“Just stay out of the secret ways,” she said. “I beg you. This is the last I’m using them. Ever.”
As she lay comfortably in bed, moonlight from the window fading, Tala felt at peace. Warning Lindholf of the danger in the secret ways had lifted a load from her mind. Relaxed now, she felt sleep overtake her. But just before she dozed into sweet oblivion, an awful thought struck her and she shot up in bed. Her eyes flew open, sweeping the room. How could I have missed it?
She’d come straight down the chimney and crawled right into bed, wrapping herself snug in her blankets, welcoming the comfort. Yet in her haste to curl up under the warm covers, she had overlooked one gigantic detail. The stool!
When her frantic eyes fell upon the stool, cold reality struck. Her blood froze and everything in the room came into clear focus. Wide awake, heart pounding, Tala could only stare at the wooden stool as it now sat smack in front of her desk.
She hadn’t put it there.
And there was a small slip of white parchment pinned to the center of the stool’s round seat by a thin black dagger. Lawri! Tala sprang from her bed. Her older cousin was still on the divan, lying in the same position as when Tala had left her. Dread filled Tala’s heart. “Wake up!” She shook her cousin.
“What is it?” Lawri moaned sleepily, yawning and rubbing at her eyes as she sat up, her golden hair tousled. Tala breathed deeply, relieved that Lawri was alive. She crossed the room, lit a candle, then held it over the stool with the dagger sticking from it. “What’s that?” Lawri asked, still not quite awake yet
Tala focused on the dagger. She dared not touch it. Yet as she leaned down to study the thin blade, she couldn’t help but read what was written on the parchment. The ink was black as night, the writing small, yet beautifully executed.
I warned you once. Stay out of the secret ways. If I have to warn you again, you will surely die. I stabbed your cousin with this very knife. She will not feel the pain for some time. But feel it she will. This is your last warning.
Tala whirled and stared at Lawri. A small spot of blood welled from under her cousin’s nightshirt, just above her heart. Lawri followed Tala’s gaze and clutched her hand to her own bloody chest, dark eyes wide with confusion and panic. Tala’s eyes flew back to the note. The ink slowly faded, then was gone entirely. She flew to the doors and threw them open, startling the two Silver Guards posted outside.
“Fetch Jondralyn immediately!” she shouted.
“This time of night,” one of the guards chuckled, “I think not. But I will get that old bat Mairgrid. She’ll set you straight.”
“Get Jondralyn!” Tala screamed. “Or I’ll have your head! I swear it!”
“It’s definitely Bloodwood.” A worried look was set into the deep creases of Roguemoore’s leathery face as he examined the dagger stuck in the stool. He ran short, thick fingers through his grizzled beard. “It’s coated with some sort of numbing agent—most likely lavender deje. A Bloodwood never parts with his blades. I fear this dagger is a dire message indeed. Meant for who, though?”
The dwarf pulled the blade from the stool and held it up to the candle flame. It looked to be one single-molded piece of polished, hewn glass, black as the underworld and twice as scary. Candlelight didn’t even flicker in its inky blade; its very surface seemed to swallow all light. He set the blade on the stool again and looked at Jondralyn.
Tala’s older sister, even having just been woken in the middle of the night, with mussed-up hair, wearing naught but a maroon jacket over her nightclothes, looked radiant in the dim candlelight. Tala, always self-conscious around Jondralyn, straightened her own dirty nightshift, grabbed a comb, and nervously began brushing her own hair.
“You were smart not to touch it, Tala,” the dwarf said. With his beard, squat and stout stature, and sunken-eyed face, Roguemoore always reminded Tala of an angry boar. Yet despite his rough and coarse look, the dwarf was one of the few ambassadors in Jovan’s court who Tala even remotely liked.
“Was also smart to call for your sister, and not Jovan.” Roguemoore turned and examined the wound above Lawri’s heart. Tala’s older cousin held the neckline of her nightshirt low enough for the dwarf to examine the wound.
“What’s a Bloodwood?” Tala asked.
“The most deadly of creatures,” Roguemoore answered gravely. “A trained assassin from Sør Sevier. That we’ve one lurking about the castle amuses me not.”
“Someone from Sør Sevier tried to assassinate me?” Lawri looked horrified.
“Had a Bloodwood wanted you dead, you would be dead. Your wound is meant as a message. This assassin wants us to know of his presence. Hawkwood could answer many questions for us. I will speak to him later about this.”
