Leaves of Flame (23 page)

“We don’t need to retrieve the knife.”

Hiroun started at the hoarse voice, and then everyone turned as Shaeveran raised himself to a seated position, leaning on one arm.

“What do you mean?” Eraeth barked. “Of course we need to retrieve the knife. They stole it!”

Colin shook his head, then grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet and joined them at the fire. None of the Alvritshai offered to help. “The knife is unimportant now.”

“You learned something from the Well,” Aeren stated.

Colin settled in near the fire. “Walter and the Wraiths have been busy.”

“What do you mean?” Siobhaen asked this time. “We haven’t heard or seen anything from them for nearly thirty years. Since the Winter Tree, our only reports of altercations with them have been from those who dare to venture outside the Seasonal Trees’ influence.”

“We haven’t heard from them because they’ve been working far to the east, out past the dwarren’s borders, where none of the three Seasonal Trees’ power can touch them.”

“What have they done?” Aeren asked.

Colin remained silent for a long moment, staring into the fire while Eraeth spitted one of the gutted and skinned rabbits and set it to roast over the flames. Hiroun had already done the same for one of Siobhaen’s.

“I think he’s awakened another Well,” he finally said. “And by the force of the currents in the Lifeblood, by the way it’s altering the channels, it’s large. Bigger than any of the Wells I’ve located within the lands of the three races here in New Andover. That’s why the storms over the dwarren plains and Alvritshai lands have returned, and why they seem so much more powerful so quickly. And
that’s why there are lights on the tundra here when there are no reports of such lights in the Alvritshai Scripts. Whatever Walter has awakened, it’s completely upset the balance of the Lifeblood. We need to find out what he’s done and repair it if possible. The theft of the knife is nothing in comparison.”

Eraeth scowled and twisted the end of the spit viciously. Fat sizzled in the fire beneath.

“Are you certain it’s Walter?” Siobhaen asked.

“It must be. I know of no one else who would even attempt such a thing.”

The small group considered his words in silence, while the rest of the rabbit was cleaned and readied for the spit.

Finally, Aeren said, “Then we must go east, to see what Walter and the Wraiths are trying to accomplish. And to stop them.”

Colin was already shaking his head. “No. I can’t allow it. Moiran will not allow it.”

Aeren stiffened where he sat. “Moiran does not decide the fate of the Rhyssal House, or its lord.”

Colin smiled. “I’m certain she’d disagree. But it doesn’t matter. I need you in Caercaern, watching Lotaern. The knife may be unimportant, but whatever Lotaern intends to do with it isn’t. You need to remain behind to contend with him.”

“So you intend to travel east on your own?” Eraeth asked.

“If necessary.” As Eraeth drew breath to argue, he added, “But no. What Walter has done has happened on the edges of dwarren lands, and whatever he intends to do, it will affect the dwarren first. I intend to seek the dwarren’s help.”

Aeren frowned. “You would trust the dwarren over the Alvritshai, over me?”

“Not over you or Eraeth or Moiran. But over Lotaern and most of the Lords of the Evant… yes. The dwarren
have accepted me since the Escarpment, and in many respects they are better equipped to deal with the Shadows and the Wraiths. Their shamans are powerful.”

“So is the Order, so are the acolytes,” Siobhaen added defensively.

Colin frowned at her, long enough that her stiffness faltered. “Perhaps. But the dwarren have made a ritual of hunting the Shadows and the Wraiths, of killing them. They form war parties called trettarus to hunt them down. If I am going to search the Wraiths out, I’d rather have the shaman-­blessed dwarren warriors at my side.”

Siobhaen appeared stung by the mild rebuke, her eyes narrowing in anger.

“You can’t travel to them alone,” Aeren said. “Not in your condition. What about the humans? They have lands close to the east as well. You should contact them, see if they are willing to help.”

