Cael pinched her lips together in a frown but said nothing.
14
“This can’t be Hjan,” Talia told me.
The man was bound with tight lengths of rope and dosed with slithca. He might not be of Elaeavn, but I hoped that the effect of the syrup would work on him as well as it did on those from my homeland. We had him secured to the wall near the hearth, and Cael stared at him. She listened to Talia and I, though. I could practically feel her focus on us.
“We’ll know soon enough,” I said.
“Galen, the Hjan haven’t been active in Asador. There’s no reason to with…”
She didn’t need to finish for me to know that was what Carth had been doing the last few years and the reason she’d pulled Talia here. Carth had made a point of going after the Hjan, her restrained anger at their betrayal motivating her. And Carth might be the only one able to defeat the Hjan.
Talia had talents as well. I didn’t know if Carth had been training her to the point where she managed to do everything that Carth could do—I doubted it, but Talia had a certain competence I had yet to understand. But Carth was unique. When I’d faced her—really faced her—I had understood that she had more ability than almost anyone I had ever come against, and that included both Isander and a few talented individuals from Elaeavn.
If the Hjan realized Carth was dead, they wouldn’t fear attack and Carth’s reprisal. With her gone, the only person with a hope of stopping the Hjan was gone.
“Yeah, you see my concern.”
“You defeated them then,” she said.
“Because they didn’t know about me. Now they do. I’m not sure that I could do it again. They’ll know I’m coming, and I suspect that they’ll know my vulnerabilities.”
I glanced to Cael, who still watched the man. Her shoulders tensed, and her back stiffened slightly, so I knew that she had heard. Or Read me. Or both. With her, it didn’t really matter.
“The Hjan—”
“Aren’t here. I know,” I said. I turned to the man, already working through what it would take to interrogate him. If he was one of the Hjan, he might be able to resist anything I did anyway. “I need to know everything that you know about what happened to Carth,” I said.
“Galen, there isn’t much known.”
“You have to have heard something. I know you wouldn’t have rested until you did.”
“I searched for answers. I found rumors. Trails that ended up with nothing more than more trails.”
“Then how do you know that she died?”
I’d asked it before, and as before, she only shook her head.
“I would know.”
“Then what can you tell me about what she did with the Hjan?” I asked.
“What’s to tell? After they attacked in Eban, she became even more determined to destroy them. And you know that with her, she can be methodical.”
“They had some sort of truce before,” I said.
“They had a truce, and the Hjan violated it. She was willing to let the truce hold to avoid bloodshed until then.”
That sounded like what I knew of her. She might be incredibly talented, and skilled in ways that most were not, but she traded in information, not in death. Not like me.
“When the Hjan violated that truce, she went after them. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her take something quite so… personal.”
I frowned, thinking of when Talia had been attacked and how Carth hadn’t allowed emotion to cloud her decisions, not like I had. In that way, Carth had been more professional than me. That should have been my sign that I needed to step back from Talia, and possibly Eban, but I’d rushed in blindly. Or not so blindly, but with a violence that was not me anymore.
“At least she can be passionate about something,” I said.
“Galen…”
I glanced at Cael and saw the man beginning to move.
I made my way over to him, readying a pair of darts as I did, and prepared to dose him with coxberry again if he appeared to Slide. But he only opened his eyes and looked around, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that he was bound in a strange place.
Would I have been as comfortable were I in his place?
I’d be working to determine a way to escape. The same, I suspect, that he attempted.
He glanced around the room, first at Cael, then Talia, before his eyes landed on me. The bastard smiled then. “Assassin. I thought we would find you. A shame you have come and ruined the transaction.”
I crouched at his level, about five steps from him, far enough that he wouldn’t be able to attack me if he had somehow had a way of getting free of the rope.
“What transaction?”
He flashed a dark smile but said nothing.
I jabbed at him with a knife. “You recognize me, but I don’t recognize you.”
“Oh, I think that you recognize me.”
“You’re one of the Hjan,” I said.
The man’s smile widened. “See? I thought that you might recognize me. We have watched you for some time.”
“Watched?”
He tried to shrug but couldn’t move. Somehow, he still managed to make his movement appear casual as if he had chosen to be tied to the wall. “You have an interesting gift. We study all we don’t understand.”
“If you’ve watched, I think I would have seen you.”
“Would you?” he asked.
Considering how difficult a time I had catching any sight of him in the estate yard, I wasn’t sure that I would. Had I not noticed the shifting of the shadows, it was possible that I wouldn’t see him, even with my Sight.
“Yes,” I answered, trying to sound as confident as I could.
“A good thing we couldn’t test it, isn’t it?”
“I thought you said you were watching.”
He made that movement that was something like a shrug again. “Watching as well as we can. You were protected.”
I suspected that meant Carth. And if she had been protecting me, and I hadn’t known it, her visits to Eban began to make more sense. Had she been stopping through to continue to prove to the Hjan that she had a presence, or had there been another reason? Maybe she really had come through to check on the Binders, as I had assumed.
