King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (22 page)

H
E FOUND HIMSELF. He surged out of Lara’s memories and possession whole, if shaken, his body dripping with sweat, his sword in his hands as he’d imagined it, on his feet in the attack defense position. Defense, not offense. It couldn’t have been him. He did not have the angle but another had. His forearms ached all the way to his shoulders. He’d taken a blow to his weapon, deflecting it. But not enough. Not enough to save her entirely from harm. And then, he was back, here and now. Lara sat in her wooden throne, nails dug into the arms, leaving new and ugly grooves in the wood. A slack expression rode her face, and underneath her blue-veined eyelids her eyes moved restlessly as those caught in a nightmare or fever-delirium did. He wanted to rouse her, but he couldn’t. If she had seen as he thought she did, if she remembered as he remembered, she would believe that he had tried to kill her. The blows had been that close, shearing through the air and blades skimming off one another. She would think the worst of him.

But he had not. He knew it as well as he knew his love for Rivergrace. He knew it as well as he had ever known anything in his soul.

But he could not disprove it.

If he stayed at Larandaril, he was a dead man. The same for Grace. When Lara came to, she would not, could not, allow him to live, knowing what he knew and having tried to do what she thought she saw and felt. She couldn’t afford to take the time to wonder, to puzzle things out, and had no one she could trust from whom to seek advice. She would have to act and act decisively. A cold shiver touched the back of his neck as he relived a moment of cold steel slicing deep.

He touched two fingers to her temple and loosed his Voice. “Sleep.”

She took a shuddering breath and her body sagged down onto the throne. Sevryn considered her for long moments. Dare he try more? Dare he twist and corrupt his ability even as she had, to save his life? He might be able to rebraid her observations.

He wouldn’t do it for himself. He knew how to survive. How to dodge and dissemble. He might do it for Rivergrace, but . . .

What if Lara also forgot the information she’d staked everything to gain? What if she forgot about the Raymy? Bistane? All she’d hoped to learn. She’d hoped to turn the tide of war in her favor, and she might have. He would be but a single fatality in that effort if he failed to keep himself alive. If he twisted her mind now, there might be hundreds, even thousands more if the return of the Raymy army was not met in force. This was war.

Sevryn sighed. He traced his fingers across her forehead, moving a tangle of hair from her eyes for when she would awaken. His Voice still rested deep within his throat as he spoke to her. “Think well of me. Even when you do not wish to do so, think well of me. Know that I lived as a brother to you and Jeredon. Remember that even when confronted with what you think you know. That’s all I ask.” He had so much more he wanted to say, but he cleared his throat instead, stifling his impulse. He’d made his decision and now he must live with it.

He did not dare to stay at Larandaril to see if he had persuaded her.

Sevryn turned away from Lara to abandon the only true home he had known for most of the decades of his life. Life as a Vaelinar half-breed had been dangerous, but life as a full-blooded Vaelinar was far more treacherous. Lara and Larandaril had been a haven, though surrounded by a sinister moat of Vaelinar schemes. She and Jeredon had thrived on it while Sevryn settled for survival.

He went directly to Rivergrace’s apartments. She sprawled on the divan by the window, her gaze fixed on the scene beyond. She came to her feet gracefully but said nothing as he raised his palm. “Pack. Take as little as you can but everything you need.”

“How long a trip?”

He paused a moment. “We’re likely not coming back.”

“Lara?”

“I’ve lost her trust.”

Her eyes widened, those lovely eyes with hues of blue and aquamarine and a dancing gray-blue, but she didn’t ask anything further. Wordlessly, she turned and began to gather things. Extra pair of boots. A waterproof hooded cloak. A few vials and pots of creams and medicines. Two pairs of riding pants, one pair of suede chaps. A skirt. Two shirts, and one overtunic. She paused at the last item: a cloak he did not remember seeing before but surely he had, there were few secrets between the two of them. This rippled as a kind of nothingness, rather than a dark material, and he blinked as he tried to fix his eyes upon it; but before he could say anything to question the garment, she had it placed out of sight in her saddlebags. A few more things packed in. Her slim hands paused over the leather flaps of the bags. She took the second pair of boots out, hesitating.

