“That’s quite a piece of understatement, even for you,” I said. “If Sevin were taking wagers for the watch, I’d give him whatever odds he wanted that Chora died right as Ealdor came to me in Aeldu.”
“Or even when we decided to set out for the church,” Gael said.
When we descended the hill, the first thing we saw was a full garrison of soldiers camped on the road illuminated by watch fires that circled away from us into the night. Hradian cursed under his breath as he rode forward to speak to the men guarding the makeshift gate.
During the next quarter of an hour we watched him argue with the grizzled commander, his posture changing depending on whether he attempted to order, bargain, or plead his way past the barricade. When he rode back to us his face wore a mixture of relief and frustration, or maybe the dancing shadows on his expression from the flickering torchlight just made it seem that way.
“What news, Lieutenant?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “The city is under curfew. No one in or out except by daylight and after a thorough search.”
“They’re trying to catch the killer,” I said. I caught Hradian’s eye. “That order didn’t come from the Archbishop, did it.”
Hradian gave me another one of those looks as if he suspected me of prying open his head and reading his thoughts. “No. It comes from the captain of the queen’s guard.” He stepped toward me in a way that put Bolt, Gael, and Rory on alert, but I held up one hand and they relaxed, a little anyway. “How did you know this, Lord Dura?”
His reaction made me wonder just what Vyne had told him about the Vigil. Had the Archbishop suspended the rules and revealed our ability? “Relax, Lieutenant Hradian. It’s doubtful the Archbishop would send you to retrieve me and then keep you from entering the city. It’s obvious that he’s not the one who ordered the curfew.”
Hradian shook his head at me. “The Archbishop might have ordered such a curfew, in light of the queen’s death. How are you so sure?”
I didn’t know how much the lieutenant knew, and I wasn’t about to create trouble for myself. “The reason Archbishop Vyne ordered children to accompany you is the reason he wouldn’t bother with ordering a curfew to try and catch the killer.”
“And why is that?” Hradian pressed.
“Because he knows it wouldn’t work.” I walked away before he could ask me anything else.
We bedded down close enough to the watch fires of the soldiers to provide light and waited for dawn. Except for Rory. Our thief pulled a length of chiccor root from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, staring into the night as he spun a dagger back and forth across his hand.
As I lay on my back staring up at the dots of light in the sky, Gael scooted in close and put one hand on my chest. Her voice came to me like a blessing, her face close to my ear. “Is this what we’ve come to, Willet? Being guarded by children?” She glanced at Rory.
I nodded. “So it seems. Odd as it is, I still feel safer here than in Laidir’s court in Bunard.”
We drifted to sleep soon after.
At dawn, Hradian and his men led us between the cold braziers and the soldiers to crest a low rise, and we drew closer to Cynestol, the crown of the northern continent. I’d expected it to be big, had known that the chief city of Aille could hold half a dozen copies of Bunard within its walls, but distance and haze had obscured it the previous day.
“Aer in heaven,” I breathed. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“Huge,” Bolt said. “I’ve never liked it much.”
“Why not?” Rory asked. “It’s got to be the biggest and richest city on the continent.”
Bolt shook his head. “That’s just it. Cynestol has everything that can be had on the northern continent and everyone who lives here knows it. There’s a saying that if there’s an indulgence you can’t find in Cynestol, it’s because it doesn’t exist. Its citizens are all very impressed with the wealth and size of their city, as though it imparts some sort of virtue.”
I pointed. “That’s not impressive?”
Gael patted my arm. “You’ll get used to it after a while, though I have to admit it took me the better part of a month. Think of it as several cities in one.”
I shook my head. “I’m having a problem thinking of it at all. It makes my eyes hurt.”
We struggled to make headway against a flood of foot traffic that clogged the entire width of the road and spilled over the sides. It couldn’t have effectively accommodated half the people that were trying to use it. “Is it always like this?” Rory asked. “I could spend a year here as a pickpocket and live in leisure for the rest of my life.”
