by Tanya Huff
She spat on her palm to chase away bad luck.
Staring down at the skinny, dark on dark silhouette of a teenage boy, his spear held tightly across his body, trembling angles announcing that he’d rather be anywhere and doing anything else, she finally nodded.
* * * *
The interior of the tower was vastly more complicated than it appeared from the top of the wall. Over the years, countless divisions had created a jumble of small rooms and crooked corridors that followed no logical course. Cloaked in darkness, the assassins avoided two patrols and then were very nearly discovered by a grumbling servant stomping around complaining about all the noise.
“… up at dawn and ’spects me ta sleep wi’ all this racket …”
Bannon mimed slitting her throat. Vree rolled her eyes and motioned for him to get moving. The old woman hadn’t seen them; there was no need to kill her.
Their information—and they knew better than to ask how Commander Neegan had gotten it—put the governor’s quarters on the top floor of the tower. Hugging the inner wall of a wide curved hall, they found a flight of stairs, climbed seven steps, and emerged onto a carpet so plush they could have marched the entire Sixth Army across it without making a sound. The room contained only a trunk beneath a high arched window and across from it, a pile of cushions broken into squares of shadow by the night. Opposite the door they came in was another, the beaded curtain hung across it so thick that it appeared from a distance to be a solid barrier.
“Sandalwood,” Bannon murmured, his breath brushing the word against her ear.
It took her a moment to understand what he meant and then another to separate the scent of the beads from the scent of him.
There were no sounds coming from the other side of the curtain; no sounds, no light, no patrol. As Vree used the back of her wrist to lift the strands nearest the door frame away from the polished stone, Bannon slid through the narrow opening. Vree counted three heartbeats, moved to follow, then froze. From the other side of the curtain came the flicker of an open lamp and the sound of marching feet.
A patrol. They’d have to go back. She turned and suddenly realized it wasn’t one patrol she heard but two. They couldn’t go back. The leading edge of approaching lamplight already threw three grotesquely elongated shadows against the stone just outside the room. The short flight of curved stairs had hidden the second patrol until it was almost too late.
Heart pounding, Vree dove for the tiny angle between the bottom cushions and the wall. Face pressed against the tile floor at the edge of the carpet, she squirmed into the only shelter the room had to offer. The patrol was on the threshold when she realized Bannon wasn’t going to join her.
Too late to join him.
He’s hidden on the other side. There was no question about it, but she didn’t like discovering that they’d separated. Not alone. Just apart. Barely breathing, she listened to the footsteps grow louder, then suddenly stop as the carpet caught the sound and held it.
Then she heard the rattle of sandalwood beads closely followed by a muffled curse.
“Blow it, Eline, I could’ve killed you.”
“Had to hit me first,” a second voice growled. “Whacha so jumpy about anyway?”
“Place looks different in the dark.” This new voice was young, not quite settled into adult depths, and Vree found herself thinking of the boy with the spear.
Eline snorted. “Gotta lamp, doncha? Hardly dark.”
“Where have you just come from?” This was the first voice again. She still sounded irritated.
“Storerooms, if you must know.”
“Did you see anything?”
Eline, Vree realized, had come through the curtain. You didn’t see anything…
“Lotta dark. Nothin’ else.” He yawned, noisily. “Don’t expect to neither. Fool’s hunt this.”
“At least they’ve put a fool on it.”
“Up yours, too,” Eline told her genially. “Come on,” he snarled at his silent companions. After a moment, Vree heard the stone pick up the scuff of their footsteps.
“What is it?” The boy’s patrol was still in the room.
“Something’s not right …”
“That’d be Eline,” muttered a second woman.
The first snickered and agreed.
Vree waited until the beads stopped whispering warnings against each other, then rose swiftly to her feet, cushions tumbling forward. Although training and instinct both told her she was alone, exposing herself a little at a time would do no good if someone had been left behind.
No one waited in the gray wash of starlight that spilled though the arced window.
No one.
She crossed the faint trail dragged through the air behind a heavily sweating body and stood by the curtain.
No sound.
Bannon …?
There was nothing on the other side except corridor. Stairs curved down the outside wall to her right, gray shading quickly to black, and a narrow hall disappeared in darkness to her left.
Bannon! She’d have heard it if he were captured or killed, but knowing that didn’t stop the sudden erratic beating of her heart. Patrols coming at him from two directions. He can’t go back because the curtain keeps him from seeing how close the danger is. The only thing he can do is go on. Her back pressed against the wall, eyes useless in the total lack of light, Vree followed. They’d planned for separation the way soldiers planned for the loss of an arm or a leg in battle.