“That is gone now,” the man said casually. “And no protection remains for you in Eban. Is that what brought you to Asador?”
“This isn’t a discussion,” I said.
“No? You would not have information? Why else would you have confined me this way?” He smiled again. “I think that if you wanted anything else, assassin, you would have finished me back in the city.”
It was my turn to smile. “We’re still in Asador. For now. But I have friends who intend to take you from the city.”
“What friends, assassin? The one who protected you is gone. Her help is behind you, and her network already crumbles. That took little time to accomplish. And there are few others in Asador I fear. You intrigue me, but you do not scare me,” he said.
It was time for that to change. I flipped one of the knives at him and caught the wall above his head.
The Hjan merely looked lazily at where the knife had gone. “Has your aim diminished? From what I hear, you’re a skilled marksman. Perhaps that was only rumor, too.”
I considered flicking one of my darts, using coxberry or another dart of slithca, but that would only be wasteful. I would need the slithca with the man anyway, enough to keep him from Sliding from his binding.
Cael shifted over and leaned toward him. “You are arrogant for a man from Inua.”
The corner of his lip curled in a sneer. “You think that I should be impressed at your ability to tell geography? Look at your eyes, girl. You’ve likely had every courtesy your people could provide.”
Cael smiled. “As you failed to have even the most basic, is that not right?”
The man chuckled. “Do you think that I can be coaxed like some commoner from your Lower Town?”
“I thi
nk that you wanted nothing more than food and shelter once. The boy… you went by Raphe then, but no longer. Now you claim a name you think exudes power as if there were power in the act.”
Some of the bluster faded from Raphe’s face. “A Reader,” he said with disgust.
Cael nodded. “A Reader who knows that you think yourself above the streets.”
“You may have all the memories you wish, Reader, but my mind is sealed from the time I joined the Hjan.”
“I presume the Hjan know of the great crystals,” Cael said.
Raphe glanced at me and arched a brow. “She is not all that bright, is she? Perhaps that’s why you like her, though I would never have taken you for the kind to choose someone weak-minded.”
I looked over to Cael and laughed. “You really are weak minded,” I said.
She glared at me, and I laughed again.
“She asks because she has held one of the great crystals,” I said.
His smirk faded.
“I see that you understand what that means. Few of the Elvraeth are able to hold the crystals. Only those with potential, and power. And when they do, they emerge differently,” I went on.
With Cael, she had told me how she was able to more potently Read, and how she’d discovered she could Compel.
“So you can understand how she is nothing like the typical Reader from Elaeavn,” I said.
Cael crawled forward, getting close enough that I feared what Raphe might attempt with her. I needn’t have worried. He hung suspended in the ropes, his eyes holding only Cael now, ignoring me.
“Yes, I can tell that I have your attention now,” she said. “Tell me why the Hjan have come to Asador.”
“You’re the Reader. Take what you want.”
“I already have. I would have the others hear it from you.”
I knew Cael to be strong, and I’d seen her withstand more than I could have protected her from. The hard edge in her voice took even me aback.
“You tell him, Reader. You will anyway.”
“It’s not only the crystal?” I asked.
Cael shook her head. “It’s about that as well, but there’s more. The Hjan are after someone.”
I rolled a pair of darts between my fingers as I looked at the man. “Who?”
“I don’t know. There’s a name, but it means nothing.”
“What does that mean?”
Cael frowned at the man. “It means that he doesn’t know her name. There’s a face that I can almost see, but other than that…”
“Who are you after?” I asked the man.
He smiled. “Even your Reader will not pull that much from me. She is skilled—she must be for some of what she stole from my mind—but there are things that even Readers cannot extract.” He shifted his attention to Cael. “Do you think that we’ve never encountered Readers before? Do you think that the Hjan do not know how to secure our thoughts, especially those that would be dangerous were they exposed?”
“Who was at the estate?” I demanded.
His mouth twitched. “Apparently no one.”
I searched Cael’s face for help, but she couldn’t reach him to access his mind well enough to know.
Raphe started to say something more, the smirk on his face annoying me, so I flicked a dart at him.
His mouth opened in a satisfying expression of surprise as his head sagged forward.
15
The streets of Asador were nothing like the familiarity of Eban. Strange as it seemed, I missed the quiet of the rooftops, the familiar shadows that crawled along the ground, even the sounds of Eban. In some ways, I had hated my time while there, longing for nothing more than to escape the darkness of the city, but I had never been a prisoner within Eban and had even managed to make a home there.
Cael patted my hand, and I glanced over at her. “Was it any kind of home?”
“It was familiar.”
“That doesn’t mean it was home. Men can get used to living with rats after a while, but that doesn’t mean that they should.”
“Are you saying I’m the rat?”
“I think you know who I’d consider the rat.”
