"Wait," Dante said. A band of darkness circled his left arm where he'd made the scratch. He tried to draw the trace away, but it held fast.
Blays laughed. "That thing's like a dog whose master just came home from war. Or me when I finally get to see Minn again."
Naran's face looked like he'd bitten into an undercooked drumstick. "Something separated from what it used to have for so long it thought it would never taste it again."
After several more fruitless attempts to get the trace to move to his hand, Dante jabbed the pad of his left thumb. As soon as the first bead of blood bulged from his skin, the trace rushed toward his thumb and stuck there like pine sap.
"Seems to have a thing for blood." Dante watched it a moment, then moved to the next dark star emblazoned on Snake Rock. "The Confession said Kon simply combined traces until he had an Andrac. Based on the size of these, it's going to take at least a hundred until a demon forms. Let's see if I can combine two."
Blays rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. "You know, if at some point that does turn into a demon, you probably don't want to be holding it in your hands. Just a thought."
Dante kneeled on the shelf of rock and dabbed his blood next to a spot of flat orange lichen. At his command, the trace slid to the fresh blood. There were some two dozen black stars scattered around Snake Rock, but doubting that would be enough, Dante summoned plain nether to the trace he'd managed to manipulate. Typically, you could add as many shadows to each other as you had the skill to summon, but these ones slid off the trace without the slightest bit of mingling.
"I don't think you can make an Andrac from raw nether," Dante said. "Only the traces. I suspect they've been changed by their contact with a soul."
He moved on to a second trace, using a drop of blood to coax it from its spot on the rock. As soon as it touched the first trace, the two melded together like drops of oil in a warming pan. The shadows flowed into a circle, edges rippling as they expanded, then became still again.
"One down," Dante said. "Gods know how many to go."
Using the torchstone to light the rock, Dante located a third star and brought it to the larger circle. It combined as readily as the first two. Advancing along the edge of the short drop where the doomed Mallish had made their final stand, he came to a cluster of three stars. He joined them together, then led them over to the first group. They swirled into a single whole. The pool of nether was now the size of a small plate. Dante moved along the rock, bent low, sweeping the torchstone around to reveal the next trace.
"Dante," Blays said. Dante reached out his bloody thumb to press it against the rock and draw a trail back to the conglomeration. Blays socked him on the shoulder. "Dante!"
Dante straightened. Blays drew his swords with a rasp. Previously, the others had been watching from the flattened ground where Snake Rock protruded from the slope. Now, they were scrambling uphill.
Dante followed their gaze to where he'd gathered the traces. There, a black silhouette no more than nine inches tall spread its arms, flexed its tiny claws, and tipped back its head to the sky.
22
Raxa stood in the clearing before Carvahal's Wall. Her ears roared. Her heart thumped. Her feet felt like they weighed a million pounds. On top of the wall, Venk beckoned her forward. She couldn't make herself move.
"What's the matter?" Grinning, Gaits gave her a shove toward the wall. "Are you so used to taking things that aren't yours that you don't know how to treat something that is?"
She creaked with laughter and lurched forward. The crowd parted, funneling her toward the wall. Venk tossed a rope down from the top, but climbing walls was one of the first things you learned as a lowling, and the crumbling, ancient wall had so many hand- and footholds that a two-year-old could have scaled it. She heaved herself up next to Venk.
Solemnly, he watched her. "Raxa Dosse, the legions have chosen you as Grand High Chief of Street and Knife. Do you accept their decision?"
She still wasn't certain this was real. Or that it was what she wanted. She'd joined the Order for the freedom. As its leader, she'd be tied down by responsibilities. Politics. And the position itself: once you crossed from soldier to general, you didn't get much time at the front lines.
But Kerreven had been right about her. She was meant to be much more than a foot soldier. She would build the Order of the Alley as high as the Cathedral of Ivars or the Sealed Citadel.
And she would stand on top of it.
She winked at Venk. "Yes."
