then said, 'Moonmaiden's grace, if the House of the Moon speaks against Dhauna, they'll turn me out faster than a burned griddlecake.' She glanced up at Julith. 'I don't think you'll be especially welcome either.'
'If that's the way Mifano and Velsinore choose to act,' Julith replied, 'I'll stay while Mother Dhauna needs me and no longer.' She surveyed the party. 'Do you feel up to going on? You're doing very well tonight.'
'Aside from acting like a girl around Manas, coming close to walking away from Strasus Thingoleir out of boredom, and causing a scene with Mifano and Velsinore…?'
'No,' Julith said, 'in spite of that. Strasus and Dagnalla Thingoleir, Endress Halatar, Arthagus of the Miraclesnone of them are fools, Feena, but they all respected the Moonmistress-Designate.'
She stepped back a pace and bowed. Feena drew a deep breath.
'Moonmaiden's grace,' she said again, 'they did, didn't they?' Feena felt warm and confident all through her body. 'And Mifano and Velsinore?'
'Have been put in their place,' said Julith.
'Bright Mother of Night. Thank you, Julith.' She straightened up. 'But I think that's enough. The Moonmistress-Designate has had her evening and can retire for the night with dignity.'
'The Moonmistress-Designatebut not Feena,' Julith said, and made a face as they turned toward the entrance to the garden terrace, the stairs back down to the street, and the waiting carriage. 'You'll still go back to the Stiltways?'
'I need to get out,' said Feena. 'Especially after that.' She tossed her head in the direction of Velsinore and Mifano. 'Besides, you heard what Manas said. The city guard knows nothing more about the Sharran. They don't even know he was a Sharran. I have to try to find out more.'
'You could go to Manas with what you know. I think he'd appreciate it.'
Feena gave her a dark glance, and Julith shrugged.
They had brought Feena's linen blouse, homespun skirt, and sandals with them in the carriage. As they rattled along, Julith helped Feena slip carefully out of the gown and into her own clothes. Feena sighed and rubbed the silk of the gown between her fingers.
'I don't think I've ever worn a dress this fine before in my life.'
'I'm sure it won't be your last chance,' Julith said. She folded the dress, then held out a velvet bag.
Feena exchanged the silver filigree and opal crescent for her plain chain and battered medallion, hiding the medallion under her blouse.
'How do I look?' she asked.
Julith grinned and reached out to mess up her hair. Feena spluttered, brushing hair out of her face. 'And now?'
'I wouldn't let you into my party,' said the younger priestess, her lips pressed together. 'Moonmaiden watch over you, Feena.' She reached up and banged on the carriage roof. 'Driver, slow down!'
'I'll be back by dawn,' Feena promised.
As the carriage slowed to a walk, she opened the door and hopped out carefully. The driver twisted around and gawked at her, but Julith rapped on the roof and ordered him to pick up the pace once more. Feena turned away from the carriage and down a street that led toward the chaos of the Stiltways.
She trotted through the streets in silence. It felt good to be out on her own again. Even with Julith's support and quiet suggestions over the past several days, even with her performance that night, Moonshadow Hall had started to wear on her once more. Ceremonies, rituals, prayers, meetings with the temple staff, meetings with important followers of Seluneeven when she had left most of those things to Velsinore and Mifano, it appeared there were responsibilities she couldn't delegate away. Thanks had been delivered to the temple on behalf of the ruling council and the Nessarch, Yhaunn's mayor, for the swift action that had prevented an epidemic of disease in the slums. Feena had been forced to stand and accept the honor, though Mifano had somehow arranged to make it seem that the idea was entirely his. Velsinore was busy preparing for the New Moon Beneficence, only a few days away, and seemed to want Feena's official approval on every last detail, even though she'd clearly gone ahead with everything beforehand.
If there had been any benefit to the night's confrontation with the tall priestess, Feena hoped, maybe it would be that Velsinore would stop bothering her. How had Mother Dhauna put up with the woman?
