The priest exhausted himself and his soul bent around, lost and confused. The other priests were similarly affected. Each of their relationships, near and far, ebbed and surged as though they had no idea where their love and loyalty lay. I bid the priests to stand.
“Discard your hats and robes and you are welcome to stay here with me,” I said. “Or you may leave with my blessing.”
The man who’d sung tore away his robes. The rest of the priests hesitated, and their connections to others in the city surged—their families who would be lost if they stayed. The killer glared at me from the floor while a freeman escorted our converted priest further into the archives.
“Go, sirs, if you must,” I said to the rest. “You remain welcome here. Gather your loved ones and return whenever you choose.”
“Thank you, young miss,” the five-stripped man said before they started across the plaza. I waved to them and turned to the killer. Natan’s spear remained pressed hard into his ribs. Both men had words to say to me, yet kept still.
I sat down beside the man who wanted to kill me. His soul was as black and damaged as Natan’s.
“How many people have they made you kill?”
“You don’t know me,” he said.
“Your soul is tortured by the death you have witnessed.”
He eyed Natan. “Does she ever shut up?”
“Stand with me,” I said. “You don’t have to feel this way anymore.”
He twisted fast, and I hadn’t even thought to back away when Natan’s spear stabbed deep through his chest. I crawled back while the man spit blood at me. Natan boot was on his wrist, a dagger in the man’s hand.
I expected Natan to exhaust his anger by stabbing the man again and again, or to yell at me for my foolishness. He helped me up instead, saying, “I was starting to like him. It is sad he would not hear you.”
Phost and others began to gather around us. “I am sorry for burning you.”
“I am alright,” he said, but his connection to me remained weak.
I wasn’t sure if I liked Uncle Phost yet. There were greedier men, but not many. His concern for me and Ellyon seemed real enough though. He hated Evand, but so did half the city. How Alsonelm felt about me was as fickle as the wind. I was not a welcome, yet they all wanted something from me. The burns and healing magic had only made their feelings more chaotic.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying upon the sedan. The sun was low, the dead man had been removed, and the city was turning in.
“Are you okay?” Evand asked and stood up from another sedan along the wall.
“Yes. I drifted off. Thank you for watching over me while I wandered.”
“You do it more often now, but that wasn’t any longer than most times.”
“It bothers people.”
“Only those that don’t know you.”
I found the priests we’d let leave. Their feelings for me had not lasted.” “Their hatred of us is spreading. This city is too wounded and ugly. We need Soma’s touch, or something else as dramatic. None of the people here are as stable as those in Bessradi.”
Uncle Phost’s soul stuck out again for his strong attachments beyond our group, and I studied his spider web. He had a wife and children at an estate along the east wall, but his strongest connections were with others. I focused on the connections only, and his friends of friends led me to Corneth men as well as threads that reached toward Bessradi.
“What is he up to?” I asked and opened my eyes.
No one was there. It had gotten late somehow, and I was alone except for the men standing guard. The rest of the city was fast asleep.
I decided the soft carpeting beneath the sedan was a better spot and crawled down into the dark and quiet.
I woke some time after the dawn to the dancing colors of the stained glass upon the sheet of rug. I yawned once and snoozed on and off while I watched the city’s angry men send one group after another to the plaza’s closed gates. They spoke to Phost but came no further.
Evand was not happy, and I knew why. The city was souring, and as I studied the slow shift against us, I spotted a person moving though the markets that sent every soul into a terrible frenzy. Another person speaking against us, it seemed.
“This isn’t working like we hoped,” I said. “Squatting in the archives has only earned us their animus.”
“Anything happening in the city?”
I took another look at the man in the market and at Phost. His connections to Bessradi had grown. I examined them and found a group moving up the river toward the city.
“Avin and Captain Benjam are sailing here, now,” I said. “Phost knows they are coming.”