He nodded. "You swear to protect those the city would hang? To fear no midnight? To carry the knife against priest and king?"
"I swear it."
He smiled crookedly. "Then the Order of the Alley is yours to command."
As if from nowhere, he produced a black iron crown. Its points were the tips of daggers. He lowered it over her head. It was heavy, but the weight felt good.
She turned to the faces below her and lifted her right hand. They thrust up their fists and cheered. As the cheering died out, they continued to watch her. Expecting.
Out of the corner of her mouth, she murmured, "Give your new regent a hand?"
Venk lowered his face to peer up at her from beneath his eyebrows. "A speech is traditional."
Raxa cleared her mind, then her throat. She lifted her voice. "You brought me up here to win a war. Tomorrow, we bring out the blades. Tonight? We get out the cups and we drink. To Kerreven. To all who've fallen and all who will fall before this is done. But most of all, we drink to each other. Our family in the night. The Order of the Alley!"
She was tempted to blink away. Just for an instant. Enough to make them think their eyes were playing tricks on them. Add another whisper to her legend.
But secrets were power. Only fools gave them away.
Raxa hopped down from the wall and rolled into the grass. As she popped to her feet, Gaits thrust a flask in her hand. The rum burned her throat, but some things were meant to burn.
* * *
Hunched over like everything hurt, Gaits limped into the room and settled into the seat across from her. "Keep us up all night drinking, then call us to order first thing in the morning? A rather cruel start to your reign, Raxa."
"Who's worse?" Anya said from beside him. "Her, for dragging us in here so early? Or you, for making us wait?"
"Clearly not my fault. When someone cuts you with a knife, you don't blame the knife, do you? If so, we're going to need to revise the nature of the war."
Raxa spun a coin on the table, flicking its edge to keep it going. "Do you know why they chose me to lead?"
Gaits turned to her and snorted. "Please tell me you didn't drag us in here to fish for compliments."
"They chose me because one of the toughest men in the Order made the best speech of his life. If Gurles hadn't piped up, one of you two would be sitting in this chair. So as long as I'm in it instead, I want you both in the room with me."
"Whatever the Order needs," Anya said.
"Indeed." Gaits rubbed his temples. "With the caveat that vital Order war councils are never again scheduled for the morning after a vital Order party."
Raxa smiled. "If you don't want any more councils of war, then figure out how to win this one."
"That's relatively simple, isn't it? At the moment, the Little Knives are unaware their leader is deceased. It is incumbent upon us, then, to render the rest of them deceased before they know we're back at each other's throats."
"That's most logical," Anya said. "Think of their ignorance as a resource to be exploited. If we cause the Little Knives to believe we're going to hand their leader back to them, then we can ambush them."
"Good idea." Raxa had kept the coin spinning all the while. She arrested it with a fingertip and clamped it to the table. "One problem. We can't go after the Little Knives."
Gaits watched her for signs of a joke, then leaned over the table, a pained look on his face. "We can't go after the people who burned down the Marrigan. Killed our frien
ds. And assassinated our leader."
"Was that the Little Knives?"
"You seemed to think so when you nearly cut Cane Dreggs in half!"
"I have reason to believe I was wrong about that."
"Oh, what an unfortunate error. Shall we endeavor to sew him back together?"
"Leadership isn't about pretending your mistakes don't exist," she said. "It's about staring them in the eye. And taking them down."
Gaits looked to Anya for help.
Anya rested her fingers on the table. "Do you have any evidence it wasn't the Knives?"
Raxa waved her hand over the coin she'd been spinning, palming it. "Why would Cane send an assassin against Kerreven? Cane was in our custody. He had to have known that we'd blame him. And kill him for it."
"He could have assumed we had no intention of letting him out alive no matter what. That rationale would be consistent with his behavior."
"I don't think Cane felt that way. He thought Kerreven believed him. That it wasn't the Knives who hired the Army of Crows."
Anya's eyebrows twitched. "What is the evidence for that?"