A change in air currents drew her to the other side of the corridor where questing fingers found an arched and open doorway. With a patrol on his heels, Bannon would’ve gone through it. She slid one foot forward and the toe of her soft boot nudged up against a step. The governor’s quarters were on the top floor of the tower. Bannon would’ve gone up these stairs. Fully aware she’d be trailing him, and as much able to put himself in her place as she could put herself in his, he’d wait for her the moment he found a hole secure from passing patrols.
The stairs, barely wide enough for two to walk abreast, rose straight from darkness to the gray outline of another door and offered no security.
Halfway to the top, Vree grunted as the stone dipped first to the right then the left and the height of the risers abruptly changed. Any intruder who ran up these stairs would be in for a rude shock and a painful stumble if not an out-and-out fall. It was a simple precaution but—on other occasions with other intruders—an effective one.
The stairs ended at a balcony set into the side of the tower. A pair of narrow windows looked out onto it and a low stone balustrade separated it from the night. Nowhere to hide, no choice but to keep moving. As Vree crawled rapidly toward the far end, the large, complicated set of chimes hanging between the two windows caught her attention. Shrine to the winds. South wind, she amended, glancing over her shoulder at the position of the stars.
Flat on her belly against the cool tiles, she slid sideways and carefully snagged the lowest of the pale blue ceramic disks. Although she wore Jiir’s medallion around her neck, the Goddess of Battles had never insisted on exclusive worship and Vree firmly believed in taking every possible precaution. Overhead, bits of paper and fabric hung limp in the still air. With nothing to tie to the shrine with her prayer, Vree smudged a bit of charcoal across the center of the disk. Then she smiled. The bottom curve had already been marked.
Bannon.
Another long flight of stairs, identical to those she’d just climbed, finally brought her to the top floor of the tower. Flames danced in the copper bowls of open lamps set into the wall all down the short corridor and more light spilled out through an open door halfway down one side.
The governor’s apartments. If there’d been a guard, Bannon would have waited in the darkness at the top of the stairs. He’d know she was close behind him and that it was vital the guard not give the alarm. But he wasn’t waiting. So there hadn’t been a guard. With no cover in the corridor, he’d be waiting just inside the first room.
Why hadn’t there been a guard?
Squinting, senses straining, Vree moved toward the light. The banded wooden door had not only been left open but secured back. She frowned. An open door was an invitation to enter. A trap? Possibly.
Where was Bannon?
The room was empty. No furniture, no brother, no governor. Only green and white tiles, a large hanging lamp, and yet another open door.
Something was wrong.
The hair on the back of her neck lifted and she was halfway across the room before she realized she’d moved. Fists clenched against her thighs, she forced herself to be still, to listen…
Nothing in the next room.
But in the room after…
Something large fell; too large for even the plushest carpet to absorb the impact.
Vree had heard bodies fall on every surface, in every state of dying.
The taste of iron in her throat, she ran.
The second room passed in a blur of shelves and scrolls and books and a low table she went over not around.
In the third room was a carved wooden bed, the embroidered coverlet a tumbled heap of jeweled brilliance in the lamplight. Crumpled at the foot of the bed, was a body.
Not Bannon.
Her heart started beating again and training surged past the remnants of her panic.
The old man collapsed at the foot of the bed fought to hold onto life. His lungs struggled to lift the weight of his ribs high enough to breathe. His hands spasmed against the rich folds of his robe. His fingertips, lips, and eyelids were already tinged with blue.
On the carpet beside him was a metal goblet and on the carpet beside the goblet, a spreading stain.
Vree dropped to one knee and bent over the spilled wine, then straightened and spat the scent of poison off her tongue. A certain death but far too slow. Still on one knee, she studied the old man.
Governor Aralt.
Why he’d chosen to kill himself when he knew the Empire would save him the bother was a question best left between him and his gods.
Where was Bannon?
She’d seen his mark at the wind shrine; he had to have come this way. An irrational fear began to drag icy fingers down her spine and she desperately searched for another answer. The room was crowded with heavy pieces of furniture piled with cushions and draped with silk—an unattractive mix of north and south that could provide a hundred hiding places for her brother. Was he here? Had he come in, found the governor, heard her coming, and hid? It was the sort of stupid joke he might find amusing.
So would she if it meant the end of being without him.
She couldn’t have gone past him and he wouldn’t have gone on, so he had to be here.
“Haul your ass out of cover, Bannon, and let’s get going. This isn’t funny.”
Her whisper pierced the shadowed corners, pierced the shroud that dying had wrapped around the governor.
He opened his eyes. Unfamiliar features twisted into a familiar expression. “Vree …”
She stared, not believing.
“Vree …” Cold fingers clutched at her wrist and pressed out a pattern only her brother knew.
The world became a dark and unfamiliar place. “Bannon?”
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