by Dan Fish
“Maybe he’s a Weaver?”
“A Weaver who could turn himself invisible? That’s one hell of a Weaver. Not saying it’s impossible, but he’d have to stay perfectly still, and even then it’d be tough to fool someone looking for something.”
Sorrows shrugged. “This guy’s good. He’s got some sort of an edge. Maybe that’s it.”
Davrosh frowned. “We’d be talking elf then. No way a half-born gift would be strong enough.”
“Maybe that’s been our mistake,” Sorrows said. “I’ve been thinking half-born from the start.”
“Same,” Davrosh said. “Because dwarves don’t kill dwarves.”
“Right. And elves don’t give orcpiss about anyone other than elves.”
“You think we found one who does?”
“Maybe.”
Sorrows moved around the room, glanced out the window. The night was dark. Light from the great room spilled out into the storm twelve or fourteen paces below.
“Two guards below,” Davrosh said. “Roof covered in snow, arm’s length of eaves.”
Sorrows nodded. “Doesn’t get in through the window or the door. Doesn’t make a sound.”
He sighed, checked under the bed, ran his finger along the frame. Pale oak, thick, scuffed from years of use. Nothing unusual. He moved his gaze level with the bed, swept his eyes from a quilt, half-folded and draped across its foot, to the pillows piled at its head. Zvilna rested on a coverlet the same buttermilk color of the dress Mig had worn earlier that day. Zvilna’s left hand hung limp in front of his face. Her arm created a soft valley in the bedding, pressing into the mattress underneath. Another impression showed where she had sat when she climbed into the bed. Another where her elbow had touched as she rolled onto her back. Sorrows walked to the other side of the bed, saw the same valley beneath her right arm, but no other shadowed shallows marred the buttermilk fabric.
“How’s he get the shot off?” he asked.
Davrosh followed his gaze, shook her head. “He’d have to be standing on the bed, straddling her.”
“Try that shot sometime. Let me know how it turns out.”
“So he shoots her on the floor?”
“And she crawls herself into bed afterward?” he asked.
“Gods, I don’t know,” Davrosh said. “We asked the same questions with the other four. That’s one way I got to my piss-poor guess. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“Then why bring me here at all?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you hope I’d see?”
“Who knows? Something.”
“I don’t see a splitting thing.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t blame me, orchole. La’Jen wanted you here. Not me. I just gave him the reason.”
Sorrows said nothing for a spell. Davrosh stomped around the room, looked at the rug, looked under the bed, looked at the bench by the window.
Sorrows frowned. “What do you mean, Oray wanted me here?”
“He knew who you were and wanted you in Hammerfell.”
“Why?”
“Because you hunt monsters,” Oray said.
He stood in the doorway with Ga’Shel and Trellia Gorsham. He glanced at Zvilna.
“And right now we need that.”
Chapter 30
THE WAIT FOR Zvilna Gorsham was excruciating. Each day was torture. You are not one for waiting. Not when every second works against you. Patience is for the idle, the complacent. Patience would see you discovered. Discovery would see you dead.
You are hunted. You have been for some time now. How they learned of your existence is irrelevant. They have brought someone new. Someone who is skilled at many things. Someone who will find you, if given enough time to do so. Every second works against you.
Or at least they did until very recently. Until Zvilna Gorsham, to be precise. Something happened then, which tipped the scales in your favor. Something happened, which gave teeth to the hunted. Or if not teeth, then a claw. A slender, silver claw as sharp as a cry in the night.
It is a simple thing of long lines and sharp point. A delicate thing, light in the hand and well-balanced. A deadly thing that pierces skin and flesh. You had to try it out immediately. You couldn’t wait. Patience is for the idle. It was easy to use. So easy. To plunge and pull and plunge again. And again. A simple thing.
✽✽✽
“WHAT DID YOU find?” Oray asked.
He moved around the room, glancing in the corners, under the bed, out the window. After a cursory glance, he approached Zvilna.
“Nothing new,” Davrosh said. “What about you? Any luck with your search.”
“Just another dead half-born in the Quarry,” Oray said.
