates. “Did she go out?”

“She did.”

“Come with me.” Druskin strode out toward the gate, heading directly for the guard house. I followed him, dressing gown and all. He said something to the guard and the man disappeared into the guard house and then reappeared a moment later with two cloaks. When I reached Druskin he handed a cloak to me and donned the other. The guard watched wide-eyed as I shrugged out of the dressing gown, my knives catching the late morning sun. It was barely cool enough for a cloak, but I slung the cloak over my shoulders to hide the knives and my un-Angari clothes. I handed the dressing gown to the guard, “Thank you.”

He nodded, dumbstruck.

When we stepped out of the gates, I couldn’t see Hadella. Druskin pointed and said, “There.” I followed his gaze to a dark hood moving steadily down the paving stone street away from the palace. Hadella’s dark bundle must’ve been a cloak of her own. We set out after her.

The city was awake and bustling, and I was grateful for Druskin’s height and ability to pick Hadella out in a crowd. My own ability to find Quill immediately was rather less useful in this moment. We left the sweeping architecture of the palaces and surrounding buildings behind, heading into more modest parts of town.

Hadella pressed on at a brisk pace. She knew where she was going, and she was in a hurry. The modest homes and businesses gave way to narrower streets with buildings that had seen better repair. This was a part of Gar Morwen I hadn’t yet seen, the part with the poor and the toughs. And the trash. I became even more grateful for Druskin’s bloodhound focus as I could pay more attention to my unshod feet than where the dark hood bobbed off to.

Abruptly, Druskin’s hand snaked out to grab my elbow. I stopped mid-step; I’d been avoiding a pile of refuse. “What is it?”

He jerked his chin at the building across the street. A sign painted with a boar with an apple in its mouth hung over a wooden door. With a glance at the people in the street I crossed and entered the tavern like I belonged there.

*

The tavern was reasonably well lit by the late morning sun, and thanks to the wedding not as quiet as it should’ve been at this hour. Most of the people lounging around were Angari and armed. Some hooded. One or two were half sprawled across tables as if they’d slept here. Steeling myself against the tackiness of the floor, I prowled further in like I was searching for just the spot to nurse a drink and watch the door. Hadella was sitting at a table in the darker recesses, her back to the entrance. There was a man sitting across from her with long gray hair combed neatly over his shoulders. Beside his empty plate and tankard was a spread of papers that suggested he’d been here for hours. Or possibly owned the place.

I stole a glance over my shoulder to make sure Druskin was close and took a seat with my back to the man so I could see the entrance. We were close enough to overhear if we strained. Druskin sat across from me, face grim.

“…need to speak to him.” Hadella was saying.

“Hian,” said the man, measuredly, “At best I could only introduce you to the broker—and that is highly irregular.”

“I don’t care—” her voice dropped too low for me and I studied Druskin’s face.

If possible, he looked even more grim. He hadn’t really believed us when Quill and I had told him our suspicions last night. It had been particularly difficult to persuade him to lie about Galo being poisoned and I’d been worried he’d back out.

“For a fee I will set up a meeting for you,” said the man, his voice hard and irritated.

I couldn’t make out Hadella’s words.

“Today?” the man—it had to be the intermediary Jemin’s broker had mentioned—snorted incredulously.

“Yes, today!” snapped Hadella.

My eyes drifted around the room, noting the others present before coming back to Druskin. He was drumming his fingers on the table with pent up anger. A large bald man approached our table, wiping his hands with a sad looking towel. “What’ll you have?”

“Breakfast,” I said, and the man nodded and walked away.

Druskin tossed me a look and I shrugged at him. I’d blended in, got rid of the man, and procured food. I hoped he carried coin in that outfit because I hadn’t exactly had the chance to grab a money purse this morning.

“Someone dying is a normal consequence of hiring a killer, hian,” the gray-haired man’s voice was cold. “I will reach out today and you may come back here this evening. Maybe he will be here. Maybe not. Good day.”

