Aisha felt a moment of panic, a flutter of anxiety coursing through her. Hailen seemed to recover from his stunned surprise long enough to fetch a mirror from the armoire and hold it out to her.
Looking into the polished silver, Aisha felt her heart stop. Specks of blue-white light swirled in her choclat-colored eyes. Faint, almost imperceptible unless she looked closely, but there. No mistaking it.
Horror roiled in her stomach. She’d seen the same light in her father’s eyes, near the end, as the Kish’aa claimed his mind. At the time, she had simply written it off as a trick of the daylight or the twinkle her mother had claimed once shone in her father’s eyes before he accepted the call of the Umoyahlebe. But now, the truth was plain to see.
She sucked in a deep breath and turned back to face Briana and Hailen. “There’s something you need to know about me.” Her gaze darted back and forth between them. “This may sound crazy, but…” Again, another long breath, this time to bolster her courage. She couldn’t hide it anymore, not after what had just happened.
They deserved to know the truth.
“I can speak to the dead.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kodyn felt a grim satisfaction as Lady Callista Vinaus personally shackled the chains on Angrak’s wrists. Just as the fat bastard deserves!
A flock of black-robed Necroseti formed a wall of sable silk and linen behind the arrested Councilor, their faces dour. They had spent the last two hours trying everything—from Shalandran legal precedent to religious law to even trying to invoke the sanctuary of the Hall of the Beyond itself—trying to protect Angrak from reprisals. Councilors Madani, Tinush, and Natoris had intervened personally, their faces etched with fury as they commanded, cajoled, and shouted at Lady Callista.
Yet behind the Lady of Blades stood a wall of black steel and hard glares that not even the Keeper’s Priests or their gilded guards could shatter. Twenty Keeper’s Blades dressed in full armor and holding drawn swords was all the support Lady Callista needed. The ranks of Indomitables that had once lined the Path of Gold for the ceremonial procession now stood silent, impassable witness to Councilor Angrak’s humiliation.
Issa and Kodyn had watched the proceedings from just behind the line of Indomitables, close enough to hear everything, to see every drop of sweat that slithered its salty way down Angrak’s rotund face. Their smiles had grown wider as his expression went from shocked to outraged to infuriated to horrified to terrified. Now, he resembled nothing so much as a cat dragging itself out of a cesspool.
All of this had taken place literally one step outside the temple threshold. One step more, Kodyn realized, and the Necroseti’s claim of sanctuary in the Hall of the Beyond would have held water. One step more, and Angrak would have been beyond Lady Callista’s reach, beyond the reach even of the Pharus.
Yet Angrak never took that final step. Kodyn and Issa had arrived in time.
Somehow, impossibly, they’d crossed the Artisan’s Tier and raced up the hill to reach Lady Callista. He shot an incredulous look at Issa. Her face was a mask of calm, yet she stood proud and tall beside him. The Keeper’s Blade had made the entire journey in full plate mail, with that two-handed sword that had to weigh at least twice as much as his own long blade. That was the sort of feat sung about in epic tales, accomplished by heroes of legend—not a trainee shorter than him.
He and Issa stepped back as the ranks of black-armored soldiers parted to make way for Lady Callista and her prisoner. Councilor Angrak’s face was white, pinched with a mixture of fear, humiliation, and resignation. Callista Vinaus wore an expression that could have been carved from stone for all the emotion it revealed, yet Kodyn knew she had to be feeling as triumphant as he did.
A grim smile twisted Kodyn’s lips. After what Angrak had done to Briana—evicting her from her father’s home the day after he died, humiliating her by physically stripping her of the trappings of her Dhukari rank—Kodyn hadn’t a drop of pity to waste on the man.
But Angrak’s defeat was just the first step.
With the fat bastard in chains, it’s just a matter of time before he gives up the information she needs to take down the Keeper’s Council. The Councilor faced charges of treason—according to Issa, he’d be lucky to keep his head from gracing a spike in Murder Square. What I’d give to be in that room when he starts to crack.
The glum expressions on the faces of the Keeper’s Council and Necroseti in front of the Hall of the Beyond made their feelings on the matter all too plain. They’d been smug, self-confident the last time Kodyn had seen them, at Suroth’s funeral. The sight of their newest Councilor—almost Councilor, he told himself with a grin—being led away in chains had shattered their confidences.
