Chapter Seven
Seven
“You aren’t leaving the stronghold.”
Hope, so fragile, shattered. Which was especially a shame since I’d spent entirely too much time trying to convince Wren that it was a good idea. Windblades had several mentions.
The Lady was perched at the edge of an overstuffed chair in her receiving room. She did a lot of edge-perching, like a bird preening for a mate that wanted to be seen from a very particular angle.
Her hair was loose today, falling nearly to the waist of her pale green dress, and she brushed it through with a carved wooden comb.
Oily smoke that smelled of heavy blossoms wafted from a golden censer on a nearby table.
It was cloyingly sweet and made the air feel thick and sticky.
Beside the censer was the leather pouch Nik had given me for today’s work, minus the coins we’d kept for ourselves.
Hefty as it was, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her; I wasn’t sure the world held that much coin.
“He’ll pay us well.”
She shook her head. “Nothing good comes from your cavorting with common soldiers. Gods know what rumors that would start.”
I wasn’t sure how that was less socially acceptable than scrubbing courtesans’ dirty linens, but bruises had long since taught us not to argue with the Lady.
The door opened, and Besha slipped inside, carrying a parcel wrapped in heavy, gleaming fabric. “Madam, a messenger from the palace just delivered this.”
That had the comb stilling. The Lady slowly, demurely turned her head to glance at the package. Her body was still, but avarice put a gleam in her eyes. She placed the comb down and gestured Besha closer. And when she was close enough, the Lady ran a fingertip across that silken fabric.
“Hmm” was all she said. And hope blossomed again.
“How much coin has he given her?” Wren murmured.
“I told him to make it look official. And fancy.”
The Lady unfolded the fabric, revealing a gleaming wooden box inlaid with flowers. She lifted the lid, a carefully groomed eyebrow arching upward as she pulled out a sealed letter. She ran a thumb over the silver wax.
“The prince’s seal,” she said quietly, in the same tone I saved for gold coins.
Good boy.
She lifted it carefully and unfolded the letter, her gaze dashing across thick paper that probably cost more than we earned in a day.
She glanced inside the box and found something that had her eyes widening.
And then it all went back into the box, which she closed with a snap and snatched from Besha’s hands.
A lot of coin, I guessed.
The box and its contents safely in the Lady’s lap, she considered for a moment, then looked up at us. “The Prince of the Western Gate has formally requested that you help him locate the miscreants who attacked him. Why?”
“Because they used an Anima to do so, and I can see Anima and Aether.”
Disappointment clouded her face, and she gave a woeful sigh—the sigh of a woman weary of being the only intelligent person in the stronghold.
“I suppose we ought not be too particular when the prince has requested our assistance for the good of the realm. You’re to meet your escort in the market at dawn.
You will be acting as representatives of my manor, and you will act accordingly. Is that understood?”
We nodded.
“You’re dismissed,” she said, and set about inspecting the items in the box once again.
“I need sweetwine,” I said as we walked out. “A lot of it.”
We ate a hurried dinner, mostly to lay the foundation for the jug of sweetwine Nheve had been saving for a special occasion.
Thankfully, she decided the look on my face was occasion enough.
So we gathered around a small fire at the edge of the courtyard, built with embers from the kitchen fire and dead branches from the pangan tree.
We sat close enough to arm ourselves against a breeze that carried the chill of the snows atop Mount Cennet.
The Terran god that protected the land was said to reside on the mountain in a hidden palace only true believers could find.
Coincidentally, those true believers always seemed to find themselves in stronghold inns, thirsty and willing to share their tales of discovery for a pint or two.
Only a single moon was out tonight, and it was high.
The air smelled of new grass and possibility.
Spring was a hopeful time, when the world felt different, new, clean.
And with the popping fire and sweetwine that was nicer than we could usually afford, I should have been happy and relaxed.
But I was thinking about the death and magic—and the people left behind.
The faint glimmer of Aether appeared after Nheve rose and yawned, and set herself for bed.
The fire was covered, the sweetwine jar recapped.
Wren and I moved toward our building as if intending to turn in, but then we snuck around to the back corner of the manor, where the pangan tree’s arcing branches reached nearly to the ground.
We moved into the vaulted hollow beneath the limbs—a space that had served as castle, pirate ship, sanctuary.
Now Luna waited there, with her pale glow and short hair. That her appearance hadn’t changed in all the years we’d known her had been a kind of comfort. The Lady’s moods could shift as fast as Vhranian winds, but Luna remained Luna.
“How goes the hunt?” Wren asked.
“The practitioner is well hidden,” she signed. “The Anima that possessed the human is now gone from this world and mine.”