“Take them,” he said. “We may not have time to find a cobbler or wait for his crafting.”

Rivergrace nodded. She tucked them back in and rearranged a few items. Her packs were full but not overly so. She could carry them herself if she had to, and their burden would be negligible to her mount. He had taught her a few things, it seemed.

“Yours?”

“Never unpacked.” He went to the door.

Rivergrace took a step to follow before turning around and scanning the room. She scooped up a last item, a ribbon-tied packet of letters from her desk. He recognized Nutmeg’s bold and sassy scrawl and smiled. Nimbly adding them to her bags, she slipped out the doorway ahead of him. They took the backstairs, which were now steeped in shadow, and no one saw them leaving after he gathered his things.

He left his beloved Aymaran grazing in the pasture. Rivergrace watched him curiously as he selected two good, honest horses: Glow for her and Pavan for himself and she helped him saddle them. If she had had any doubt that he did not think they were returning, that proved it. Whatever he thought they might face, there were certain parts of his heart he would not subject to the trials ahead. She wondered if he had battled with himself whether or not to bring her as well, but squelched the question.

She swung up, two sets of packs now on each horse, the second set full of grain and hardtack biscuits which the tashya, the hot-blooded horses of the Vaelinar, particularly thrived upon in hard times. Glow flicked her black-tipped ears forward and back as Grace settled in the saddle, pushing her boots deeper into the stirrups. Glow slid one fore hoof forward to paw at the ground in dainty impatience as her gold-dappled hide rippled. Sevryn mounted and pivoted his horse about, not a word or whistle or last apple thrown to Aymaran in farewell. She thought she saw a tear sparkle in his eye momentarily, but then his back faced her and she urged Glow after them.

No return.

Glow eagerly caught up with Pavan and his rider and they loped abreast at an easy pace. It was then Rivergrace asked him, “What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking what I will do about the ild Fallyn.”

She had no response to that, realizing that he was leaving the Queen but would not leave her vulnerable, not if there was any way he could help it. She had no advice to give him. The only way the ild Fallyn could not make trouble was if they were dead, and he would not be the first to consider the enterprise, knowing that all other similar enterprises had failed.

Dusk began to filter quietly, like lavender smoke, through the greening woods at the top of the ridge. He reined to a halt and Pavan turned his head to nip impishly at Glow’s neck. The mare danced away a step. He shifted in his saddle to consider Rivergrace with his gray eyes: deep, contemplative eyes that always seemed to see right into her, with a trust that was complete and loving. She felt a warming tingle up the back of her neck.

“Which way?”

“We need to move quickly and unseen, but with the Ferryman gone, I can’t use his Way to cover ground.”

She could feel the night begin to gather in the condensation about her, ephemeral yet inexorable, as the balance in air and ground changed with evening’s coolness. If she wished, if she would allow it, sparkling dewdrops would cloak her, drawn to her. Rivergrace would not, although the dampness didn’t bother her, it was the chill. Early spring dew still remembered winter’s ice. “Mageborn tunnels.”

“The question there would be, are either of us Kernan enough to read the sigils.”

“And the closest one collapsed.”

“That, too, being a problem.”

She knew that the labyrinth of tunnels could be their death; they’d wandered them before out of desperation, but they had also served a purpose. A faint sheen of uneasiness rose on her forehead, a queasiness, and she dried it away with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to go underground.”

His gaze rested on her. “If we simply ride, we will be overtaken. She’ll send out hawks. We can’t outrun messengers on wing.”

Whatever had happened between Sevryn and Lariel? She opened her mouth to ask, when something brushed past her cheek like a tendril of unruly hair demanding attention. She put her hand up to sweep it away and found nothing, not even a wisp of spidersilk. Grace turned her face to follow the sensation of what seemed to be there but was not. Nothing. Yet something. She pushed it out of her mind, returning to Sevryn and their dilemma.

“Bregan could read the sigils.”