“What do we do?” Tala asked. “How do we get rid of this assassin?”
“We can’t,” the dwarf answered. “I’ve only ever known one man who could kill a Bloodwood.” He reached for the slip of paper previously pinned to the stool by the assassin’s dagger. The paper was blank now, useless, its writing completely faded.
The dwarf pulled forth a small round tin from his pouch, opened it, dipped his fingers into the fine black powder within, then rubbed his fingers over the blank slip of paper. Soon the assassin’s words were legible again through the smeared black powder. Roguemoore read the note and looked up at Tala. “You’ve been skulking about the innards of the castle again, haven’t you?”
“What did you put on there to make the words appear again?” Tala asked, hoping to redirect the dwarf’s hard gaze.
“Ink from the squid of the Sør Sevier Straits was used to write this note.” The dwarf studied the writing, brow furrowed. “Rare and expensive. The ink fades quickly but the writing remains intact.” The dwarf paused, his eyes boring into Tala’s. “Tell me what you’re hiding from us, girl. What have you seen?”
“Nothing,” Tala answered.
“Don’t think me daft. I’ve the silver-wolf’s eye. You’ve been jittery since we arrived.”
“Lawri was just stabbed.” Jondralyn leaped to Tala’s defense. “Someone snuck into her room. They could’ve both been killed.”
“You are right.” Roguemoore’s face softened. “I can be gruff and ofttimes insensitive.” It seemed Jondralyn’s beauty bewitched even the dwarf as he gave his apology. But his eyes quickly fixed on Tala. “Still, Jon, your sister hides something.”
“Tala was stabbed too,” Lawri blurted. “Remember, Tala? You said you fell into a nail. But I knew it was no puncture from a nail. What happened when I left you?”
Jondralyn’s gaze shot to hers. “Did you see a Bloodwood in the secret ways?” Tala shrank away from her sister’s searing look.
“We must know any information you have of this Bloodwood,” the dwarf said.
Tala felt unseen eyes watching her. She dared not speak. This Bloodwood assassin from Sør Sevier could be peering in on their conversation now.
“Prove you were not stabbed and I will drop the subject,” Roguemoore said.
Tala had no choice. She pulled the collar of her own nightshirt down, revealing the still-raw scab just over her heart. Jondralyn gasped. The dwarf leaned in, examining the wound. His breath smelled of stale pipe smoke. “I daresay you never felt the blade either.” He ran the tip of his calloused finger over the wound. It was true, Tala had not felt the knife slip in and out of her flesh, yet she shivered at the dwarf’s cold touch.
“Tell us what happened,” Jondralyn ordered.
Tala described the encounter with the cloaked figure earlier that day in the passage above their father’s old study and how she had been stabbed. At the behest of Roguemoore, she also recounted the conversation she’d heard between Jondralyn and Jovan.
“An innocent conversation, that,” Jondralyn said, worry etched in her voice. “Things my brother and I argue about all the time.”
“But who knows what other conversations might have been overheard, between who and about what.” The dwarf picked up the dagger
and held it to the light again. “The next knife we see may not be a warning.”
“Did a beast of the underworld make that knife?” Lawri asked. “It scares me.”
“Better a demon had forged it.” Roguemoore set the blade into his satchel. “But alas, was Black Dugal who helped craft the blade. Forged from the sap of a Bloodwood tree.”
“Bloodwood tree?” Tala asked.
“They grow in the southern mountains of Sør Sevier between Rokenwalder and Kayde. Like aspen or birch, only black as pitch. Take an ax and chop into the leathery black bark of a Bloodwood tree and its sap runs thick and red and sizzles to the touch. Black Dugal and his Caste harvest the sap in a ritual called the Sacrament of Souls, then forge the daggers using a mixture of Sør Sevier steel, Bloodwood sap . . . and the souls of the condemned pulled from the dungeons of Rokenwalder. This makes the blades light and hard and indestructible. Only a select few are chosen to wield them.”
“You mean only a Bloodwood assassin can wield them?” Tala was hoping for more information on her silent tormentor, shuddering at the thought of her brush with a Sør Sevier assassin.
