Weswick leaned forward on his forearm. “No. She told me she was threatened. Her husband, an Escort, is being held somewhere.”
“They threatened to kill him?”
“They threatened to cut something off him every day she didn’t comply, starting when I sent off. It took her two more days to decide to send troops, though she sent a messenger straight back to Ilumat.” He shrugged. “Which, no, before you ask, I didn’t know about all that. She had me told when I was released, once the troops had a four-day head start.”
Draken considered hard whether to ask his next question, but in the end he couldn’t not ask. “Ilumat said he had proof the Queen is dead.”
The corner of Weswick’s mouth twitched. It was some breaths before he answered. “While I waited for the preparation of Ilumat’s message, nearly a sevennight, someone arrived with a wrapped body by night. It was all whisked away. Later, when I had heard more, I thought it must be her husband …”
“How did you see all that?” Aarinnaie asked.
Weswick shrugged. “Information and intrigue do not sleep. Nor do I.”
“Whose body was it?” Draken said, vaguely surprised he could speak at all with his throat so tight.
“I never found out, Highness. But Ilumat’s claim of proof of the Queen’s death worries at me like a thorn in the foot. I’m loyal, I am.”
“What would he show? Her head?” Aarinnaie said.
Tyrolean gave her a sharp look.
“It doesn’t matter. If he actually has proof that he would have shown it by now.” Draken gave Weswick a grudging nod. “You’ve more than earned your coin. Make arrangements with Tyrolean to be paid.”
“But there’s yet more.”
Draken exchanged glances with Tyrolean.
“What, Weswick? Tell it all,” Tyrolean said.
Weswick’s manner changed. He blinked rapidly, glanced around the tavern, and tapped his fingers on the table thrice before stilling them. “Not here.”
“Right, and let you lead us off into some trap?” Aarinnaie shook her head. “Come, Drae. We’ve got it all out of him already.”
“No.” The word was sharp, followed by a hissed, “Highness. Please.”
“Come to the castle, then,” Draken said.
Weswick hesitated. Bruche wondered if he actually worked for Va Khlar or if that were a boast or lie.
Likely truth, Draken replied. The trader-Baron was notorious for his tight grip on all things Reschan. “You’re under my protection,” Draken said. “No harm will come to you at the castle.”
“Besides, think of what you might learn.” Aarinnaie tended to goad people when curiosity got the better of her.
An effective tactic, Bruche noted admiringly. Apparently so, because Weswick relented with a curt nod.
They were admitted back into the castle without the previous arrival’s threats and fanfare and settled in an alcove off the great hall. Draken summoned Va Khlar. The Baron took his time in coming and slaves brought wine and bread. Weswick didn’t sit, but watched the entrance to the hall, stiff enough to bounce a blade off. Draken was better able to examine him here. His clothes were worn but once had been fine; his boots scuffed from travel. His eyes narrowed as he considered what this meant. Draken knew enough of Akrasian politics to know even a bastard son of a well-off, established military family would probably have advantages and expectations others wouldn’t. And yet Weswick wore no visible weapons and did not bear the telltale broadness of shoulder from a lifetime at the sword, nor the lopsided cant to the body frame the bow bestowed on archers.
Perhaps he has found information to be weapon enough, Bruche suggested.
Draken doubted it; surely it was easy enough to kill a man with dangerous information, which begged the question: How did Weswick survive while so apparently physically defenseless?
Powerful friends.
Draken suspected one of them strolled in as he exchanged thoughts with his swordhand. Va Khlar in the castle as Baron suited him, strangely. A smile cut his usually cryptic, scarred face. He wore the expensive clothes, chains of office, and grandiose surroundings as if he had been born to them. Perhaps there was a thinner difference between decrees made in castle great halls and threats made in back alleys than Draken believed.
Va Khlar slowed his pace, staring at Weswick, then letting his gaze slide to Draken. Tyrolean rose. “My Lord Baron, this is my brother Weswick.”
There was a slight edge to the word brother. Uncharacteristic of Tyrolean to warn someone, or behave with less than perfect courtesy to a lord or superior officer. From Tyrolean’s tone, the tightening of Va Khlar’s scarred expression, and Weswick looking rooted to the spot, someone needed to be.
