Spectyr to-2

by Philippa Ballantine

  “ . . . Japhne—it is always Japhne.” The unseen female’s voice was laced with such bitterness that Sorcha pressed herself closer to the fountain head so that she was less likely to be seen around the curve of the wall.

  “Well, she is pregnant with his child,” another, soter voice went on.

  “A miracle,” the other snapped. “An old baggage like her, full with his child? Surely the world is laughing at us—you know she usually walks the garden at night.”

  Sorcha glanced around, but none of the other women were close enough to overhear as she was—and they appeared not to be taking any notice of her anymore. In a closed world of women, where they were all vying for the attention of one man, intrigue, jealousy and backbiting were to be expected. Yet, with the murders in Orinthal, such events took on a new, sinister meaning.

  “Hush,” the quieter woman hissed. “Don’t speak such things!”

  “But it’s true.” Her companion gave a little harsh laugh. “Japhne walks in the courtyard just before bed every night—if she had last night, who is to say that it would not be her being buried in the ground—”

  “Myel—if our Prince heard you say such things, you would be joining them!”

  “It was not I, Emelie,” the other replied. “But it would have been convenient for us if she had just . . .”

  Such ill-wishing was far too much for the other woman, and Sorcha had to duck back as a thin blonde scuttled from the shower room. Carefully, the Deacon finished washing herself and thought.

  Speaking in such a fashion, right out in the open, meant that the woman just beyond the curve of the wall was an idiot. And whoever was committing these murders was not. Nor had all the murders been conducted in the confines of the harem. It was highly unlikely that such a woman could have snuck out of the shelter of the woman’s quarters, beyond trained guards whose lives depended on staying alert, and slain so many without notice.

  Yet this Myel had revealed one thing to Sorcha—the Prince’s consort, the one pregnant with a rare child, had been the real target. Whatever had caused her to break her usual habit had been a lucky chance.

  Now there was Raed’s problem to consider. Sorcha slid as nonchalantly around the wall of the room as she could. Three young women remained, all completely ignoring her. The Deacon pressed her lips together for a moment and wished Merrick was with her. She was certain her partner would have very much wanted to be there.

  It had come to Sorcha’s attention since getting her new Sensitive that she was perhaps lacking in the social graces. Without him, now was the perfect time to try to find some.

  “Lovely weather,” she barked at the nearest blonde beauty.

  The girl spun around like she’d been shot and stared at the naked Deacon in open hostility. Stripped of her Order’s insignia and cloak, Sorcha realized she was also denied its inherent command. She could actually feel her cheeks begin to grow redder.

  “Who are you? ” A second woman, this one tall and dark-skinned, glared at her. Obviously women of the Prince’s harem were not used to being addressed in such a tone.

  “Too old to be a new arrival,” the first said very matter-of-factly.

  “Deacon Sorcha Faris, of the Order.”

  They blinked at her.

  It was truly fortunate for them she did not have her Gauntlets. “Have you had any new arrivals in the last week to the harem?”

  Her tone, if not her attire, must have convinced them, because the second womas aowly shook her head. “Not for the last two months.” Then both of them made a hasty exit. If they believed she was a Deacon, then they had just insulted her, and if they thought she was lying, then she was clearly mad.

  The Deacon’s good mood went with them. Not only had she lost her partner, but she had nothing to report to Raed either.

  Sorcha washed off, dried herself on the thick towels and, wrapping her robe about herself, hurried back to her room. She got dressed quickly, her mind buzzing.

  Raed was there waiting in the antechamber, his face tight and drawn.

  On his right was an older woman with a trim form and dark hair licked with gray. Despite everything, Sorcha felt a little flare of jealousy. On Raed’s left stood the tall, handsome young man she had seen yesterday.

  Raed gestured to the woman. “This is Captain Tangyre Greene, one of my old friends and protectors, and this is Isseriah, who managed to get us inside the palace.”

  The women nodded, but the man sketched a bow.

