“Then we kill them in their sleep.”
“Kill them?”
Sajem’s smile thinned at the slip. “Capture them, sell them.”
“How’s our friend, the governor?” Johzar topped off a tankard. “Are you still his dog?”
The slaver’s red eyes tightened. “If the chits are the right color.”
“So, you’re an assassin now?”
“We’re not assassins,” the woman said.
Johzar arched his eyebrows. “Who benefited from Ezalion’s death? Who gives Sajem your orders?”
“I don’t take orders,” Sajem snarled.
“Unless the chits are the right color.” Johzar chuckled. “Still hearing voices? How many souls is it now?”
Sajem’s lip rose at the corner, baring a filed fang. “Enough to get what I want.”
“Here’s my problem.” Johzar leaned forward. “You’re a slave to the madmen in your head. They may bear the skills you desire, but they’re impulsive and thick as planks. Your rampages through the Vales don’t go unnoticed, even in Tegir. I made a mistake with Benjmur’s girl, but she lied about her identity. You don’t care if your victims are political, and we always stayed out of politics. It was cleaner that way. Follow the laws, keep our knives belted. Remember?”
“Times change,” one of Sajem’s men said.
“You know how many of my crew I’ve lost in the past ten years?” Johzar asked. “One. How about you?”
None of the slavers replied, and Sajem emptied his tankard down his gullet.
“I’ll warn you once.” Johzar addressed all seven of them, “My crew and I don’t appreciate change. We plan to go on living and getting rich. You make that difficult for us; we’ll make it difficult for you.” He tossed a handful of copper on the table, limped out, and leapt up the rickety stairs to a second-floor balcony, wincing at the effort. No sooner had he reached the landing than Sajem and his slavers burst through the doorway, split into two groups, and set out hunting.
With no sign of Draeva, Johzar crept down the steps and headed for the Governor’s Hall. Time for a conversation with Benjmur. The man had alluded to assassinations on several occasions, but never directly translated his appeal into words, and Johzar hadn’t risked a faulty assumption. Sajem played his toad, a willing lackey. If the crimson-eyed slaver was mad enough to consider an attempt on Johzar’s life, it probably meant Benjmur wanted him dead too.
He walked a random route through the curved streets, eyes vigilant for tattoos, either friend or foe. Had Benjmur played a part in the Empress’s killing or merely exploited her murder to his advantage? The intrigue included Danzell, the provinces of Kestrel and Ildus. Did Kyzan manipulate Benjmur, or did the scheming happen the other way around?
At the grand hall, the guards relieved him of his weapons. Benjmur rose from his desk, pale and haggard, his commonly agreeable countenance marred by weariness. “Johzar, welcome.”
“Congratulations on your appointment, Governor.”
“Ah, that.” Benjmur offered a seat and sank onto the settee. “More demands on an already demanding day. When did you return from Tegir?”
“Today.” Johzar sat facing him.
“And Danzell? Is she safe.”
“In Tegir, I assume. I have no way of knowing.”
“Terrible business, but it seems long ago already and far from the concerns of the Vales.”
“Other troubles?” Johzar asked.
“Of a personal nature. My wife’s health continues to deteriorate. I’m afraid for her life.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Benjmur waved the sympathy away. “One burden of many weighing on my shoulders. To the north, the Anvrell’s stubbornness concerns me. I had hoped my daughter’s marriage to Azalus would unite us, but our unfortunate experiences in Tegir merely entrenched their reserve. And Juntis persists in demanding reparations for Sajem’s recklessness. Now that I’m the governor, he imagines I control the funds as well as the power to distribute them.”
“Do you?”
Benjmur blinked at the question. “Ai, but if I cede to his claim, then every person and family wronged by slavers will expect the same.”
“What’s your agreement with Sajem?”
“Sajem?” Benjmur’s chin retracted. “I’m unwilling to endure even the most trivial arrangements with him. The man is a thorn in my shoe, and if he dares show himself, I’ll order him drowned.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Not in some time. We’ve no reason to associate. Why?”