Bolt shook his head. “The king, Sylvest, passed less than a year ago, and now the queen is dead as well. The people of Cynestol pride themselves on their detachment, but they’re nervous, and understandably so.” He jerked his head toward Hradian. “Though the good lieutenant hasn’t said so, the news is worse than that.”
I looked at the crowd and felt my heart make the long descent from my chest to the pit of my stomach. “She died before she could pass the gift of kings on to her heir.”
Rory scowled. “How do you know that?”
I pointed at the people streaming past us, hurrying to get away from the city. “Because if Chora’s gift had passed to her son, these people wouldn’t be running away. New ministers will probably use the opportunity to settle old scores.”
Rory’s grin turned feral. “Forget picking pockets. I should ask Pellin to let the Mark come back to us.”
Bolt’s glare could have withered a stump. “Boy, if there are dwimor in this crowd, you’re the only one who can spot them.”
To Rory’s credit, he sobered, but that probably wouldn’t mollify Bolt. He would most likely subject Rory to an extended “training session” once we were safely tucked away in the city.
The wall surrounding Cynestol wasn’t particularily high. I doubted if it could withstand a siege for more than a week, but Aille could easily muster enough men to put any other nation’s standing army to shame. Tiled rooftops shone in the sun in a thousand different colors, and most of the buildings, large or small, were constructed out of huge blocks of sandstone.
“I’d like to move faster,” Bolt grunted, nudging his horse forward. “We’ll be lucky to make the cathedral before noon.”
“What about the east gate?” Gael asked. “If I remember correctly that route usually has much less use.”
Bolt nodded. “That might help. I’ll suggest it to Hradian.”
We soon came to a road that circled the city on three sides and detoured toward the sun. Closer, I amended my opinion of the city walls. They were higher than I had first estimated. The sheer size of Cynestol made them appear lower from a distance. How did they feed so many people?
The sun was an orange ball that had risen to two hands above the horizon when we entered the east gate. I was used to the noise of marketplaces, and this one was no different. What I hadn’t expected was the heat. Bolt was the first to strip down to nothing more than shirt and breeches, but the rest of us followed in short order. Despite the adaptation, I could feel the heat reflecting from the buildings like a hammer. Already, my clothes were stuck to my skin with sweat. Hradian and his men hardly seemed to notice the air laying on us like a wet blanket.
“How do these people stand it?” I asked.
Gael managed to look beautiful despite the sweat cascading down her face, or maybe because of it. “It’s quite interesting, actually. The weavers here have mastered the art of creating a material so light you’d scarcely know you were wearing it. It’s a guild secret. I’ve tried more than once to pry it out of them, but it’s closely guarded.” She shrugged. “Of course, we guard the secret to our waterproof wool just as closely.”
The mention of wool sent another wave of sweat cascading down my face.
“It’s not so bad once you get off the street,” Bolt said. “Most of the buildings are constructed with breezew
ays that capture and magnify even the slightest wind.”
I suffered in silence, taking regular pulls from my waterskin until we came within sight of a huge flat-topped hill holding a building that could have rivaled the entire tor.
Bolt’s expression turned even more sour than usual. “Behold the magnificence of the six-sided cathedral of the Merum.”
“You’re in an unusually foul humor,” I said, “even for you.”
“I don’t like coming here,” he replied, but he didn’t bother to elaborate.
“Why not?” I prodded.
He continued to stare over the top of his horse. “They know me here—at least they used to. Maybe the last of those have had the decency to die by now.”
I looked at Gael and Rory, but neither of them appeared to know anything more than I did.
Chapter 12
Toria Deel rode next to Fess as they journeyed north across the rich landscape of Aille. Wag followed just behind their horses, his nose in the wind, his gaze sharp enough to infer intelligence that no ordinary dog could own. The last of his kind on the northern continent. His littermate Modrie lived, but Willet had been forced to destroy her mind in Vaerwold.
