“Now see, I knew you were a lord of some kind.”
“Yes. And our Empir has asked me to investigate Heir Tuane’s death. It’s my understanding it was a murder?”
“My understanding as well, my lord,” the innkeeper replied, her previous enthusiasm waning at the direction of Lorain’s questioning.
“And what do you know of it?”
“Only that there was a great lot of noise come from her lodgings upstairs and outside in the hall. Later her friend came down and asked what we’d heard.”
“Her friend?” Lorain asked. Had Nalin reemerged? Or perhaps it was Rosarel.
“The man who was wounded,” the woman explained.
“Wounded?”
“Dark fellow. Not bad looking that one.”
Rosarel. Lorain’s mind took the notes she would later record onto paper. “You say he was wounded?”
“Lost his eye, I suspect, the way it was bandaged,” the woman went on.
“Do you think he was involved somehow?”
“Let me tell you what I think, milord.” The woman leaned in and spoke slyly. “I think the man they found dead up there killed the heir, and then someone killed him. Doubt it was the dark fellow, though. I think he returned later.”
So, Lorain thought, Arspas died here. Rosarel probably encountered Lazlin somewhere else, and her body will never be found. Makes sense. But who killed Arspas? The hermit?
“I heard there was a third member of the heir’s party, a young woman. What of her?” Lorain asked.
“Don’t rightly know, my lord. I didn’t see her that night. Nor since, for that matter.”
“How long were they here? A week maybe?”
“About that.”
Lorain sensed the old woman withdrawing, providing less and less information as the conversation wore on. “And just out of curiosity, you know, in the hope that we may find some explanation, what was their routine?”
“They came. They went. Mostly the back way. Didn’t see much of ’em.”
“Of course.” Rosarel paid her well, Lorain thought. She doubted she’d get much more from this woman even if she offered to double what Rosarel had already given her, whatever that was. Loyalty among outlaws, not to mention Rosarel’s good looks, had sealed her tongue.
“’Tis a shame, though, that’s sure. Holder Tuane must be beside himself with the grief.”
“Yes,” Lorain said with a smile of lethal proportions, though its significance seemed lost on the woman. “A real tragedy.” They sat in silence for a moment, until Lorain determined it was time to go. “If you think of anything else that might assist me in my investigation, you can reach me at the Keep in Avaret.”
“Aye, my lord.” The woman stood as Lorain rose, and with a nod she returned to her bar, leaving Lorain to let herself out.
For the briefest of moments, the sun dazzled Lorain as she paused at the top of the steps, but the moment passed. Lorain descended the steps to her carriage and, with no sympathy and with no regrets, left the place where Jozan had drawn her last breath.
By the time Lorain arrived at Seffa, she had already decided that a necropath committing murder could never handle it all by herself; she would seek help. So as soon as she could, Lorain would send messengers to Solsta’s sister havens, Erinina and Rossla. A distressed hermit would head to the closest haven for the sake of her soul. That would be Erinina, but Lorain would send someone to Rossla as well just in case. She would waste no time on Solsta since the girl must realize by now that Solsta was under scrutiny and, hence, a dangerous destination.
In Seffa, the rites had already begun at the castle when Lorain arrived. One of the servants directed her to the meadow where the funeral was well underway. She noted with interest the absence of Nalin Corday from the grieving hordes. What could be more important to him than the rites for his dearest friend? Yet another mental note for analysis later.
She stopped long enough to convey her condolences to Elsba and Bala at the reception following the funeral, and then, filled with all sorts of news for Ariel, she told the driver to get her home as quickly as possible. One spy dead, the other missing and presumed dead. The new Empir wouldn’t like that. But Nalin missing Jozan’s rites? Captain Rosarel now minus an eye, making him even more of a liability to the Guard than his treachery already had? The little hermit potentially a murderer? Oh, it was luscious, just luscious, and Lorain couldn’t wait to get back to Avaret.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ONCE UPON A PLACE
South of the boulevard the roads angle up into the hills, and if you make a wrong turn, you might never find your way back again. Lisen walks, lost in a place where she shouldn’t be lost. Home is near—she’s sure of it—but it eludes her. She keeps turning down streets that look familiar at first but then transform into strange and menacing byways. She retraces her steps but can’t get back to where she started—the street she thinks she’s returning to has shifted and changed into something entirely different.