Councilor Madani, the head instigator, was the first to turn away. He whipped around in a flurry of black and gold, striding through the gates into the Hall of the Beyond. His fellow Councilors and entourage hurried to follow in his footsteps.
Kodyn narrowed his eyes. Off to plan some fresh treachery or deceit. He had little doubt the Necroseti would descend upon the palace in droves. They would fight for Angrak’s freedom with every shred of their considerable political clout—they’d want him in their clutches, not spilling his guts under the tender ministrations of Lady Callista’s questioners.
Angrak actually glanced at Kodyn as he passed. His face deepened to a scowl, his eyes narrowing to hateful pinpricks.
Kodyn grinned and swept a mocking bow, as if to say, “You’re welcome, you bastard!”
Issa snorted—amusement or disdain, Kodyn couldn’t tell from her stoic mask, which reminded him an awful lot of Lady Callista—and silently joined the ranks of the Keeper’s Blades that formed an escort around the Lady of Blades. There was no place in those lines for Kodyn, but he followed along on the heels of the Indomitables that brought up the rear.
As usual, he kept a close eye on the crowd—old habits of scanning for threats in the shadows, usually in the form of the Duke’s Arbitors or Praamian Guards, died hard. The faces that met his gaze showed stunned surprise, wide-eyed confusion, and curiosity. They had come for a grand spectacle and they’d gotten one, vastly different from what they’d expected. Some looked uncertain whether they should boo, cheer, stampede, or hurl rotten vegetables. Kodyn vastly preferred the last option.
His brow furrowed as he caught sight of a figure in the crowd. For a moment, Kodyn thought he recognized the man—short, bald, with a deformed face and crooked spine. He wore robes far simpler than the ornate Dhukari shendyts and sheath dresses worn by the crowds around him. Though a plain golden headband encircled his forehead, he resembled a Zadii more than a pompous Dhukari.
Where have I seen him? There was something terribly familiar about the man with the hunched back, but he couldn’t place it.
Yet it wasn’t just the familiarity of his features that bothered Kodyn. Something else about the man seemed subtly wrong—the direction of his gaze. Every eye in the crowd fixed on Lady Callista and Councilor Angrak, but this man’s eyes fixed above the crowd, toward the south.
Kodyn followed his line of sight, and his blood ran cold as he realized where the man was looking. The rooftops!
There, barely visible against the bright afternoon sky, something moved. Barely more than a dark shadow on the roof of a five-story mansion south of the Path of Gold, but Kodyn caught a metallic flash, like sunlight glinting off steel.
Every muscle in his body tensed and adrenaline coursed through his veins. He had just taken his first step toward Lady Callista—the intended target, he was certain—and opened his mouth to shout “Assassin!” when a long, dark shape hurtled through the clear blue sky.
Time slowed to a crawl and dread settled like a stone in Kodyn’s stomach he watched the missile hurtle toward Lady Callista. It cleared the heads of the crowd, passed over the Keeper’s Blades lion-fanged helmets, and slammed into Councilor Angrak.
Angrak was hurled to the side as if by a massive invisible hand, and he crashed
into the Keeper’s Blade to his left. To the Councilor’s right, Lady Callista was a flurry of motion. She whipped her sword free of its sheath and spun to the south, as if instinctively sensing the direction from which the attack had come. A lifetime of martial training and experience made her ready for anything.
Silence gripped the Path of Gold for a moment, the crowd too stunned to act. Then came the explosion of noise, a din of shouted questions, gasps, cries, barked orders, and, in the case of one gaggle of particularly shrill Dhukari, high-pitched screams.
Kodyn’s eyes darted back toward the roof where he’d spotted the dark shadow. The shape was moving, as if the man crawled backward on his belly, a clever way to avoid being spotted. Yet Kodyn had spotted him—he wouldn’t let the man escape.
Without hesitation, he charged the crowds lining the south side of the Path of Gold and shouldered his way through. He ducked into a broad side street and raced south, toward the wall that separated the Keeper’s Tier from the Defender’s Tier below. His eyes roamed the rooftops as he ran. Instincts honed over years running across the Hawk’s Highway pinpointed the most direct route between the rooftop and the nearest avenue of escape. He cut down a back street, too broad for the assassin to jump, and ducked into a narrower alley.