“Sit, the lot of you.” Draken had the urge to rise, but knew if he stayed seated, it would keep him leading things. He let a little princely annoyance taint his words. “I assume you’ve met Weswick.”
“Aye, Your Highness. A herald of sorts. I admit he’s not one I like to find on my doorstep in trying times.” Va Khlar moved to take the chair nearest Draken. The others followed. Aarinnaie sat quietly for once, watching. “Nor one I expected to find with you.”
“He was our mysterious meeting,” Draken said. “He’s had some interesting things to tell us.”
“Oh?” Va Khlar reached for the pitcher of wine. No evidence of nervous trembling curled his fingers. But then, it wouldn’t. He was adept in trading in lies, stolen goods, and violence. But the twisting of his scarred brow and a narrowing of the eye beneath it, and the way his attention seemed riveted to Weswick rather than his prince, set Draken’s teeth on edge.
“And he claims to have more,” Draken said. “I suggested we come here to finish our conversation.”
“It’s sensitive then?” A muscle twitched in Va Khlar’s cheek, hollowing it.
Weswick rubbed his tongue along the edge of his teeth. “It’s about the Queen. She is alive, Prince Draken.”
Draken’s throat felt as if it were closing. “I thought we discussed this before.”
“It’s not a safe truth for any to know. For her, for perhaps any of you.”
It made sense, damn him. But this proclamation set Draken on sharp edge. It didn’t help that Truls materialized from the shadows, head cocked. He didn’t speak. Draken noticed Weswick watching him stare at what appeared to be nothing. He cleared his throat. “How can you know this?”
“A collusion of rumors often tell truth.”
“And where do these rumors claim she is?”
“In the Moonling woods, headed for Brîn. For you, Highness.”
“That will take her right through the front,” Draken said. Or by Galbrait and Rinwar, depending where they were headed.
Truls moved, catching his eye. Draken felt a chill, caught a whiff of death scent. It struck him that Truls stank when he wanted Draken’s attention dragged to something, or from something—
Aarinnaie had moved. Draken missed it. She struck, quick as a viper, a knife pressed under Weswick’s chin. The skin was soft there, grey and sagging. His hand flew up to grip hers. It was wrinkled and spotted but still dug into her skin. She tipped his chair back and braced her heel against the stone wall. The blade tightened, sinking into an aged fold on the man’s throat. He kicked, but only served to nudge the table. Va Khlar rose and shifted nearer to Weswick and Aarinnaie, hand on his hilt. It looked a ceremonial blade if the jewels and engraving were any indication, but even such were sharp.
“You’re lying,” Tyrolean said, sounding almost offhand. But then, he didn’t know of the evil eating at Aarinnaie’s soul.
Draken rose and spoke sharply. “Aarinnaie, stand down—”
She cut Draken off with a low, threatening hiss and a tightening of the blade. A shadow flickered around her, and Draken’s vision shifted from color to the varied greys of darksight.
“Get her off me!” Weswick coughed, a wet gagging sound. A bit of spittle sprayed from his mouth. A trickle of crimson penetrated the creviced
shadows under his chin, sparking against Draken’s vision.
An odd effect … Draken blinked and his darksight faded. The room was dim enough to accommodate his vision without the mask.
Tyrolean sat still in his chair, watching her assault his brother. “Where is the Queen, Wes? The truth now.”
“Damn it, Tyrolean.” The Akrasian was closest to Aarinnaie, but doing nothing. He didn’t know the danger she posed. He considered this a threat to get Weswick to talk. Maybe a little torture. Draken started to edge around the table. “Answer and she’ll let you go. Aye, Aarinnaie?”
She didn’t glance up at her name. Cold fear seized Draken.
Noisy pants from Weswick. “Algir! She makes for Algir.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Aye!”
“Who else knows?”
Weswick squirmed, trying to dislodge her arm with his wrinkled hands. “I’ve told no one. I’m no traitor!”
kill him kill him kill him
“Then talk,” Draken growled, ignoring Truls’s whispers. “The truth, mind you—” But her blade flashed down and disappeared into Weswick’s chest as Va Khlar spoke.