Raxa stood and closed the shutters, draping the three of them in twilight. Anya watched blankly; Gaits' eyes followed her impatiently, waiting for Raxa to finish with the theatrics.
"Cane said the Crows were hired by a group—or a person—called the Black Star." Raxa returned to the table, picked up the candelabra, and lit the central candle. "One problem: I don't think he knew who the Black Star is."
"Convenient," Gaits muttered.
"The night they burned the Marrigan. When I took down the Crows trying to carry you off, I found a ring. Do you remember?"
"It had a black stone." Gaits looked up and frowned deeply. "That's quite a stretch, Raxa."
Raxa slipped the ring from her pocket and held it up to the candlelight. A four-pointed star shined within the ring's stone.
"I think the Black Star is real," she said. "And if we go after the Little Knives instead, I think the Star will finish us off."
Gaits tried to catch Anya's eye, but the other woman was staring at the ring. Gaits looked back at Raxa. "Our task, then, is to unmask an unknown enemy while somehow preventing the people we presumed to be the enemy from discovering we've murdered their leader."
"That is an accurate description of our situation," Anya said.
"I am suddenly glad to have lost the election."
"There's a way out." Raxa blew out the candle. "To find out who hired them, we go after the Crows. And to keep the Knives off our backs, we bring them on our side."
Gaits' impatient look returned. "I'm sure they'll be climbing all over each other to take us up on that offer."
"We tell the Knives their leader's dead—and the Crows killed him for getting too close to the truth."
"You expect them to swallow that?"
"Sure do. Because the Crows killed our leader, too."
* * *
Gaits stopped in the middle of the dark street. His face looked like he'd awakened to find a dead rat under his sheets. "You're sure this is the place?"
They stood across from a three-story stone structure that was difficult to look at. Not that it was ugly, or reflecting dazzling beams of light—the midnight bells had rung a few minutes back—but because its facade was broken into strange planes and angles. Blocks of stone extended and receded without reason. Ivy dangled over asymmetrical gaps that may or may not have been windows. When you looked straight at it, it was hard for the eye to make out the building's depth, or even its specific shape. Most people, after a few frustrated seconds of trying to figure out what they were looking at, glanced away.
"Sure enough," Raxa said. "The temple of Urt."
"And why are we meeting at the temple of Urt?"
"You'll have to ask Vess."
She moved back a step, drawing out of Gaits' peripheral vision, then slipped into the shadows. The very next moment, she returned. She was gone so briefly that even someone staring right at her in full sunlight might not have noticed. But that instant she spent in the other world left the nether's brightness dancing against the inside of her eyelids. Examining it, she saw no trace of people lurking in the temple's windows or ivy.
"Come on, man," she said. "If we're about to die, there's no hiding from Arawn."
She continued toward the temple. The meet was leadership only and she and Gaits were alone. Anya had wanted to come too, but if the Little Knives were intending to ambush them, Raxa had no intention of putting the Order in position to be decapitated in one fell swoop.
A trellis overhung the approach to the front doors. It was as crooked as a stomped-on snake, its slats choked with thorny vines. The doors turned out to be false: painted onto the wall, shaded to give them depth. Raxa moved past the impostor entrance and located the real doors, which were set at an angle to the path and painted to match the basalt wall they were set into. A big nasty bug like a cross between a dragonfly and a cockroach was painted above them. She put her hand on her sword's hilt and opened the door.
This opened into what appeared to be a blank, closet-sized room. Under harder light, the doorway in the right-hand wall might have been invisible, but the dimness cast a shadow revealing the way out. The door took them into a blessedly straight hallway that led to a high-roofed, partially enclosed chamber that was either a courtyard or an indoor garden.
"Are you two it?" A woman's voice slipped between the leaves and trunks. The accent sounded south of the Dundens, though Raxa didn't know Mallon and those places well enough to pin it down.