The man had only one way out: the wall.
Ice seeped down his spine as he spotted the assassin atop the sandstone wall. A hood covered the man’s face and a cloak enveloped his entire body, concealing his clothing beneath. But when the man turned to scramble down the hanging rope, his hood fell back. Kodyn caught a glimpse of a bright red birthmark covering the entire right side of his clean-shaven face.
Then, a heartbeat later, before he could make out any more details, the assassin dropped from view beyond the wall.
Kodyn skidded to a halt. Keeper take it! The assassin had gotten away. In the time it took him to climb to the rooftop and reach that rope, the man with the birthmark would disappear into the Defender’s Tier. But perhaps the accomplice wouldn’t.
Whirling, Kodyn sprinted back toward the Path of Gold and shoved through the crowds again. He scanned the throngs on the north side of the broad avenue, searching for the hunchback with the twisted face.
He, too, had disappeared.
Kodyn’s heart sank. Lady Callista hadn’t moved, though her Blades had hustled to form a protective wall around her. Councilor Angrak hadn’t moved, either. Blood stained the golden sandstone avenue in an ever-widening pool around his ornate black-and-gold Necroseti robes. His eyes were open, staring sightless at the sky.
He would never incriminate the Keeper’s Council now.
Kodyn shot a glare back toward the Hall of the Beyond. None of the Necroseti were visible, but he knew they watched.
Fury burned in his chest. They’re behind this! The Keeper’s Priests might not have pulled the trigger, just as they hadn’t wielded the daggers that slew Suroth, but he could feel in his gut that they were responsible for Angrak’s death. And I’m going to hunt that assassin down and prove it!
Chapter Forty-Nine
The previous year, the Four-Bladed Storm had swept down the slopes of Alshuruq and devastated the Artisan’s, Cultivator’s, and Slave’s Tiers. The force of that storm paled in comparison to the fury raging within Lady Callista as she paced her office. Issa had never seen the normally-calm Lady of Blades so angry. Her curses set the stone walls trembling.
Issa stood silent and still, her own anger simmering deep within her. Though she had no personal enmity toward the Keeper’s Council—aside from her instinctive distrust and dislike for Dhukari in general—but loyalty had led her to throw in her lot with Lady Callista and the Pharus. Thus, the death of Councilor Angrak and the stymying of their plans to bring down the Necroseti left her as frustrated and enraged as the Lady of Blades.
Finally, Lady Callista’s tirade slowed. She spun toward her desk, seized the jar, and hurled it against the wall. Glass shattered, spraying black dust and stone chips across the golden sandstone. “Worthless!” Her voice rang off the ceilings and floors. “All the Council needs to do is insist that Angrak operated without their knowledge and they come out of this untouched.” She spun toward the men and women that stood like silent onyx statues in the office. Each of them wore the markings of Ypertatos and Invictus, the highest-ranked Blades aside from the Elders of the Blade.
“How in the fiery hell did this happen?” Lady Callista raged.
“An assassin on the rooftops of the home of Iathin,” replied one Invictus, “a prominent Dhukari with a hand in—”
“I know who in the Keeper’s name Iathin is!” Callista Vinaus spat. “My question is how the bloody assassin got past a hundred Indomitables and Keeper’s Blades?”
Another Invictus spoke up, her face a mask of calm unshaken by Lady Callista’s rage. “Rope. Bastard climbed the wall from the Defender’s Tier. It’s possible he had help from someone on the Keeper’s Tier.”
Growling, Lady Callista slammed her mailed fist into the desk again, hard enough to make the wood groan. “Damn it!” Her fingers clenched and loosed, as if around a sword hilt. With effort, she relaxed her mailed fist, her nostrils flaring and strong jaw working as she struggled to wrestle her anger under control.
“Go,” she said in a quiet, hard voice. “Find the assassin and bring him to me. No matter what it takes. Even if you have to break down every door in the city, find him. The Council must not escape justice!”
“Yes, Proxenos!” The twenty Blades marched out of the office, some in a bit more hurry than expected from such fierce warriors. Issa made to leave, too—Lady Callista might want a bit of time to regain her composure.
