“Are any of the other riders involved?” asked Beka.
“On my honor, Captain, none of them. How could I order them to do something I found so repugnant myself?”
“Have you sent Phoria word of what’s happened to Klia?” Seregil demanded.
“No, Lord Thero ordered me not to, the day she fell ill.”
Seregil snorted. “A spy with honor. I just hope you’re telling us the truth, Sergeant. You may have doomed us all as it is.”
“When did you last send a report?” asked Alec.
“The day before Klia collapsed.”
“And what did you say?”
“That the date of the vote had been set, and that no one seemed very hopeful about the outcome.”
“We’ll speak more of this later,” Beka growled. Going to the door, she called in the two sentries on duty, Ariani and Patra. “Riders, keep Sergeant Mercalle under guard. She’s relieved of duty until you hear differently from me.”
To their credit, the riders didn’t hesitate, though they both looked thunderstruck by the order. When they were gone, Beka rounded on Alec. “You knew it was her?”
“I didn’t,” he assured her. “Not until just now.”
“Oh, Alec,” Seregil muttered. His own reputation as a clever intriguer was founded on more fortuitous discoveries of this sort than he liked to admit, but he’d always been careful to capitalize on them by making it look intentional after the fact.
“There’s a certain logic in what she said,” Thero offered. “Perhaps it was better having a friend doing the spying than an enemy.”
Beka stalked angrily to the window. “I’m aware of that. If Phoria had given me the same order—” She slammed her hand against the sill. “No! No, damn it! I’d have found a way to tell Klia, protect her. By the Flame, how could Phoria do this? It sounds as if she was counting on her mother’s death.”
Thero shook his head sadly. “My friends, I believe we are seeing the beginnings of a new era for Skala, one we may not like very much.”
“We can worry about that later,” Seregil said. “Right now we have enough problems. We’ll leave as soon as it’s dark.”
Beka turned to look at him. “What are we going to tell your sisters?”
“Let me speak to them.” Seregil ran a hand back through his hair and sighed, not relishing the prospect of such a farewell.
38
TRAITOR’S MOON
Seregil put off going to his sisters until nightfall, though they were never far from his thoughts. He and Alec had made most of their stealthy preparations separately, ostensibly to avoid notice. The truth was, he’d needed some small part of this leave-taking to himself.
Alone in the bedchamber that afternoon, he found himself working too quickly as he gathered what little he needed for the journey: his mail shirt, warm Aurënfaie clothes, a water skin, his tools.
Corruth’s ring bumped gently against his chest as he worked. He paused a moment and pressed a hand over it, knowing he’d thrown away any chance he might have had to wear it with honor. He was already an outlaw.
A sudden wave of dizziness forced him down on the edge of the bed. It had been easy enough to keep up a front for the others; dissembling was one of his greatest talents. But alone now, he felt something inside break, sharp and hurtful as one of the shattered glass orbs from his visions. Pressing a hand over his eyes, he fought back the tears seeping beneath his tightly closed lids.
“I’m right. I know I’m right!” he whispered. He was the only one Korathan would listen to.
But you’re not so certain as you’ve let on that he’ll agree, are you?
Shamed by his momentary weakness, he wiped his face and pulled his poniard from his bedroll, savoring the familiar weight of its hilt against his palm. Beka had kept this and his dagger for him since they landed in Gedre. He tested the edges of the slender blade with a thumbnail, then slipped it into the knife pocket in his boot; another proscription broken.
If he failed? Well then, his failure would be gloriously complete. He hadn’t protected Klia. He hadn’t caught the assassins. Now he was probably throwing away his life, and Alec’s in the bargain, to forestall Phoria’s insane act of aggression.
Even if they did succeed, what awaited them in Skala? What sort of a queen ruled there now, and how glad would she be to see her sister safely home?
Another question lurked below all the others, one he had no intention of examining until he was well away from Aurënen—
forever
—a question he planned to spend the rest of his life avoiding.
what if—?
No!