“Curiosity, partly.” Johzar studied the man. Benjmur met his gaze despite the lies. “I’m willing to dispose of our mutual problem for a fee.”
Benjmur’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not in the business of murder, Johzar. However, justice is another matter.”
~25~
Halfway to Espen, Raze rested Warrior Wind and forced himself to eat. Rage and panic vied for control of his pulse, both rearing from his near and distant past when others had usurped his choices. Life spread calamities around like rain, and everyone got a little wet no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. He’d accepted the ravages of disease, the fact that accidents occurred, and hearts broke in the course of living.
But when people chose to destroy lives, to create victims without reason, they ascribed to a level of cruelty that shattered his beliefs about the world. Mirelle’s murder long ago had crushed his faith in humanity. Season by season he’d rebuilt a foundation of hope, merely to watch it ripped away. If he couldn’t save Bel, what was the point of life?
He had no idea where Laddon might be or where to start searching. And if the man lay dead and he found the body, what would prevent Athren from accusing him of murder? If he failed, would she free Bel or punish her for the unfairness of the world? And what of Benjmur’s threats to arrest him? Was Azalus in peril as well?
A wiser voice inside his head slowed his racing thoughts, the old man’s steadiness noticeable when it ran counter to Raze’s long-held instincts. Rage and panic weren’t useful. They left him reckless and closed down his options.
The light armor he’d purchased in Avanoe, though supple and well fitted, was warmer than he cared for. He hadn’t wanted to spend the silver, but Samoth had insisted, the urge impossible to ignore. If he intended to wield the horseman’s sword, he’d wear leather on his chest and forearms.
Samoth’s presence felt alien, the soul’s emotions subservient to a calculated pursuit of his goals. The man moved one muscle at a time, senses vigilant, mind attuned to each moment he entered and passed through. At times, Samoth took command, pushing Raze into the background. Was this what happened when one swallowed too many souls, a seizing of the host? And what if all those souls disagreed with one another or possessed warped and corrupted minds?
Samoth, the wary part of Raze’s consciousness, noticed the rider trailing him, neither lagging nor falling behind. A cloak hid the woman, an assumption he made based on her slender frame, Ezari by the paleness of her hands on the reins. A spy or assassin? Or innocent traveler?
By the time Raze reached Espen’s marketplace, twilight had bled across the sky. He stabled Warrior Wind and leaned against the wall of a tavern with a view of the road and paddock’s gate. The rider followed as the light turned dusky, and she delivered her horse to the same door. She strode toward the road and scanned her options until her shadowed eyes lit upon him. His unwavering gaze acknowledged her presence, confirming Samoth’s hunch. She reached up and dropped back her cowl.
Danzell.
~
When the man across the road caught her eyes, Danzell recognized him immediately.
Raze’s back straightened, and he waited as she approached, his arms crossed. Half-lidded eyes explored her face. “Why are you following me?”
The greeting delivered a dose of suspicion that startled her, and subtle chimes of warning rippled through her skin. The armor was unexpected, the sword at his hip even more so, a
nd his placid control hinted at a dangerous determination. “If I’d realized you were the man in the cloak and cowl, I would have ridden beside you instead of lagging all day. And why is something I’ll tell you over a tankard.”
The suggestion sanded off a few of the man’s rough edges. Raze waved her into the tavern and chose a table with a view of the room and easy access to a rear door. She ordered an ale and studied him, noting the scabbed cut on his hand and faded bruising. “You’re different.”
He met her eyes and frowned. “I’m wondering why you’re here.”
“Fine.” She sipped from her tankard. “I’ll go first. Someone wiped out half of my conclave. Everyone there at the time of the attack lost their lives. I escaped Tegir with the help of Johzar.”
“And you decided to find me?”
“I was told to.”
“By Johzar?”
“By Laddon Demiris.”
Raze stared at her. His calm exterior deteriorated, and his words pressed through gritted teeth, “Where is he? Where’s Laddon?”