We paused along the shore. I stared out at the rows of ships moving in and out of the harbor. There was such activity here that it was easy to get lost in the watching, almost like a dance. Sails of many different colors fluttered, just as ships of different shapes crawled from the port. Most I managed to recognize; that had been another of Isander’s lessons. Every people had something they claimed superiority with. Often such claims were valid, such as the sellswords of Neeland, or the fine-spun fabrics from Occidal, but there were times when the claims had no merit. When sourcing supplies, it was best to know the highest quality suppliers.
A gang of children ran through, all probably less than ten. They scurried past me, one of them making a play toward my pocket, and I grabbed his wrist before he could. His eyes widened, and he jerked free, hurrying to join the others.
“We could take one of these ships anywhere,” Cael said. She pulled on my arm as she looked up at me. “It doesn’t have to be back to Elaeavn. I want to be wherever you are.”
I swallowed, thinking of the longing that Rebecca had demonstrated. She had wanted nothing more than to return to Elaeavn. It was a feeling that I knew well, one that I had felt when first exiled, and one that had taken me years to get past. Until I had met Cael, I still had felt the occasional twinge of desire to return there.
“No longer?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The questions I had have been answered,” I said. I’d wondered about Della, and whether she cared about what happened to me. Knowing that she had been the reason I survived, I suspect that she had, but hadn’t really known. There were a few others in the city who had been kind to me, and I’d searched for them, only to find that they were gone. Galen was a memory, truly Forgotten. And I suppose I knew that as well. I had changed. The techniques that Isander had taught made me into a different person, one who no longer believed in the purity of Elaeavn, who had seen the darkness of the world, and in some ways, was the darkness of the world.
“You will want to return,” I said.
“Perhaps someday,” she said, “but that is not today.” We stood, neither of us speaking for a few more moments. “Who is Carth? I try to Read you so that I can understand, but it’s like there are shadows around your mind when I reach any memory you have of her. She was not another… romantic interest?”
I smiled and shook my head. I couldn’t imagine Carth having a romantic interest. “She’s a woman more capable than any I had ever met, and I think she could have killed me many times over, but there was never anything more. I don’t think there could be with her.”
“I’ve not known you to respect someone quite like this before,” Cael said.
“I respect you,” I told her.
“Yes, but this is different, I think. You feared her, didn’t you?”
“At first,” I admitted. “She was a job, the assignment. But that was before I knew what she was.”
“And that was?”
What exactly was Carth? She was a spymaster, but she was much more than that. She served as a protector of sorts, helping others who could not help themselves. I thought of the women of Eban she served, not the Binders, but all the painted prostitutes she helped keep from slavery or forced service.
“Someone I wished we could find,” I finally said.
I still wished that Talia would share what she learned about how Carth had fallen. It would help me understand what else we might need to fear.
“When I tried Reading the Hjan, there was someone they sought. A child, I think.”
Would could the Hjan want from a child? Then again, why would he have been at the estate? Could that have been the reason Rebecca hadn’t argued when I suggested that we return there? There had been something else there—or more specifically, someone else.
“That’s what he was after,” I said.
“J
osun?”
“Not him. I’m still not sure what he might have been after. But Raphe. That was the reason he had gone to the estate.”
And now we had lost Rebecca. She had disappeared during the attack, her ability returning in time for her to escape, but I suspected that she hadn’t simply departed the estate. She had gone searching for this child.
As did the Hjan.
What I wouldn’t give to have Carth and her skills with me. The Great Watcher knew that I’d take even Lorst about now, as much as I hated admitting that fact. But the Hjan feared Carth.
I tried to work through what I’d seen, searching for connections that didn’t make sense. Everything had to come together; otherwise, there were simply too many pieces and too much coincidence. But what did I really know about everything that I’d discovered here? Josun Elvraeth had been here and possessed one of the crystals. There were factions of the Forgotten, more than I had understood while living in Eban. Protected from those factions, in some ways. And Lorst had sent me here.
Damn, but could this all be about Lorst?
“It’s possible,” Cael said.
I barely had to speak around her these days, she Read me so well. And that was even with me holding barriers up within my mind. With Cael, it no longer mattered. Maybe it was partly helped by the fact that I didn’t have any reason to keep her from my mind. Maybe it was that she was really that skilled.
“Is that why he sent us here?” I asked.
“I couldn’t Read him, Galen. If that’s the reason that he sent us here, then…”
Then he was cleverer than I realized. But the man that I’d met with along the shores in Elaeavn, the one who had spoken to me about how he’d pretended to be the assassin, had not seemed particularly clever. Skilled, but not deceptive.
“And the child?”
“I don’t know. The Hjan want the child, but I don’t know why.”
And Talia hadn’t known anything, or at least, she had claimed that she didn’t know anything. In some ways, she could be as duplicitous as Carth, but then, the spymaster had trained her, and trained her well.
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