“Foul play?”
“Looks like it. Body full of holes.”
“Poor Ostev,” Davrosh said, grinning.
Ga’Shel frowned. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Body was mostly frozen when we got there,” Oray said. He blew out his cheeks. “Any thoughts on entry? How about the window?”
Sorrows shook his head. “This far up? I know a handful of goblins that could do it. But they wouldn’t try it with snow on the roof and guards below. Too risky. And this guy’s too good to take unnecessary risks.”
“The door?” Oray asked.
Davrosh shook her head. “Door’s no good. Guard was right outside.”
Oray leaned over Zvilna, examining the arrow from all sides. He ran two fingers along the shaft, took a deep breath in through his nose, let it out slow and loud the same way.
“Manner of death?”
Sorrows glanced sideways at Davrosh. “I think it’s the arrow.”
Oray frowned. “But the shaft is intact.”
“I know,” Sorrows said. “I’m still working on it. I want to see the wound with the magic removed.”
Ga’Shel made a face. “Gods, what for?”
“Paint’s too thick. It’s holding her skin together. I want to see what damage the arrow caused. You all right, sunshine?”
Ga’Shel had paled. He put a hand over his mouth, nodded. Davrosh snorted.
“He doesn’t like blood,” she said.
“Odd line of work for someone with a weak stomach,” Sorrows said.
He hooked a finger beneath the collar of Zvilna’s dress, pulled it away from her neck, studied her throat. Smooth skin. Pale, unbroken. No bruising.
Oray moved beside him. “We have a team for that at the tower.”
“You’re taking her in?” Sorrows asked.
Oray nodded. “Tonight. We’ll examine the body, then return it to the family.”
Sorrows let the collar slip off his finger, studied her dress. Crimson and gold, with a pattern of holly falling over one shoulder. Soft fabric that clung to the contours of Zvilna’s body. The sleeves ended just below the elbow and flared wide. The hem hung against the buttermilk coverlet like spilled blood. Sorrows thought of the Fates and Zvilna’s empty wrists reaching for him. He ran his finger along the pattern of holly and primrose painted onto her forearm, wrist, the back of her hand. The paint was smooth, cold.
“What are you doing?” Ga’Shel asked.
He shifted on his feet. Davrosh stepped forward.
“What do you see?” she asked.
Sorrows closed his eyes, felt where the paint ended on Zvilna’s hand. Moved his fingers to her palm, brushed his thumb over her knuckles, took her hand like he was helping her out of bed. Like she was only sleeping.
“What’s he doing with my daughter?” Bo Gorsham asked from the doorway.
Sorrows said nothing, ignored him, kept his eyes closed, thought of the Fate. There was a commotion. He squeezed Zvilna’s fingers, pulled gently.
“This is a crime scene, Gorsham,” Oray said. “Hold him back, Ostev.”
“I don’t want him touching her,” Bo Gorsham said. More commotion.
Zvilna’s hand pulled free like an apple plucked from a tree. Sorrows opened his eye
s. Her hand rested in his. Her arm dropped against the bed. Blood trickled onto the buttermilk coverlet, dripped onto the floor. He looked up. Bo Gorsham ran into the hallway, vomited. Ga’Shel had vanished. Oray and Davrosh stared at Zvilna.
Sorrows took Zvilna’s hand, placed it against her wrist. The paint pulled itself together, pristine. Holly and primrose. He stepped back, looked at his hand, at a smear of blood left on his fingers. Then looked at Davrosh, didn’t know what to say, shook his head.
“Paint’s too thick,” he said.
✽✽✽
WHY WOULD THEY bring the dagger? The more you think about it, the more it annoys you. You haven’t given the gods reason to doubt. You haven’t shown yourself to be reckless or incompetent. You are patient. You plan. You kill with confidence. Mastery is within your reach. You have only one species left to study. One people left to conquer. You haven’t made a single mistake. Not one.
