Po stiffened. “When you put it like that.”
“How else would you put it? That’s what happened.” She punched her palm with her other fist. “We should have brought that body with us. Stupid of us to have left it there. We could have used it for proof. Let Tolin take that to the senators and see what their reaction is.”
Po shivered.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to touch that thing,” Kerson said.
The man had a point. Kerson wasn’t the sharpest tool in the pouch, but he tended to make good sense every now and then. Whatever it was they were doing down there was hideous.
Kira closed her eyes. She could see the transformed man begging for her to kill him, his one good eye pleading for death. She opened hers again. “It wouldn’t have done any good to tell the queen. If we had and she went poking her nose around, she’d probably only succeed in getting it chopped off. Along with her head. Without Ayrion and the High Guard there for her protection, she’s practically a prisoner in her own house. She just hasn’t realized it yet.”
“They’d kill her for sure,” Kerson said, “and feed her body to the fishes.”
“If they didn’t try experimenting on her first,” Po added, looking a bit pale.
They all shivered at that.
Kira mounted. “Best we leave them out of it for now.” She looked at Po. “Head back to the Warrens and make sure those imbeciles haven’t burned the place down in my absence.”
“Where will you be?”
“I need to see an old friend.”
Po frowned. He didn’t like her wandering around Aramoor without him. In fact, he didn’t much like her being anywhere without him, and he let her know in the manner in which he rode off—griping under his breath the whole way down the road.
Kira waited till he had turned on the first street heading south, then waited a little longer just to make sure he didn’t try doubling back and following. She wouldn’t have put it past him.
“What are we waiting for?” Kerson finally asked, staring up the empty street.
“Nothing, I guess.”
Voices behind them signaled that the rest of the party had finally broken up and were leaving the commander’s home.
“This way.” She turned her horse opposite the direction Po had taken and nudged it with her boots. She groaned when it took off, the saddle slapping her backside until she could find a steady rhythm. She hated horses. But in a city this size, there wasn’t much other choice.
They headed east, running parallel to King’s Way, crossing the Tansian River just above the merchant district. The northeast quarter of the city wasn’t nearly as affluent as the west, but it wasn’t exactly Cheapside, either. The buildings were in good shape, not new but well maintained, and the streets were clean.
They passed the enormous cylindrical towers the tribal guild used for their meetings. Each tower was connected by a number of long covered walkways that looked out over a huge portion of the city. She wondered if the guild still had rooms there.
She had a lot of memories tied up with her time in the street tribes. A lot of memories she wished she could forget. Her eyes burned as her thoughts were once again drawn back to Ayri, the time they had spent as kids, the fights they’d had. He never let her get away with anything. She pinched her leg, trying to focus her thoughts.
Reaching the next street, she took them south. A quarter hour later, she turned off the main road and started east once again, heading toward the city wall. She could see the monolithic structure rising in the distance. They were getting close. She’d only been there a couple of times, and that was years back. On top of that, buildings tended to look different at night from how they did during the day. She hoped she recognized the place when she saw it.
Kira pulled her horse to a stop just outside a tall, somewhat older building on the left side of the road. Four stories, and every one of them filled. Two boys on the corner made a mad dash around the side. She didn’t expect it would be too long before the welcoming party arrived.
“We’ll leave the horses here,” she said, gladly dismounting, adding, “They’ll be safe enough,” when she saw the troubled look in Kerson’s eyes as he scanned the empty street.
“Where are we?”
The front door opened, and a very old man stepped out, his back bent with age, his white beard hanging down to his waist. He hobbled out to the front step and looked at them. “You just gonna stand there gawkin’, or are you gonna tell me what you want?” His arm shook from the effort of balancing his weight on his cane.
Something about him seemed familiar.
“It’s all right, Fentin,” a voice behind the man said. Reevie limped out the front. “They’re friends.” He hobbled over to the front of the porch and looked down at Kira. “Correct?”
“You’d know it if we weren’t.” She turned and motioned for Kerson to follow, but Reevie raised his hand.
“The big man stays out here. He’d likely scare half the residents if he came inside.”
Kira looked at Reevie for a moment, then finally nodded to Kerson. “Watch the horses.”
“Didn’t want to go in there, anyway,” she heard him grumbling behind her.
She walked up the steps and onto the front porch. The old geezer blocking the doorway gave her a harsh look. Either that or his face was so wrinkled with age it had permanently formed that way. She tried not to stare as she went by, but there was something about him that she remembered.
Reevie looked at Fentin. “Kira here is—”
“I know exactly who she is,” Fentin said, hobbling back inside and shutting the door behind them. “You’ve come a long way, young missy, since your time in the tribes.”
She tried smiling. “Thank you.”
He frowned. “It wasn’t a compliment.”
Reevie smiled. “Fentin, do you think you could get your wife to whip us up a couple of her famous sandwiches?”
Kira’s head rose. Sandwiches. Now she knew where she’d seen him before. “You used to own that bookshop near the river.”
Fentin smiled. “Aye. And if memory serves me correctly, it saved your skinny backside a time or two.”