Tossing his pack on the bed, he made a quick circuit of the room, focusing on its remaining contents. Whatever he left behind he wasn’t likely to see again. No matter. He was about to go when the soft glint of silver caught his eye amid a pile of clothing next to the bed. Bending down, he fished out the vial of lissik the rhui’auros had given him.
“Might as well have something to show for my troubles,” he mumbled, slipping it into a belt pouch.
The first lamps were being lit when he finally slipped next door. Alec hadn’t offered to come, bless him, just given him a quick, knowing embrace.
Both Adzriel and Mydri were at home. Taking them aside into a small sitting room, he shut the door and leaned against it.
“I’m leaving Sarikali tonight.”
Mydri was the first to recover. “You can’t!”
Adzriel silenced her with a glance, then searched her brother’s face with sorrow-filled eyes. “You do this for Klia?”
“For her. For Skala. For Aurënen.”
“But it’s teth’sag if you leave the city,” Mydri said.
“Only for me,” he told her. “I’m still outcast, so Bôkthersa can’t be held accountable.”
“Oh, talí,” Adzriel said softly. “With all you’ve done here, you might have won your name back in time.”
There it was, that question he’d buried alive.
“Perhaps, but at too high a price,” he told her.
“Then tell us why!” Mydri pleaded.
He gathered the two women close, suddenly needing their arms around him, their tears hot against his neck.
O Aura! he cried silently, clinging to them. It was so tempting to let them convince him, to take it all back and simply wait out the inevitable here, as close to home as he was ever likely to get in this life. If Klia were taken hostage, perhaps he’d even be allowed to stay with her.
It hurt. By the Light, it hurt to leave that embrace, but he had to, before it was too late.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t explain,” he told them. “You couldn’t maintain atui if you had to keep my secret. All I ask is that you say nothing until tomorrow. Later, when everything’s sorted, I’ll explain, I swear. But I promise you now, by the khi of our parents, that what I’m doing is honorable and right. A wise man warned me that I’d have to make choices. This is the right one, even if it’s not what I’d hoped.”
“Wait here, then.” Adzriel turned and hurried from the room.
“You little fool!” Mydri hissed, glaring at him again. “After all it took to bring you here, you do this to her? To me?”
Seregil caught her hand and pressed it over his heart. “You’re a healer. Tell me what you feel,” he challenged, meeting her anger with his own. “Is it joy? Betrayal? Hatred for you or my people?”
She went still, and he felt heat spread slowly across his skin beneath her palm. “No,” she whispered. “No, Haba, I feel none of that. Only resolve, and fear.”
Seregil laughed a little at that. “More fear than resolve just now.”
Mydri pulled him close again, hugging him hard. “You’re still a fool, Haba, but you’ve grown into a fine, good man in spite of it. Aura watch over you always and everywhere.”
“Our other sisters will hate me for this.”
“They’re bigger fools even than you,” she said with a tearful laugh, pushing him a
way. “Adzriel’s the only one of the five of us worth a peddler’s pot.”
Laughing outright, he thanked her with a kiss.
Adzriel returned with a long, slender bundle in her arms. “We meant to give you this when you left. It seems the time has come, if a bit sooner than I’d anticipated.” Folding back the cloth wrappings at the upper end, she presented him with the hilt of a sword.
Seregil reached without thinking, closing his hand around the leather and wire-wrapped grip. With a single smooth motion he pulled the blade free of its scabbard.
Polished steel caught the light like dark silver. A grooved fuller ran down the center of the blade, making it both strong and light. Tapered cross guards curved gracefully toward the blade, good for catching an opponent’s sword.
Seregil’s breath caught in his throat as he hefted it. It moved perfectly in his hand, just heavy enough, and balanced by the weight of its round, flat pommel.
“Akaien made this, didn’t he?” he asked, recognizing his uncle’s hand in the sword’s clean, strong lines.
“Of course,” Adzriel replied. “We knew that you wouldn’t want Father’s, so he made this for you. After seeing how you lived in Rhíminee, I suspected you wouldn’t want anything too ornate.”