For some reason, Lisen trusts there’s still a there out there, that out there is a place of substance, a place where Lisen’s body moves in a strange side-to-side and rolling-forward motion. Lisen finds herself entangled in a life, drifting in shifting time and place.
“It’s okay, honey,” her mother says. “It’s just a fever. You’ll feel better soon.” Lisen has to believe her mother because her mother’s a doctor, and she knows something about minor fevers, doesn’t she? Lisen isn’t entirely sure. Lisen isn’t entirely sure about anything. All of this feels unreal, like a dream or hallucination.
“I don’t want to die.” Yes, that’s the voice, the voice that burns.
The road calls again, and Lisen focuses on finding home. She knew once where it was, she’s sure of it. She had a car, used, yet useful, and she drove in and out of this labyrinth of roads constantly without second or third thoughts. But now….
I’m dead. Not the other one. Me. I’m the one who’s dead. Can’t find home because I’m dead, dead to all of them, and all of them to me. Earth’s a memory, a twenty-something-thousand-mile-in-circumference hole of throbbing memory in my heart.
Or maybe it’s The Wizard of Oz. That’s it. I’ve bumped my head somehow and I’m dreaming it all—the strange world, the strange body, the death of my alleged mother, my so-called “gift” so I could participate in that death, the escape from the haven, Halorin where we thought we were safe. Jozan’s murder. Yeah, all a dream. I’ll wake up to Betsy looking down on me, chiding me for being such a klutz, laughing at me for being a fool.
Except that in the book, Dorothy’s slippers weren’t ruby—they were silver—this isn’t a dream, and here is anywhere but Oz.
The rain had drenched them for hours now, and although Nalin pitied the driver sitting outside on the bench, he thanked the Creators that he and Flandari’s Heir were safe inside the carriage as it bumped along following the southern branch of the Rukat River. They’d crossed the northern branch this morning, in advance of the rain, just past the joining of the north and south limbs of the river. After nine long, desperate days, only a few more remained in this journey which had brought them from Seffa and would leave them at Rossla. The ride had been grueling enough, but the Heir, who slept with her head in Nalin’s lap, who slept most of the time thanks to Elsba’s comra, already seemed too lost in the possession for even a master necropath to help now.
“Nalin?”
He looked down to see she’d opened her light green eyes and stared up at him in that unfocused way that had become so familiar. She spoke as though she were Jozan, unnerving him mercilessly. Day after day he’d endured this, and he feared he might require his own healing once they reached Rossla. No, he thought. His distress was nothing when compared to what must be consuming the girl’s soul bit by bit, day after day. And as they rode on, every once in awhile she would awaken, like now, and speak with Jo’s voice.
“Yes?” he responded, taking her hand as she looked up into his eyes.
/> “I don’t want to die.”
She’d said this once before, and it hit him just as hard this time as it had then. Because, of course, she must die. She was already dead, and the only way the girl could survive—the only way Lisen could survive—was if Jozan did not. He bit his lip. The funeral was likely over by now, Jo’s body consigned to ashes, but for him, the scream of death lingered on, unrelenting, holding him captive in the form of this young woman who appealed to him now, Jo-but-not-Jo.
“Shh,” he hushed softly. “It’ll be fine.” He looked out the window at the hint of midday sun breaking through the clearing clouds. The comra didn’t work as well as it once had, and he wondered if he dared increase the dose or maybe give it more often.
“My lord!” the driver yelled from in front.
“What?”
“A rider is about to overtake us.”
Nalin’s breath caught. A single rider on a horse would catch up no matter how fast they tried to go, as the road was treacherous and often narrowed to practically nothing, forcing them to slow down when it did.
