Chapter Twelve
Twelve
We stood outside the manor gate in the quiet for what felt like a very long time while I waited for Wren to say something.
“He seemed like one of us,” I finally said. “Not an arsehole. Just a person trying to do his job.”
“I think he is trying to do his job.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “That’s not the furious commiseration I expected. His job is being rich and powerful.”
“I’m not defending him. He’s a Lys’Careth; he has an entire army for that. But you know the song, Fox. Staying alive is his job, no matter the cost. And no matter who he hurts.”
I grunted my agreement.
“At least he’s looking for the assassin himself. Plenty of princes would have stayed inside with their furs and coins and drink and courtesans and let the others do the work.”
“And?”
“And he’s a liar and an arsehole who should rot in Oblivion for eternity.”
“Thank you. Was that too much to ask?”
“No. It’s also honest. His wound?”
“Poured some sweetwine on it.” I held up the bottom of my tunic, which I’d now need to hem again. “Wrapped it with linen.”
“His bloody wound,” she said again.
“He was making a mess of the carriage. And it wasn’t a big deal. I looked at it as little as possible.” But I’d seen his face, would remember his fight against the pain.
“You didn’t pass out?”
“I’m not going to pass out in front of a damned prince. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“Too bad. We have to go tell the Lady.”
“The prince,” I said when we were admitted into the Lady’s residence, “has a name. Cassander Ashketh Nikalos Lys’Careth.”
The Lady considered. “The Second Empress’s son. She’s dead. Murdered, they say, when he was a child.”
“It took a long time for him to be Gated,” I said.
“Because, unlike the other Gated princes, he had no support in the palace once his mother was dead. The Southern Prince—the one they call the ‘Golden Prince’—is the Crown Prince. He’s the son of the Emperor Eternal’s First Empress.
She’s also dead, but from a wealthy and expansive family.
The Eastern Prince is the son of the current Empress Eternal—his third wife.
The Northern Prince is the son of the Emperor Eternal’s current mistress.
” She said the word like it was a personal affront, then made tiny adjustments to the items on her desk as if to reassert control over the world.
“The point is, the others have connections.” Her gaze sharpened. “Does he have more work for you?”
“No,” I said. “Our work for him is done.”
If she heard the bite in my voice, she didn’t comment on it. “Says who?”
“The prince. Because of the danger.”
“Well, that’s a disappointment.” She meant the money, not the danger. “But I anticipated he might get tired of playing with servants, so I arranged work for you tomorrow. Laundry at the Orchid House.”
The parlor where beautiful courtesans danced and did whatever else their clients might pay for. Gods knew I didn’t want to scrub sweetwine out of fancy dresses. But we wouldn’t be noticed. We’d be safe. And I’d already brought enough trouble to Wren.
“Understood,” I said, and we left her to her plotting.
I picked at the dinner Nheve had offered us: bits of meat—probably left over from the Lady’s meal—with barley and some small early carrots. I wasn’t in the mood for food. I was in the mood to kick something but didn’t have the energy for it.
Luna waited beneath the pangan tree. She pointed over the wall, then disappeared. As instructed, we climbed the wall and checked for the curfew patrol. When we were sure the road was clear, we crossed it and squeezed into a narrow gap between walled manors, safe from prying ears and eyes.
She looked fainter today, even more translucent than usual. Because she was saving her energy, or because saving the prince had required her to use too much?
“Are you all right?” I asked. “You look…faded.”
“I have been busy,” she signed.
“Thank you again for intervening. For saving the prince.”
“He told you he was a guard?”
I nodded. “I shouldn’t be surprised, either by the lie or the need for it. But I ignored the signs.”
“I imagine he is well practiced at lying.”
I nodded. “I’m lucky you heard me call you, and I’m sorry I put you in that position. I was desperate.”
“I kept an eye on you, and I intervened today because you asked it of me. But he is not your friend or your ally.”
“The practitioner is our enemy,” I corrected her. “I know the prince isn’t an ally.” But despite what I’d told him, I didn’t think he was quite an enemy, either.
“Why do you hate the Lys’Careths so much?” Wren asked her. “I’m no fan, and I think you dislike them more than me.”
“Because they are deadly. There are too many in the Aetheric who have been put there by Lys’Careth hands.”
It was hard to argue with that, although theirs wasn’t the only family who used violence as a tool. The world was full of killers, and everyone died eventually.
Luna shifted her gaze to me. “You put yourself in danger again.”
