“They are real, then?”

“Of course they’re real.”

“I thought perhaps it was another part of Maunyn’s ruse to place the blame elsewhere or frighten the low born. Or both.”

“You’re certain the rogue said he left their symbols behind?”

Taul tapped fingers to his right shoulder as if swearing to the goddess. He pulled it down, almost blushing. It was hard, though. The need to adhere to the so-called rules, their many rituals, was strong in him, and he had a tough time thinking otherwise.

“Perhaps you could look into it all?” he asked. “The rogue’s story suggests a pattern… perhaps throughout Vaidolin. There must be records or threads you can follow.”

“To what end?”

“The truth, brother. The truth of what is happening. Don’t you want to know why they are doing it and at such a scale?”

“And what of it? Now that you mean to do it, you’ll be a party to it. The only benefit I see is that you might gain leverage against Maunyn and the high matron.” Balniss’s brow arched, impressed with his younger brother. “I see.”

Taul grinned. “Thrive, brother. Thrive.”

“I guess I can contact some friendly diviners.”

“Discreetly.”

“You mean to go through with it?”

Taul grasped his knees and exhaled loudly. “Yes. It may be my only chance. While this man is so eager. Everything may change now. And as you said, if he’s done the deed, I must do right by the boy.”

“They seek for the acolyte’s killer day and night, even with Kiseyl hounds.”

Taul nodded. “That’s why it must be soon.”

“Nothing good comes of rushing. Even blessed Savra took a hundred years to set her mind to coming here.”

“I don’t have her time. I only have mine.”

Balniss nodded.

Taul leaned back, thrilled and excited. “And you’ll teach him, won’t you?”

“As you say.”

They sat in silence, their tumblers still full and untouched. Taul glanced at his brother, and, for the first time, he acknowledged what the members of their birth house had whispered.

Balniss held no resemblance to any of them.

Taul’s eyes stung at the thought, fighting back tears. His matron mother had said the goddess was fickle, and Taul had accepted her words as a valid answer. The chances were high Balniss wasn’t related to him except by the common ancestry all Mornae shared.

Balniss sat back and let out a relieved sigh. “It will be good to be out of the notary business and teach again. I’m sure he’ll be a capable student.”

“The best,” Taul said happily, vainly shaking away the thoughts crowding his mind. Why had the high matron sent Balniss to his family? A deep-seated fear ran through him. Could he trust his brother?

Matron Xedra prophesied long ago: “When brother no longer trusts brother, then we know the end has come.” There were similar Mornae sayings. One about priestesses, sisters, matrons, knights, squires… the whole lot. It all centered on the loss of trust. In this time, clearly the end times, trust seemed foolish indeed.

What if truth was not the foundation of their world? That world felt like it was a quickly collapsing, fragile scaffold.

He poured them both another drink and smiled at his brother. No point worrying about all that now. He’d a deal to make in the world he knew.

They sat in silence as the berries rustled in an early morning breeze.

48

Gishna sat in the side room of the scriptorium, surrounded by all the evidence of her monumental effort to free her house from its doom. None of it seemed to matter now that a thief had stolen one of her prized buds from her garden. Her chest boiled. On another day, it would please her to know her heart still functioned so well. She shifted in the hard chair, every inch pressing and pushing on her old bones.

“Do you know how valuable that boy is?” she croaked. “To me! To my house! To all of this?” She flung her arm out and waved it at the canvases lining the chamber. Her voice crinkled in the warm air. She’d had a hot stone placed by her seat to aid her, but she barely felt it.

Maunyn just stood there, grimacing.

“And you will find the acolyte’s killer. Houses are sending secret messages, worried and fearful. Must I do everything?”

He’d moved, so she searched for him with her pinhole window on the world.

“Do you hear me?” she screeched. Panic filled her, panic that he’d finally had enough and would end her. “Do you think I let you run about, cock swinging, for your own pleasure?”

She discovered him in a shadow between two beams of moonlight coming in through tall windows. His eyes narrowed; not even the least bit of anger or shame disturbed his chiseled features.

Goddess above, he was a good Mornae. He knew to keep himself constrained for his matron. They were not proper consorts. The binding was weak. It had to be. Whatever he did was out of duty to his birth house. Gishna had spared that house when they were under the knife, in hock to Ilor’Daushalan several centuries back. Such foolishness to trust an alien house! His house had faded, but he remained the last of a proud line. Now, she sent him out, as agreed, to seed the wombs of the women she pointed at. She was a general sending out a lone soldier into a ripe battlefield.

They made no pretense that he was anything but a tool. He served well. He had gifts. And some day, when she was gone, he would find a proper consort and continue his line through that woman.

Soon enough, Maunyn.

“It must be one of your ruffians getting ideas,” she said.

Maunyn just nodded. An army of thieves and thugs orbited him like moons. It must be one of them. Let him sort it out.

“If you find the boy, we’ll need to situate him well,” she said. “And press Lor’Sarstin into submission. They have the impudence to think they can trade one of yours. One of mine. Root out this treachery!”

She made to slam a gnarled fist on the armrest, but it just bobbed on the wood weakly. It was all getting too big, getting away from her. Could Julissa manage it? Did she have the aptitude and the strength necessary to focus on this all-important task? Soon her consortship would come and the pressure to produce an heiress. It must be done with care, with Kandah’s blessing. Imagine that! A high matron at the mercy of a foreign sorcerer. It was better not to think of it that way, though. He was their healer, their herbalist, their shaman. Yes, a shaman of the living, and of the past, uttering incantations and blowing smoke in their faces.

“I want more of the Zauhune bloodlines studied,” she said calming herself. “They’ve gained another patch of land down south and one in the east.”

Maunyn just flicked his eyelashes down once, the smallest of nods. He seemed out of sorts. What wasn’t he sharing with her? Do not sour the vessel, was the saying, but he was already soured. What a shame! That, too, was on her. One more transgression on the pile. She considered his many fine qualities. Best of all, he could summon the Dark with those blades of his, weaving a shell so strong neither saythelaun nor Maetar could pierce it. Even kithaun would struggle in the hands of a beginner like Nothrin Lor’Vanarik.

The god of the arena wasn’t the only one with the power of old, despite what the commoners believed. His practice was infantile compared to Mornae like Maunyn. If Zauhune ever got ideas of challenging her, they would see Hosmyr’s power at its strength. No playing around like Roturra.

“Voravin,” she whispered.

Maunyn tilted his head.