  “Where is Aachon?” Sorcha asked. “Did something—”

  “Oh no.” Raed flinched. “I instructed him to remain with the Dominion. The crew could not all come with me. Nor would I want them to.”

  “Raed said you might be able to help us find some trace of Fraine.” Tangyre tucked her hands behind her back. “Our trail has run cold in the palace.”

  Sorcha heard the stiffness in her own voice. “I will do my best, but I hardly think it is coincidence you were led here, and now there seems to be some kind of geist activity.”

  “They seek the royal blood again?” Raed’s jaw tightened. “They could not get me—so they took her!”

  “We don’t know that.” Sorcha didn’t want him to do anything foolish, and she certainly didn’t want the Rossin turning up to complicate things.

  Their hushed conversation was interrupted by Bandele striding down the corridor toward them. His former jovial nature must have been lost somewhere in the night, for he bowed very slightly when he reached Sorcha. “Deacon, my Prince is calling for you.”

  He did not wait for a reply, instead spinning around and walking brusquely away. “Come on.” Sorcha wrapped her fingers around Raed’s forearm. “I want you with me.”

  Tangyre and Isseriah glanced at each other.

  “He is under the protection of the Order,” Sorcha snapped. “Raed will come to no harm with me.” Then, before they could argue, she and the Young Pretender trotted to catch up with Bandele.

  “If we can convince the Prince that he needs our assistance, we will have the run of Orinthal,” she murmured, “and then we will have a much better chance of finding your sister.”

  Raed’s fingers brushed hers, a little squeeze. “They are going to notice I am not Merrick, you know.”

  “Trust in the Order.”

  She was prepared for the seneschal’s query, but everyone must have been in a dreadful mess after last night’s panic, because he just ushered them in.

  The sheer blind daring of bringing the Young Pretender into the presence of the Prince of Chioma satisfied some deep part of Sorcha. The only thing that would have been more so was bringing him into the presence of the Emperor himself.

  For all the wealth and luxury of Chioma, its Prince kept a remarkably stark private room. The bright yellow light of the morning was filtering through the open window and illuminating the red earth walls. The Prince was sitting at the opposite end of the small room, robed in a similar shade, but still with the gleaming mask in place. Behind it there were only glimpses of dark skin, but it was impossible to tell anything else about the face beyond.

  Sorcha sketched a bow of the appropriate depth. “Your Majesty.”

  “Deacon Faris.” Without the echoing effect of the throne room, his voice was much softer but still melodious and deep. The Prince’s head turned toward Raed. “But this is not your Sensitive!”

  Sorcha straightened taller. “Indeed he is not. My partner Deacon Merrick Chambers is missing after the events of last night. This man is one of our trusted lay Brothers from the Mother Abbey. He will be assisting me to locate my Sensitive.”

  “This is dire news indeed.” The Prince sat back farther into his chair.

  Sorcha took a long, slow breath. “It is indeed, but that is why I am here, Your Majesty, to ask a few questions of the other murders and in the process get my partner back.”

  “I thought your intention was to protect the people, not to interrogate Princes—is that not why your Order exists? Or am I perhaps mistak
en?” The outrageousness of this statement, even from royalty, was enough to stop Sorcha’s breath in her throat.

  Perhaps people did question the Deacons still, but they had proven their worth against the geists again and again since arriving with the Emperor. And it was Princes like this one who had asked—no, begged—both to come. If they had not, she and the rest of her fellow Deacons would not even be in Arkaym. It set her teeth on edge to hear such a questioning tone from one placed so high.

  It was half in Sorcha’s mind to bite back with a harsh question of her own. And is it not the place first for a Prince to protect his people—especially in his own capital?

  “Many things have changed, Your Highness.” Raed’s voice held no deference but a chill command that he might regret later. “But someone is definitely stalking your Court.”

  “Then things are far worse than I feared.” The Prince paused, but his tone was carefully controlled and revealed nothing. “Sit and ask your questions; I will answer as best I can.”