She shook her head. So much had been lost, and there was still so much more that could be. That thought brought her back to Fess. Though she hadn’t spent as much time with the young urchin as Lady Bronwyn, she couldn’t help but notice the marked change in his personality since he’d been the unwilling recipient of both Balean’s physical gift and Bronwyn’s gift of domere.
The laughing carefree boy rarely seen without his smile had disappeared as if he’d never been. He rode at her side and might have been a ridiculous parody of the stoic vigilance of one their guards had he not been in earnest.
What had happened to him?
She considered the question. The most obvious answer might be true—that Fess’s part in the death of Balean had altered his view of the world, fracturing his image of himself in ways that couldn’t be reversed or restored. As tempting as that supposition was, she didn’t wholly believe it. During the festival of Bas-solas, Fess had helped defeat Laewan. Along with the other urchins, he’d temporarily accepted the physical gift of the Vigil guards and had used that deception to kill him.
Laewan, corrupted by Cesla and showing physical gifts he should never have possessed, had been cut down by countless dagger strikes from Fess and the other urchins they’d employed. Yet afterward, Fess had been the same as always. The urchins were accustomed to hardship and even death. In spite of that, Fess had shown a remarkable capacity for humor and even joy. What had changed?
Unbidden, a memory worked its way free of her control, the words of Pellin, praise Aer. Memories of Cesla held too much condemnation. “Never underestimate the power of a question, Toria Deel. Next to our gift, it will reveal more about a person than any other tool or stratagem, and it’s more honest.”
She mused, rocking back and forth with the steady gait of the horse beneath her. Questions were indeed powerful, if she knew the right ones to ask. She already knew what had happened to Fess, Bronwyn, and Balean on their journey to the Darkwater. Any query she posed would merely confirm the facts she’d gleaned from Fess when she’d delved him, and facts wouldn’t serve her. The knowledge lay deeper, but he wore his newfound reticence as readily as his former garrulousness.
“Fess?”
“Yes, Lady Deel?” He answered with her title, as he always did, but without breaking his survey of the landscape. She would have to find a query of sufficient importance to overcome his reluctance to speak.
“Tell me, what do you think of Ealdor’s instruction?”
His brows lowered, and his expression assumed a gravity that she prayed would never look natural. “From what vantage point do you wish me to consider the question?”
This aspect of him, the acuity of his intellect, had surprised her as well, but it explained why Lady Bronwyn had been drawn to him. When the former member of the Vigil had taken on Fess as apprentice, Toria had assumed it to be due to pity, like an old woman caring for a cat found on her doorstep. Bronwyn had seen more. Fess had a turn of mind that would make him a fine scholar, if he lived.
“All of them,” she answered.
He made one last check of the horizon before turning to her. “Assuming that what we think is true actually is true, Ealdor’s appearance is frightening. The Fayit is willing to surrender an immortal existence to warn us of the threat.”
A familiar misgiving, one that she’d felt at Ealdor’s appearance, returned. She chose, reluctantly, to voice it. Perhaps honesty on her part would be returned. “I find it difficult to trust him.”
“Ealdor?” Fess appeared surprised. “How so?”
She broke away from his gaze. “He reminds me too much of Cesla, all secrets and the appearance of honesty, telling us just enough to do as he wishes but not enough to know everything we need.”
“I was under the impression the Vigil worshipped Cesla as the second coming of Iosa,” Fess said.
She tried to ignore the flippancy behind the reply, but it struck too close to the mark. “Perhaps we did for a while.” She shrugged. “Everyone except Pellin and Bronwyn. According to them and Elwin, Cesla’s power was like nothing the Vigil had ever seen before.”
Fess blinked. “I didn’t know the gift came in different strengths.”
She sighed. This was a familiar conversation, though not with Fess. “It doesn’t, at least we don’t think so, but Cesla’s talents and temperaments seemed to be perfectly suited for the gift we carry. His talent of others, for example, was almost frighteningly strong.”