“It’s beautiful. And this!” He smoothed a thumb over the unusual pommel, a large disk of polished Sarikali stone set in a steel bevel. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
No sooner had he said it, however, than he had the strongest sense that he had seen something very much like it, though he wasn’t certain where.
“He said it came to him in a dream, a talisman to keep you safe and bring you luck,” Mydri explained.
“Luck in the shadows,” he murmured in Skalan, shaking his head.
“You know Akaien and his dreams!” Mydri said fondly.
Seregil looked up at her in surprise. “I’d forgotten.”
He sheathed the blade and ran his fingers over the fine leather scabbard and long belt, fighting the temptation to put it on. “I’m not supposed to carry a weapon here, you know.”
“You’re not supposed to be leaving, either,” Adzriel said with a catch in her voice. “With all Alec and Beka have told me, I was worried that you would not accept it.”
Seregil shook his head, bemused. His hand had known this weapon from the instant he’d touched it; it hadn’t occurred to him to refuse it.
“I promise you this.” Unsheathing it again, he put the hilt in Adzriel’s hand and set the point against his heart, leaning into it until it dented the front of his coat. “By Aura Elustri, and by the name I once had, this blade will never be drawn in anger against an Aurënfaie.”
“Then keep your temper and protect yourself,” Adzriel advised, handing it back. “What shall I say when they find you gone?”
Seregil smiled crookedly. “Tell them I got homesick.”
He hid the sword in the stable, then took the back stairs two at a time. Resisting the urge to look in on Klia one last time, he hurried to his room, taking care to inform several servants he met along the way that he and Alec were retiring for the night.
The bedchamber was in near darkness, lit only by one small lamp. The balcony shutters were closed tight. The tunic and trousers he’d stolen earlier lay on the neatly made bed, together with an Akhendi sen’gai.
“Alec?” he called softly, hastily changing his clothes.
“Over here. I’m just finishing up,” a voice said from somewhere beyond the bed.
Alec stepped into the light, still toweling his wet hair. Seregil halted, unexpectedly moved by the sight of his friend wearing Aurënfaie clothing. It suited Alec, making him look more ’faie than ya’shel. He’d always had the slender build and carriage—Seregil had recognized that the first time he’d laid eyes on him—but somehow it was more apparent now. As Alec removed the towel, the resemblance became that much stronger. Thanks to a walnut-shell concoction they’d brewed up earlier, his yellow hair and brows were now as brown as Seregil’s.
“Did it work?” Alec asked, running a comb through the wet strands.
“It certainly did. I hardly recognize you myself.”
Alec pulled something from his belt—another sen’gai. “I hope you know how to wrap these things. I haven’t had much luck and didn’t dare ask anyone for help.”
“A good thing, too. Where’d you get these?” Seregil fingered the brown-and-green-patterned cloth with misgivings. Wearing false colors was a crime.
Alec shrugged. “Off a laundry line this afternoon. I just happened to be in the right place with no one else in sight. ‘Take what the god sends and be thankful,’ right? What are you waiting for? We’ve got to get moving!”
Seregil smoothed the cloth between his fingers again, then placed the midpoint across Alec’s brow and began weaving the long ends around his head to form as good an approximation as he could manage of the Akhendi style. Tying the long ends off over Alec’s tattooed ear, he stepped back and looked him over with approval. “The Akhendi have enough ya’shel among them that you shouldn’t draw much notice anyway, but you could pass for pure just as easily.”
Even in this light, Seregil could see the faint blush of pleasure that darkened his friend’s cheeks.
“What about you?” Alec asked, belting on his sword.
Seregil glanced down at the remaining sen’gai lying untouched on the bed. “No. If I ever do put on one again, it will be one I have a right to.”
Thero slipped in and closed the door behind him. “I thought it must be time. Are you ready?”
Seregil exchanged a quick look with Alec, then nodded. “You go ahead and make sure the way is clear. We’ll be right behind you.”