Feena clenched her teeth. And there was Dhauna. The High Moonmistress had woken on the morning after her seizure claiming no memories of the event. Mifano and Velsinore had given Feena knowing looks. Even in private, Feena hadn't been able to coax Dhauna into admitting that anything had happened. Julith, however, reported that she was skimming through materials in the temple archives with a new and frantic energy.
There would be answers within a tenday, Dhauna had promised. Feena was beginning to doubt that.
She'd had no time to look into the threat of Sharran activity. When she raised the issue again with Mifano, couching it in the most diplomatic terms she could manage, he had once more denied the possible existence of a cult of the dark goddess in Yhaunn.
'We'd know, Feena,' he'd said. 'Sharrans can't hide themselves forever. Shar thrives on sacrifices and wicked deeds. We watch for those but we've seen nothing out of the ordinary.' He'd given her a sideways glance. 'Except for a suspiciously mauled body in the Stiltways, that is.'
Feena had said failed to respond.
Her chances of finding any clues almost five nights later, after Manas and the city guard had already surveyed the area, Were questionable. As she'd told Julith, though, she had to at least try. Velsinore had mocked her for leaving the Selunite battle against Shar to fight the bloody followers of Malar, but it didn't seem as if Moonshadow Hall was trying very hard in the battle against Shar either. There was something more to be found, something more going on than either Mifano or Velsinore knew aboutFeena was certain of it.
And while she missed the keen insight that her wolf-shape's nose gave her, there were places two legs could go that four could not. She would enter the Stiltways as a woman.
The district was busier than it had been before. Its lower levels seemed darker as well. Feena paused in the shadows to let her eyes adjust and to get her bearings, then plunged onward. While her departure from the Stiltways the last time had been hasty and furtive in an attempt to conceal her monstrous hybrid wolf-woman form, she had taken care to make note of landmarks. Even so, her progress through the darkness of the Stiltways's streets was haphazard. She was forced to backtrack several times. She clenched her teeth. Manas had said the Sharran's friends claimed he hadn't frequented the Stiltways. When she'd followed the man, however, he'd moved quickly and with purpose. Even if he hadn't frequented the mazy district, he'd been more than familiar with the route to the well.
Feena stayed alert as she walked, not just for the human predators and denizens of the Stiltways, but for signs of more monstrous presences, the kind of creatures that might maul a body. Especially the kind that would maul a body with poison flowing through it. Over the past several days, shed given the question a lot of thought. It was possible that feral dogs had done the damage, but they would have smelled the poison on the Sharran just as she had and shied away. More unnatural predators might not have minded the poison, but she hadn't caught the scent of any such creatures before. Was it another werewolf, or other lycanthrope, as Manas had suggested? It was possible, but unlikelyFeena couldn't understand why any intelligent creature would risk poisoning itself just to ravage a corpse.
Unless someone had deliberately set out to make the Sharran's death look more violent than it really had been and to pin that violence on her. In which case, who and why? She couldn't believe that even Velsinore or Mifano, as much as they disliked her, would stoop to such a thing.
She found the tiny courtyard and the well. Just as before, the area was deserted. Scooping up a pebble, Feena murmured a prayer to Selune. A thread of divine energy shivered through her fingers. When she opened her fist, the pebble shone with the light of a full moon. She cupped her hand so that the light shone only downward and played it across the ground. The courtyard was paved with broad flagstones, broken and uneven with time. Dirt and dust blurred its corners, and mingled with a scattering of broken crockery.
There was only the faintest of stains where the Sharran had fallen. Her human nose wasn't as sensitive as her wolf nose, but even so, she could smell only the residue of poisoned blood. She looked closer. A wide patch of the cracked stone paving was cleaner than elsewhere in the courtyard and the dust around it was streaked and pocked by water. Some well-meaning soul had tried to wash away the offense of the man's death, probably with the very water he had been trying to taint. Feena shined her light on the dust and dirt. The only tracks she saw were