There was rustling as Hadella got to her feet and I could see Druskin’s eyes tracking her movement. She would recognize Druskin and I had no idea what she’d do, but I wasn’t ready to be given away to the intermediary. I grasped Druskin’s hand hard enough that he looked at me, and then I leaned across the table—he leaned closer, unsuspecting. Tipping my head so my hair fell like a curtain, I cupped his face with my other hand and kissed him. He didn’t react for a solid breath, which gave me the chance to get a grip on the back of his head. I felt the tremor of a restrained flinch, then his other hand came up to my face, and he embraced the ruse. Or, at least, gave in to it. I was highly aware of Hadella behind me, then as she moved past and back through the tavern toward the door. Apparently ignoring the couple seated nearby, too lost in each other to bear looking at. I released my grip on Druskin and we pulled away from each other.

Flustered, Druskin snapped, “Why?”

“Because the game isn’t over,” I said, again leaning across the table so I could lower my voice.

He twitched to look toward the door, then back. “You were right,” he growled, “I can’t believe you were right. And you would just let her walk free?”

“She’s headed back to the palace, we’ll catch her there.” I scanned the room again, Quill was standing by the bar, and Prince Domonkos’s guard captain was elsewhere in the room dressed in plain clothes and looking like someone had spat in his drink. The King had been skeptical of our suspicions and our plan but sent a witness with us who could read lips, which was fortuitous. Getting both Druskin and the other captain close to the table would’ve been difficult to do without being suspicious. I laid my hand on the table. Druskin looked at it with distrust, “Besides, if we leave without eating breakfast the intermediary might think we were following her and then we’ll lose our chance at that other meeting.” I narrowed my eyes at him, and he got the message.

Placing his hand in mine he said, “Is this necessary? Displays like this aren’t civilized.”

“Does this look like a terribly civilized place?” I asked, amused. “Trust me. And try to look less like I’m forcing you to do this. Pretend I’m Galo.”

He looked pained, but then he shifted, unfurling his limbs a bit so he took up most of the table space. His legs brushed mine. “Quilleran is going to kill me.”

My eyes flicked inadvertently to the bar where Quill sat. He wasn’t looking at us. He had undoubtedly seen the kiss and the idea of him being jealous was too much to think about. It made me think about kissing Quill instead. My body grew warm. “Hardly,” I said to Druskin, “Subterfuge is a professional hazard.”

The bodyguard regarded me for a long moment. “Your world is foreign,” he pronounced, as if he was the nicest thing he could find to say.

*

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When I finally returned to the Countess’s chambers, I was exhausted. We had done what we could, and now there was nothing but to wait till morning. The guards let me past, and the female guards in the sitting room nodded to me as I knocked on the Countess’s bedroom door and then let myself in.

There was a single lamp lit by the bedside, and the Countess was still awake, sitting up against the pillows, a book open in her hands. She watched me enter and close the door. One of her brows climbed as I crossed the room and shrugged out of my dressing gown. I glanced down at myself. I’d entirely forgotten to go to my room first and change into night clothes. I sighed, unbuckling the harness and continuing to the bed. “I apologize, Grofnu, I had much to do.” At least it wasn’t splattered in gore.

The Countess pushed back the covers and swung her feet the floor. “Were you marauding the palace, Zephra?” she grabbed two pillows and moved to the foot of the bed.

I grimaced, unbuckling my jerkin. “Something like that. There may be new rumors about me providing you the chance to dismiss me from your service after this is all settled.”

The Countess grimaced. “What have you been about?”

Pausing my search for a place to put the jerkin and dressing gown, I turned back to her. “I reported to Quilleran, visited the infirmary, tried to follow up on a lead.” I’d told Quill about Bel’s confession. He’d looked at me hard and then we’d tracked down the rooms of the Daiesen delegation—many in the delegation had already returned to bed, so we uncovered nothing but the fact that Lucius Tene, another man who knew both our faces and true names, was also in attendance. He was probably here for the horses. “Galo is still alive,” I said. The doctors said if she made it through the night, she’d recover.

I saw from the Countess’s face that she knew this already. She looked about as willing to hope as Druskin had. He’d been by Galo’s bedside in his finery, his ruddy face eerily pale with the terror only love brings. It was a despair I knew well, and I turned away to deposit the jerkin and dressing gown on a chair.

“Tirien have mercy,” murmured the Countess. Then, as if forcefully changing the subject she said, “I heard that one of the men from the Empire kissed your hand at the ball tonight.”

I looked up at her as I tucked my entire harness of knives under the pillows. “Word gets around.”