Colin snorted in disdain. “Those in the Provinces would not help me. I am nothing but a legend to them. No one who remembers me from the Escarpment is still alive, and those in power now are too caught up in the politics between the old continent and the new. The Feud may have ended, and the Provinces freed from the Court and the Families back home, but there are still ties binding them together. I doubt King Justinian would recognize me if I showed up in his Court, let alone trust me enough to give me aid.”

“I will accompany you to the dwarren lands, and beyond.”

Siobhaen’s announcement shocked them all, Aeren rocking back where he sat as if he’d been pushed, Eraeth merely going still with a suspicious frown.

“I thought you’d want to return to the Sanctuary,” Colin said carefully.

“After defying Vaeren? I’m not certain what kind of welcome I would get.”

“You don’t answer to Vaeren,” Eraeth said tightly. “You answer to the Chosen.”

“But Lotaern listens to Vaeren, more so than most.” Siobhaen met Eraeth’s glare and didn’t flinch.

Aeren didn’t trust her either, not after what had happened with Vaeren, and not after what he’d seen Siobhaen do in the temples as they made their way northward, but he said nothing when Colin said, “Very well.”

But he intended to have words with Colin when neither Siobhaen nor Eraeth would overhear. He didn’t like how she’d inserted herself into the group, didn’t like how intrusive it felt, no matter that she’d stayed to protect them from the sukrael. He had the entire trip back to his House lands to convince Colin to leave her behind, and to accept a contingent of Rhyssal House guards as well.

“It may be moot,” Eraeth muttered, his voice nearly a growl. “We may catch up to Vaeren and the others before we reach Gaurraenan’s halls.”

Siobhaen glanced away abruptly, but it was Colin who answered, taking one of the spits from the fire, the rabbit glistening in the light, the meat charred. The smell had permeated the area and Aeren’s stomach rumbled. Meals had been lean the last few days as they awaited Eraeth’s return.

“We won’t run into the other members of the Flame,” Colin said succinctly, then tore into the meat, hissing as the hot fat seared his fingers. He still stuffed a piece of the rabbit into his mouth.

“Why not?”

“Because Vaeren isn’t headed back to Gaurraenan’s halls. He’s headed to the chambers beneath the mountains behind Caercaern. Isn’t he, Siobhaen?”

She sat completely still, eyes narrowed at Colin, who ignored her, focusing on his meal. Hiroun had taken his own rabbit and was eating it as well, while Eraeth had rescued both his own and Aeren’s from the flames.

Finally, Siobhaen murmured, “That is true.”

Perhaps he wouldn’t need to warn Colin about trusting Siobhaen after all.

“Are we returning the same way, or are we risking Gaurraenan’s halls again?”

“I doubt that Lotaern would allow us entrance through the corridors beneath Caercaern. Tamaell Theadoren would demand it, but we have no way of contacting him to make the Chosen open the doorway. We’ll have to risk returning though the tunnel and pass.” Colin glanced up. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan on being conscious when we pass through the halls.”

“Then how are you going to make it through the tunnels?” Eraeth asked.

Colin grinned around a mouthful of greasy rabbit. “I expect you to carry me.”

Tuvaellis reached up to tug at the cowl that shadowed her face from the sailors, prostitutes, and vagabonds that crowded the wharf and docks along the north end of Corsair. Her hands were gloved, to cover the swirling darkness of the sarenavriell that roiled beneath her skin, but she could not force herself to stoop to hide the difference in her height from the humans on the docks. Her lips pursed in distaste as she glared out at them, scurrying to and fro, laughing raucously or shouting from the ships tied up along the entire length of the northern shore for as far as she could see. She had never been to Corsair, the human capital of the Provinces, but Walter had told her to expect… chaos. He’d smiled as he warned her, but he had not mentioned the squalid stench, the reek of fish and sweat and shit that she’d encountered as she’d made her way down from the more civilized streets and inns closer to the massive walls of the keep beneath the towering spire called the Needle.

