In Lord Rognozi’s room, the gore was more contained: a darkness that spread over the sides of the bed and trailed in rivulets down to the floor.
Zelen closed his eyes there and braced himself against the doorframe. He’d seen people die, yes, and blood itself had long ceased to unnerve him, but this was too close to showing the exact circumstances of their deaths, their helplessness and terror.
They’d been his friends.
His heart was hot iron, shrieking on the anvil. If Branwyn had done this—if Branwyn had been forced to it—if she hadn’t—
None of that means a thing, he told himself in the cold inflections that were the closest he could come to his mother’s rebukes. Your duty is to evaluate the situation as it is, not as it might be. That’s the whole of your responsibility just now.
He forced himself to make a closer inspection.
The mattress where Lord Rognozi had lain and died was soaked with blood and torn in several places, and the hangings on one side of the bed had been shredded, but nothing else in the room was damaged.
Lady Rognozi’s room was a very different story. Many of the small glass windowpanes had been shattered. So had the iron bars of the frames, in several places. The mirror on the dressing table lay in shards, and the table itself had practically been cleaved in half. Her bed-curtains had suffered as well, though not so badly as her lord’s—a few wide cuts, as if in passing.
Most notably of all, the wall on one side of the room had a great hole in it. Zelen could look, carefully, past splinters half a foot long and into the study on the other side.
There was no blood there, he noticed, nor any near the window. And while the broken part of the window was large enough for someone Branwyn’s size to crawl through, the edges were treacherous with broken glass and metal.
If the legends were true, a Sentinel might have had ways of getting through unharmed or might simply not care.
Nothing in any of the rooms provided a clue as to where Branwyn might have gone—and the more Zelen found out, the less sure he was of what had actually happened.
Chapter 22
Walking was a truly hellish experience. Not only did every part of Branwyn hurt, but the cloak that the child had brought her was barely large enough to provide any concealment. She had to walk bent over, which didn’t help her spine at all—although it did let her lean on the child more easily, which, to her embarrassment, she had to do often.
“You sure you don’t need a healer?” they asked, after they’d tugged Branwyn off the wall and put their good shoulder under her arm. “You don’t have bones sticking into your organs?”
“No,” she said, “thank you.” A few staggering steps later, it occurred to her to ask, “How do you know that can happen?”
“I listen to things.”
Evidently they also watched, and watched well. Their path didn’t take them through any main street, but rather into a maze of narrow, twisting alleys where buildings cast shadows even in the morning light.
The smell of salt water mingled with that of garbage, meat, and human refuse. They were near the docks, Branwyn suspected, and likely a tannery or two. She couldn’t narrow the location down any further. At times, particularly after a misstep jolted her or the light got in her eyes despite the cloak’s hood, she barely knew where she was even as far as “the back streets of Heliodar.”
“Here,” the child eventually said, and Branwyn looked up, dazed, at the blackened wreck of a building. “Caught fire a while back. Nobody’s going to go in there now. It hasn’t fallen down yet, though.”
“Yes,” said Branwyn, realizing the child had mistaken her confusion for reluctance. “That…good idea. Thank you.”
She grabbed the doorway and pulled herself in. Beneath the mostly intact roof, the world was mercifully dark, and while the floorboards were bare and hard, at least they weren’t wet. She focused on a corner out of sight of doors or windows and staggered in that direction, holding onto the wall for balance.
“I’m going to go now,” said the child once Branwyn had managed to lower herself to the floor. “Mam will be worrying.”
“That’s wise,” Branwyn said, rasping out the words. Now that she was sitting again, she had enough strength to explain more. “You should stay away. Whoever did this…” Her voice, which had been sliding away toward a whisper, gave out. She gulped and tried again. “Might want to hurt people who help me. And their families. I’ll be all right. I heal fast.”
“You’d better,” said the child. “That must’ve been some fight.”
They didn’t bother saying goodbye or reacting to Branwyn’s warning. Or maybe they did: Branwyn thought she only closed her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them again, she was alone in the abandoned house. There was still some light outside, but between her vision and the shadows around the building, she couldn’t tell how much or how long she’d been unconscious.
She still hurt, which was no surprise at all.
Slowly, she grasped what remained of her skirt and ripped off a wide piece of silk, then pulled the remains up to bare her right leg. The knee was monstrously swollen and livid purple. Touching it, even gently, nearly made her scream, and she battled to keep from vomiting, which would only increase her pain.
Probably broken, Branwyn said to herself when she could manage words again. She bit her lip, squinted with her good eye to compensate for her bad one, and began to wrap the silk around the joint as tightly as she could bear.
Zelen would have done it better, she thought, for many reasons. She tried not to wish him there. As she’d told the child, it was too dangerous. The reforging meant that his skills as a healer, while useful, weren’t vital, and the comfort of his presence wasn’t worth risking his neck. Branwyn had spent most of her life alone. Another few nights wouldn’t kill her.
It didn’t occur to her to wonder if she’d fought him, or worse, until it occurred to her to wonder why that hadn’t occurred to her. She froze then, and her vision went blurry.