“Do you think any trader could?” he responded.

“Doubtful. You have more experience with traders than I do. Mistress Robin Greathouse is Dweller and although she has . . . quirks . . . nothing like Bregan’s ability with the tunnels.”

Something pulled on the edge of her cloak. Rivergrace glanced down at her boot to see if it was caught on the hem. Nothing.

“What is it?”

She met his gaze. Uneasily, she answered, “I don’t know.”

“We can’t stay up here on the ridgeline.” He laid his reins against the side of Pavan’s arched neck, and the horse responded with a step forward. “We may have no choice but to try a tunnel.”

Dew settled on her in a weightless cloudburst, enveloping her in tiny, sparkling droplets. She smoothed her hand through them, little stings of water with the bite of winter still within, yet bursting with . . .

She looked up. “Sevryn!”

He halted Pavan and looked back over his shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

“I can use the rivers.”

“The Ferryman is gone.”

She held her hand up and dew streamed through her fingers like moonlight, coalescing into a stream of moisture. “I can use the rivers.”

“All right, then. The Andredia? We’ll have to circle around to where it flows out of Larandaril, and do so very circumspectly, but we can make it by midevening.”

Normally she would be hesitant, a little doubtful of her abilities as she still came into understanding of them, but even the barest thought of the sacred river flooded through her mind, pulling at her, a tide not to be ignored or crossed. She nodded. “Even the Andredia.”

He turned their horses about yet again, as the lavender mist of dusk deepened into purple, and long shadows lengthened into night.

Those same shadows proved to be midnight highways for many in the restless night.

Tressandre

“H
OW LONG HAS THE SUBJECT been missing?”

Wrapped in shimmering black-and-silver cloth, the speaker might have been a storm cloud, but the ild Fallyns always preferred those colors. It was not the clothing the guardsmen watched warily, it was the expression on Tressandre ild Fallyn’s face and in her infamous, fierce jade eyes. Being fitted for an outfit of some sort, she stood on a cushioned stool so that the aged seamstress could have better access to her elegant figure. Dressed in little more than the skin she’d been born with, Tressandre did not seem to care about the intrusion as Heroma measured and cut, pinned and basted. Bare skin peeked intriguingly through sashes of cloth as the guardsmen straightened from their bow and the veteran answered.

“Since the noon meal, as closely as we can figure.”

“As closely as you can figure.”

The tall, redheaded guard shifted his weight. Younger, he let his gaze feast on her. He might be punished for his stare—or he might be rewarded. She was the power in the fortress although her older brother Alton had ridden in late during the night and now slept. They would not have gone to him anyway, not when Tressandre was in the keep. She was the undeniable mistress. Boldness fueled his words. “Those posted on duty thought she’d gone for a tumble. It’s common enough.”

The jade eyes glinted. “Indeed. Perhaps we’re feeding them too much if they can afford to miss a meal to rut.” Tressandre lifted her arm at a murmured request. “How did she get out?”

“That has not been determined yet. Over the wall seems likeliest.”

“For a chit of little Talent, she seems to have stirred up quite a hornet’s nest.” At another soft request from the seamstress, she lifted her cascading mane of dark blonde hair, her aroma of cinnamon and night rose scenting the air. “Nonetheless, her act can’t be tolerated. I want the hounds and trackers after her, and no one is to return until they find her or her remains. She is not important to our project, but she has a mouth and she has memory, and those I will have safely contained or silenced. She matters to no one but the three of us, and the three of us want her accounted for. Am I clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good. I have business elsewhere, but if I hear that you need my help, I will not hesitate to give it.”

The guardsmen paled a bit. “That will not be necessary, Lady ild Fallyn.”

“I am certain it will not. Now take care of matters.” Tressandre sliced a dismissal through the air and the two backed out of the drawing room with great speed. She watched them go, a frown lining her brow. She did not need trouble among the subjects. The name of the one gone missing did not carry any recognition, so it was not one of those they’d found useful. She brushed her dark blonde hair from her shoulders and twisted it into a knot at the back of her neck, her arms rippling with both muscle and grace as she did so. She looked down at the woman attempting to pin trousers in place. “Did you place the name, Heroma?”

