14 #2
Braithe ducked her head and turned to offer her tray to the next delegate, but not before she had registered the angry woman’s features and heard her think, with painful clarity, Worthless creatures. We should let the lot of them die.
Braithe’s breath whistled in her suddenly constricted throat.
Not only had she learned that she could hear others’ thoughts even in the unmagicked chamber, but she had found one of the enemy.
She knew it in her bones, a conviction as clear as the words that had sounded in her mind.
She took a second glance back. The fae woman was glaring at her, narrow-eyed, as if Braithe might be the next target of her ongoing fury.
And her name, which Braithe plucked straight from her mind, was Ursula. It suited her.
When she encountered another of the enemy, she was ready.
This one was a fae man, tall and thin. His silvering hair was cut short, unlike the other fae men.
It fanned out from his head in spikes, making him look a bit like an aging hedgehog.
The atmosphere around him was amusement.
He was not partaking of the debates roiling around him but finding them entertaining.
He took a cup from Braithe’s tray, but unlike the others, he looked straight at her, eyeing her from head to toe, and she knew.
As she turned to go on, something obscene spilled from his mind, something so brutish and foul that she had to grit her teeth to prevent herself from spilling her entire tray on his head.
She moved on toward the next delegate, but not before she caught the man’s name.
Faolin. The title for male delegates was sero, Sero Faolin.
He was vulgar and crude and mean, and he was also one of those she was searching for.
She mentally recited the names so there would be no chance of forgetting. Dama Ursula. Sero Faolin. Somewhere there was a third, the traditional number needed to work distant magicks, but having two names was a great beginning. Surely Emerlyn could force one of them to give up the third.
When the chime sounded, her tray was empty.
She tucked it under her arm and walked toward the line of servants filing out of the chamber.
Her spirit felt bruised by the thoughts and feelings of so many, but this was a day worth such effort.
She had two names. Their plan had worked, and she couldn’t wait to tell Morgana.
Instinctively, she touched her tunic to feel the charm hanging there, and then she remembered. The stresses of the day had driven it from her mind. Umer had taken her charm, stolen it from her. She had no protection.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. Even if Umer refused to return her charm, Idhri would have his, and she would rejoin him in moments.
She was the very last of the exiting servants, only steps from the double doors that led from the main corridor.
She glanced to her left just as someone pushed the doors partway open.
Her breath caught again as she recognized Morgana, standing just outside the doors, peering through the narrow opening into the chamber.
Something must have brought her here, some news perhaps.
Braithe wasn’t sure if she should continue with the servants into the back room, or go out into the corridor to join her mistress.
Morgana smiled broadly as if she understood, and crooked a finger.
Braithe handed her tray to one of the servants who was collecting empties and hurried away from the line and out of the council chamber to join the priestess.
From the door to the back room, Idhri looked above the heads of the delegates and saw Braithe going the wrong way, moving through the double doors at the opposite side of the chamber. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw Morgana waiting for her, just beyond the doors.
But Morgana didn’t look right. She was grinning, something Idhri had never seen her do. She put her hand on Braithe’s shoulder in a way that looked familiar to him, and he realized with a jolt that it was just the way Vivyan had laid her hand on his own shoulder, binding him.
With a spurt of alarm, Idhri palmed the charm beneath his tunic.
The glamour faded at once, and he saw a fae man disguising himself behind the image of Morgana.
He was tall, taller than Idhri. His hair was cut oddly short, so that it stood out in spikes around his head.
His grin made Idhri think of a wolf baring its teeth as he drew Braithe down the corridor and out of sight.
Idhri, gasping, looked up at the dais for help, but Emerlyn was deep in conversation with some delegate who was waving her hands and ranting.
Emerlyn hadn’t been watching. No one had been watching, including himself.
He had promised to protect Braithe, and he had let her walk out without doing a thing to intervene!
Guilt gripped him with a hard hand, making him tremble.
He spun about and fled the back room, abandoning his tasks, bumping into the surprised servants who couldn’t get out of his way, ignoring Umer’s order to stop.
He blasted through the back door and left it standing open behind him as he raced around the side of the Council Hall on his way to the boulevard.
Idhri looked back only once, to be certain Umer had not followed him, but either Umer had decided he couldn’t run as fast as Idhri or he didn’t care enough to try.
Idhri slowed just enough to glance down every side street, but he saw only the usual empty roads, white buildings, a servant or two in the distance.
Of Braithe and the fae man there was no sign.
He gave up the search, though he felt its urgency in his entire body. He needed Priestess Morgana, and as soon as he could possibly reach her. He broke into a flat run toward the guesthouse, praying Morgana would be there. If she wasn’t, he had no idea what he would do.
He nearly sobbed with relief when, at his pounding on the door, she appeared.
She grasped the situation instantly. “Who took her?”
Idhri, out of breath and shaking, staggered inside and braced himself with one hand against a wall.
“Fae man,” he panted. “Older, short gray hair. I only saw him from behind, but I think he was one of the delegates. He was outside in the corridor. At first I thought it was you, but then I realized it wasn’t.
He beckoned to her, and Braithe—” His voice caught in his throat, and he forced himself to stand up, to hold back the tears of fright that threatened to break out.
“Braithe just—she just went, Priestess. He took her arm, and she just walked away with him!”
“My charm failed,” the priestess said grimly.
“But mine didn’t. I know you’re thinking—a glamour—but I saw him perfectly!”
“It was not Skye.”
“No.”
“And where is Umer?”
“He’s still in the Council Hall. I just ran.”
“You did the right thing, Idhri. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said. “Just worried.”
“You are not wrong to worry. Unless you have some idea of where he took her, we will have to go back to the Council Hall and find Emerlyn. Perhaps she will know what to do.”
“It happened too fast,” Idhri mourned. “I couldn’t—”
“No, of course you could not. Come, we will waste no time. Do you need water?”
“No. I just want to find her!”
“As do I. And we will.”
Idhri had the distinct impression that the priestess was not as confident as she sounded.