Not now! the voices roared. We must find the rogue!
“They have failed us,” Taul murmured. Was this how the Naukvyrae and their ilk felt? Was this the injustice they railed against?
Vengeance today, or in a cycle, said a new voice.
Was it a priestess? A matron?
I am a second daughter and kithvyrae. She seemed to laugh at his surprise. Who will drive the first dagger but a priestess?
There! cried the voices. The trail wisped down a tunnel.
Follow! Follow! Follow!
Taul obeyed and entered the dark tunnel. There were no vendors here and not a single light.
Look! Look! Look!
Taul’s eyes adjusted—the world was turning inside out—as the dark became light before him. The trail twisted through the vastness and deeper down into another tunnel.
I won’t go deeper, he thought.
You must! House above all!
He would pick up the rogue’s trail tomorrow in the outer market. He knew where the man lived, his favorite taverns and haunts. It could wait.
His spine heated, and he doubled over to vomit. He wiped his nose, and it came away slick and sticky. He’d worn the devices too long.
We are leaving, he thought, trying to impose his will.
Listen, the priestess said.
A thudding noise sounded from deeper within, and then scraping like a massive claw dragging across stone. Taul backed away toward the main market chamber.
Too much for you, the elder said. The voices calmed.
What was that sound?
The voices didn’t answer. He wouldn’t wait to find out and darted back toward the market. Once back in the tunnel he’d entered from, he removed all the devices except that which housed the priestess’s voice.
“Can you lead me out?” he asked her.
Warmth spread through his shoulders and cupped his jaw. She seemed eager to continue the search despite the elder’s warning. Such was the desire to protect one’s house, even here in a phantom presence.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
I’ll lead you, she said.
41
Ren couldn’t shake his stalker.
He shivered. Chilly rain beat down on the valley, carried over the great cliffs by a massive storm, one worthy of the sea god. It had rampaged through the valley, tempered by ancient magic with each mile until now, where it drizzled, disempowered of its rage, on the white and gray world of Outer Halkamas. The sun shone bright through the curtain of rain and everything in the streets looked a washed out gray. Linens and clothes hung from lines across the alleyways. They flapped lazily like tournament banners. Their gray sludge filled the potholes.
He turned into a plaza and rushed across. This was the better part of Outer Halkamas, called the Ridge. Upon this ridge, proper houses had estates, forges and other artisanal workshops. The streets here were clean and free of beasts—especially the human variety. Knights and guards patrolled their house’s boundaries.
He’d never been a mark before—not that he’d ever noticed. He smacked his head with his left palm, cursing himself for not practicing. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw nothing, as if the rain had washed away any trace of his opponent. He’d played in a god’s garden, and now that god collected its due. He should send word to his master, but what kind of assassin was he if he couldn’t shake a single Dark?
His heart sank.
Unless it was his own master keeping tabs on him. Or worse, the Naukvyrae had finally tired of his antics. He’d always dreaded that, but his master had told him not to worry about them. Shadows and ghosts to scare lesser people, his master had said.
Shadows and ghosts could still kill.
The rain eased, and Ren thanked the goddess. Rain made it harder to pull off the disguise he’d planned for the job. He glanced over his shoulder and growled as a familiar white wisp cut through the flailing tendrils of Dark. His stalker was relentless. It had to be the Naukvyrae.
He slipped into a mid-tier boarding house where he rented a room, rushing up the steps quickly before he annoyed the guests in the neatly appointed parlor. At the top of the stairs, he glanced behind him. No one followed him inside. His assassin—what else could he be?—would wait outside for him. He had to disguise himself quickly, and it had to be the best he’d ever done.
An hour later, Ren appeared in the parlor wearing the blue and silver robe of the senior diviner, snagged off its peg earlier that day. That painted skull shouldn’t leave something so valuable just lying around. It had tempted and teased Ren, so he took it. Anyway, it served his master, their lord.
An old priestess sitting by the window gave him a nod of approval. Pleased, he exited the boarding house and stood imperious and important on the stone steps, gazing up as if to greet the stars, though it was still daylight. This was his best illusion yet and took all his effort and skill. A bald pate created with the razor-thin skin of a foreign animal covered his head and hair; near transparent it was so thin. He’d painted it to match his skin and then added diviner glyphs with a putty he’d bought in the under market. It was his most sophisticated disguise yet. A pair of diviners passed by with a faint nod. He often wondered if any of them even knew what the marks on their own heads meant.
The world looked different to him as a diviner. People bowed or nodded, depending on their rank, much more respectful. He was still shorter than most by a few inches, but his silver eyes, his light gray skin, the glowing sigils upon his head, made him fit in more.
The only bad thing was he couldn’t easily reach his knives beneath all the fabric, or swirl shadow as he often did when he was nervous. This was a different guise, one he’d been perfecting for some time, and it depended on the one-inch slug of kithaun wrapped in leather strips and hanging around his neck, beneath his tunic. One of his earliest jobs was to take a diviner’s life and store the image of him in the device. An ancient thing, his instructor had told him—himself a failed diviner, ousted because he did things he shouldn’t. His target had grown at ease in his exile until Ren’s dagger found him one day. It had taken Ren ten years to exert his will upon the kithaun device, overcoming the former owner’s will stored within. It only had one illusion though—one face. He’d never been able to store another.
He’d not asked why that diviner had to die. He just assumed the command came down from their betters. That’s how it was with Mornae. No one ever truly forgot an offense or crime or disrespect. Everything was well-ordered and lovely on the outside, but lethal within.
A clutch of priestesses, one of them rather lovely, the others with long, unfriendly faces, passed by and gave small nods. He offered more pronounced nods. Had they been matrons, he’d have bowed at the waist. First, he had to know what would make a matron stand out: the haughty eyes, the upturned chin, the clothes. He could never be absolutely certain. This was the Mornae’s other kind of magic: who was who and where in the hierarchy. Ren had practiced and was proud of how well he did it. If he failed, it would be the end of him, at least until he undid the ruse and melted into the shadows.
