guards raised their weapons, Hirsch gazed deep into Josey’s eyes.
“Did it bite you?”
His tone was harsh, almost commanding, but there was concern in his eyes, true apprehension for her welfare. With her free hand, Josey held the advancing soldiers in abeyance.
“No.”
“Are you sure? Even a scratch-”
“No,” she repeated, firmer this time. “Why? What did you see?”
Hirsch let go of her arm. Hubert recovered enough to put himself between them. Josey was touched by the gesture, but if the adept meant to harm her she felt certain no one in the room could have stopped him.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “What did you see?”
“Your man was killed by a voldak, a creature of the Shadow that survives on human blood. This body must be burned at once.”
Josey looked around the table. Everyone’s face was marred by confusion. A year ago she would have laughed at those words, but she had been through a lot since then. She wanted to think she had grown up.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
Hirsch pointed to the neck wounds. “The voldak injects a paralytic toxin with its bite when it wants to kill, and then drains the body of blood. But certain contagions can also be spread by means of the monster’s saliva, so precautions must be-”
“God’s breath!” Duke Mormaer said. “Enough of this farce. Take this man away before we’re all bewildered by his words.”
“No,” Josey said. “I believe he is telling the truth.”
“Are you a seer now as well, Majesty?”
“I am your liege, Your Grace. As such, I expect you to believe me when I say I saw my manservant stabbed repeatedly before he leapt from my chamber window. Only to find the same man, moments later, dead on the floor of my chamber.”
Their gazes remained locked for a moment, and then Duke Mormaer turned on his heels and strode out of the chamber. Josey looked to Hubert.
“Burn the body.” Then she said to Hirsch, “Does that solve the problem?”
“Yes, but it’s only the tip of the tower. You remain in very serious danger.” Hirsch gestured to Fenrik as a pair of guardsmen hoisted the body. “Your servant was chosen for his advanced age and his access to your person, but the voldak is still at large.”
A hollow pain yawned in Josey’s chest, as if her heart had fallen down to her stomach. She had been prepared for any answer, even the prospect of treachery within her household, but not the thought of her friends dying for their proximity to her. She looked to Anastasia. I must send her away to somewhere safe.
Hirsch placed a hand over his chest. “I offer my protection to your person in the name of the Enclave, until such time as the killer is caught.”
Josey didn’t know what to do, but the sincerity in his eyes convinced her.
“I accept,” she said.
Ignoring the streaks of blood on the table, she sat down. She wanted a glass of wine, perhaps several.
“Your first task, Master Hirsch,” she said, “is to tell us everything you know about the assassin, and how we can stop him from killing again.”
Chair legs scraped against the floor tiles as the remaining members of the council seated themselves. The adept pulled back Mormaer’s chair and sat down.
While he began his lecture, Josey signaled to one of the guards. All of a sudden she was famished.
CHAPTER NINE
C aim pitched forward as a stray root snagged his toe. With both hands bound behind his back, he would have fallen if not for the men holding him upright.
They had been marching for some time now, first across snow-covered fields and then along a hunting trail through woods that turned out to be deeper and more extensive than he first assumed. The trees grew taller than Caim had ever seen before, some more than ten times his height. Masses of black briars with finger-long thorns made travel in a straight line impossible. In the distance rose the dark outlines of hills against the starry sky. If they were the southern tip of the Kilgorms, that would put him roughly southwest of Liovard.
His captors were fifteen cloaked men, including Keegan and his large comrade. Kit flitted among them, peering under their hoods and occasionally darting ahead. Every so often she returned to report her findings, which weren’t much. They were local men, which he had already guessed. None of them wore anything heavier than a thick woolen jacket, but each man held some type of implement in hand, however, whether it was a simple truncheon or a rusty thresher. The big man, Ramon, was their leader, although how Kit discovered that when the men hardly spoke was a mystery to Caim.
A light appeared through the trees ahead. Small and flickering at first, it grew brighter as they traveled, even as the path became more uneven, sometimes disappearing altogether for a few yards before it reappeared. Another few minutes brought the party to a wide clearing lit up by three bonfires. Sturdy boles as wide as a man’s height surrounded a patch of ground seventy paces across.
His captors ushered Caim to the center between the fires and surrounded him. Most of the solemn faces watching him were bearded and sun-bronzed. They wore their hair long, some in braids. Their garb was wool and buckskin. These were men of the earth who toiled for their bread, not soldiers, and certainly not practiced killers. Keegan stood in the circle. In the firelight it looked like the youth was poking himself in the leg repeatedly with his sword. While Ramon pawed through his satchel, Caim tested his bonds. The cord was rough hemp; strong, but it had some give to it.
“What are you going to do?” Kit whispered from above him, like she thought these men might overhear.
Caim shot her a glance instead of replying and noticed something odd. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, but then she moved to hover before him and the effect remained the same. She appeared less solid than normal, if that word could be applied to Kit. Faded. Caim bunched his hands into fists behind his back. Another damned mystery, as if he didn’t have enough trouble on his plate.
Ramon dropped Caim’s bag on the ground. His cloak hung open, revealing a white fur mantle draped across his shoulders. “Who are you?”
Caim looked the big man up and down. “You tell me. You seem to think you already know.”
“Feisty little shit, ain’t he?” another woodsman said. “Sounds like one of Eviskine’s Nimean lapdogs by the way he talks.”
Caim recognized the man and his boar spear from the roadhouse. He had long hair, black as pitch, and a strong, square chin.
The other spearman from the roadhouse stood beside him. “Maybe he’s a priest sent by the Church to help us.”
The black-haired woodsman smacked his fellow in the back of the head. “The Church and its priests can go fuck themselves! They ain’t never done us no favors, unless it was holding out their hands for an honest man’s coin.”
“Coins, he has.” Ramon held out a hand. Gold and silver glittered on his palm. “Enough to buy Glynburn Abbey. All Nimean mint. Did the duke send you to sniff out our whereabouts?”
As the woodsmen leered at the coins, Caim relaxed his shoulders. “I’m done answering questions until I know who’s asking them.”
Ramon pulled out his great axe and set the head on the ground between his feet. “You already know my name. Ramon, thane of the Gilbaern clan. The rest of these lads are my men. Now, answer my question before I kill you where you stand. Are you a spy for Eviskine?”
“I’m from Nimea,” Caim replied. “But I am no man’s spy.”
“He’s lying,” a slack-jawed man said. “You can see it in his eyes.”
Caim fixed the man with a glance. “Insult me again and I will not forget it.”