She tossed a grin at me and crawled under the covers at the foot of the bed. “Did you know him before, or did you just make an impression?”

I sighed again, “Both, apparently.” I doubted the kiss had been meant to convey Bel’s continued attraction. I wondered how much the Countess knew of Daiesen’s customs.

“But not mutual.”

I doused the lamp.

The Countess’s voice floated from the darkness, bodyless and smiling, “No, of course not. Not with Quilleran walking the world.”

 I slipped under the covers. Talk, indeed. Though not—I thought of Quill standing close enough to share breath, the campfire throwing deep shadows around us—unfounded.

“You lied to me when you said you’d never been in love.”

“I don’t have time for love.” My words lacked conviction and even I could hear it. The lie was rote and lacking the cavalier flip that sold it in taverns around the continent. My scalp tingled with the memory of Quill’s hands in my hair this afternoon.

The Countess hummed skeptically, then cut off as if startled.

I tensed. “Grofnu?”

“…When I look at you…” she began speaking slowly, “…I see fire, and darkness, and water.”

Instinct roared me to wakefulness before I could rationalize. Reeling myself back, I forced dryness, “Salt water or fresh?” As if it mattered.

“Fresh.” She said with complete confidence. “There is an underground river that ends in a beautiful cavern of white stone and hewn pillars. It is an homage, and a heartsore, and there the veil between planes is very thin.”

Now I didn’t know what she was talking about and it chilled me.

“Does any of that sound familiar?” asked the Countess.

“I…have more than one memory of fire, darkness, and water,” I answered, trying to choose my words carefully, “But the cavern is unknown to me.” Not connected to a river, anyway. There were white caverns Under Daiesen, and I’d been in a few really fancy cisterns over the years.

“If you find it someday, be careful. Death waits there.” After a pause where I probably should’ve said something brave, the Countess continued, “Zephra, I know that I’m the lunatic giddy with new affection, and I can see that there is much more to you than perhaps I have a right to know, but I think that you should give love a chance. Despite everything. Perhaps because of everything.”

“I’ll think about it.” I stared at the darkness above our heads. Eloi. It was as if the gods themselves were personally invested in shattering the control I’d had for years. Quill. The Breaker. Bel. Seers spouting incomprehensible pieces of time and space that connected to you.

I had a job; I was a blade. Here, I was also a shield. That was more than enough work for me.

*

I slept lightly. My mind drifted on the currents of the river, darting like a fish at imagined sounds and shadows. Morning was a relief, and I felt far more awake than I expected when the sun finally grayed the room. The Countess didn’t stir, but I got up. I moved quietly, warming up my body and then putting myself through stretches and then the forms of swordplay and knife work. I kept my breathing even, losing myself in the technique and movement. Eventually, I grew tired and sat down on one of the chairs. The sun had warmed to gold and the Countess was still sleeping. I checked to make sure she was breathing and looked well, then returned to sit.

Today was the last day before the wedding. I couldn’t remember all it entailed but I thought it started later and involved luxurious baths and extensive preparations for the ceremony to follow.

I woke with a start to a knock on the door. I scrambled to my feet and snatched up my dressing gown, then belatedly rushed to the bed for my knives. The Countess stretched, waiting for me to slip on the knives and the gown, before calling, “Enter.”

My eyes fell on my jerkin still draped over the back of the chair. There was nothing I could do as the door opened and Brell came in. “Good morning, Grofnu,” she said, recovering quickly from any surprise at me standing next to the Countess’s bed. She was carrying a tray with a silver tea set and quickly set about pouring tea for the Countess. “Did you sleep well?”

“As well as I could,” replied the Countess, accepting the tea.

She had barely taken a sip when a commotion rose in the outer rooms. I headed straight for them, arriving in time to see Druskin, still wearing the clothes from the banquet last night, standing limply in the center of a knot of leanyodi. I noticed Hadella, and Karolya both among them. When he saw the Countess he said, “Grofnu,” and his voice broke.

The Countess put her hand to her mouth.

“She has taken a turn. They found poison on the arrow…they don’t know what it is…her wound is…she is feverish and raving. If they could find the antidote she might be saved, but her life is wasting away.” His face crumpled. “She’s dying.”

