Concealed_The Taellaneth

by Vanessa Nelson

  “So, the lord may be in danger,” the warrior summarised, her primary concern. “Should we leave?”

  Arrow caught her breath, pausing a moment to gather some diplomacy before she answered.

  “Svegraen, leaving would be prudent, if you were able to persuade the lord of that.”

  The immediate tightening of Kallish’s face told her that the warrior’s assessment of the Taellan matched her own.

  “If not leaving, what do you advise?”

  “Maintain vigilance, and a ward across the lord at all times.”

  “Does the Taellan know?”

  “They have not asked me for a report, svegraen.” Arrow kept her voice as neutral as she could. The warrior had listened, and believed her, which was more than she had hoped.

  “Very well.” The warrior nodded and turned her attention to unfolding her shirtsleeves, setting her appearance to rights.

  Taking that as dismissal, Arrow left the room.

  Outside the room she found the second pacing in short lengths, eyes sparking fury at being excluded. A quick glance at the door and Arrow saw the faded chalk mark of a listening rune. He had tried to wipe it away, but the shape of it was still there in second sight.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “I have made my report, svegraen.” And she gave a small bow.

  The extra courtesy did nothing to calm him. “There is no place for you here. The lord has dismissed you. Get out.”

  ~

  She swallowed her irritation, mind supplying a few choice words for the warrior, and left, going back down to the hotel’s lobby to find both the Prime and Matthias lounging in chairs near where she had left her pack. There was a delicate tea service in front of them, dainty human-made china perfectly in keeping with the hotel.

  Matthias spotted her and waved her over, not bothering to rise. There were shadows under his eyes, and she wondered if he had been injured again on the road. The Prime was apparently relaxed, all his authority dampened down.

  “Prime. Matthias.” She remained standing.

  “It’s too late to do anything tonight,” Matthias said, “but we’ll meet here tomorrow morning and pick up Marianne’s trail. Try to find out what she was doing here.”

  “Very well,” Arrow agreed. Matthias would have said more, but something in his pocket started making an odd noise. He sighed and pulled out a mobile phone, glancing at the number.

  “Tamara’s looking for me.” He glanced at his father who nodded. Matthias answered the call and left, movements stiff and careful.

  “You are still free to aid us?” the Prime asked.

  “Yes, Prime.”

  “Good. Your assistance has been helpful.” The Prime rose, stretched and wandered out of the foyer, leaving Arrow speechless. The most praise she had ever had. She dug her fingernails into her palm, reassured by the slight prick of pain that she was in fact awake and not in a wild dream, warmth coursing through her as she fought to control the smile that threatened to break out across her face.

  There was no time to linger. There was work to be done, preparations that she hoped would not be needed. Excluded from the hotel she needed a quiet, warded place to work. The Erith maintained properties in Hallveran for their use, all of them some distance from the hotel.

  With a sigh, she settled the pack on her shoulders and left the hotel by a side entrance, boots slipping on the slush-covered cobblestones, damp creeping in again, and trudged on into the night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, stomach hollow with hunger, head thick with a hangover from magic use, Arrow waited for Matthias the next morning, standing in the hotel’s foyer between the plants she had used the day before. Around her the hotel’s human staff bustled to and fro, cheerfully going about their daily tasks. Arrow envied them their innocence at the same time as wanting to shut out their good moods. She had a bone-deep conviction that today was not going to be a good day. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, perhaps being in Hallveran again. More likely the cold fear of what they might find. Whatever it was, she could not shake the feeling and had long ago learned to pay attention to those deep-down instincts.

  Those instincts had led to the new, unfamiliar, weight at her back. A weight of spirit, crafted through the sleepless night, using every scrap of power she had, the seals inside heavier than ever this morning. One of the last spells the Academy taught its graduates, one of the few defences the Erith had against their fears. A spell she had never thought she would use, and a weight she had never thought she would need to carry.

  The only good point to the day was that she was back in her human clothing, feet dry, warm from head to toe, messenger bag a familiar, welcome, weight at her side. Not even Eshan would expect her to wander about a human city in Erith garb.

  Matthias arrived through the hotel’s front doors, not from the downstairs corridor as she had expected, and she moved forward to meet him. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before and looked as shadowed and weary as she felt. He was also carrying a large paper bag from the city’s foremost bakery and a cardboard holder with two giant takeaway coffee cups.

  “Good morning,” Arrow said politely, almost her entire attention on the bakery bag.

  “Is it?” Matthias grunted, drawing her attention. As well as being shadowed and weary he was also grieving, a fresh wound.

  “There has been trouble?”

  “You might say that. Muster squabbles.” He closed his bloodshot eyes briefly, and they were damp when he opened them. “We lost a young one overnight.”

  “I am sorry,” Arrow said, voice quiet. Like the Erith, the ‘kin treasured their young. And, like the Erith, ‘kin young were a rare gift.

  “Yes. Come, we’ve a long day ahead and not likely a pleasant one.”

  Uneasy at hearing her own thoughts so clearly echoed, Arrow followed him into the fading darkness of a winter morning, finding two muster vehicles along with Con and an unfamiliar ‘kin ready to act as drivers, Marianne’s rental car towed behind the second muster vehicle. The pair of ‘kin were holding coffee cups like the ones Matthias carried.