“No, milady, but then I seldom have dealings with the outer hold.”

“Just as well.” Tressandre looked at herself critically in the two standing mirrors opposite them. The bent and wiry woman working on her did not seem to notice or take care of her reflection, creased and white-haired, hands a bit gnarled from years of tailoring as her fingers hurried up and down the cloth, pinning here, releasing there. “Stomach. I need more stomach.”

The seamstress, on her knees on a padded stool, craned her neck to look upward. “Milady Tressandre, I cannot make it both ways. I cannot create a stomach where you have none, nor can I pretend to hide said stomach as though you did not wish it revealed simultaneously.”

“Of course you can, Heroma. You can work miracles with a bolt of cloth.”

The seamstress stabbed pins into the cushion at her wrist. “It’s a riding costume, milady. Not that you should be riding at all this early in your term to protect the child, but I positively cannot tailor it and give you a belly where you haven’t any yet!”

“I’ll use a pillow if necessary. Small and firm. I am pregnant and will show it.”

“And the riding?”

Tressandre rolled her eyes, the smoky bits going light and dark silver against the rich, jade-green background of her pupils. “I suppose you would have me use a carriage.”

“It would not hurt. Your blessed mother had two miscarriages before Alton and another before you.”

Tressandre turned a bit, angling her jaw and looking at herself in the closest mirror as if barely listening. She tugged at the ill-fitting blouse and trousers with a frown. “And were we not worth waiting for?”

“The two of you fill and carry the legacy of ild Fallyn to greatest expectation, but that is hardly the point in this discussion. You carry the Anderieon heir. Babies compromise the best intentions.”

“Baby this and baby that. The child isn’t important, it’s the political legacy that is important. Don’t worry unnecessarily. You see that I have a proper maternity trousseau, and I will have a child, Heroma, if I have to pluck it from a pair of unwary arms.”

The corner of the seamstress’ mouth gathered and she grew silent. She pulled and pinned for a few moments, said quietly, “I will have a pillow and strapping made” and got to her feet. She took the hand Tressandre extended as she did so. “We’ll have these made at once, and I’ve patterns for the others. Gowns, skirts, blousing and so on. I’ll have to make adjustments.” Her mouth thinned. “I cannot tell yet how you will increase in the bust, but there’s time enough for that. I’ll have a costume for you tomorrow and we’ll go from there.”

“Well and good.” Tressandre kicked the garments off and Heroma caught them, tucked them under her arm and left with a nod of her head. Tressandre waited until the seamstress left, her soft-soled boots walking slowly yet firmly down the hallway, and then leaned for a bell rope, yanking it. She did not have to wait long.

Alton, eyes still a bit crusted from sleep and face slack from being pressed against a mattress, appeared at the door. He lifted an eyebrow at the pieces of fabric lying about the room as his sister stepped down off her cushion. “How is old Heroma? Bossy, as usual?”

“I want her dead. As soon as you can arrange it.”

“What?”

Tressandre wound a stray bit of her hair about her finger. “I believe you heard.”

“Heard but did not believe.”

“Dead. By tomorrow evening. Make it quick, I won’t have Heroma suffer. A broken neck, perhaps, suffered during a fall down the stairs. See to it.”

“Lady sister, she’s been with us for untold years. She might as well be our grandmother.” He rubbed the corner of one eye and flicked a bit of crystal from his finger.

“All the more reason she should not suffer.” Tressandre lifted her chin, daring Alton to get off another word, but he closed his mouth on it. She smiled briefly. “When our enemies investigate the word of my pregnancy, and they
will
investigate, she is our weakest link. She is old and frail though she admits it not, and they’ll break her like a twig. I want her spared that.”

“A certain death stacked against an uncertain torture?”

“Do you not agree with me?”

He traded looks with her before dropping his gaze. “I always agree with you, sooner or later.” He smothered a yawn on the back of his hand. “Tonight, then.”