Kira nodded. “It did. I don’t believe I ever thanked you for that.”
“If you want to thank me, then leave us out of whatever scheming you have in mind. We have enough troubles of our own than to be adding the Warrens’ mess on top of them.” Fentin turned and grumbled all the way down the corridor toward the back.
“Pleasant fellow,” she said.
Reevie smiled. “Orilla does make the most incredible sandwiches. Me and Ayrion used to call them her mystery meat sandwiches. She never would tell us what she used in them. Come to think of it, I still don’t know.” He shrugged. “But I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to sample our fine cuisine.” He pointed to a staircase on the other side of the front room. “This way.”
They reached the second floor, then headed up an adjoining set of stairs to the third, all the while dodging kids. The place was crawling with them. Most stopped to stare at the strange woman in the red jacket; others, when they saw her, ran into the closest room to apparently spread the word about the visitor and returned with eight or nine more.
“Visitors usually mean the chance for an adoption,” Reevie said over his shoulder.
She noticed a lot of the kids trying to flatten the wrinkles in their clothes or comb their hair with their hands; a couple of kids went so far as to lick their fingers and wipe the dirt off their faces. She tried not to notice, but it was difficult as they gathered in the halls to watch her go by.
Had she ever been that young? She couldn’t remember.
“In here,” Reevie said, opening a door at the end of the hall. The kids kept their distance from the room. He held the door open, and she walked in.
The room was quaint but tidy, with a bed positioned between two windows at the center, a dresser on the right, and a desk and chair in the corner. Griff lay in the bed.
A woman with thick blonde hair that hung halfway down her back turned from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was holding a bowl of soup in one hand, spoon in the other. “I was wondering when you’d show up,” she said, feeding Griff the soup. She looked at Kira. “You certainly haven’t changed much. I see you’re still wearing that gaudy coat.”
“And I see that age hasn’t bettered your manners any either, Sapphire,” Kira said. “You always were a bit too stuck-up for your own good.”
Sapphire laid the bowl down on the nightstand and stood. “Give me a sword and we’ll see who gets stuck.”
Kira pulled the dagger from her coat and spun it in the air, more for show than anything. Truth be told, she didn’t have any desire to lock steel with the woman. Sapphire was probably the one person besides Ayri who might have actually been better with the sword than she was.
Reevie raised his hands and hobbled to the center of the room. “All right, enough’s enough. I’m sure Kira didn’t ride all this way just for the chance to insult you.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Sapphire said, picking the bowl back up and sitting once more on the edge of the bed.
Reevie looked at Kira, as if waiting for her to agree.
She pointed to the bed. “I’m here to see Griff.” She walked around to the opposite side and looked at the deep burns and scarring on the side of his body. The right side of his face had been burned as well, leaving a rather ugly patch of melted flesh. She couldn’t help but wince when she saw him. “How bad is the pain?”
“Not too bad,” he said, his throat raspy. “Whatever they’re giving me is helping.”
She looked at Reevie, who leaned against the railing at the foot of the bed. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
“Least I could do for the ones who rescued me from a fate worse than death.”
“You have no idea,” she said, again thinking about that room where they had been experimenting on the homeless. She took a deep breath. “How’s he doing?” she asked Reevie this time instead of Griff, who was trying to hold a brave face. From the slow slurps he took, she could see he was having a difficult time keeping it up.
“It’s going to take time,” he said, adjusting the blankets around Griff’s feet. One foot was under the quilt, the partially burnt one on top. “The medicines are doing their job. It won’t be an easy road back, but with time and some proper reconditioning, I suspect he’ll make a full recovery.” Reevie looked at Griff and smiled. “Might not be as pretty as you used to be, though.”
Kira huffed. “A few good scars will do him some good.” She looked at Griff. “Maybe now Gwen might pay you a little more attention.”
Griff coughed, spilling some of the soup Sapphire had been feeding him.
She gave Kira a sharp look and wiped Griff’s chin.
“I also came to say there’s been some news concerning Ayrion’s death.”
Sapphire dropped the spoon in the bowl, and both she and Reevie turned to look at Kira. “What news?” she asked.
Kira spent the next couple of minutes retelling as best she could the information she’d gleaned from her meeting at Commander Tolin’s house.
“I never liked Dakaran,” Reevie said. “He was always a bad influence on . . .” He didn’t say Ayrion’s name, but everyone knew who he was referring to. “Even as kids, Dakaran always seemed to have a faerie in him. Troublemaker from the start.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me of what happened to you in the dungeons?” Kira asked.
“Does he need to?” Sapphire said, setting the now empty bowl back on the nightstand. “He hasn’t slept for days. Wakes half the orphanage up with his screaming.”
Reevie’s cheeks flushed.
“We need to know everything you saw. Even the smallest detail might be important.”
“There’s not much else to tell other than what you already know. They put bags over our eyes, loaded us on boats, and the next thing I knew, I was climbing a ladder and being hauled down a long corridor to those cages.”