  “We’ll start at the car rental place, work back from there,” Matthias told her, settling beside her in the back of the vehicle, and opening the bakery bag. “Help yourself. There’s plenty. And, here.” He passed across one of the coffee cups.

  Pastries and caffeine had cured her headache by the time they reached the car rental offices. Leaving Con to deal with the return of Marianne’s car, Matthias ordered the other ‘kin to drive them through the city at Arrow’s order.

  Despite Hallveran’s twisted power lines, Marianne’s trail was clear through the city, no effort having been made to conceal it here, and it led them to a squat apartment building a few blocks from the hotel, with apartments for short-term let. The concierge, a young human magic-user, would not provide them with any information without an order from the human authorities.

  They left the building and paused on the pavement outside, Matthias frustrated by the delay to wait for a suitable order, discussing what was required with the other ‘kin. Arrow listened with half her attention, focusing on the trails she could see. Marianne had used this apartment building as a base, various traces of her presence showing that she had spent time going out and about in the city.

  Arrow took a step forward, drawing the attention of both ‘kin.

  “I do not think we will find anything useful in the apartment. A feeling. It may be more helpful to follow where Marianne had been.”

  “Keep retracing her steps? She was here a while?” She had Matthias’ full attention.

  “Long enough to travel in several directions, yes.”

  “Anyone of them stand out?”

  “One,” Arrow turned her head in the direction and hesitated again, “very strong emotion. Not pleasant. I cannot read more than that at the moment.”

  “We’ll walk,” Matthias told the driver. “Let the Prime know.” The driver acknowledg
ed the order and got back into the vehicle.

  “After you.” Matthias nodded to Arrow. His eyes drifted to a point just above her shoulder, as they had on occasion that morning, frowning as he tried to focus on something. “Something different?” he asked finally.

  “Hallveran.” She evaded his question. The city was damaged enough to serve as an explanation for all sorts of odd matters. She was just grateful that he was not as well versed in Erith magic as the Prime appeared to be. Zachary would not have accepted that explanation for a moment. Zachary’s son gave a non-committal grunt, stared at the point above her shoulder again, and followed her along the street.

  ~

  Marianne’s trail took them out of the inhabited area to the end of a deserted street, one of many in the city. Arrow hissed a little at the tangle in the second world.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Hallveran,” she said again and stopped. Impossible to fully explain what she saw to someone magic blind. A quick glance at Matthias told her that he understood enough.

  “City’s a bitch to track in. False trails, disappearing scents. And worse.” His face closed in. Like him, she did not need any more explanation. The city was full of ghosts.

  “This is the place,” she told him. Whatever had sent Marianne running across a mountain, it had started here. Matthias snapped to full focus.

  Barely a few streets from the apartment building, this had once been a prosperous residential area, with a wide road, mature trees lining the road and residences set back in modest, individual gardens. Houses, she reminded herself. Humans called them houses. In the morning light the road surface was cracked, gradually being taken over by plants, many of the trees dead, houses derelict.

  A few paces in and she realised that there was no animal life. Not one bird overhead, no rustling in the long grass.

  And the air was warmer than it had been, no trace of winter here.

  “City improvement project,” Matthias interrupted her thoughts, dark humour imperfectly concealing his own unease. Doubtless he had spotted the same things she had.

  Arrow shivered, opening her second sight a fraction more, looking beyond the tangle that was Hallveran. Marianne’s trail was clear. A slightly meandering path led along the street, as though she had not been quite sure what she had been looking for. Unlike the mountain, the path was overlaid with emotion. Marianne had been uneasy walking into the street. Her trail out of the street was absolutely straight, coated with the bitter taste of terror.

  “This is the place,” Arrow said again, mostly to herself. “Marianne came here in unease and left at a run. Terrified.”

  “Marianne didn’t run,” Matthias stated, “not from anything.”

  “She did here,” Arrow said flatly.

  She slowed her pace, wards humming against her skin. There was a depression in the air. Pressure of a thunderstorm about to break. And the heavy, static charge of gathered magical power, sparking against her face, tangling in her hair.

  She stopped, planting her feet, opening her second sight further so she was half in and half out, sights overlaid. The point at which Marianne’s trail converged in the street was a house, unremarkable in first sight. Second sight was far different. Across the split and battered road surface and pavement outside the building, in intertwined lines, was a series of runes, lines continuing around the side of the house. Not the blood red runes from the mountain, but drawn by the same hand, with the same mastery. The runes gleamed dully in second sight, eroded by time and something else. A waiting black that had all her wards sparking to life. Behind the runes the house watched them, grating her senses like chalk on a blackboard.

  “It’s getting darker,” Matthias noted, cutting through her fear. She flicked a glance up to the sky, first and second sight overlaid, and fought the impulse to run. It was darker in the first world, that watcher gathering in the second.

  “Back,” Arrow commanded. “Walk back slowly, do not run.”

  “Back?” Matthias’ eyes flickered, predator reacting to being given an order.