  It was perhaps not a ringing endorsement, but it would have to do for now. All three of them sat on the low stools that he indicated. As she folded herself into one, Sorcha surreptitiously opened her Center. It was not as powerful or as farreaching as that of a Sensitive, but it would have to do.

  It was not an illegal thing to do—for the power of the Order went beyond even the power of a mere Prince of the realm—but it was more than a little impolite. Sorcha kept her voice light as she leaned forward. “What can you tell me, Your Majesty, about the first murder that took place?”

  The Prince shifted, the strange crystals hanging from his mask swaying slightly. It was so irritating that Sorcha had to restrain herself from leaping up and knocking the damn thing off his head. The political implications of doing that might be a little too tricky. Instead, her hands clenched on each other, and she dared spreading her Center as far as an Active could.

  She could sense the guards outside, stern and resolute, and Raed next to her. While he might be outwardly calm, the swirl of his emotions was like looking into a thunderstorm. He was terrified of not finding his sister and yet resolutely trying to ignore that possibility. And there was more—a bright mote that gleamed through all that. A tiny seed of feeling for her that could easily grow into something bigger.

  Sorcha jerked back in shock, utterly unsure what to do with that knowledge and utterly disarmed by it. Instead, she swung her Center toward the Prince and was almost as shocked. The scintillating display of the mask was the same in the ether as in the physical world. It spun, turned, and behind it she had trouble seeing anything about the Prince of Chioma—instantly she understood that the tiny stones that made up the strings were not just diamonds—they were tiny weirstones.

  “I think you can find out the details of the other murders in the city from my Chief of the Guards.” The Prince leaned back in his chair.

  Focusing her Center on him was like bending light with a lens, but far less useful. Sorcha tried her best not to let her frustration show in her voice. “You must have an opinion on how or why these are happening, Your Majesty.”

  “The Prince of Chioma has always had a reputation for insight.” Raed folded his arms. “I am sure you must know everything that goes on in your kingdom—let alone your own palace.”

  It was a charming challenge, and Sorcha did not bother to conceal her smile. The Prince tilted his head, sending the confusing strings of his mask swinging. A tantalizing glimpse of a pair of full lips was all she got. The silence in the chamber was tense, however, and she wondered if this interrogation would end with them all thrown out into the corridor or maybe the dungeon.

  “The first murder,” the Prince finally spoke, “was not the first murder.”

  Sorcha reached into her pocket and fished out the piece of paper that she had scribbled on the previous night. “Someone was killed before Baroness Alian in the city?”

  “No.”

  A trickle of fear down her spine made Sorcha sit straighter. “So, Your Majesty—who was the first victim?”

  The fine, dark hands clenched on the arms of his chair. “My Chancellor, Devane.”

  Raed glanced at her. “I heard the rumor when we arrived; he had died of old age in his room.”

  The Prince’s laugh was dry. “Only if old age slits your throat.”

  Sorcha leaned back and shot a look at Raed, whose shocked expression she imagined was the mirror of her own. The Chancellor of a kingdom was second only to the Prince—and if he had been murdered, then that cast a very different light on the whole situation.

  Pressing her hands together, Sorcha cleared her throat. “I think you need to tell us the whole story, and please, this time no deceptions.”

  He was a Prince—so she had no way of forcing him to give her that, but hopefully death on his doorstep would insure it.

  SEVENTEEN

  Out of Time

  Merrick knew he had to be dreaming. Yet, as he sat up, his headache was disturbingly real, pounding in the rear of h of his kull with a strength that he had never felt before.

  Cautiously he looked around. Under his legs was a floor of white marble, smooth and cool. Disoriented as he was, for an instant he worried he was still strapped to the draining table in Ulrich. Blood, they had wanted his blood—but Nynnia had sent him here for a reason—and he trusted her.

  Perhaps he had just been traumatized by the sudden departure from the Otherside. Perhaps he had not really seen what he had seen. A strange scraping rattle caught his attention, and the young Deacon lurched to his feet.