Tressandre looked at him over her shoulder. “No. Tomorrow night. She has some work to finish for me, first.”

“Ah, good. Then I can finish my sleep. The ride from Ashenbrook to Larandaril and then home is a hard one without the Ferryman to give quick passage.” He scrubbed at his eyes again, looking for a moment like the tousled boy, handsome and carefree, that she remembered from her own early days when she used to watch him whenever she could. “If that is all right with you?”

She turned away from him with a languid move. “As long as you finish it in my bed.” She put her hand behind her, stretching it out to him, and he reached forward to take it.

Ceyla

At first she was uncertain she heard the hounds. Their voices rose and fell with the thin whistling of the wind through the evergreens as night began to fall and the branches moved restlessly. Needles and limbs whipped at her as Ceyla moved through them, running when she could and stumbling more often as both the lack of light and the roughness of ground tripped her up. She had half a day on her pursuers, but they were used to the hunt. If she went to water, the still icy and swift flowing river would kill her before her hunters did. If she did not, her scent would linger for the hounds to pick up. She’d hoped being in the dog pens, her odor might be muddled, but the noise growing on the wind told her that her ruse had not worked. She might not live the night, despite her earlier belief that she would. One never set out to fail, she told herself, ducking her head further, her palms raw as she propelled herself forward, holding her hands out to shield herself. Going back was not an option, for there would be no mercy. They would flay the skin off her body and the armor from her mind, use her up and leave her lying exposed to die a lingering death. This, she knew. This, she had seen far more than she’d seen her success.

But she had seen her success. More than once. Enough to give her the courage to try. Never trying or giving up ensured her failure, and so she had screwed up her courage to do whatever she could.

Her breath whistled through her throat like the wind in the trees, cold and chill and scraping her inside out. She stumbled into tree trunks more than once, left shoulder aching and both elbows smarting. Her feet had stung, but now they were numb. Ceyla thought she could feel the soles of her shoes part, flapping about her ankles but she couldn’t be sure. It would be better to be running on raw pain rather than stumps that she could not feel or maneuver upon at all. She lurched and skidded across dirt and needle-glossed pathways unseen where only animals traveled and heard the hounds grow inexorably closer.

The river sounded in her ears. There would be no soft banks to ease down, the river in these mountains cut deep through sharp and towering cliffs. She had to take one of the suspension bridges if she wished to cross and if the ild Fallyn hunted truly, they already had guards there alerted. She had planned to travel underneath the bridge, skittering along its belly like some ceiling spider after arriving unnoticed. Now . . . what chance? The river itself, dark and deep and fierce, rushed through the gully. And, too, the river, if she survived it, would carry her back, back toward the fortress and its escarpment footing near the sea. Backward in her flight and hopes. Always back.

Unless she just let the river take her down and drown her and everything would cease. Her hopes, her fears, her . . . dreams.

Ceyla plowed to a halt and shook herself. Blood roared hotly through her head. Her ears tingled, her throat tightened. And her feet managed an answering throb of life. If this were only for herself, she could falter. She could consider defeat.

But it had never been just about herself, and her dreams would never let it be. So. She gathered herself with a long, scorching breath that seared its way into her throat and lungs and sighed out softly again. No turning back. She would find a way.

As she staggered back into motion, her wish to feel her feet flared into jagged, tearing pain and she gasped, tears running unbidden down her face. What folly that had been! Raggedly, she stayed in motion, lurching this way and that, stabbing flashes of agony driving her across the ground. Then, along with the howling, came the smell.

Ceyla scrubbed the back of her hand across her nose, wiping away tears and snot and the noxious odor. She blinked. There was no possible way she could smell the hounds at this distance, not even with her preternatural skill. Nor had any hound she ever winded stunk like this . . . never.

Then her face broke into a smile, a wide, gaping, gasping for breath smile, but one nonetheless. Some stinkdog had made its den nearby, leagues and leagues away from its normal habitat, but slimed the ground and bed with its scent and the mucus that it shed to coat and protect its skin. There wasn’t a hunting dog who could wind her own scent through the detritus of a stinkdog!