But they’ve guided you to this point. And what you first thought to be blessing you now suspect is a curse. They’ve coddled you. They showed you the wire, the arrow. They pointed out an easy target when the human appeared, when the Mage Guard grew more watchful. You realize they don’t trust you. And if they don’t trust you, they don’t see you as one of their own. An equal. They think your mastery to be little more than the flash of trickery or the whim of chance. The more you think about it, the more your annoyance turns to anger. You are more than a knife in the dark. You are patient, inescapable, inevitable. You are death itself walking the world. You will show them.
You have an idea, a target who will be more challenging than any of the previous five. A target who will be guarded by the best the Mage Guard has to offer. Probably the human as well. Your last and final kill before you leave and move on to Godscry and the elves. When you are finished, the gods will know how truly capable you are. They will know their doubts to be misplaced. They will know their lack of trust to be foolish. They and all the world will whisper the name Nisha Davrosh and they will tremble.
✽✽✽
THE VIEW WAS an appropriate finish to a day that started with an empty bed and ended with frostbite and failure. Sorrows leaned forward, gripping the handles of the sled, staring at the back of Davrosh’s head, the backs of six dogs, the pools of light beneath glowstone lamps. The storm had calmed, and the runners hissed softly in the snow. He listened to the dogs panting, listened to Davrosh crunching some sort of nuts she kept in a pouch at her waist. His stomach growled. He spared a little thought for food, a little thought for thirst, and a great deal of thought for Julia. Julia, whose soul was strapped to his back. Julia, whom he’d carried with him for more than a year. Julia, whom he’d carried with him for centuries. Julia, whom he’d avoided thinking about once Mig and Jace appeared.
He felt guilty. Felt it heavy like a stone in his stomach. Guilt and shame. The former because though she’d long been dead, he’d always felt taking a lover was an act of betrayal to her memory, to the life they’d shared together. But he’d grown accustomed to guilt. It didn’t bother him. In fact, if anything, it made her memory more real. Like she was still alive to be hurt and angered by his lingering need for flesh and bone pressed against his flesh and bone. But it was the realness of her memory that brought shame now. And that was something new.
Julia, a woman died last night because I almost bedded an elf. He could picture Julia’s face breaking. Her chin would tremble, then her lips would turn down at the corners. Her eyes would glisten until she blinked, and a tear would fall down her cheek. She wouldn’t slap, wouldn’t yell, wouldn’t slam a door and leave. She would just look at him with eyes large and dark and liquid until he averted his gaze and found words to form an apology. But there would be no words to explain Zvilna Gorsham. No words to explain how he’d failed to protect her as he'd failed to protect Julia from the Seph.
And thinking of the Seph made him think of the bow and the job and the empty box pocketed in his cloak, heavy like guilt. If he’d simply finished the job, the elves could have had the bow, and he could have laughed at Eldrake and Oray and walked straight out of Godscry Tower. It was a beautiful bow, but it wasn’t worth his freedom. But probably the box would have still found its way to him. The Fates would have appeared, maybe when he was in Tam with Mig and Fen. Maybe in the Evonwood. Maybe he’d have worked his way back to the Edge and the Fates would have shown up while he fought the Cursed. The Fates would have found him because Ashra would have found him. She always found him. Always knew how to get her claws into his life, her whispers into his head.
He loathed her. Hated her. Felt a thrill of excitement like fire burning in his bones each time he banished her. Felt creeping dread like ice water down his back each time she reappeared in a different form. Always human, always grotesque. How could she not be? Humans had died off centuries ago. All that was left now was brittle bones. But it was enough for the Seph to build upon. Enough to hold a patchwork of animal flesh and fur. Enough for Ashra to take shape and whisper riddles in his ear. Don’t trust the elf. The Seph-orc left him with that same trickle of ice-water. A Seph in a mortal body. Ashra’s reach grew longer.
Which turned his thoughts back to the job, the bow, and Julia. And he knew then what he needed to do and not do. He needed to find a Seph and free Julia. He needed to find the killer. He needed to confront Jace about Bex. And he needed to not be distracted by long limbs and golden hair until he’d done all three. Especially the third. Obsessing over an elf wasn’t like him. Obsessing over a killer was worse. He might hope to his god that what had happened to Bex was an accident; that Jace had acted in self-defense. But his god was dead. Life was never easy like that. He’d deal with Jace eventually, but in the meantime he would hunt.