“How often did they bring new prisoners in? Did you know about the wielders? And what in flaming faerie fire were they doing to those people in that room?”
“All I can remember are the screams,” he said, seemingly frozen in place, his eyes staring blankly at the wall behind the bed. “We never saw anything. People went in; no one came back out. At least, not the same way they had gone in. Mostly, the guards would carry out bags with what I can only imagine were body parts.”
“That’s enough,” Sapphire said, raising her hand. “The last thing he needs is to relive that.”
“It’s all right,” he said to Sapphire before turning to Kira. “To answer your question, no. I had no idea any of those people were wielders. In fact, the head of the White Tower was there on a regular basis—”
“The Archchancellor?” Kira asked. “Any idea what the Tower has to do with these atrocities?”
“Maybe they thought they were rounding up wielders.”
“Not hardly,” Kira hissed. “One way or another, we need to find out what’s going on in there.”
“That sounds like the perfect job for you to deal with,” Sapphire said as she stood and crossed her arms. “But we have an orphanage to run. So, if you don’t mind letting us get back to our work, there are kids that need putting to bed. Unless of course you’d like to stay and help give them their baths.”
Kira took a step back. Bathe the kids? She had clearly overstayed her welcome. “Always a pleasure, Sapphire,” she said with a smirk.
“You as well, Kira. I would say don’t be a stranger, but . . .”
Kira held her smile until she left the room.
“That’s about the friendliest I’ve seen you two in some time,” Reevie said.
Kira rolled her eyes. She followed him down the stairs, where they met Fentin holding out a plate with a thick sandwich on top. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said with a wink as she relieved him of it.
He grumbled and walked off.
She had to admit it did smell good.
Reevie walked her to the door, and they stepped out on the front porch. Kerson was sitting on the top step, surrounded by four boys and a girl. They seemed to be in the middle of a staring contest. Kerson looked to be winning. She couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Don’t mind Sapphire,” Reevie said, his breath misting in front of his face. Moonlight streaked the back of his head from a couple of holes in the porch roof. “She worries.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Reevie smiled. “Guess not.”
Kira walked to the edge of the steps. “If you think of anything else, you know where I live.”
“Yeah, the one place you’ll never find me.”
She laughed. “I’ll be back to check on Griff. Is there anything you need me to bring? Herbs, food, better clothing?”
“All of it.”
She smiled and headed down the porch steps, careful not to let the insides of her sandwich fall out as she climbed up into her saddle. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 67 | Breen
“TY’S NOT COMING?” Fraya asked, looking up at Breen from their side of the table. The meeting room was full. The only empty seat was Ty’s. Even Gilly was there.
“Not this time,” Breen said. He didn’t like leaving his brother in the dark, but Ty had been acting more than a little strange the last couple of weeks.
“I heard about what happened in the prison,” Fraya said, glancing briefly at Adarra on her left. Adarra kept her nose in her book, apparently not wanting to discuss it.
“What happened in the prison?” Feoldor asked, twisting the bracelet holding his transferal around on his wrist.
“It was nothing,” Breen’s father said, sitting directly to Breen’s right. “Ty got a little overly ambitious when questioning the Tallosian prisoner.”
“What does that mean?”
Breen’s father cleared his throat. “He m
ight have used some magic to throw him around the cell.”
Feoldor smiled. “Flaming Northman deserves much worse, if you ask me.”
Breen agreed. He wouldn’t have minded a few minutes alone in the cell with the man either. But the problem wasn’t the Tallosian. It was Ty. And not so much because he’d lost control and thrown the man around his cell, but because of the look in his eyes when he did it. It was like looking at a stranger. Breen couldn’t help but think it might have something to do with that book Ty had taken from Mangora’s shop. He had noticed the bulge in Ty’s jacket where he seemed to be carrying it everywhere he went.
If it was the book, then maybe getting rid of his new bow might be the smart thing to do as well. He’d been practicing with it when no one was around and hadn’t seen any ill effects, but he couldn’t be sure. The thought of losing such an exquisite item turned his stomach. Perhaps it wasn’t the book. Maybe Ty’s recent near-death experience had made more of an impact than they realized. For all Breen knew, it could be some sort of residual effect of the spider’s poison, or even the wizard’s healing.
“Ty hasn’t taken his mother’s passing well,” his father said, leaning forward far enough to see Fraya. “He blames himself. And it seems the only thing on his mind nowadays is Mangora.” He clasped his hands together and sighed. “Best we leave Ty out of any further discussions that deal with the witch.”
Feoldor huffed. “I wouldn’t mind being left out of these discussions either. The two ventures I made into her shop were two too many for me. Place gives me the shivers.”
“Why does Ty blame himself?” Reloria asked. “He fought just as hard as the rest of us.”
“Ty blames himself because he is the one the Tower was after.”
“Hogwash,” Orlyn stated rather emphatically, the baggy sleeves of his robe resting on top of the table. “The Tower was coming for us regardless. They would like nothing more than to eradicate every last one of the wielder councils that oppose their agenda.”
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