“Damn it,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Hold on,” I said and gave the man in the markets a harder look. He was odd. He had no direct connection in the city, but was connected as a friend of a friend to Evand, Avin, and many others in Alsonelm. The people that connected them were all far beyond my range to the northwest. I looked and looked. On forever the threads seemed to go until a blazing globe filled my vision. A Vesteal. Barok. The man in the market was one of his. I opened my eyes to tell Evand and found the foyer crowded.
I was lying on the sedan again. Evand stood beside me with Phost and his officers, facing Avin, Benjam, and the man I’d spent too long studying. Benjam had a troop of Hemari and several small chests that pressed deep into the carpeting.
“Hold on a moment, Nace,” Evand said to Barok’s man. “You changed what?”
“The exchange rate. The rate you can trade gold for silver.”
“No one will accept a new exchange rate, Nace. You’re a madman.”
This made no sense to me. Evand’s soul was confident, though, so I stayed still and tried to catch up on what they were saying.
Nace said back, “Walk through any market and learn for yourself. Every person in the Kaaryon not born a Yentif has been wearing and collecting silver for a generation. Your father concentrated too much gold in Bessradi. The average man trusts silver. Gold is a stranger to him. We have already exchanged many thousands of coins at the new rate here in the city.”
“You are reducing the value of gold to a fraction of what it was.”
“Twenty-five percent of its former value, yes. We’re adjusting it down again at the end of the season after the shock wears off. It will end up at four to one by weight for gold to silver—sixteen percent of its former value.”
“This will cause chaos. You must put a stop to this,” Evand said and saw me awake. He let me be, and I was only too happy to pretend I was still sleeping.
“Only those who hold gold will resist it,” Nace said. “Rahan emptied his treasury of gold last season. So have the Northern Kingdoms. We lose nothing if the rate holds. Yarik and Alsonelm will be bankrupted. Rahan and Barok have had this in the works for a very long time.”
Avin said, “We are not here to discuss the issue, Evand. Plans are in motion. You are to return to Bessradi. You can hear all the details on the way to Bessradi. I ship is waiting for you at the visitor’s docks.”
Avin’s tone was hostile, and his soul was much darker than the last time we’d met. What had he been doing that stained him so badly? He had threads reaching west, perhaps to Alsonvale. I resisted closing my eyes and stayed in the room.
Evand ignored Avin and asked Nace, “You mean to say the north is doing the same?”
“Not doing. Done with ease.”
Evand went quiet and shushed Avin twice while he was thinking. His steely soul stabbed out in a thousand new directions and he took hold of Nace by his vest. “Have you spoken to the garrison?”
“The 4th here in Alsonelms?” Nace said and then his soul bloomed too as if struck by the same inspiration.
Evand turned to Phost. “Do the Grano have enough silver to pay a season’s wage to the 4th?”
The man was flummoxed, and after a glance of Avin said nothing.
Ellyon was wiggling his fing
ers and looked toward the ceiling as he worked with the numbers in his head. “No,” he said and glanced once at the chests Avin had brought, “not unless we steal a bit from here and there.”
“Would the Corneth have enough silver on hand to pay the Hemari in silver instead of gold?”
The weathered old Hemari named Okel laughed out loud. “Not a chance. The Alsonelm treasury is filled with Yud and Urmandish gold, same as all the Kaaryon’s cities.”
Evand said, “If we can convince the Hemari that this new exchange rates will hold they will want to be paid in silver to avoid the reduction at the end of the season. The Corneth will lose control of them.”
“The boys here would rather report to a Yentif, anyway,” Okel said and pointed at Benjam and his troop of scout, “what would you do if told your gold was worthless? Take your chances or accept Evand’s silver?”
“Silver,” most said in quick unison.
Avin stepped forward, “Enough of this. We are not here to hatch some half-baked plot. Chaos in Alsonelm and the Kaaryon is our goal. You have contributed nicely to that end, but are required at the capital. I’ve said as much twice now.”