“Prototopoi.”
The single word stopped Issa in her tracks. She glanced over her shoulder and found Callista Vinaus shaking her head.
“Stay.” When the last of the Blades had filed out, Callista Vinaus gestured to the door. “Close it. We must speak.”
Issa obeyed. Curiosity and a hint of fear burned in her chest as she turned to face the Lady of Blades.
Lady Callista dropped into her chair and closed her eyes. “By the Keeper, we were so close!” She ran a hand over her face, her shoulders drooping as if beneath an immense weight.
For the first time, Issa saw the woman beneath the armor and stern commander’s façade. Lady Callista Vinaus was beautiful, strong, and proud, yet burdened by duty and her desire to do right by her Pharus—a man she despised—and her city. For a moment, the woman almost reminded her of her grandfather, Nytano. Though they were castes apart, both had an internal strength of spirit and indomitable will. A will being sorely tested by recent events.
After a long moment, Lady Callista opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on Issa. “You are to be commended for your efforts, no matter how things turned out. From what I hear, you and your trainer, Archateros Hykos, proved instrumental in locating the Gatherers’ hiding place.” Her eyebrows rose an inch. “Within the Keeper’s Crypts, no less. What made you think to go in there?”
“Aisha,” Issa replied honestly.
Lady Callista cocked her head. “Briana’s Ghandian bodyguard?”
Issa nodded. “She spotted a Gatherer in the Temple District and followed him into the Crypts. She was the one who brought word of their location.”
“And you decided to leave Briana, who I had charged you to protect, to deal with them?”
Issa’s gut clenched. She had made a difficult decision in the moment, and now the time had come to deal with the consequences. The fact that the second Gatherer attack had nearly killed Briana likely meant the consequences would be severe.
Lady Callista’s brow furrowed. “Again, abandoning your post.” After a moment, she gave a dismissive wave. “And yet, again the right choice.”
The words shattered the knot that formed in her shoulders, and Issa found she could breathe again. “I left Etai to protect Briana, my lady,” she replied. “I’ve seen Etai fight and—”
“I’ve spoken with Ch
irak, Etai’s Archateros.” She shot Issa a sly smile. “While her words lack the proud glow that fills the reports I’ve received from Hykos, it confirms that Etai is as competent a Blade as we can hope for. I will make certain to commend her personally as well.”
Issa smiled. Her friend—after all they’d just been through together, she could truly consider Etai as such—deserved praise for her bravery and skill.
“Do you trust her?” Lady Callista’s eyes narrowed.
“Trust her?” Issa asked. “Trust her enough to include her in our efforts, you mean?”
Lady Callista nodded.
“I do.” Issa spoke without hesitation. “Etai is as loyal and brave as anyone I’ve met. She played her part without question, even without full knowledge of what we were doing.” She had wanted to tell Etai more, yet Lady Callista had sworn her to secrecy. “If we bring her into this mission, I have no doubt she can be trusted.”
The Lady of Blades fixed her with a long, searching look, her lips pressed into a pensive line. “Your words confirm what Chirak has already told me. I will fill her and Archateros Hykos in on as much as they need to know. The three of you will continue to assist Lady Briana and her companions in their efforts, though their presence in the Secret Keeper’s temple likely means they no longer need your protection.”
“Yes, Lady Callista.” Issa’s face revealed nothing, but relief washed over her like a cool balm. She’d hated every minute spent guarding Briana’s door. Not because she resented the order to protect the young woman—Briana had gotten her past her innate dislike of the Dhukari quickly enough—but because she was a warrior, a person of action. Standing inactive simply wasn’t in her nature.
“From what I’ve seen of Briana’s companions, they have a tendency to be in the wrong place at the right time.” Lady Callista’s smile was wry. “First they foil an attack on Suroth’s mansion, then they somehow manage to foil an Ybrazhe attempt to take over the Artisan’s Tier and lead us to the Gatherers' hideout. And that young Praamian, Kodyn, proved himself surprisingly resourceful when he…found Angrak’s documents and convinced Grand Reckoner Quodaro to turn over the testimony of this Reckoner Dyon.”
Crucible of Fortune: An Epic Fantasy Young Adult Adventure (Heirs of Destiny Book 2) Page 42