I felt a similar crumpling in my chest. The leanyodi around us stood stunned, then slowly the horror hit them. They reached for one another, burying faces in shoulders. Brell put her arms around the Countess. Hadella accepted an embrace from Karolya, her mouth hung open a little, but the rest of her face was blank as the dead.

I thought she might yell at the Countess again, but she didn’t. She looked like she was going to be sick. I looked away quickly at the thought. Druskin was excluded from the churn of comforting gestures. I walked to him and brazenly reached out to squeeze his hand. He dropped his head, his dark braid shifting over his shoulder. He was shaking a little, and when our eyes met I could see a cool, righteous, anger growing inside him. He shifted and I just caught the edge of Hadella’s long coat as she left the room. I squeezed his hand again and went after her.

*

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My feelings were a storm. His confession meant that my capture would almost certainly lead to his. Even the shadow of suspicion could be enough to destroy a man in the Empire, especially if that shadow was thrown by me. I snapped at Bel, “Why risk this? Why approach me if you didn’t mean to capture me? Are you just eager to thrust your life into my hands?”

“I wanted,” he broke off and looked at the crowd, “I don’t know what I wanted. I wanted to talk to you again. As you. Not…as her…Maybe to see how much I had really known you back in Dalyn.” He shrugged dismissively, but the gesture was obviously untrue. “I also thought I should tell you I knew, before you knifed me as a precaution.”

“Now if I knife you, at least you’ll know?”

Bel gestured palm up with one hand, surrendering the point. Perhaps also showing he was unarmed.

“You’re a fool, Bel Valredes,” I said.

But something in my tone caused Bel to smile, just faintly. “I’ve no doubt.” He bowed, and taking my hand, lightly kissed the back.

Then he left the alcove.

And I let him. Partly because I was stunned. Partly because knifing him, or even kidnapping him, from the banquet would be difficult to explain. I could always find his rooms later if need be. And yet…I traced my fingers around and around my wineglass and tried to sort my thoughts. My carefully boxed and ordered feelings had received so many kicks of late that I was scrambling to catch first this and then that before it splashed out over everything. I did not have time for feelings.

Eventually, at a moment when a dance was in full swing and I stood very little risk of being asked, I left the shelter of the alcove and I strolled through the room looking for the Countess. I found her with Ilya Terr still, standing a little aside from the dancing, wineglasses in their hands and their heads bent close.

Finding a spot by a pillar to stand where I could see them but not hear them, I settled in to wait out the night. I watched the faces of the people who looked at the happy couple. I didn’t think about anything in particular. I watched the servants and the guards. I watched the elves and the Angari lords and ladies. I watched the delegation from the Empire. As my emotions subsided, I felt again the deep sense of betrayal from my dreams and a clawing certainty hooked deep inside. I couldn’t prove anything, but I could lay a trap.

Eventually I saw Quill exiting the dance floor, bowing gracefully to the lady he’d partnered and then excusing himself. He snagged a drink from a servant and strolled to my spot next to a pillar. He stopped and sipped from his glass, merely a ship at the same dock. “Leanyod.”

“Quilleran.”

Fornern’s Fists I had a lot to tell him.

He bent close—far too close for Angari comfort, I was sure—and whispered, “Anything?”

I slid a false smile into place and tipped closer to him, beads clacking, “Hadella inherits. And Hadella controls the Wuhn treasury.”

*

The Countess left the ball after midnight again, though there was still a large crowd dancing, and we trailed her back to her rooms. Hadella wasn’t among us. As before, we handed the Countess off to other leanyodi and retired to our own chambers. It took much less time to remove the beaded headdress and step out of the gown than it had to put them on. With the clacking of the headdress gone the world felt delightfully quiet. I washed off the white make up methodically, enjoying the sensation of warm water and oil cleaning the powders off my face. When I was finished, I smelled faintly of nuts and roses and I looked like myself again. For a few long moments I stared at my face in the glass, as if it held the answers I wanted if only I looked hard enough.

With a sigh, I braided back my hair and went to find my own clothes—my darkest breeches and shirt, a leather jerkin, and over that the familiar weight of my knife harness. I left behind my boots for the sake of stealth, and threw a dressing gown over everything. If the palace was to have rumors, perhaps they could be only of a promiscuous leanyod.

I left my rooms, nodding to the guards outside the Countess’s doors, and padded through the halls.