“Pull up,” Nalin ordered, deciding to wait the rider out. He slid sideways off the bench on which he’d been sitting and shifted Lisen’s head to the cushion. As the carriage came to a halt, he opened the door, his hand on his sword’s grip, and stepped down out of the cabin into the forest and rain. He turned towards their rear and saw the rider and horse gaining on them at a canter. He squinted in an attempt to focus on the approaching duo, but they were too far away to identify the rider.
“My lord!” the person on the horse shouted. “My lord!”
Nalin stared in disbelief. He’d expected Rosarel days ago, and when he’d failed to show, Nalin had assumed that the captain had abandoned them. But here he was, kicking his horse into a gallop, riding for all he was worth, what remained of his left eye now covered by a black patch instead of the bandages Nalin remembered. He rode hard and pulled up when he was nearly upon them, his horse’s back hooves sliding dangerously in the mud before it came to a halt. The captain leapt from his horse and led it to the coach where he began tethering it to the footer’s handle. Nalin joined him there.
“My lord,” Rosarel began, out of breath, “I would have reached you long before this, but Holder Tuane…well, he sends his apologies. He forgot all about your message and only remembered it again two days later.” The captain paused, shifted the gaze of his remaining eye to the carriage. “How is she?”
“Possessed,” Nalin replied bluntly.
The captain looked down, toed a boot into the mud. “As your note said.” He looked up again and finished tying his horse to the carriage. “Is there any hope?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Nalin was beginning to feel lost again.
“May I ride inside with you?” Korin asked, figuring the holder would welcome the company of a sane person after days alone with a possessed hermit.
“Of course,” Corday replied and gestured Korin into the carriage. Korin had no idea what to expect in terms of the Heir, of Lisen, but he stepped up and in, the holder stepping in behind him. Korin took the rear-facing bench, and he looked across at the young woman he hadn’t seen for nearly a fortnight. She sat there, watching him settle in. Her eyes, usually clear as a sunlit sea, stared at him, unseeing, cloudy and sunken; the skin surrounding them, dark and sickly looking.
Once the holder had sat down beside the listless Lisen, he shouted, “Go!” up to the driver, and the coach took off at a labored pace.
“I know you,” Lisen finally admitted, her voice hoarse, chilling. Korin managed a reluctant smile. “But something’s different about you.” She squinted, focusing as best she could.
“And about you as well, my Liege.”
“Don’t engage her, Captain,” the holder cautioned. “It only makes things worse.”
She turned to Corday. “You engage me,” she whined.
“And it makes things worse.” The holder reached into his beltpouch, pulled out what appeared to be a leafy herb of some kind and offered it to her. “Chew this.”
“It makes me sleep.” She pouted, refusing to take the herb. The holder winced, and Korin wondered why.
“It may save your life,” Corday countered, but Korin heard no confidence in the holder’s voice.
“What is it?” Korin asked and reached out to take the leaves from the holder.
Corday withheld it but responded, “It’s called comra. Holder Tuane gave it to me. He said it would keep her quiet and may slow the progress of the possession.”
“It makes me sleep,” Lisen repeated, and Korin smiled again at her, this time at the realization of how much he’d missed her in their days apart. “And we’d get there faster,” she added, “if we had a freakin’ car.” Then she reached her hand out and took the crumbled leaves from Corday as ordered and chewed them thoroughly. She opened her hand to show the holder she’d put everything into her mouth, and then turned back to Korin. “I still say there’s something different about you.”
“I’ll explain it later,” Korin replied, and apparently accepting this as enough for now, Lisen began to fade into a half-sleep, eventually leaning over toward the holder and settling her head upon his lap.
“Have you noticed the words?” Korin inquired as Lisen slipped into sleep.
“What words?” the holder asked.
“She uses strange words,” Korin answered, “like what she just said about it being faster if we had something called a ‘freeken kar.’”
“Not really, no, I hadn’t noticed them.”