“Aarinnaie!” Draken rushed around the table toward them.
It was too late. Weswick gagged and sputtered crimson. More blood spilled over Aarinnaie’s arm. She released him with a shove. He tumbled to the floor in a death spasm. Blood drained from his mouth and his chest in slow, tepid pools against the stone.
Tyrolean rose, his face grey, fists clenched. She looked up at him. Blinked. Her face crumpled. She backed away from Weswick and Tyrolean, shaking her head wordlessly.
“Tyrolean.” Draken looked from his friend to his sister, not knowing who was in worse shape.
“I didn’t mean … I was just.” Aarinnaie blinked down at her bloody sleeve. She swallowed hard.
Her eyes were too big in her face, her bloodied hand and wrist too narrow for a killer. Draken reached for her hand but she drew away, arms pressed to her sides. He wanted to hold her, to remind her it was Truls’s doing, that the spirit surely manipulated her even now. Of course Truls had conveniently melted away into the air.
“She killed him in cold blood. We all saw it. You must lock her up, Your Highness,” Va Khlar said, making Draken wonder just whose favor he was currying. Not his, certainly. Maybe trying to save his own skin since he’d uttered what amounted to an order, even if as Szirin, Aarinnaie outranked him. Before Draken could answer, a slave approached on soft feet. His soft clearing of his throat startled them all.
“My lord.” He stared at the bloodied Aarinnaie, voice quivering. “A M-Mance is at the gates, b-bidding entrance.”
“Fools all, let him in!” Draken strode around the table and took Aarinnaie by the wrist. “Send him to my chamber. Come, Aarinnaie.”
* * *
Aarinnaie changed into a loose gown brought by servants, and Draken washed her hands for her, and her neck and face of the blood splatter. She kept her face turned aside from him. It reminded him of the first time they’d really ever talked. She’d been a prisoner for attempted assassination of the Queen. He’d meant to manipulate her into compliance so she would give him the name of whoever held her leash. Instead, she’d manipulated him. Clever girl to have found out so much about him prior to their arrival at the Bastion; clever for her to understand the information from Draken’s fellow prisoner meant something. And clever Truls, who had molded her into a murderous image of himself.
The ghost had made himself scarce. Just as well. His commands during Weswick’s death hadn’t fled Draken’s notice. He couldn’t help but wonder if Truls was still pulling her strings. Maybe it was her Truls was here for, not him.
Aarinnaie perched on the edge of a hard chair, her hands pressed between her knees. She finally looked up at him with wide, stricken eyes. Was that an affectation? She was clever. He’d just been thinking it …
She must be doing as he taught her.
“Will you lock me up as Va Khlar said?” As the trader-Baron had once done before turning her over to Draken.
“It’s getting tougher for you to control.” Not quite a question.
Aarinnaie swallowed and averted her gaze to somewhere near his knees. Nodded once.
“Perhaps you should be, until we can work out what to do.”
She didn’t move but for a slight tremble. “There isn’t anything to do for it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Mast … Truls told me. When he yet lived.”
“As he would.” He stepped a little closer. “Aarinnaie—”
Unlike her shoulders and Draken’s stomach, her voice was steady. “You’ll do what’s best, Khel Szi.”
He highly doubted that. “Very well. Get some rest.”
Draken didn’t have to seek Osias for a private word. He was in Draken’s room. The Mance looked thinner, a little frail. He was also in the throes of a full-on necromantic trance. Five shimmering shapes stood before him, speaking in wavering sounds that held no words Draken could make out. Draken stilled as realization came over him. These five were the dead Mance.
At one particular phrase, Osias hissed a breath. His Voice rumbled through the room, thrummed through the vast distances and tight places where Bruche melded with Draken, deeper than marrow but outside his skin, in some language Draken didn’t know. He could track reverberations, like waves on the sea, traveling through the room. He pulled down his mask and stared.
