Chapter 7 #3
“Wasn’t one of their hidey-holes blown up in Pen Aryn last week?” Llir, who sounded like he was pacing the room. “Doesn’t seem to have slowed them down much, by the sound of it.”
My skin prickled all over. They must be speaking of the Cage.
“Forget Crake,” Vercha said. “Those murderers are trying to destroy our society. Don’t they know what things were like before the Great Revolt? Don’t they realize what would happen if Orha were given free rein?”
“They know the histories,” Llir murmured. “They just don’t believe them.”
Vercha scoffed. “It was our ancestors who saved this realm from ruin. If anything, I’d say we need stricter controls.”
A mutter from Catua: “You’re starting to sound like Crake himself.”
After a short pause, Vercha’s tone grew a little more conciliatory. “It’s very unfortunate, but the Orha at those Institutions are just too powerful, too valuable, to be left to their own devices. To direct their own destinies. Don’t you agree?”
A huff from Catua. Silence from Llir. If Zennia had been here, she’d have marched right in, too angry to worry about the repercussions.
Our lot in life made me angry, too, of course.
But unlike Zennia, I’d felt mostly fear.
Fear that I’d displease whoever I worked for and wind up in a wagon bound for Crake’s Quaglands.
Fear that if I pleased the Instructors too well, I’d end up as one of Regent Shrike’s black-eyed servants…
And fear that Zennia, if she’d been foolish enough to run, would have met her end on the gallows—as Owyn likely had.
“Perfectly stated,” Rexim was saying. “I’d be willing to consider minor concessions to Orha rights…
but not these bizarre reforms Regent Finch is pushing.
Breova has made a grave misstep, in my opinion.
The Hundred need someone they can trust in the Chamber, someone as steady handed and, yes, predictable as Dunlin.
Particularly since whoever wins this Seat will have the power to sway policy one way or the other. ”
Without warning, a patter of footsteps approached the door. My insides clenched, and my breath hitched in my throat. There was no time to run. I reeled backward—
As one of the waist-high wolfhounds slipped through the door.
Amber eyes gazed out at me from a shaggy mass of gray fur. I held my breath, steeling myself for a bark, or at least a growl, but after a few seconds, he padded quietly past me, clearly deciding I was no threat and of no interest.
“You know it’s late when the dogs go to bed before you,” Catua commented.
“Indeed,” came Rexim’s voice. “Where in hells is your eldest brother?”
I’d been stupid to linger at all, let alone for this long.
Without waiting to hear what any of them said next, I hurried after the hound, keeping to the shadows.
—
Outside, the air held the tang of the ocean. Lights still burned in the castle windows behind me, but ahead and around, all was cast in deep shadow. Aside from the far-off glow of Port Rhorstin, the flats and the mainland beyond were solid black.
I picked my way back through the kitchen gardens, through the silent gatehouse with its scant night watchmen, and was about to turn north, circle around to the Orha’s tower, when I heard it:
A strange noise in the darkness ahead of me.
It came from the dirt path that wound up from the pinewood, from the shingle beach, where the low tide murmured against the rocks. Something, or someone, was heading up the track.
I soon made out the clopping of a horse’s hooves, and the strange sound I’d heard resolved into a song, albeit a slurred and slightly out-of-tune one.
A moment later, its singer materialized: a broad-shouldered man sitting unsteadily in his saddle.
He was dressed in an embroidered emerald-green doublet with gold stitching, a frilled silk shirt collar poking out.
He had a thatch of dark hair; handsome, regal features.
As I watched, he listed heavily to his left, then jerked suddenly upright as he spotted me standing there.
“Great gods,” he exclaimed, squinting at me through the shadows. He’d paled, his fingers gripping the reins. “Just a girl. I thought you were…” He paused, collecting himself. “I thought you were a wraith. A fetch, or something.”
With a nervous chuckle, he stilled his horse, then dismounted heavily, staggering a little. “Oops.” He steadied himself against the beast. “Perhaps a bit too much of the Myrnian red…”
I said nothing. So this was Emment Shearwater. I now knew who Tigo and Rhianne had been talking about. “Turnstone agreed to half the gold now and half in two weeks, on market day.”
He peered at me with silver eyes bleary with drink and hung on tightly to his steed’s reins to stay upright. “You’re not a wraith, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I’m your family’s new Floodmouth.”
At that word—“Floodmouth”—the planes of his face hardened, and he swallowed queasily as he looked me up and down. For a second, his eyes seemed to dart out to the mudflats, which were wreathed in black. Distantly the sea blustered.
“About time,” he muttered, starting forward, his horse dutifully matching his weaving path. “Maybe my shirts won’t take three days to come back to me now.”
As he passed me, he waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Welcome and all that, I suppose. You know.”
He hiccupped—and then disappeared into the darkness.