Gone into Oblivion, she meant.
“I think I know where the practitioner was,” I said, and told her about the day’s events: Innis’s illness, Tommen and the ghosts, the assassin’s death in the woods. By the end of the telling, both her and Wren’s eyes were wide.
“Two more dead because of some asshole practitioner.”
“He is barely a practitioner,” she signed.
“There were marks on Innis’s body,” I said and described what I’d seen.
“Aether is foreign to this world, and his possession was not brief. His body was affected.”
I nodded. “The blacksmith’s body didn’t have those marks, but it did have tiny burns. Maybe the practitioner tried again, but failed?”
“Still trying to possess people,” Wren said.
“Yeah. We were too late to help.” I looked at Luna. “What can we do if it happens again?”
“Aether would be required to reverse the possession.”
“We aren’t bringing any more practitioners into the stronghold,” Wren said. “Absolutely not.”
“There aren’t any to bring, anyway,” I said.
“Injuring the human, as you did in the market, is the only other way. Possession requires a balancing of wills; upset the balance, and the structure falls apart.”
I nodded. “The blacksmith wasn’t the only reason the practitioner was there.” I pulled out the folded bit of paper I’d sketched at the forge and showed it to her. “We think he may have been paid to make a weapon—one that has religious symbols.”
Luna leaned toward it and looked over my charcoal marks. Then she lifted her brows in a very human expression.
“I was in a hurry.” My scrawl was rarely tidy at the best of times. I was too impatient for scribbling things that could be said aloud much faster. “It’s the language of the Enshrined Monks, right?”
She looked down at it again, nodded. “It was originally the Creators’ language from the old times, before the realms were divided. It was passed to the Enshrined Monks to help them commune with the gods.”
“And why would it be on a weapon?” Wren asked.
Luna studied the drawing. “To imbue it with power, perhaps. In this case, with Aether.”
“So an Enshrined Monk, or someone who has access to their language, is helping build an Aetheric weapon.”
“You need to tell the Aetheric god it’s time to get interested in Carethia again,” Wren said. “Things are getting ugly here.”
“He is…not available.”
We both stared at her.
“Wait,” I said. “You can actually talk to the Aetheric god? Have conversations with a god?”
Luna nodded. “Guardians have that ability.”
Wren looked at me. “You didn’t know that?”
“Prayers are one thing. But humans don’t have direct conversations with Terran gods, at least as far as I know.
” I shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me that Anima could talk to theirs.
” Then I thought about what Luna had said.
“You said Guardians have that ability. Not that you’ve actually talked to him. ”
“I have not talked to him since he left Terra.”
Wren crossed her arms and frowned. “That was a decade ago. What does ‘not available’ mean?”
“We are not certain.”
Wren sighed wearily. “Fucking figures.”
“So the practitioner’s appearance isn’t a sign the Aetheric god has returned,” I said. “He just got lucky, absorbed enough remaining magic or something. What about the Terran gods? Can’t they help? Surely they’d be bothered by magic from another realm hurting their own.”
“The Terran gods have no power over the Aetheric.”
“They have power over sinkholes,” Wren muttered. “And lightning. Worth an ask.” But she didn’t sound confident that was true.
“Speaking of intervening,” I said, “we’re going to Vhrania tomorrow with the prince’s guards.”
“Why?” Luna asked.
“The assassin killed today carried a Vhranian blade and an arrow that was made to look Vhranian. Nik has friends over the border, and he wants to talk to them about that.”
“This isn’t a Vhranian problem,” Luna said. “It’s a Carethian one.”
“Probably. But I’m not turning down a chance to see Vhrania. And Wren will be with me.”
Luna gripped my hand. I couldn’t feel her fingers, only the heat in the air, like a flame had grabbed hold of me. “Don’t risk your life for the Lys’Careths.”
“I’m not the one in danger.”
“Perhaps not now,” she said. “But the Lys’Careths are not concerned with you, or Wren, or anyone else. They care about Carethia because it’s the source of their authority, their wealth, their power. And they will do whatever is necessary, however damaging, to maintain that authority.”
“You’re edging toward treason,” I said quietly.
“Can it be treason if it’s truth?” Her hands moved faster than usual, as if she was pouring frustration into the words. And I suspected there was more she hadn’t yet told us.
“What else?” I asked her.
“There’s something more,” Luna said. “A thread I cannot see.”
“Wren had the same feeling,” I said.
“I don’t like it,” Wren said.
“Good,” Luna said. “Remember that. Take action with that in mind. I must return to the Aetheric to search for that thread. Be careful until I return.” And then she disappeared.