Roguemoore did not answer. He pulled a small glass jar and bandage from his satchel, dunked his fingers into the jar, and placed a yellow, pasty salve from the jar onto the bandage. He put the bandage over the small wound on Lawri’s chest. “That’s sylwia root. It should help the wound heal. Bloodwood assassins are a dangerous lot. Resin from the lavender deje plant is boiled and then spread over the Bloodwood’s blade to numb the flesh instantly upon the blade’s entry. A flea lighting on your skin would cause more commotion than a Bloodwood dagger coated with lavender deje.” He rubbed some of the salve onto Tala’s wound too.
“How many Bloodwood assassins are there in Sør Sevier?” she asked.
“Nobody knows.” Roguemoore looked at Jondralyn. “Hawkwood could shed light on the subject, though it’s been a while since he lived in Sør Sevier. I’m curious to see what he knows of the dagger and what this Bloodwood may be up to.”
Whenever Tala thought of Hawkwood, she also couldn’t help but think of Jondralyn’s previous betrothal to Squireck Van Hester when the two were youngsters and Adin Wyte an unconquered land. As for Squireck, the Prince of Saint Only had been imprisoned for a year now. Over the years, things had changed for Jondralyn. It was clear she was falling for Hawkwood, an ex-soldier from Sør Sevier. He was tall, gorgeous, charismatic, and, as it turned out, one of the most graceful sword fighters in all of Amadon. When Aeros Raijael had first attacked Adin Wyte, many from Sør Sevier had disagreed with the crusade, and feeling betrayed by their homeland, they’d fled to Gul Kana. Hawkwood was one such ex-soldier. Tala did not know everything about the man, but she had gleaned some information over time: Hawkwood, having successfully gained favor for his fighting skills, eventually worked his way into the graces of Jovan’s court and had become friends with Squireck, Jondralyn, the Dayknight captain, Ser Sterling Prentiss, and the dwarf ambassador, Roguemoore, all to the consternation of Jovan.
As the dwarf rubbed more sylwia root on her wound, a sudden and unpleasant thought dawned on her.
“Was Hawkwood once a Bloodwood assassin?” she asked.
Jondralyn looked up at the question. Roguemoore met her eyes briefly, placed the tin of sylwia root back into his satchel, and left the room.
* * *
There is scarce to write about the dwarves, other than that man is commanded to consider them naught but stupid farmers. Stubborn, yes. Bold, indeed. But mostly stupid. And what can be said of the oghuls? Not eloquent like the Vallè, nor hardworking like the dwarf, but slothful and slow of tongue. Man is commanded to consider these foul drinkers of blood naught but wild creatures, one step away from savagery.
—THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
TALA BRONACHELL
17TH DAY OF THE SHROUDED MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AMADON, GUL KANA
I don’t feel well.” Lawri’s face was pale. The arena orchestra, just a few rows below the king’s suite, played a soothing song during the break in the action.
“Jovan will not allow any of us to leave,” Tala said. “A contingent of Silver Guards would have to escort us back to the castle, and they would be most unhappy to miss the final match. I doubt Mairgrid desires to waddle back there with us in tow either.”
Dame Mairgrid whirled, an unhappy expression on her broad face. Tala’s tutor sat in the row in front of them. She was a big woman with bulging eyes on a perfectly round head topped with a nest of gray. “Quiet,” she ordered with a stern look.
Below, slaves restored the arena floor to its original state, raking the bloodstained dirt from the previous bout into iron grates in the ground. More than thirty gladiator matches had already taken place today. The last bout of the afternoon was drawing nigh.
A looming dread consumed Tala’s soul. She did not want to see Squireck down there. During the fights, she had not only shut her eyes, but held Lawri’s hand for reassurance. Dame Mairgrid would turn and slap their hands with her sweaty palms, admonishing them to act like proper court ladies and watch. Even with her eyes clamped tight, Tala could still hear the agonies of the condemned, abandoned and alone in the dirt, fighting for their lives. Their horrid screams had a way of rising above the sound of the orchestra horns and drums and roar of the crowd.
Tala and Lawri sat in their uncomfortable dresses at the end of the row next to Tala’s younger brother, five-year-old Ansel. Next to Ansel sat Jondralyn. Tala’s older sister wore calf-high black leather boots, woolen horse-riding pants, and a buckled leather vest over a billowy white silk shirt. Many in Jovan’s court did not approve of her unladylike attire but were loath to voice their opinions. When asked why she’d not come in her gown like the other ladies of the court, Jondralyn had professed that she’d been out riding earlier and hadn’t had time to change. Beyond Jondralyn sat Lawri’s twin, Lindholf, the Vallè princess, Seita, and seventeen-year-old Glade Chaparral of Rivermeade.