She glanced toward the Needle, careful to keep her face in shadow. Out of all of Corsair, which sprawled from the heights of the cliffs at the mouth of the inlet down across both shores of the wide swath of blue-­black water between, to the river that fed the inlet to the east, the Needle was the most impressive building she had seen. It rivaled some of the Alvritshai’s own masterpieces, even some of those that had been abandoned in the northern wastes. Impossibly thin, reaching to a height that she could not judge against the backdrop of the clouded winter sky, and built of a pale white stone that had weathered into a yellow tinged with pink, she could not fathom how the weakling humans had managed to construct it. At its apex, during storms and at night, a light flared from the blackened windows to warn ships of the rocks beneath the cliffs of the narrow corridor that gave access to the inlet and protected the city from the harshest of the Arduon Ocean’s winter storms. Even now, wind thrashed in the pennants at its height, the clouds streaming eastward above it, although here at the docks everything was calm.

The palace beneath the Needle was coarse in comparison, a gray stone monstrosity that had been constructed around the base of the lighthouse and had grown over the years without any clear shape or form. Like the rest of the city, Tuvaellis thought, letting her gaze drop to the houses beneath the palace walls, spread across the hill where it sloped down to the waters of the inlet. At least beneath the palace there was some attention to form, the streets laid out in a pattern interrupted only sporadically by a plaza or park or fountain out-­of-­place with the rest of the natural order. But once her eyes reached the ramshackle streets of the commoners bordering the water, both on the north end and the south, all the way to the mouth of the river.…

“Chaos,” she muttered under her breath and scowled.

A laborer, carrying a crate across one shoulder, jostled
her and her hand fell to the small dagger at her side, hidden beneath her gray cloak. The man barked a harsh, “Out of the way!” as he continued down the dock to a waiting ship. Tuvaellis considered killing him. She could feel the dagger cutting into his throat, could smell the spill of blood, could almost taste it. She’d kill him and be gone before his body hit the dock, and all anyone would see would be the blurred flicker of a figure in a gray cloak.…

The temptation was nearly too much, but she restrained herself, glanced toward the harsh glow of the sun hidden behind the layer of clouds, then back to the crush of bodies on the dock, searching.

Her contact was late. Had he been held up in the palace? Would he have sent a runner if he had?

No. He wouldn’t risk it. He’d come himself or not at all.

Even as she thought it, she spotted Matthais’ figure among the crowd, working his way toward her. His blond hair was easy to pick out among the mostly darker browns and blacks of the dockworkers, but it was the cut of his cloak—­gray, like hers—­that set him apart. That and his girth. Nearly all of the commoners at the dock were thin, although most had wiry muscle; Matthais was twice their size. Tuvaellis wondered why he had chosen to meet her here, at the docks, when it was so obvious that neither one of them fit in.

Matthais smiled as he drew closer, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He regarded her with an intensity she found surprising, cold and harsh and much more intelligent than she had expected.

“Excuse my lateness,” he said as he drew up in front of her, his gaze passing swiftly over the area. They had met at the end of one of the docks on the wharf, the ocean lapping at the supports beneath them, the press of the day workers on all sides. Yet Tuvaellis felt that Matthais’ single glance had picked up every detail around them, from the men and
women who plied their wares to the wharf cats that twisted among the commoners’ feet. “King Justinian had business that I could not excuse myself from easily, not without drawing undue attention.”

“And meeting here, at the wharf, will not draw enough attention?” Tuvaellis asked snidely.

Matthais grinned. “Not from the men and women who matter. Besides, I was told you needed a discreet ship, sailing for Andover immediately. One whose captain would not question who his passenger was, nor ask any bothersome questions during the passage across the Arduon. Such ships are to be found here.”

“And you have such a ship?”

“The
Mary Gently
, a trading ship set to leave for Trent in Andover at the next tide.”

Tuvaellis straightened where she stood and scanned the ships within sight, noting the
Mary Gently
tied to the dock two lengths down. Her lip curled up at its size and shape. Not one of the larger traders, it had only two masts, had not been freshly painted in the last year, and showed some weathering. But its deck was clean and the sails appeared properly stowed. The crew appeared clean as well, more so than some of the ships at berth near it.