The unlit stable yard appeared deserted. Thero stood a moment, then motioned for Seregil and Alec to follow. Sending a silent thanks to Beka, Seregil strode across to the stable.
Inside, a lone woman was saddling a horse with Aurënfaie tack by the glow of a lightstone. Two other horses, one Aurënfaie, one Skalan, were ready to go. She heard them come in and turned, pushing back the brim of her helmet.
“Bilairy’s Balls!” Seregil growled.
It was Beka. She’d traded her captain’s gorget for a dispatch pouch and wore the worn tabard of a common rider. Her long red hair was bound up tightly at the back of her neck.
“What are you doing?” Thero hissed, equally surprised.
“Going with them as far as need be,” she whispered back, handing Alec and Seregil the reins of the Aurënfaie horses.
“You’re needed here!”
“I’ve been wresting with that all day,” she said. “This is a command decision. Right now, nothing is more important than stopping Korathan. Rhylin and Braknil can manage here until we get all this sorted out. And if we don’t—well, it may not matter.”
Seregil laid a hand on the wizard’s arm, forestalling further argument. “She’s right.”
Frowning, Thero gave in. “I can shield you until you’re out of the city,” he offered, drawing his wand.
“No, you’d better not. There are too many folk around who’d smell your magic on us. We’ll manage, with two of us—” He gave Thero the quick, subtle sign for “Watcher.”
Alec saw and nodded at Beka. “Perhaps it’s time we made it three? I think Magyana would approve.”
“I believe she would,” Seregil agreed. “A bit sooner than we’d planned, perhaps, but there’s no doubt of her worth.”
“You mean it?” Beka breathed, wide-eyed.
He grinned. The Watchers were a strange, fractured group—even he did not know who all the members were—but Beka had seen too much growing up not to have formed some ideas of her own.
“Do you understand what it means, Beka, to be a Watcher?” asked Thero.
“Enough,” she replied, confirming Seregil’s suspicions. “If it means serving Skala as Seregil and my father have, then I’m in.”
“There’s a great deal more to it than that, but we’ll deal with that la
ter,” Seregil said, hoping she wouldn’t have cause to regret this hasty decision during the dark days ahead. “Do it, Thero.”
Thero pulled an ancient ivory dagger from his belt and set it spinning inches from Beka’s face. This was the test of truth, and one that allowed for no mistakes. Beka stood unflinching, her gaze fixed on Thero.
The sight brought a lump to Seregil’s throat. This same knife had belonged to Nysander. It had spun in front of his own face when he took the oath as a very young man. Years later, Alec had felt its threat and passed the challenge.
“Beka, daughter of Kari,” Thero whispered. “A Watcher must observe carefully, report truthfully, and keep the secrets that must be kept. Do you swear by your heart and eyes and by the Four to do these things?”
“I do.”
The knife tumbled harmlessly into Thero’s outstretched hand. “Then welcome, and luck in the shadows to you.”
Only then did she betray relief. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“That’s the easy part,” Alec told her, grinning as broadly as she was. “Now you’re really in the middle of it.”
Seregil felt his heart skip a beat as she turned to him, eyes full of quiet triumph. “Whatever comes, I’m with you.”
“First the commission; now this. Your poor mother will never speak to me again.” Seregil gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then went to retrieve his sword from its hiding place in the hay.
“Where did you get that?” Alec asked.
“A gift from my sisters.” Seregil tossed the sword belt to him and went to sling his pack over his saddlebow.
Alec drew the blade. “It’s a beauty.”
Seregil took the belt back, wrapping it twice around his waist. Alec gave him the sword and he sheathed it, fiddling with the scabbard lacings until it hung at the proper, low-slung angle against his left hip. His hands remembered each movement without the need for thought; the off-centered weight of the weapon at his side felt good and right. “Let’s go.”
“Luck in the shadows,” Thero murmured again, walking them to the gate.
“And in the light,” Seregil replied. He clasped the wizard’s thin shoulder a moment, wondering what else to say. If this all went wrong, this would be their last parting.
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