“How did you figure out Zvilna?” Davrosh asked.
She sat on the front of the sled in the cargo basket, her arms resting on the top rails, her boots at the base of the brush bow. She was turned, looking at Sorrows over her shoulder.
“We examined all the victims, never thought to try pulling their hands off,” she said.
He wasn’t sure if she was angry, joking, or curious. I had a vision of Zvilna Gorsham’s ghost, he thought. But he wouldn’t tell that to her. Those were details of the job. The job wasn’t her concern.
“Lucky guess,” he said. He pictured Mishma Valinor, her withered skin, her perfect mask. “Why don’t you dismiss the restoration magic entirely? You would have spotted it with Sturm.”
Davrosh frowned, half embarrassed, half frustrated. “That’s easy enough to say now, but you’re talking about a restoration spell. No one gave it a second thought, and we’d been asked by the families to preserve the masks.”
“Preserve? Why? Why wouldn’t the families ask to have the masks removed?”
Davrosh barked a sharp laugh. The street was empty, and her voice echoed against stone and the trunks of scattered hardwoods turned bare by winter. It startled the dogs. The sled gained a little more speed.
“You don’t know much about dwarves,” she said. “The Maiden’s Dance is the single most important day of a daughter’s life until she weds. To remove the mask would only add tragedy to tragedy.”
“Seems like it’s a way of ignoring what happened.”
“Maybe that too.”
They rode in silence for a spell, passing in and out of pools of light. The clouds had thinned overhead. The moon appeared from behind the few wisps that remained—a waxing crescent, bright and thin and sharp on the points. It hung in the sky for a moment before it was hidden again. Sorrows looked at the spot where it had been, could still see the dim glow of it behind the gray. Like a lamp hidden beneath thin wool.
“What happened to Ga’Shel?” he asked.
Davrosh turned, tilted her head in an unspoken question.
“When Zvilna’s hand came free, he disappeared,” Sorrows said.
“He slips when he’s surprised. Doesn’t your lady—doesn’t Mig do the same?”
Does she? Sorrows wasn’t sure.
He’d never seen Mig in a similar situation. But it made sense. An instinct. Something deep in a Walker’s bones, like the rush of blood and strength and speed that Sorrows felt whenever he was in danger. Heightened awareness, a sharpening of the senses. For a Walker, the sudden impulse to slip and watch the situation safely outside the gods-stream. Free from threat, hidden from hungry eyes.
“Shun it,” he said. “I should’ve seen it. I’m sorry. It’s my mistake.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know how the killer’s doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting into the rooms.”
The sled lurched as Davrosh spun around, rode on her knees. “How?”
“Forestwalking,” Sorrows said. “The killer leaves the gods-stream, waits for the door to open. Steps in. Waits for the door to close.”
“He slips the women.”
Sorrows nodded. “They’d be disoriented long enough to get the shot off.”
“Gods, I think you’re onto something,” Davrosh said. “It explains everything. We just need to work through the details of how he gets them back onto the bed; how he cuts their hands off; why he’s doing it.”
“I’ll take new questions over old any day.”
“La’Jen is going to like this. Good job, orchole.”
He smiled and nodded. She grinned and turned around. The dogs panted and pulled. Glowstone illuminated the city, shining in neat rows like will-o’-the-wisps resting atop black iron trees. The tower looked ahead, windows mirroring the spiral corridor within. His thoughts turned to Jace. His smile faded. He knew a few Walkers. But only a few. And not many elves. He knew Jace had kept her forestwalking from him. He knew Bex was dead. He only suspected the killer was a Walker. He might be wrong. But he knew what he felt toward Jace and he knew life—his life especially—was never that easy.
Chapter 31
IVRA JACE HESITATED at the door. The tower was quiet, the corridor empty. No one had seen her leave the Archmage’s room. She hadn’t passed anyone in the hallway. She stood alone with her hand resting on the door handle and her forehead creased with shallow wrinkles.