*

Quill wasn’t in his rooms yet, but Eliah was in hers. I was startled when she opened her door wearing a wrinkled nightgown, blonde hair mussed prettily, looking softer and gentler than I’d ever seen her—but then she opened the door wider to show that she was standing like a warrior, a large hunting knife naked in her fist.

“Come in!” said Eliah, stepping back to let me past. Her room was much like Quill’s. Sparse, but elegant with a bed, a couch and a wardrobe and floors covered in thick woven rugs.

I walked in and sat on the little couch at the end of her bed, my dressing gown falling open to show my sleek dark clothes that were very much not for sleeping. “You retired early,” I said, eyeing the rumpled bed.

Eliah closed and locked the door, then crossed the room to retrieve the knife sheath from the bed where she’d left it. “I did.” I could hear the sleep in her voice now, and noticed that the fire was quite low. She’d been in bed a while. I got up and tossed another log on the embers.

“I skipped the ball,” explained Eliah, tossing the knife on the bed and rubbing her eyes, “but you’re here, so that means it’s time for me to get up.” At my questioning look she continued, “I’m going to prowl. See what Hadella does at night.”

“You’ve spoken with Quill, then.”

She nodded. “Right after he spoke with you this afternoon.” Turning, Eliah opened her wardrobe and started pulling out clothes, “Did something happen at the ball? Why are you here?”

I sighed heavily. I was here because Quill and I were going to talk to Druskin about our suspicions and how to prove it. But… “Bel Valredes says he helped nymphs escape the Purge. As many as he could.”

Eliah stopped in the middle of pulling on breeches under her gown. “Bel Valredes? Isn’t that the man who fell in love with you that infamous winter in Dalyn?”

“He didn’t fall in love with me,” I said.

She flapped a hand dismissively and finished pulling on her breeches. “You. Pretend you. Why were you talking to Bel Valredes? And why were you talking about that?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

Eliah propped her hands on her hips, the gown bunched weirdly over the breeches. “You didn’t approach him, did you?”

“I didn’t! I’ve been avoiding him. He’s here with Ambassador Menrellos. Invited to the wedding.”

“But…”

“But…he approached me.”

“He recognized you under all that paint?”

I grimaced. “He saw the fight on the river.”

“So, we’re going to kill him tonight, then? Do you want help? What do we do with the body?”

“Eliah. He claims he has no plan to reveal me.”

Eliah snorted. She turned away and shucked the nightgown, pulling a dark tunic on in its place. “I’d claim the same if I were facing your glare.”

“The fool sought me out and told me he’d been smuggling nymphs out of Dalyn, offered it as assurance that he wouldn’t reveal me. ‘To avoid being killed,’ he said.”

She was buckling on her belts now and paused to give me a pained look. “How can you know he’s not important enough to be safe even if you labeled him a traitor? All part of an elaborate entrapment.”

I rubbed my hands across my face. My life was so orderly before this damn job. “I can’t.”

“Did you come here for my advice?”

“No. I’m waiting for Quill, we have to talk to Druskin and convince him to go along with our plan.”

“Ah,” Eliah picked up the hunting knife. “No advice, then. And no night stalking of Dark Empress Lackeys for me. Cruel princess, getting my hopes up.”

Now I snorted. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Bel, yet, Eliah. I’m already being as careful as I can. Besides, I think watching Hadella is a better idea tonight.”

Sitting on the bed, Eliah pulled on her boots—soft leather meant for sneaking, not riding. “You know, if he’s telling the truth, he might be useful.”

“Maybe,” I kept my tone reserved. There was a big gap between inaction and action when lives were at stake.

“Have you told Quill?”

“Not yet.”

Eliah finished with her boots and studied me. “You didn’t fall for Valredes back then, did you?”

I shook my head. “I was so young, and there was far too much going on. Night raids and broken ribs and rebellious activities…I was concerned with staying alive.”

She looked at me a moment longer. I couldn’t tell if she was waiting for a confession or just sorting through her own thoughts on the matter. Then the corner of her mouth kicked up in a half smile, “Just staying alive? There wasn’t an enigmatic kingling or a charmingly competent guard captain?”

She headed for the door as I snapped, “You weren’t there!”

Her grin was a wicked slash.

*

*

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