Reality seemed to shift, sending me reeling backward. When I righted myself, I was alone in the street.
“Lyss!” Steifan shouted.
I turned to see him running toward me.
He grabbed my arms as he reached me. “Where did you go? I was nearly back to the inn when I realized you weren’t beside me.”
“The Nattmara was here.” I shook my head, what were the chances that I would run into that creature again? “It is hunting something here.”
Steifan let me go. “Egar?”
“Yes.” I felt badly shaken. I had faced powerful beings, but not like Egar. How could you kill something that could warp your mind so completely? The death of Egar’s father, the one who had kept him contained, was going to be the death of us all.
Steifan looked me over, slowly shaking his head. “I’ve never seen you like this, Lyss.”
“Like what?” I asked distantly.
“Scared.”
A few people had come out into the street to watch us. Despite the sun shining overhead, my skin felt cold. “Let’s get out of here. We need a pint of ale and a new plan. We must figure out how to kill the Nattmara.”
As we started walking, I noticed Steifan glancing around warily, as if he expected the Nattmara to still be watching us. Maybe he was, but as long as I wasn’t under the creature’s glamour, the Seeing Sword should warn me. In fact, Egar was probably the reason the sword had whispered a few warnings while we were in the wealthy district. And maybe even the reason Steifan thought he felt eyes on him.
“How can we kill it, Lyss?” Steifan asked, breaking the drawn out silence.
“I don’t know. Most of what is known about Nattmara is little more than myth. We are probably some of the only people alive today to have faced one.”
Steifan was quiet for a moment, but I could tell he had something to say.
I kept my attention trained on the street around us as we neared the nicer homes leading back to the market square. “What is it?”
“Asher is an ancient. He might know something about Nattmara. He might even be able to kill it. Does glamour work on vampires?”
I sighed. Now that the shock had worn off, I was beginning to get angry. We were here to solve a murder—two murders now—I did not need the issue of the Nattmara added to the list. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, but the Nattmara is not the only thing in the city that wants our blood. We must move forward with caution.”
“Should we leave the inn?”
It wasn’t a bad idea. Surely once the mysterious stranger realized we were still alive, someone else would be hired. We might be attacked in a more public place where we would be forced to kill someone. “I don’t know where we would go.” I stopped walking and looked to him. We were nearly at the square. “Do you have any connections you could use? Find us a place to stay, and a place to stable the horses?”
His hazel eyes danced with worry. “I might be able to find us somewhere, but we would be endangering any who would take us in.”
He was right. We could not ask innocent people to harbor us. “We’ll have to find somewhere on our own. There are plenty of warehouses in the city. If you could find someone to stable our horses, that should be safe enough.”
“Consider it done.”
We were drawing a few eyes, so we continued walking. I didn’t like feeling so vulnerable, far away from Castle Helius and other hunters. I knew Steifan would watch my back, but it might not be enough. I might just have to take his suggestion and ask a certain vampire for help.
Did glamour work on vampires? We would soon find out.
Chapter Eight
By nightfall Steifan had found a place to stable our horses with our few extra belongings, and I had learned some interesting information. Talk of the tavern was that there was a witch practicing within the city. Real witches were extremely rare, so she probably wasn’t genuine . . . but if she was real, she might know how to break Egar’s glamour.
It was worth investigating, mostly because we didn’t have any other options. Maybe she would even have insight on the missing people. Of course, she could also be the murderer. According to the histories, the most powerful spells often required sacrifices, the closer to human, the better.
Steifan and I walked north, passing the wrought iron gate to the wealthy estates without stopping. We had provided enough pints of ale to learn that the witch could be found in the old part of the city where the former keep once stood, long abandoned since a new keep had been erected within the White Quarter.
The road we walked wound ever upward toward the apex of the hill upon which the city was built. We left the light of torches and lamps behind for the more subtle glow of occasional candles in windows and a few distant fires. These darker streets were the perfect haunt for pickpockets, yet somehow I felt safer in the darkness. More hidden and at peace.
The old wall came into view, casting deeper shadows in the darkness. Parts of the wall had been toppled during the siege that had taken place well before the borders of the Ebon Province had been drawn.
There were fewer people in this part of the city, but we did catch occasional glances from beyond open shutters, evidenced only by a shadow darting away as soon as it caught our attention. A young couple hurried down the road toward us, giving us a wary glance as they passed by. Judging
