A House Divided (Astoran Asunder, book 1) (31 page)

"…can't afford to allow ourselves to be divided," Elder Borean was saying, his voice sharp. He sounded as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Screwing her eyes closed, Cianne pressed her face to the beam, a splinter biting into her cheek. She forced her eyes open again, forced herself to watch and listen. "We've held ourselves together for twenty years. We can't stop now."

"Oh, wouldn't the other Houses love that? Wouldn't the nobles?" the other man said.

"Never let yourselves forget that any one of the players would gladly throw another to the wolves, allow them to take the fall," Daerwyn added in a low voice.

"Find that leverage," Farla said to the fair-haired woman. "Despite what the rest of you may believe, we cannot make coin appear out of thin air. We have a great deal of it, yes, but there's only so much to go around."

With that, the meeting dispersed, the attendees heading out one at a time, using both the north and south entrances. Still clinging to her beam, Cianne didn't move a muscle. She couldn't have even if she had tried. She was paralyzed, her limbs locked into place even as the warehouse seemed to whirl around her. The meeting attendees took their lanterns with them, plunging the building into darkness, and she allowed her tears to fall while she waited for her eyes to adjust.

Peeling herself from the beam at last, Cianne's knees shook as she rose into a crouch. She dashed at her face with her hand, forcing herself to breathe.

I must get to Kila's,
she told herself.
I have to get there undetected and tell him what I heard.

Moving was arduous, but she made herself do it anyway. She couldn't risk something happening to her, couldn't risk the information she'd gone to such lengths to obtain dying with her. Of all the horrible things she had imagined, she had never once entertained the thought that it could be something of this magnitude. How could she have? How could she ever have dreamed that her father had killed her mother, and was involved in the slaughter of the entire royal family?

Chapter 30

Alarm shot through Kila when Cianne staggered into his lodgings, bringing a metallic taste to his mouth.

"Cianne, what is it? Are you hurt?"

Despite his urgent tone, she didn't seem to hear him. She stared blindly ahead, as if she were looking straight through him, leaving him sick with fear.

"Are you wounded?" he asked again. When she still didn't respond, he grabbed her and began moving her limbs around, searching for an injury that didn't exist. From the way she was behaving he had feared she was suffering from shock brought on by pain and blood loss, but then he realized that though her face was colorless, no trail of blood streaked his floor. Her shock must have been caused by something she had learned.

"What is it?" he asked, guiding her into a chair, touching her face with gentle hands. "What is it? What's happened? What can I do?"

He was so distracted, so distraught by her catatonia, that he didn't notice they had company until someone seized him. Pinning his wrists behind him, his captor pressed a blade to his throat.

"What were you doing at that warehouse?" a familiar voice growled in his ear.

"Cianne," he choked, straining to reach for her even though he knew it was futile. A woman he'd never seen before had her arm around Cianne's shoulders, a blade held to her throat as well. "Don't harm her. Please, I beg you, don't harm her. She's not well."

The woman holding Cianne flicked her eyes toward Kila's captor, who tightened her grip on him.

"What were you doing at that warehouse?" his captor repeated.

At last the voice pricked the bubble of panic surrounding him, and he tried to no avail to turn his head so he could look at her face.

"Chief Flim?" he asked, his voice ringing with disbelief.

"I won't ask you again."

If Kila thought he'd been worried before, he had known nothing. His fear was so palpable he felt as if it could crush him. He had been so certain no one had seen him, that he had made it back to his lodgings without anyone following him. Staying far from the warehouse, he had walked in a wide circle around it, studying the streets, searching for any clue he could find. He hadn't seen a thing that had given him pause, and that worried him more than anything.

"Do you think I'll answer that?" he asked harshly. "You may as well slit my throat now, spill my blood all over this floor."

"Flim," the other woman said, her voice high and thin.

"What?" the chief barked.

"This is Cianne Wyland."

"
What?
They know. House Staerleigh knows," the chief said, and now she was the one who sounded terrified.

To Kila's surprise, Cianne snapped out of her stupor. While her captor was distracted, she bent back her assailant's finger, causing the woman to cry out and drop her dagger.

"Don't move!" Flim ordered, the words cracking through the room, even though she spoke in a low voice. "I will kill him."

"Not if I kill you first," Cianne said in a rasping voice that sounded nothing like her own.

"Stop," Cianne's assailant gasped, cradling her injured hand against her chest, her face white. "You don't understand. She's Annalith's daughter."

"Why are you talking about my mother?" Cianne asked, so viciously her assailant flinched away.

"I'm not letting him go until I know why they were at that warehouse," Chief Flim said. She hadn't let her guard down in the slightest, and Kila wasn't about to test her. The pieces were all jumbled, and he couldn't make sense of anything that was happening, not why the chief and this other woman were in his lodgings, not why Cianne was acting as though she'd lost contact with reality, and least of all why the other woman was bringing Cianne's long-dead mother into the discussion.

Well, I suppose I'd best talk, then. See if I can't figure out what's going on and use it to find a way to get us out of this mess.

"We've been looking into House Staerleigh for weeks," Kila said, trying to catch Cianne's eye. It was no use as she was staring wild-eyed at her assailant.

"Why?" Flim asked.

"Because we suspected they had something to do with Toran Stowley's death."

The blade eased away from his throat a bit. Not enough to convince him it was safe to move, but enough that cold steel no longer bit at his neck, which made him feel considerably better.

"I thought we had an agreement."

"Oh, well, forgive me for worrying about trusting you," Kila said, his tone dripping sarcasm. His adrenaline was pumping. "Clearly that was a mistake on my part."