No, don’t panic, she told herself, speaking the way Yathana had done more than once in Branwyn’s youth. Thinking of the sword made her throat close up, but she clung to the silent words anyhow. Follow the lines of your thoughts. Why didn’t you assume he was your enemy? Because you’re fond of him?
Yes, but it was more than that, and there was a point there, one more important than reassuring herself that Zelen likely still lived. Branwyn started wrapping her knee again, giving her body a task so that her mind could work.
That must have been some fight, the child had said.
Zelen was good in a fight, but he would have used a weapon. Branwyn could find no cuts or scratches: all of her wounds were from impact. She’d assumed, probably rightly, that she’d transformed.
There was no chance at all that Zelen could have caused that much damage to her metal form. No human could have managed it. Blows could bruise, and monsters had done more, but Branwyn had been kicked by a horse when she’d been metal, and it had done no more than leave a vast black-and-blue spot across her side for a few days.
If she hadn’t transformed, her opponent hadn’t fought with steel. Large men with blunt instruments might have managed her injuries, but in that case she would have changed. Even if she’d been out of her mind, Yathana would have done it for her: the power was actually the soulsword’s.
Branwyn’s wounds suggested that she had changed, that she’d been metal for a time and still been hurt almost too badly to move.
And that, in turn, suggested a foe far more fearsome than any she’d known Heliodar to contain.
She’d spoken of possibilities to Mezannith after the ball. Now the worst one of all struck her as quite likely.
* * *
Murder or not, life went on in certain ways. The clinic was one. Zelen knew that Gedomir wouldn’t have understood or approved. He hoped the Rognozis would
have done both, and believed that the lady would at any rate.
They were dead. Nothing worse could happen to them. Others still lived, and it was important to make sure that they could keep doing so, especially while Zelen tried to find another path to follow toward Branwyn. He poulticed a woman’s burned arm, cleaned and sewed a large gash on a man’s cheek, and sent another woman to Letar’s temple, as the rattle in her chest was beyond his power. It might well be beyond the Mourners’, too, for disease was a tricky matter, but she was strong and otherwise healthy, which gave her a decent chance.
It was good to have that sort of work to do. Burns and cuts were straightforward. Illness was different, but even there he had a rough idea of its shape. There were no hidden agendas, no swift turns to yank his footing away when he’d assumed it was smooth.
Altien asked no questions. The work unrolled under Zelen’s hands, putting a small amount of order back into the world. After he’d given a child spiced tea for a cold, he felt enough like himself to have a meal, or at least bread and cheese with a glass of wine.
Three bites in, he heard the outer door open. Altien was seeing to another patient, so Zelen put down the bread and cheese and poked his head around the corner of his office.
Tanya stood in front of the door, sling and cast considerably more grimy than they had been but still intact. Her good hand plucked restlessly at her skirt.
“Hello,” Zelen said gently. “How’s the arm?”
“All right. Um.” She peered around the outer room, which was empty, and then behind her at the door.
“We can talk in my office, if it would help,” said Zelen. That was all the invitation Tanya needed to dart inside.
“Um,” she said again, once she’d shut the inner door securely behind her. “Did the woman from Criwath really kill the high lord and his lady? My sister’s beau just came back from the tavern, and he said—”
“Nobody’s certain.” Zelen fought to keep his reply steady and gentle. “They are dead, sadly, and she’s gone, but that’s all that’s known right now.”
Tanya looked down at the carpet. “So she’s a bad person?”
“We don’t know that either”—and oh, it hurt to say, as did what followed. “If she did it, if she could control herself when she did it, and if she knew that she was killing helpless old people rather than monsters, then yes.”
“You mean she might not have meant to do it or known she was doing it? Like a spell?”
“That’s one possibility.”
His heart was beating faster and his stomach had closed up again, but still Zelen sat calmly, not pressing the girl for answers. Carefully, he arranged the assortment of quills on his desk, then brushed imaginary debris off the surface.
“Can you follow me?” Tanya finally asked.
Chapter 23
“Ah, damn it to the lowest of the hells,” the shape in the corner said, in a croak that half resembled Branwyn’s voice. “Child, I specifically told you not to tell him.”
“Yeah?” Tanya tilted her chin up, shook off the reassuring hand Zelen tried to place on her shoulder, and riposted. “Well, you didn’t tell me who you killed. So you’re lucky I didn’t go to the guard right away.”
“You did well,” said Zelen, not using Tanya’s name in case Branwyn really was as bad as the worst possibilities. He stepped forward, ready to meet her wrath, lightly gripping his sword.
The shape shifted again and he knew he wouldn’t need it. Even through the shadows, he could make out a broken nose and a swollen eye and could mark that every movement was bought with pain. And when Branwyn rasped a response, there was no anger in it, only bitterness. “Yes. With the information you have, doubtless I’d have made the same choice.” She paused for a labored inhalation. “Who did I kill?”
“Lord and Lady Rognozi,” said Zelen flatly, and waited for a response.
Her laughter, hoarse and cheerless, took him by surprise. As he stepped back, as Tanya let out an indignant and wordless noise, Branwyn found words. “Gods rest them, then. And gods help us all, because I’m not the one you have to worry about. You knew the Rognozis better than I did, Verengir—do you think they’d have fought back this hard? Against me?”