His bristling fury flashed another warning through her head. Something had happened, and she needed to proceed with care. “Whatever is going on with you, Raze, it isn’t my doing or my fault. I’ll tell you what I know, but only if you’re ready to hear it.”
He exhaled, forcing his body to uncoil. “Go on.”
She held his eyes, her voice a whisper, “He’s dead, Raze.” Laddon leaned on the tavern wall and gave her a nod, his appearance expected but still disconcerting.
Raze raked a hand through his hair, his composure further crumbling. Whatever steeled him broke apart, and the man she remembered surfaced. He scratched his forehead. “How…? Where is he? Where’s his body?”
She grabbed his hand to subdue his fidgeting. “He’s here. With me. Calm yourself and I will tell you.” She held two fingers to her lips when his mouth opened for another question. Their food arrived, and she told him as much as she understood.
“He’s an unbound soul?” Raze stared at his untouched plate.
“Yes. And I believe he sought me so that I might help you. Or there’s something larger at stake or both. I don’t know why yet, but we seem trapped together in whatever conspiracy is playing out here. And you’re in luck because he wants to lead us to his body.”
Raze shuddered. “This is all connected.”
“Explain, because I don’t understand.”
“Sajem attacked the freehold. He killed two of my…family, and he stole Bel.”
“Have you sent word to Kestrel?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been on the road. I swallowed Samoth’s soul. I suspected he was a talented soldier, but he has…had extraordinary skills and the temperament to match. If I seem different, it’s because I am.”
“The horseman from King’s Fist?”
“Ai.” Raze picked at his meal. “I followed Sajem and Bel to the Governor’s Hall. Benjmur has her, and if I don’t find Laddon or bring Athren his murderer and his soul, she… I don’t know what they’ll do.”
Laddon angled his head toward her. “Sajem killed me.”
Danzell looked over the rim of her tankard. “Sajem killed him.”
“How do you know?”
“He just told me.”
Raze gave the room a furtive glance. “It’s your souls, isn’t it? Too many souls.”
She shrugged. “Laddon told me I need to stop. Should have stopped earlier, though we wouldn’t be sitting here, would we?”
“Do you hear voices? Have strange dreams?”
“Other than Laddon, nae. At least I wouldn’t define my experience in those terms. There are times when insights or ideas spark into my head. My dreams pick apart my perceptions and expose me to new paradigms. I’m sure they aren’t mine—I was never so brilliant—but they feel organic nonetheless. And you?”
“More personal.”
He left it at that, and she chose not to pry. It didn’t matter.
Laddon touched her hand, the sensation emitting a faint tingle, and the hairs on her arm stood up. A wistful smile crept to his eyes. “Tell him my body is near his freehold. I met my death as I rode to his home to speak again with Talaith.”
Danzell relayed the message.
“Talaith is dead,” Raze said. “I lost her too.”
Laddon shook his head. “Talaith is free of the depraved souls she swallowed. She is a bright light, rejoined with her sister, and finally at peace.”
~
Raze swung into his saddle after a fitful sleep. The revelation of Laddon’s presence had dispelled old superstitions of unbound souls haunting the sea cliffs and the forests of the Ravenwood. It reinforced the words Bel had once shared while lazing the dawn away in her bed. She’d spoken of an invisible world beyond her ken, a mystery encapsulating each mortal life where the soul lived, wholly its own. If what Danzell said was true, Bel’s gentler version of the world was also true, and all the furor over lost souls was needless.
He rode north with Danzell, and if he accepted her story, he traveled with Laddon as well. And why shouldn’t he trust her? Nothing about her pricked his nerves, her words and actions far from delusional. Laddon would lead them to his body, and that granted him hope where he’d had none.
The track leading to his freehold lay ahead just before the road bent west toward Kestrel. A part of him felt obliged to travel the few hours home. His departure had been frantic, Vax not yet returned, Shara laden with the responsibility of his livestock, the barn in flames, graves to dig.
But he also longed to see Rozenn, a yearning bruised by heartbreak. Samoth had shifted Raze’s sentiments, and he acknowledged the burden with trepidation. He loved Bel and would bring her home or sacrifice his life in the effort, but Rozenn and his sons tugged at his heart too.