“It sounds like the Mark would have liked him.”
She shook her head. “I doubt it. Cesla was skilled at manipulating those around him, but neither he nor they would have called it that. With a gesture and smile, perhaps a casual touch on the arm or a friendly pat, he would turn the rest of the Vigil’s disagreement into support. For centuries he ran the Vigil like a kingdom, where his word was law.”
“That doesn’t sound like Ealdor at all,” Fess said.
She smiled, but there was little humor in it. “You wouldn’t think so, and they look nothing alike, yet if the legends of the Fayit are to be believed, they possessed all the gifts and talents and temperaments at once. I find myself mistrustful of being moved about on the ficheall board like a pawn.”
Fess’s expression sobered. “Isn’t that what Aer does, Lady Deel?”
“As is His right,” she answered without thinking. “Cesla and Ealdor are not Aer.”
“It seems to me, the end result is pretty much the same.”
“Then why did you consent to follow Ealdor’s instruction?” she asked.
A stand of cedar trees off to the left of the road drew his attention for a few moments before he answered. “Surely you must admit that safeguarding the Darkwater is important.”
The enormity of their task bored a hole through her middle, left her feeling drained and inadequate. She envied Fess his ignorance, however temporary. “It is difficult to see our contribution to the defense of the forest as anything other than inconsequential at this point.” She held up a hand as his eyes widened in shock. “Don’t mistake me. I believe the gift is powerful and has subtle uses the Vigil has only begun to explore, but the power of domere is an intimate exercise. We touch a single person at a time and determine their guilt or innocence. Our gift is a scalpel. The defense of the forest requires a broadsword, and probably more than one.”
“The sentinels?” he asked.
She nodded. “And they are denied to us unless we can successfully petition our counterparts on the southern continent to help.”
Fess glanced back at Wag. “Why would they not?”
She sighed. “That’s a short question with a long, mournful history. If you talk about the split of the church, most people on the northern continent assume you’re speaking of the Order Wars between the four, but centuries before that the church s
plit into the Merum in the north and the One Church in the south. That split still colors interactions between the two continents. Trade, religion, travel—nothing is free from its influence.
“We have only two of our four-footed guardians left to us. Wag’s sister has been stripped of her gift. Modrie is hardly more than an oversized dog. A single sentinel, while formidable, can hardly safeguard the entire forest.”
She turned in her saddle to face him. “That brings us to the point, Fess. Ealdor obviously failed somehow in his own task to keep the forest from being delved. Why should we follow his instructions?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do. Willet trusts him.”
She closed her mouth around her rebuttal. Willet Dura had a vault. “Yes, he does, but Lord Dura gives depths to the word reckless that I’ve never encountered before.”
She waited for Fess to reply, but it appeared the topic of the Ealdor and his instructions had come to its end. She spoke before the boy could clothe himself in his stoicism. “Fess, why don’t you smile anymore?”
“Lady Deel?” Suggestions of pain showed in his eyes before he turned away to resume his scan of the horizon.
She sighed, had hoped the simple earnestness of her question would shock Fess into giving her an unguarded answer. “The lives of those within the Vigil are long, Fess.”
“So Lady Bronwyn told me.”
“Too long for you to deny yourself,” she said softly.
Instead of acknowledging her observation, he turned her question back on her. “Who were you before you became one of the Vigil?”
“A postulant of the Merum order in Elania.” She took a deep breath. If this was what Aer required of her to restore Fess to himself, she would comply. “I was young, not much older than you, when I came into the gift. Before that, I spent my days in study and service, but I had no plans to serve the Merum with the rest of my life. It’s customary in Elania for young women to receive their education from the church, but most depart after a few years to pursue marriage or trade. I had no gift that would have elevated me to the nobility, but I did possess talents for self and others. That drew the attention of the bishop in Elania and eventually, the Eldest of the Vigil.”
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