Letting out an irked noise, Flim eased up a little more but still didn't release him. Kila deduced she worried it might not be the wisest course of action, considering that Cianne's murderous glare was now directed at Flim.

"Cianne's not involved. I would have known," the other assailant said, her eyes creased at the corners in pain.

"Would you? What if she's being recruited?" Flim asked.

With a bitter bark of a laugh, Cianne said, "Considering my own father has been lying to me about everything for the last decade, he must be using the subtlest of all recruitment tactics. You've been lying too, apparently." She rounded on the other woman, who cringed.

"Cianne, who is that?" Kila asked.

"Vivie. My maid."

"I thought you were suspicious of the House members," Kila said to the chief.

"As you know, trust is a fragile thing," she snapped.

"Stop. We all need to stop," Vivie said. Keeping wary eyes on Cianne, she pulled herself up off the floor, her uninjured hand held out in a placating gesture.

"I want to know why you brought up my mother," Cianne said, and it was obvious she intended to be anything but placated.

"Because your mother is alive."

"Vivie!" Flim snapped.

Cianne blanched and swayed on her feet. Vivie used her good hand to prod Cianne back into her chair.

"We're not working with the House," Kila said. Gaping holes still prevented him from seeing the full picture, but he was beginning to put the pieces together.

"How can my mother be alive? Where is she?" Cianne demanded, directing a fierce glare at Vivie.

"I'll tell you everything, I promise. But first we need to know what you were doing tonight. It's important, Cianne. I wouldn't make you wait otherwise, I hope you know that," Vivie said, her voice strained.

"No. First you tell me where my mother is. You tell me who you are and what you're doing," Cianne said. "I won't tell you a thing I heard until I know that."

A silent argument passed between Vivie and Flim, and then Flim released Kila with a frustrated grunt.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Flim said, pointing at Vivie with her dagger.

"Your mother is safe. That's all I can tell you," Vivie said.

Cianne opened her mouth, her face thunderous, but Flim cut her off. "No, she literally can't tell you. Neither of us can. Annalith is always on the move, and we never know where she is at any given time." At Cianne's searing glare, Flim added, "For her own protection."

"She had to flee, Cianne. Your father, Moiria Stowley, the Elders, they found out that your mother had uncovered information about their activities, and she had to disappear. They were going to kill her."

"Kill her?" Kila asked in disbelief. "What are you on about? Cianne, listen to me. They show up here, hold us at daggerpoint, and claim that your mother is alive? You can't trust anything they say."

"I can prove it," Vivie said quietly. Drawing a necklace out from under her shirt, she lifted it over her head and handed it to Cianne, whose face paled even more.

"It was my mother's," Cianne said, her voice cracking. "She was wearing it when she left for her last journey."

"How can you be sure?" Kila asked, trying to speak as gently as possible. "It was such a long time ago, Cianne, and—"

"It's Shaper-made. My father commissioned it for her, for their tenth anniversary. It's one of a kind," she said, holding it out to him.

He took it from her shaking hand and examined it, all doubt disappearing the instant he saw it. The pendant was a small ship at sea, tossed about by roiling waves. Though no bigger than his thumb, it was incredibly detailed. Minuscule sailors hauled ropes on the deck while gulls wheeled overhead. The waves were so realistic he was surprised his fingers remained dry when he touched them. He could even make out the grain of the wood from which the ship had been built.

Returning the necklace to Cianne, he crouched protectively beside her chair, his arm curled around the chair's back. He could feel Flim's eyes on them, but he didn't care. He studied Cianne, searching for the right words to say.

"How did you get this?" Cianne asked Vivie.

"Your mother sent it to me, in case I ever needed to tell you the truth."

"Why didn't she take me with her? Why did she leave me here?" Cianne cried.

She sounded like the child she had been when she'd been led to believe her mother had died. It reminded Kila of the fragile, skittish girl who had appeared in his garden, who had seemed so lonely, as if she had no one in the world on whom she could rely. Betrayal and grief carved harsh lines in her face, and tears sprang to Vivie's eyes.

"She had no choice, Cianne. She had no idea they had discovered what she knew, and she only just escaped with her life when they tried to kill her during her last voyage. Sending for you was out of the question. She hasn't ceased running since, and she knew that was no life for a child. As long as you didn't know what the House had done, you would be safe, and she asked me to look after you, to get you out if you had to leave."

Pressing her lips together, Cianne said nothing. Kila watched her struggle with her newfound knowledge and wished there were something he could do to help her. Never in his life had he felt so utterly useless, and it tore him apart.

"Why would they want to kill her?" Kila asked, desperate to understand.

"Because she discovered the House had conspired to kill the royal family," Cianne said in a faint whisper. She stared at the pendant as if it were the only thing in the room she could see.

"What?" he asked, horrified.

"I heard them talking about it, though not in so many words. Toran had figured it out too; it's why they killed him." Taking a deep breath, Cianne recounted for them what she'd overheard, her eyes never leaving the pendant. Her voice gained strength as she spoke, and with her final words she closed her hand around her mother's pendant, clutching it in her fist.

"How did you manage to hear all this?" Flim asked suspiciously, and Kila felt his own hands curling into fists.

"I snuck into the warehouse and hid in the rafters while they spoke. I heard everything they said," Cianne said.

"How did you—" Vivie began, bewildered.

"I also know how to keep secrets," Cianne said, anger making a lash of her words. Abashed, Vivie dropped her eyes to the floor, color rising to her cheeks.

Chief Flim had begun pacing the room, rubbing her chin as she walked. "We have to determine who Farla was talking about, see if we can get him out. He may be willing to help our cause," she said to Vivie.