  Not three yards away Nynnia was hard at work. He noted her back stiffen, so she was aware of his presence, but she did not turn to face him—too busy in her task. She was standing next to a machine that was about the size of a saddle but made of gleaming brass rather than leather. At the front it had a layer of spinning cutting wheels that were busy desecrating the carvings on the stone pillar. The Deacon looked around wildly and saw that all of the pillars, bar this one and one other, had already been given this terrible treatment.

  Merrick was on his feet and lurching toward Nynnia without even thinking. “Stop!” For he recognized these pillars—though when he had seen them last they had been covered in dirt and moss, having been recently dug from the earth.

  She spun to face him, and Merrick felt immediately the dissonance. This was Arkaym, yet it was not. Nynnia was herself, yet not. He stopped in his tracks.

  She was older. Lines of silver in her long dark hair gleamed in the morning sun, and a tiny landscape of wrinkles caused by laughter and frowns decorated her face. It did nothing to hide her beauty. Merrick felt as though he were sitting on a shifting ice floe, unsure which direction was safe.

  “‘ Stop’ ? ” Her voice was the same. “What do you know about what I am doing? What do you care?” Behind her the machine continued its work, grinding its way up the pillar with amazing speed and efficiency—destroying as it went.

  Merrick examined the towering, curved ceiling above them. It was similar to the Mother Abbey—but so much grander. Curls of carved words ran up the dozens of pillars—those that had not already been destroyed. Merrick’s world reorientated itself, and though it was disturbing, at least now he could understand it.

  His breath came faster as he walked to them. “I know that these pillars are priceless treasures. They contain so much knowledge.” He held his hand out like that of a blind man looking to touch a face. The markings on the pillar were written in Ancient script, the one he had learned so easily while in the novitiate.

  In the future. Merrick felt the whirling of the world about him; he was in fact in the spot his childish self would occupy hundreds of years hence.

  “And that is why they must be destroyed,” she replied.

  He recalled the toppled pillars in his grandfather’s garden and the strange scouring that had wiped away their meaning. If he could just stop this Nynnia from continuing—if just one pillar survived . . .

  Then he thoug
ht of the consequences for his future and realized he would have to tread carefully. Merrick raised his hands in defeat. “You’re right—if I stop you, then who knows what changes could be effected in my own time—it is impossible to predict if the future would be better or worse.”

  Her gaze was hard but not surprised. “Who are you?” she asked, stepploser to him.

  The words cut him, but he sketched a bow, as deep as he would have given to the Emperor himself. “Deacon Merrick Chambers—the man you will one day love.”

  If he had said those words to any other woman, she might have laughed and then walked away. However, this was Nynnia. Whatever she was, she was open to new possibilities.

  The corner of her mouth twitched, as if it might break out into a smile. “Well then . . . that makes quite a bit of difference—but your title”—she cocked her head—“what does that mean?”

  Those were words indeed to chill the heart of a man who had spent all his adult life in the care of the Order. Yet, as a student of history, he knew that the Ancients had vanished from the world before the Break and the Order’s establishment.

  The sheer magnitude of everything he knew—everything that had happened before being snatched away from Orinthal spun in Merrick’s head. In the young Deacon’s Sight Nynnia blazed. It was not the same as Raed’s signature—in fact it was like nothing he had ever seen before. When he had first laid eyes on Nynnia, she had dazzled him with her beauty and her sweetness—but she had appeared nothing more than a normal human. Later events had proven that very wrong.

  The second incarnation of Nynnia he had met on the Otherside had been beyond anything mortal. Now this one standing before him was human, but scintillating with a strange energy.

  One thing at a time. He tried to frame some reply to her that wouldn’t alter time or end up with him burned at the stake. The lecturers teaching in the novitiate had been remarkably silent on the rules of etiquette when thrust back into time. He was still framing the answer, when Nynnia spoke for him.