At the holder’s defensive tone, Korin decided to drop the subject, though he remained curious. During their journey to Halorin and while there, the Heir had talked in her sleep. Mostly she’d spoken in Garlan, but sometimes she’d said words that sounded like nothing but gibberish. Korin still wondered where the language came from. He knew both Garlan and Thristan; what else was there? He sighed. Well, I won’t be getting an answer from the holder.
They sat for some time in silence, these two singular men, young Lisen sleeping with her head in the holder’s lap, Korin staring at her. She’d traveled so far, learned so much, all while maintaining that mocking mouth of hers. She used it as a defense against the enormity of the task before her. Now, here she lay, frail and vulnerable, and when it was over at Rossla, if it was over at Rossla…well, what happened then had obsessed Korin for days now.
“My lord,” he ventured. It was time to share the conclusions he’d come to amidst that obsession. “I’ve spent the time since I saw you last thinking, and here’s what I’ve come to.”
Corday stared at him, and Korin saw defeat in the holder’s eyes. No. Not defeat, Korin thought angrily. Don’t you dare think defeat. In order to win, none of them could allow the concept of failure to enter their minds, none of them, and that included the hermit from Solsta, the remaining Tuanes, himself, and especially Holder Corday. The last thing Ariannas Ilazer needed now was the burden of her mentor’s doubt.
The holder said nothing, didn’t even ask for an explanation, so Korin plunged into one anyway. “Let’s hope for the best. Let’s say the Heir’s dispossession succeeds. She’s going to need time to recover.”
Stroking the young woman’s dull hair, Corday simply nodded, and Korin carried on. “It will be unwise for us to remain at Rossla Haven any longer than absolutely necessary. The Empir is aware of us, or at least, Holder Zanlot is. I’m sure she was the one behind the attack in Halorin.”
“I’m sure she was, too,” Corday replied, his eyes remaining as always like a frozen lake, but now a beam of hope bounced off them. Korin believed the holder, apparently not having devised a plan of his own yet, was wishing Korin’s plan would do.
“Hence,” Korin said, continuing to build his argument, “tracing us to Rossla won’t be difficult.”
“Yes,” Corday replied. “So what do you suggest?”
“Thristas.”
“No,” Corday replied without hesitation, shaki
ng his head.
“My lord. Please. Hear me out.”
“There’s no explanation that is going to make Thristas look good to me,” the holder said, then continued, his tone reluctant, “so…convince me.”
“All right, then. First,” Korin began, ticking each point off, one finger at a time, “Thristas is like a second home to me. I served on the Rim at Pass Garrison for several years, and I’m familiar with the people and their ways. Second, we can disappear there far more easily than we can in Garla. The Empir and his consort will find it more difficult to employ Thristan spies than it is to employ Garlan ones.”
“And third?” Corday asked.
“The desert can teach her about survival. We won’t be sitting idle while she recuperates, believe me.” Korin chose to keep the desire he felt to have her near him, alone with him, a secret from Corday. It was unseemly and undignified in a guard who had once stood proud amongst the best. If this Heir succeeded, he could only stand proud again if he never acknowledged or acted on his feelings.
“It’s too far away,” Corday commented. “There must be a safe place closer than the desert.”
“Anywhere in Garla is vulnerable, but if we can leave the haven in secret, no one will ever guess where we have gone.”
“Not even Lorain Zanlot?” the holder asked, one eyebrow raised.
“I can think of nothing that could lead her to that conclusion.”
“I don’t know. She reaches correct conclusions in uncanny ways.”
“Nal?” Lisen didn’t move; she didn’t even turn her head to look up at the holder. She stared instead at Korin, her speech dulled by the call of sleep, her eyes heavy-lidded. “He’s right. It’s the only way.” Korin realized that it was not Lisen of Solsta who spoke but Heir Tuane. He wondered how Holder Corday had managed, alone with her, alone with the both of her, all this time, and he shuddered.
Fractured (Lisen of Solsta Book 1) Page 25