Tala found her eyes were continually seeking out those of Glade. He’d just arrived yestermorn with his family to participate in his royal Ember Lighting Rite in the cathedral. Jovan had been hinting of a betrothal between Tala and Glade for moons now. The notion of an arranged marriage bothered Tala not at all. For Glade Chaparral had the dashing looks of his older brother, Leif, who at the moment was stationed in Lord’s Point with a garrison of Dayknights watching for Sør Sevier raiding ships. Glade, on the other hand, was here in Amadon, not ten paces from Tala. Though they’d been friends since childhood, Glade had, over the years, developed a regal aura about his bearing that currently left Tala a trifle unbalanced in his company. His father, Lord Claybor, was a man of height and bulk. But rather than growing thick around the gut like Claybor, Glade was filling out in a more pleasing way. He had well-chiseled muscles along with a square-jawed face and auburn curls atop his head that glistened in the sun. The scullery maids and court girls were hard-pressed not to notice Glade. Tala flushed as red as a turnip whenever she was in his presence.
But today, Glade, in Amadon Silver Guard training attire, only had eyes for Seita. The Vallè princess pulled forth a curious, small ball-and-chain weapon from some hidden place within her white cloak and began spinning it around her arms and shoulders deftly. It made a loud whirring noise. Both Glade and Lindholf seemed delighted by the weird weapon. Seita handed it to Glade and he attempted to spin it, his efforts awkward.
“My dear, you’re doing it wrong,” Seita giggled, placing her delicate hand atop his, helping him hold the chain correctly. “You must roll your hand like so”—her fingers interlaced with his—“to build up the muscles in your forearm.” The Vallè princess leaned into Glade’s shoulder, the two squeezing and twirling the chain together slowly.
Tala felt her entire body stiffen in jealousy. Seita was smooth of skin and bright of eye, with flowing blond hair of such a white hue it was almost blinding. Today she wore
a formfitting light gray gown of Vallè make under a shimmering white cloak.
After a five-year absence, Seita had just returned to court in Amadon. She had an older sister, Breita. The two Vallè princesses were nearly identical. Breita had also been gone from court for five years. But she had not made the trip back.
Seita was young; still, older than Glade by at least a few years, and a good deal more experienced in courtly flirting than Tala. Along with their green eyes, upturned ears, needle-thin brows, and catlike grace, the Vallè were renowned for their silken tongues. In fact, Seita was just now complimenting both Glade and Lindholf on how much she was looking forward to their Ember Lighting Rites and how handsome they would both look in their white robes whilst passing the Ember Lighting flame.
Lindholf Le Graven handsome? Tala’s cousin was anything but. Whenever she looked upon the scarred flesh that covered his neck, cheek, forehead, and ears, it was ofttimes with pity. Though she loved him dearly, she couldn’t help but wonder what unfortunate court girl would find herself one day so unluckily betrothed to him.
Just beyond Seita was Hawkwood. The Sør Sevier man wore dark leather riding breeches and a billowy shirt like Jondralyn. With a graceful gesture, he drew aside a strand of black hair from his face and threw a nod of greeting toward Tala, eyes lingering a moment. There was a mysteriousness within those eyes as they sliced through the air, piercing into hers. That Hawkwood was once from Sør Sevier, perhaps even a Bloodwood assassin, gave Tala a smidgen of a fright. She didn’t mind admitting that to herself. Hawkwood smiled at her, and in that one look, apprehension faded away. Tala could see why Jondralyn, now that her childhood betrothal to Squireck Van Hester was long over, was falling in love with this captivating man.
A breeze bit into Tala’s skin, rippling the awning over the king’s suite. The vastness of the arena surrounded her: tall columns, crenulated balconies, grandstands, a warren of grates and tunnels under a dirty battlefield, and intricately carved stonework palisades that rose up in a glorious circle around the crowd of over ten thousand spectators. During the bloody bouts, the nobility and those in the king’s suite did naught but laugh and carry on, pretending to admire one another’s clothing and acting like fools, all while condemned men hacked away at each other in the bloody battleground below.
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