  “Back. Now.”

  “Explain.” He had not moved.

  “At the end of the street. Something is listening.” Her wards crackled, silver flaring.

  “Where?”

  “Matthias, please.”

  He snarled at her, a harsh sound that cut through all her defences, reminding her that she was mostly meat, incisors lengthening, eyes shimmering with ‘kin power. Close to change.

  “Matthias. There is something here that is affecting our judgement,” she told him, keeping her voice as calm as possible, unease twisting her insides. “We should regroup at the end of the street.”

  He snarled again, but his eyes shivered back to mostly human and he began walking carefully, one deliberate step at a time, back to the end of the street.

  When they were back at the junction to the street, the ground underfoot smooth and well maintained, he shook himself, head to toe, and made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. The morning had returned to something like normal, pressure lifting.

  ~

  “What in hell was that? What was watching? All I got was static.”

  “Something that should not be here,” she began, attention going past his shoulder. “Oh, no.” The dismay was out before she could check it. He turned and saw the convoy of vehicles arriving, Erith and ‘kin.

  “What are you hiding, Arrow?”

  She blew out a breath, shoulders bowing a moment, avoiding the question. Too many things, was the honest answer. “It is just. Juinis,” she began instead, gritting her teeth when the oath-spells woke. She was not allowed to openly criticise the Taellan.

  “Got a taste for adventure, but no experience of it.” Matthias’ bleak humour saved her additional pain.

  “Quite so.” The spells quieted. Agreeing with the ‘kin was allowed, it seemed.

  “So, you don’t want him here?”

  “It does not matter what I want.” Something of a miracle her voice came out even, bitterness tucked away.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Kallish nuin Falsen was out of the vehicles first, her cadre losing a fraction of their coordination as they tried to keep up and maintain discipline around the lord. Kallish ignored them, stalking ahead of the rest of the group, eyes on the point at Arrow’s shoulder. She was speaking Erith, eyes sparking amber.

  “Svegraen,” Arrow began, interrupted again as the rest of the group arrived. Every pair of Erith eyes, including Juinis’, was trained on the point above her shoulder.

  “What’s going on, Arrow?” the Prime asked, grim.

  “Nothing good,” she answered, choosing to misunderstand his question. His face tightened, inherent power gathering in his eyes.

  “Why are the Erith so worried about you?” he asked bluntly.

  “Because of this.” A long breath out, shoulders bowing under the invisible weight again before she put her hand up to the empty space over her shoulder, closing her hand into a fist. Under her skin a stream of silver light bloomed, resolving into the long hilt of a sword in her hand.

  “A sword? You’ve had a sword this whole time?” Matthias growled, angry.

  “Just this morning,” she told him, sword pressing on her, an enormous burden for something that had no physical weight, exhaustion of the spell crafting and the purpose of the sword adding to the strain.

  “Is that necessary?” Kallish was asking, urgent tone catching the ‘kin’s attention.

  “I fear so, svegraen. I hope that it will not be necessary.”

  “Where did you get a war mage’s spirit sword?” Juinis snapped the demand.

  “I made it, my lord,” she told him, watching the disbelief and denial cross his face. The Taellan knew that she had graduated. Many of them had been at her Trials. Yet they never seemed to consider what that meant. Trials were held only for White Guard and war mages. And she was no warrior.

  She could hardly blame them their disbelief. War mages were rare. T
rained in lethal magic, they were generally accorded utmost respect, even by the Queen, and granted a great deal of freedom. Not one had ever been shackled as she was. Every other war mage had their cloak. And the honour of their House.

  She had no cloak, and no House to grant her honour. Her graduation had sent ripples of unease around the Erith, not celebration. The only recognition of her graduation was a rare gift; an old, worn, harness, leather sewn with beautifully crafted spells to hold a war mage’s sword. A treasured possession, the only outward sign of her graduation, it had been unexpectedly provided by one of the Teaching Masters, a former training aid uncovered at the back of one of the Academy’s storage cupboards. Without that she would have been carrying a war mage’s sword wrapped in a scarf or haphazardly tucked into her bag.

  “Arrow, explain,” the Prime requested.

  “This is a spirit sword, not something designed to cut flesh and bone.”

  “Explain,” he snapped.

  “I do not have the proper words,” she told him honestly, trying to think of a better explanation that would translate. War mage’s swords were not something the Erith talked about. And there had been no time to get used to the enormous presence of spellwork at her back, the thing alert in a similar way to her wards, only far more complex.

  “There has not been an incursion in over a hundred years,” Kallish interrupted, tense. Arrow remembered the sculpture outside the Taellaneth main building. The six who had sealed the last breach at the cost of their lives. Fallen not Forgotten. A chill ran through her.

  “I know,” Arrow answered in Erith, “but there is something here. I judge the danger to be critical.” Something less than an incursion. Some fool playing with power in the second world. She hoped.

  “We should remove the lord,” Kallish said, unguarded for a moment.

  “Remove me?” Juinis stepped forward, colour rising in his cheeks. “I am come to discover more of the truth of Marianne Stillwater’s death. It would be a grievous insult to the Prime were I to simply leave.”