Raxa stopped, eyes roving the darkness. "I'm Raxa Dosse. This is Gaits. We're alone."
A stout, well-muscled woman emerged from the shadows. A dark scarf wrapped her blond hair. She would be Vess, the acting leader—or so she claimed—of the Little Knives. And the three not-so-little men behind her would be the bodyguards she wasn't supposed to have brought.
"Good you came alone," she said. She held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Now this much chance you're not a killer and a liar."
Raxa stared pointedly at the bodyguards. "Does that mean there's no hope for you?"
"You're the one's got Cane captive. Just making sure you don't try to do the same to me."
"Excuse me if my ignorance is offensive." Gaits turned up his right palm and made a slight twirl of his wrist, indicating the walls. "Why here?"
Vess smirked. "Three reasons. For first, it's holy ground. Maybe that won't mean nothing to you. But you be damn sure it means something to the god whose ground you stain. Second, you all think Carvahal and his one eye keeps watch over his children in the streets. Maybe true. Me, though, Urt's the only one to keep my secrets safe."
"And the third reason?"
"The monks here, they live in barrels 29 days out of the month. They come out before they're supposed to and they get their heads beaten with sticks. They won't never know we were here."
"Aha," Gaits said. "Very astute."
Vess sniffed and looked back to Raxa. "We made hellos. Talked pleasant. You want this talk to go any further, you tell me where to pick up Cane."
Raxa's heart quickened. "I can't do that."
Vess pressed her lips into a thin line. "Then I can't stop these mean bastards from slitting your throat."
"I can't give you Cane because Cane's dead. And so's Kerreven."
The blond woman's hand jerked. A stiletto appeared in her grip, its tip aimed at Raxa's heart. Behind her, the three men drew long, thin swords.
Raxa made no move for her weapon. "You don't want to do that."
"You think you can see my heart? You better look again."
"Kerreven sent me to kill Cane. I was in Cane's room. Alone with him. Ready to cut his throat. Then Cane told me your people weren't behind the attacks. I believed his story enough to bring him in alive. When Kerreven heard what Cane had to say, he believed it, too. We were working on figuring out who the real attackers were when the assassin came for them."
"Bullshit." Vess took a shuffling step forward, body turned sideways. "You kill Cane, then try to bury your crime by lying that Kerreven's dead, too."
"Someone set you up to take the fall—and set us up to take you down. Kill me tonight, and you guarantee they win."
"Why would that someone do this?"
Raxa shook her head. "Has to be an up-and-comer. A minor gang looking to clear the decks above them. Get the Order and the Knives to kill each other off, then swoop in and scoop up our turf. And all it costs is the money to hire the Army of Crows."
Vess bared her teeth. "Or you're the worm looking to wriggle off the hook."
"You know your people didn't attack us. Cane thought the culprit was a group called the Black Star. You want to pick this fight up again later, that's your call. But they want us to destroy each other. Do you want to play their game? Or do you want to make them pay for what they've done to us?"
The other woman eased her posture a fraction of an inch, but the stiletto remained a thrust away from Raxa's heart. "How did it happen?"
Raxa shut her eyes. "Cane thought he had a songbird. Brought him in to tell us what he knew about the Black Star. Instead, the bird put the knife to Kerreven. Then Cane. Birdie cut his own throat before we knew what was happening."
One of the men behind Vess cursed. Raxa reopened her eyes. Vess was staring at her, stone-faced. "This story. It could be believed, but how do I know it's true?"
"You don't."
"So I got nothing to go on but my own judgment. Son of the bitch. How you mean to dig into the Black Star? Start hauling in Crows?"
"That's the idea. After they burned down the Marrigan, they went to ground. From what I hear, they're starting to trickle back into the city."
Vess scoffed. "Full pockets and an empty head. They should be drinking in Dollendun, not coming back to wallow in the crime. If their discipline's that bad, it won't take no time to crack the answers out of them."
Gaits cleared his throat. "Does that mean we're leaving here as allies?"
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