“Liv, get our coats,” Evand said and moved to the table that had his maps upon it. “Emilia, come here please. Where are the city’s Hemari officers right now?”
The rest of the room was startled to see me moving and none of them knew what to say. Natan and his men collected close around me, and I joined Evand by the table. After a moment’s study I pointed at a spot not far from the archives. It seemed a tavern judging by the concentration of milling Hemari and the fuzziness of their souls.
“Fantastic,” Evand said. “Ellyon, secure the chests.”
“You will do no such thing,” Avin said. “Rahan thought you might try something. Liv and your child are already being moved down to the docks. You should join them.”
Evand glanced at me, and I shut my eyes tight to search for them.
“I always knew you were a mercenary, Avin,” Evand said.
“You took Liv as a hostage?” Nace said and stepped away from him.
“Not a hostage,” Avin said with a dark scowled. “Don’t you dare step away from me. Barok stands with Rahan.”
“As party to the kidnap of his brother wife? Like hell he would, Avin. What happened to you?”
Avin swore at him and everyone started yelling.
“Shut up so I can find my mother,” I shouted and cooked them all to enforce it.
The room came to a sudden stop while and all eyes were on me as I closed mine. I found Liv and the men escorting her toward the docks. They were not Hemari. I also saw the common connections between Phost, those men, and Avin. Uncle Phost had sold her to Rahan. I should have seen it coming. Ellyon’s connection to Phost severed as did Benjam’s and the Hemari’s connection to Avin. None of them had known what Avin and Phost were up to.
“Found her,” I said and took hold of Phost’s hand. “Ellyon and Uncle Phost will come with me to get Liv, Evand. You go talk to those garrison officers.”
Avin looked ready to tell his Hemari to stop us. “You are coming with me, too, Avin. All of you Bessradi boys. We don’t want that galley to go to waste. Leave the chests behind. Come, if we don’t get to the docks in time to stop the galley from kidnapping my mother, I’m going to turn you all to ash.”
“Avin?” Phost said, but the old priest would not even lift his head to look at me. His black soul was all but gone. He had no songs or fight left in him.
“Come along, uncle Phost, and bring your best men,” I said and pointed out the Grano that were loyal to him. “You, you, and you. Come along.”
“Signal when you have her,” Evand said.
“Two small pulses means that we are safe. Three means we need you.”
Then he called to his men, and I hurried my group across the plaza and into the crowded and chaotic streets. The men who had betrayed us trudged along like thralls on their way across Tin Bridge, while the Natan’s men cleared the way for us.
We reached the docks and found the galley as they were getting ready to leave. The small crew of aboard was being ordered about by Avin’s priests. They saw me and were close to panic. Seeing Avin stooped and defeated, they came to a halt and bowed their heads.
“Natan,” I said, “Go get my mother and liberate that crew.”
He was swift, and Liv strode up onto the deck daring any of the priests to meet her gaze. Phost was the only man to speak, his apology started while his chin was still upon his chest. I let go of his hand as Liv marched down the dock toward us. She shifted Aris into her left arm, got hold of one of her daggers by its sheath, and struck Phost a savage blow upon jaw with the pummel. The bone shattered and he fell.
Ellyon offered her his arm, and she stepped in beside me.
“The rest of you get aboard,” I said and the only dissenting sound was Phost’s shrieks. “Not you, Benjam. You and your men are welcome to stand with us.”
He and his men took a knee upon the pier while Phost’s men carried him aboard. Avin was alone when he paced up the gangway behind them.
“Avin, look at me,” I said. When he turned I asked, “What happened in Alsonvale?”
He paused at the rail while his priest hurried the galley off the pier. The gangway fell into the river and several untended ties went taut and snapped.
“We had to try, Emi. Rahan needed his own magic.”
“Oh, Avin. You are lost.”
The gray eyes that looked up at me had no life left in them. He sat down along the galley’s rail as it caught the current and swung away.