“Because there might have been useful information in Vhrania about the practitioner.”
“Was there?”
“There haven’t been similar attacks in Vhrania. And the Emperor Eternal is going to give the Eastern Prince control of the Eastern Army.”
Her eyes widened. “This is reliable?”
“It’s thirdhand at best,” Wren said. “From a contact of a Zephyrii.”
“The prince will be in greater danger. Ever more reason for you to stay away from him.”
“Luna, I can’t stay locked in the Lady’s manor forever. I won’t. I wanted to see Vhrania, and I doubted I’d have a chance like that again. I don’t regret it.” Even if it had annihilated my fantasies about an imperial guard. “But I told the prince we wouldn’t be helping him anymore.”
“You did?” Wren asked.
I nodded. “I understand why he lied. But he’s a prince. It’s too dangerous to be acquainted with someone like him, especially if we can’t rely on what he tells us.”
Even if he wanted to be a different kind of prince, it didn’t matter. He lived in a world where his enemies had armies of their own.
“Stay away from the Aetheric practitioner, Luna. And the prince. They’re both too powerful for us.”
“I’m a Guardian,” she said. “I have responsibilities. But I will be careful.” She moved closer until I could feel the warm vibration in the air around her. “As you must be, too,” she said, and disappeared, leaving only a few motes of light flickering where she had been.
It was late, and Wren was asleep.
I wasn’t.
Too many things rolled around in my head, like marbles in a child’s game. I tossed back and forth in the bed, moving from hot spots to cold and back again, before I finally gave up and rose. I needed to move, to do, so I picked up my boots from their spot by the door, and crept outside.
The courtyard was dark as I pulled on my boots, both moons rising but not yet full.
Nheve and her assistants would soon be lighting the kitchen fire, beginning the day’s work of boiling water, rising bread, preparing stocks.
But not yet. For now, the manor was still asleep.
There would be guards at the front gate, and the side gate was creaky.
So I used the pangan tree again, landing in a crouch in the empty road. I walked south.
The curfew patrol was quiet now, but I could hear the drummer who beat the hour to the east. I hurried south and out of his range, slipping from shadow to shadow, until I reached the main road.
A cart rumbled over cobblestones, and I moved behind a group of trees and crouched down.
A cart of garrison soldiers, drunk and singing a dirge about a girl lost in the mountains, made its way down the road.
Rill, of course, was posted on the back of the cart, legs swinging and tankard of ale in hand.
It was the worst rendition of “I Lost My Lass on Mount Cennet” I’d ever heard, and I’d heard Wren.
She had many skills, but song was not one of them.
When it passed, I darted through the shade to a copse of trees near the white stone building that sat in the middle of a wide lawn.
This was the stronghold’s Aetheric shrine, where the Perpetual Fire burned.
It was a ziggurat of white stone, a blocky pyramid roughly in the shape of a flame.
The ground level, where the Enshrined Monks contemplated the Aetheric and its mysteries, was surrounded by a colonnade of more white stone.
The entrance was marked by a wide arch with “Ashentis Fuerest” carved in the lintel.
It was the creed of the Aetheric god—“souls burn brightest.”
I walked beneath those carved words, wondering if I’d feel the pinch of pain.
But there was no Aether here, just the quiet hum of mantras being repeated inside.
The path within the columns was painted with words asking for luck, or praying that family members in the Aetheric remembered them, or entreating the gods to maintain their perfect tension and keep the realms in balance.
I liked the building. I’d never been inside, but the colonnade was peaceful and quiet. Plus, shrines were exempt from curfew, so night guards rarely bothered patrolling here. It made a great place to tuck in and avoid garrison soldiers. There were a hundred shadows in which to hide.
“May I help you?”
I was a thief; I knew how to sneak and how to listen.
And I still nearly jumped a foot in the air when the Enshrined Monk appeared behind me in a hooded habit of white broadcloth.
The robe’s hem reached the ground; the monk’s pale face was largely covered by the hood, hands hidden by the long sleeves. I instinctively took a step backward.
“You seem lost,” the monk said in a voice that sounded male and maybe a little younger than me. “May I help you?”
No point in wasting time. “There’s a person manipulating Aether to hurt people. He tried to kill the prince, and he succeeded in killing Tommen, the blacksmith.”
“Yes, we have heard. We have prayed for Tommen’s safe passage through the River of Souls to the Aetheric.”
“The River of Souls?”