the strong grip on her wrist kept her moving. More mercenaries spread around the house, and she heard their shouts behind her. They had not yet been spotted, but how long until they were?
The tall gate loomed high to her left. She felt the tug on her wrist lead her closer and closer, until suddenly a hand clasped over her mouth, holding in her startled cry as they halted all movement.
“Shhh,” Nava hissed into Alyssa’s ear.
The faceless woman removed her cloak, the fabric making a soft sigh as it slipped through her fingers. A single word of magic and it snapped erect. Nava flung it across the bars, where it stuck like honey. The woman rolled through it, spun on her heels, and then reached back. Her hand pressed through the bars as if they were darkness, only darkness. Alyssa swallowed her fear and took her hand. A hard jerk forward, and then she was on the other side.
Nava snapped her fingers. The cloak returned to cloth, glinting as if a thousand stars were woven into its fabric. She wrapped it across her shoulders and took Alyssa’s hand. Together they fled from the shouts of soldiers and mercenaries. Alyssa gave one last look at the mansion, knowing in her heart that it would never be hers.
D eep within, Maynard stepped out from the gray tunnels winding throughout his estate. His advisor, the gray-bearded man with shaved eyebrows stood beside him. His name was Bertram Sully.
“I knew the Kulls were desperate,” Bertram said, frowning at the mess the mercenaries were making as they stamped throughout the place. “But to hire faceless women? Have they gone mad?”
“Perhaps,” Maynard said. “And I wonder what they could have offered, but that is not important, not now. The priests of Karak have sworn they would remain out of our war. It would seem that promise has finally been broken.”
Bertram stroked his beard.
“Perhaps not. The left hand does not always know the actions of the right. If this is true, then we might have an opportunity here.”
“And what is that?” Maynard asked. He kicked a nearby chair, knocking it to the floor. He had known the Kulls would try to rescue Alyssa, and he had hoped to capture a few of their kind in the attempt. How he would have loved to shave the head of that pompous Yoren and then hang him with his own golden locks. Instead, his daughter had escaped, and he had over twenty guards dead. From what he had seen, his own men had not scored a single cut.
Bertram saw his master lost in thought and waited until Maynard’s eyes looked his direction.
“Well?” Maynard asked impatiently. “What opportunity is there for us in this calamity?”
“If we confront the priests about the faceless women, they have few recourses of action. They can punish the faceless for disobedience, thereby removing the only weapon the Kulls have against us. The priests may also try to atone for the broken promise by allying with us, perhaps even giving us the service of the faceless. We can smite the Kulls with their own weapon.”
“You forgot a third option,” Maynard said. “The priests deny any involvement while secretly accepting whatever bribe the Kulls offered, and nothing changes.”
“The priests would not be so foolish as to betray the Trifect,” Bertram insisted.
“This war has made fools of everyone,” Maynard said. “But it will not happen to me again. Set up a meeting with high priest Pelarak. We will force the servants of Karak to break their neutrality, one way or another.”
“And if they refuse?”
Maynard Gemcroft’s eyes glinted with danger.
“Then we expose their existence to the city. Let the mobs burn their temple and tear them limb from limb. We shall see if they remain neutral when that is the fate I offer.”
4
G erand wound his way through the halls of the castle with an expertise acquired over the fifteen years of serving the Vaelor family line. Servants scuffled past him, and he listed off their names silently. Every new scullery maid or errand boy had to be vetted by Gerand personally. If something seemed the least bit off, he sent them away. Ever since the thief war had begun, King Edwin Vaelor had begun fearing poison, a death that could come from even the youngest of hands. Personally, Gerand found the whole ordeal exhausting. Edwin jumped at shadows, and it was Gerand’s duty to hunt them down, and it never mattered that he always revealed dust gremlins and empty corners. The monsters would come back, acid dripping down their chins and dried blood on their dagger-like claws.
Throbbing angrily, the bruise on Gerand’s forehead pulsed with every beat of his heart. He touched it gingerly, wishing Edwin had listened to his advice and outright killed Robert Haern instead of imprisoning him. The Felhorn whelp had escaped because of the meddlesome old man. Edwin’s spine seemed more akin to animal fat instead of bone, and he had been unable to execute his former teacher, no matter how estranged they might have become. Still, he would find ways to punish Robert for the blow his cane had struck him. Gerand would never say so, but he felt the castle was his, not Edwin’s, and he would command its workers and soldiers right underneath the king’s nose.
Up the circling stairs of the southwest tower he climbed, ignoring the creaking of his knees. The night was dark, and although the lower portions of the castle were alive with men cutting meat and women tossing flour and rolling dough, the upper portions were blessedly quiet and deserted. At the very top of the stairs Gerand paused to catch his breath. He leaned before a thick wooden door bolted from the outside. He removed the latch and flung it open. Inside had once been a spytower, but the strange contraption of mirrors and glass was long broken and removed. The room had also taken a stint as a prison cell, but over the past ten years it had fallen into disarray.
Waiting inside was a wiry little man wrapped in a brown cloak.
“You’re late,” the man said, his voice spoken with each inhalation of air instead of exhalation, which gave him an ill, out of breath sound.
Gerand shook his head, baffled as to how his contact always made it up the tall tower without being spotted. Unless he had the hands of a spider, he surely could not climb the outer wall. No matter how, every fourth day at an hour before dawn, Gileas the Worm waited for Gerand in the cramped room, always smiling, always unarmed.
“Matters have gotten worse,” Gerand said, rubbing the bruise on his forehead without realizing it. “Ever since our involvement with Aaron Felhorn, King Vaelor has grown even more fearful of his food and drink. He has suggested rotating his cooks and keeping them under a soldier’s watch at all times. I’ve told him a food taster would be a much simpler answer, but for a cowardly son of a bitch, he can be so stubborn…”
The advisor realized just how out of place his speech was and halted. He glared at Gileas, his warning clear, but the Worm only laughed. Even his laugh sounded sickly and false.
“As amusing as informing the king of your candid talk would be, I’d only earn myself a noose for the trouble,” Gileas said.
“I’m sure you’d hang just as well as any other man,” Gerand said. “Worms pop in half when squeezed tight enough. I wonder if you’d do the same.”
“Let us pray we never find out,” Gileas said. “And after what I come to tell you, even you may discover my presence easier to bear.”
Gerand doubted that. The Worm was aptly named, for his face had a conical look to it, with his nose and eyes scrunched inward toward his mouth. His hair was the color of dirt, another detail that helped enforce the adopted name. Gerand didn’t know if Gileas had come up with the title, or if some other man had years prior. It didn’t matter much to Gerand. All he wanted was information worth the coin and the trek up the stairs. Most often not, but every now and then…
The gleam in Gileas’s eyes showed that perhaps this was one of those times.
“Tell me what you know, and quickly, otherwise Edwin will soon believe me to be one of his lurking phantoms.”
The Worm tapped his fingers, and Gerand did his best to suppress a shudder. For whatever vile reason, the man had no fingernails.
“My ears are often full of mud,” the ugly man began, “but sometimes I hear so clearly, I might believe myself