He buried those yearnings and steered Warrior Wind toward Kestrel, but Danzell reined in and dismounted. She gazed into the forest. “He says we’re close.”
“Here?”
“He was returning to your freehold, remember?”
Raze swung from his saddle and joined her. A stream coursed along the road’s edge. Towering firs shaded a carpet of copper needles, and though the maples and alders still wore their emerald cloaks, hints of gold and garnet heralded the coming autumn.
“This way,” Danzell said. They crossed the stream and wended through the trees, leading the horses. A short distance in, she stopped and lifted aside a tangle of downed branches. She used her boot to clear leaves from a scattering of bones. “He’s here. There are three.”
Raze brushed aside a mosaic of leaves with a stick, uncovering a skull. “I don’t doubt one of these is Laddon, but there’s nothing to prove it’s him, only bones.” He scraped aside more of the forest’s debris. The bodies bore no weapons, no clothing, nothing identifiable.
“Wait.” Danzell cocked her head. She wandered from the bodies and used her hands to sift through the pine needles. Her breath hitched, and she brushed dirt from something in her hand. She held up a pendant, the soulstone dull, not from the forest’s debris, but from the lack of a captured soul within. “He says this belonged to his father and became his. Benjmur tossed it into the brush.”
“Benjmur? I thought…”
“Benjmur found the bodies. He threw the pendant away.”
“He’s known all along?”
“It seems so.” Danzell handed him the simple cylinder banded in steel.
He wiped it on his sleeve. Athren wanted her son alive, and his sorry task now entailed providing proof of his death. He prayed it was enough. “We should bury them.”
Danzell glanced into the trees. “He says it doesn’t matter; they’re bones, no longer part of him. He’s free, Raze.”
At the road, they mounted, the bones left for the wilderness to inter. Raze hesitated, the future balanced on a blade’s edge. The truth of Laddon’s fate would bring Athren little comfort, but if she kept her promise, Bel would go free. Was he a fool to rely on a madwoman’s word?
And Benjmur’s designs remained obscure. He’d learned of Laddon’s death and said nothing. Why? To protect or manipulate? Perhaps to blame? A final consideration drifted into his thoughts. Should he face his death, this might be his last chance to visit the freehold. And there were things Samoth needed to know.
“Follow me,” he said and turned his steed toward home.
~26~
Twilight dyed the Ravenwood’s treeless heights in shades of violet and the forest a peacock blue, a mutable in-between time when day and night shared the world. And just so, Raze’s feelings wavered, divided between a deep gratefulness for home, and the pain of his losses, those of the past and those yet to come. A man couldn’t love something without accepting that in time, it would slip through his fingers, no matter the strength of his grasp.
The barn was a charred pile of timbers frosted with ash. The horses snorted, corralled in a rough paddock, and another temporary enclosure penned Bel’s goats. Lights glimmered in the cabin’s windows.
Raze dismounted as Vax strode onto the porch, two strangers on his heels, all three armed with brush-blades. Vax’s face told a tale of relief, sorrow, and hope, as the old man descended the steps.
“It’s good to see you.” Raze patted the man’s back. “I’m sorry for leaving before you returned.”
“Bel?”
“She’s in Avanoe and, I believe, safe for the moment. This is Danzell. We’ll be staying the night and leaving for there in the morning. I’ll say more when we’re inside. Is Rozenn here?”
Vax eyed the Ezari woman and murmured a greeting, clearly dissatisfied with the curt explanations. Raze would share all he knew, but he needed to see Rozenn—for Samoth or himself or both, his emotions tangled with the horseman’s. The next moments would mark his future, and until he faced them, they’d loom over him like a tree with its roots ripping from the ground.
He met the new hands, Garrick and Orson, before Vax sent them to tend the horses. The two young men were barely whiskered but sturdy and serious, reminiscent of himself at that age. They set about their tasks as Raze waved Danzell to the door.
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