More soft answers, weak and fading. Osias stretched out his fingertips to encompass all five. Webbing flowed from his hand, shackling the dead to the living world. They solidified again, but shied as if resistant. It was a moment before Osias spoke again. Draken braced himself against flinching, but Bruche clung tight to his insides, icy against his ribcage. Every echo strove to rip Bruche from him.
No Setia among them. Draken’s heart stalled. But maybe she would not appear here if she were dead. Another thundering question. The ghost-Mance all shied again. The atmosphere in the room thickened. The fire flickered down, suffocated. Draken wasn’t breathing or he’d be gasping for air. They didn’t want to speak. He knew it in his bones, in the magic thrumming through him, in the darksight that showed him these ghosts. He wondered where Truls was in this. And what he knew that he wasn’t saying.
A word, it sounded like, but muffled. Just one. Osias must have believed, because he waved a hand and the ghosts fled through the shutter slats.
The fire crackled and caught again. Draken dragged air into his chest and squinted against the glare. For a moment he just breathed.
“Khel Szi.” Osias moved to block the firelight with his body.
“I hope you learned something.”
Osias’s gaze met Draken’s with clear eyes, the crescent moon above them black against his silver skin. “They were killed by Korde and a handful of Moonlings working the Abeyance. That held them still in order for Korde to act.”
“Sikyra and Setia?”
Osias just looked at him, arms hanging limp at his sides. “I am sorry, my friend.”
A thick woolen silence fell between them. His heart seized. Draken sank to his knees, fingers gripping his knees, vision blurring into a dull grey so that even darksight faded away.
Sikyra.
Her voice. Her smile.
Every fear, every horror he had imagined crashed down on him. His life splintered into two parts: when Sikyra lived, when even the possibility of her lived. And now, a remnant of the former. An existence of futile memory. He lowered his head into his shaking hands, silent and still as the Abeyance.
* * *
Draken listlessly wandered the polished stone floor, extinguishing the oil sconces in his room. Heat from the fire stretched long fingers through the slight draft coming from the bolted shutters. The headboard was carved with religious symbols surrounding the Seven in Sohalia phase. The bed looked inviting, piled with fine fabrics. He would find no rest there.
“The slaves say there was a
murder,” Osias finally said.
“Aye. A messenger who had it coming.” Had blades spilled the blood from Sikyra’s tiny body as it had Weswick’s? He swallowed back bile.
“Who?”
It took Draken a moment to recall what they were talking about. “Aarin. She’s out of control. I’ll have to lock her up.” His voice was flat. His heart was already too wrung, even as unfair as it was to his sister.
Soft cushions bolstered the benches by the hearth, one of which Osias commandeered. His nails made irritating scritches as he cleaned the twin bowls of his pipe. The smell of Gadye weed rose up as he packed them, sharpened as he lighted it with his fingertips and smoke filtered through the air. Usually intoxicating and soothing, it had no impact on Draken this night.
Despite his placid movements and the calming nature of the smoke, Osias’s voice was fierce, sharp. “She would never recover from such betrayal of her faith. You are her last ally, her family, and her Khel Szi. She has driven all else away.”
Such a betrayal would break you, as well. You need her more than ever.
“Your swordhand speaks truth, my friend.”
“She cannot bear it—this desire to kill.” His voice broke.
You must leave her be. What will come will come.
I tried that and she’s married to Ilumat, who took her to his bed and did only the gods know what to her …
She knows. And she alone knows what she can bear.
“Perhaps it is you who cannot bear it? She is not a child, Draken. She is a grown, thinking woman all her own, and it is done. She doesn’t need you to save her from this.”
Draken mastered his voice. “Aarin said there’s nothing to be done.”
“It is old magic Truls used on her. Not just training, but necromantic soul-work. A bane splint.”
Draken narrowed his eyes and frowned, an intense look of concentration to mask his baser feelings of grief and terror. Osias went on: “The part of evil that binds it to a soul. To rip it from her would unravel her. It’s as much a part of her now as Bruche is of you.”
He imagined long claws or spiraling antennae burrowing into Aarinnaie. “I think I see it in my mind’s eye. This cursed sight the gods have given me.”
Enemy Page 24