With that, she dragged herself into the dim light from the boarded window. Zelen forgot Tanya’s presence and muttered an oath.
One entire side of Branwyn’s face was swollen and purple-black, the skin scraped away in places. Her nose was indisputably broken, and one of her cheekbones might have been too. Dried blood covered much of her skin, so Zelen couldn’t tell for certain, but he was fairly confident that her lips had been badly split. Above the ruin of her ball gown, huge black bruises spread down her neck and shoulders.
Someone, probably Branwyn herself, had wrapped pink silk roughly around one of her knees, but the fabric didn’t disguise the swelling there or the joint’s unnatural angle.
He rushed to her side. “Gods, don’t move. What happened?”
“Don’t know.” Closer, Zelen could see bruises along her temple and her jaw. It took very little force to kill people with blows there. Branwyn was a Sentinel, of course, and that was said to help, but… Zelen dropped to his knees, immediately beginning a gentle investigation as Branwyn went on. “I got back after the ball. The house felt…off. I went for Yathana. Then I woke up in an alley. Your friend brought me here.”
“Yathana?” asked Tanya, who’d remained where she was and was watching avidly. Zelen considered telling her to go home but suspected it’d do no good. “Who’s that?”
Only brief hesitation betrayed what was likely Branwyn’s silent profanity. “My sword,” she said, outwardly casual. Her quick inhalation as Zelen touched her cheek was good camouflage too.
“You’ve got a fracture here,” he said, retreating as far as he could into the abstract. “Not as bad as it could be. Your nose too.”
“I’d thought as much.” She lay still beneath his inspection, gathering strength for her next question. “The Rognozis…how did they die?”
“A blade,” Zelen said carefully, mindful of Tanya. “Or blades.”
“They say there was blood everywhere,” Tanya added helpfully, “and Lady Rognozi was practically cut in half, an’ the lord’s head was just about clean off.”
Zelen swallowed. He kept on with the task at hand, passing his fingers lightly over Branwyn’s scalp. There were several sticky places, and one lump behind her right ear that made her wince.
“Stupid,” she hissed, quickly shook her head, and then just as quickly cursed. “As was that. And I didn’t mean either of you, but why would anybody use such force or be so obvious? They were practically beyond the Veil of Fire as it was.”
“Hatred,” said Zelen, “or madness. You may have been hit very hard right here.”
“Most likely, but I won’t fall over dead from it,” she said, and although the bruises made it hard to tell, Zelen thought she gave him a significant look.
She had a mystical Sentinel sense of her own physique, then, or a mystical Sentinel assurance that she wouldn’t die from a swollen brain. Either way, Zelen was glad of it, particularly as he’d have no way of telling how badly the blow had hurt her. He’d learned to be alert for bruised eyes and bleeding from the nose, but external forces had already given Branwyn both. As for lack of coordination, a broken knee was more than sufficient.
“So maybe you went crazy and did it, and now you don’t remember it?” Tanya suggested. “Or you say you don’t. That’s what I’d say if I got mad and killed people.”
“It’s possible. I’d say my state argues against it, but…nnnngh”—she broke off as Zelen examined her knee—“I know the counter…sssss…the counterarguments too. I could have killed them and then…fallen down the stairs, or fought a troop of guards while making my escape.”
“None of the guard have mentioned fighting a woman of your
description, and I’m sure they would have,” said Zelen. “Robbers, on the other hand, are possible. Either way, my family is inclined to believe that you weren’t under your own control. I’ll take you to Letar’s temple, send word to them, and we can start—”
“No.” She grasped Zelen’s wrist. “It’s not safe to tell anyone.”
* * *
This was the part Branwyn had feared. She’d hoped to heal enough to walk and fight, then to find a disguise and start searching for clues to what had truly happened. In a day or so, she likely could have left the abandoned house, stolen clothing, and blended into the street. It would have been a start, and it wouldn’t have put others in danger.
Now her mission and her life depended on convincing Zelen. She was in no condition to run or fight if she didn’t get through to him—she wasn’t in much condition to talk, which didn’t help—and she’d likely be putting him in more danger whether or not he listened.
He and the child were both silent. Branwyn’s vision was too hazy for her to read Zelen’s expression. She went on. “Assassins, remember? The person who sent them had money.” She stopped, got her bruised windpipe to work again, and kept going. “Power. Temple will make sure I don’t die, then turn me over to the guard. Easy to bribe jailers to look the other way, send a thug with a knife. Or use the knife themselves.”
“But the priests—” said the child.
“Are busy,” said Zelen slowly. “If there were enough of them to take care of everybody in the city, there’d be no need of the clinic.”
“Mortal too. Think I’m a killer. Know there’s a system. Probably will trust it, unless the Dark Lady sends a vision.” Branwyn smiled, which made her lips start bleeding again. “Wouldn’t count on that. So…they follow rules. Like they should. Mostly.”
“‘He makes treachery of bonds, and bonds of treachery,’” Zelen quoted.
“Gizath?” Branwyn said, though she’d never heard the line.
The Nightborn Page 14