If the city had not been waiting and thrashing behind me I would have called my friend back, but I did not have time for one man. Already many things were in motion. Evand had reached the tavern and the Corneth were gathering in numbers in the streets around the archives. A large group of them began moving toward us.
“We can’t get back the way we can. Ellyon, the Grano estate is close, yes?”
“Just there,” he said and pointed north along the river. “We can get there through a sally port where the wall meant the water.”
“Quickly. We need to get out of sight and give Evand time.”
They were all ready to move. Ellyon knew the Grano men who guarded the sally port and we got through the wall and onto a quiet street between stone row houses and the harbor wall.
I flashed heat at the city in two quick pulses. Aris shrieked from the bites of heat and Liv seized my hand.
“I’m fine, mother, sorry. Letting Evand know we are okay.”
“Warn us next time, please,” she said and kissed my forehead.
“This way,” Ellyon said and led us through those narrow streets to old wall and gate. We made our way inside, and caused a small stir amongst the estate staff, but they were the only people present. Phost’s wife and daughter had been moved earlier that morning. I hoped he’d left them somewhere safe.
Natan, Benjam and their men got busy closing curtain and locking the doors and gate. Ellyon gathered up the staff and we withdrew with him to a smaller building at the back of the estate that offered an exit both west and north. A trio of maids that knew Ellyon very well volunteered to keep watch while we hid. Benjam would have preferred to use his men, but the girls would be far less conspicuous moving around the grounds. Two of them gave Ellyon a kiss, and the third wished she’d done the same.
I took out my map of the city and we leaned over it while I described what was happening.
Corneth men had gathered at every intersection in the Merchants’ Quarter and all around the archives. A large group was still searching for us by the visitor’s dock and over a thousand of them had massed outside one of the gates to the grand plaza. Wayland had command of our men there, but they were terribly outnumbered. A second much larger force of Corneth men were gathering at their keep on the far side of the archives. The Hemari 4th was becoming agitated by all the movement and noise but none of them were moving in large grou
ps.
Evand was still at the tavern between the Hemari Quarter and the archives, speaking with the officers of the 4th. Many of their souls tossed about as if on fire while the rest had latched onto Evand and Nace. Then Evand moved into the middle of them and the effect took solid hold.
“They’re moving west,” I said at one point and traced my finger along the map as Evand moved.
“Toward the garrisons,” Ellyon said, and I described the storm of activity there.
Liv badgered me with questions, and made me label a handful of rocks and move them around the map for her the many groups began to move.
“Evand is convincing the officers to join him,” I said, and began to see the difference between men who held silver and those who did not. Word spread fast and a crowd of seventeen thousand gathered in the gardens at the center of the garrison buildings.
The group searching for us was moving closer.
“Evand is speaking to the crowd,” I said and smiled when the souls of his audience began to sway. I must have shouted or clapped when their souls locked onto his because Liv shouted at me to explain.
The boys tried their best to keep us from yelling.
“Oh, Liv, Evand has taken command. The Hemari had attached themselves to him the same way Ellyon and Wayland do. They have started moving—fast.”
I called out details and she helped me match my move bits of rock around on my map of the city.
“They are taking control the city’s walls and intersections,” Ellyon said with terrific excitement, but then calmed. “Are the Corneth getting any closer to us?”
I found them and put my finger down two streets away from the Grano Estate.
“Telling Evand now,” I said and the three quick jerks of heat made them all cringe. Everyone in the city was affected, but none so much as Evand. The Hemari formed solid squares that moved east as the misshapen Corneth came south.
“Has anyone died?” Ellyon asked.
I clapped my eyes shut and tried to look at the entire city at once. “No, not yet. Wait. Yes. A man just died here,” I said and pointed to the spot. “And three more here.”
“The archives,” Liv said and jumped up. “Tell me everything happening there. Is Evand with that group?”
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