creature. The Abbey was in the final deepest curl of the city; only a mile from the gates to the castle, yet a small town to itself. It had no defenses like the Emperor’s residence. It needed none. However, there was still a lay clergy guard. Raed pulled up his hood, smeared mud on his face and hid his saber in the hay on the back of the small cart.
Sorcha and Merrick, meanwhile, prepared themselves. Taking her Gauntlets from her belt, she shoved them inside her shirt and buckled the belt tight around them. Her partner, however, held his Strop in one hand. Light was already flickering in the deeply etched runes.
She knew what he was thinking; not just because her thoughts ran across a similar vein, but because his were actually echoing in her own.
Her own throat was tight. The white walls that surrounded the Abbey had once been protective, but now they seemed so very similar to those that she had been forced to breach at the Priory. Everyone within had to be considered an enemy, at least until she and Merrick could explain themselves to Hastler.
“Do we really need to do this, Sorcha?” Raed whispered. She understood what remained unsaid.
A knot of tension cramped her neck while her stomach clenched like it had been punched. “Yes . . . When the Conclave begins hunting us, there will be no other choice. We need to see the Arch Abbot—he is the only one with enough influence to sort this mess out.” She looked up into his hazel eyes and let her admission out. “And I need you to help me.” The word “need” was not one she was familiar with.
Raed nodded but his voice was rough. “By the Blood, this feels very, very wrong.”
“This whole thing has been wrong.” She kissed the palm of his hand. “Except for you.”
Merrick coughed. “We better get this done, before I lose my nerve altogether.”
“Of course.” Sorcha nodded and scrambled up into the back of the cart among the straw. Merrick took his place next to her, looking young, vulnerable and frightened—yet he was more than that.
Sorcha looked him full in the face, not letting a single ounce of fear or doubt reflect in hers. “I’m not just trusting Raed, you know.”
“But I have only read about this,” he said quietly, looking at the Strop resting in his hands. “I can’t be sure —”
“Yes, you can be.”
The Bond sang, determination ringing along it from each of them, amplifying and building like an infinity knot. This was the pinnacle of partnership, the type of strength that she had never felt with Kolya. Merrick trusted in her more completely in two weeks than her husband had done in all their years. With a little smile, Sorcha lay back in the straw.
Merrick put on the Strop, tying it around his eyes quickly and summoning up the Rune of Sight. Through the Bond, the world grew more beautiful than she could have ever imagined; the circling wheel of stars directly over Sorcha’s head flared like a thousand multicolored fireworks. The silent street filled with a siren sound of distant bells that at this hour certainly couldn’t be real. The scent, honeysuckle and jasmine, flooded every portion of her brain. It was also the last thing she was aware of.
Merrick claimed his power, and pulled them into the Otherside.
Raed felt the racing of his own heart as the Deacons’ stopped. Merrick had dropped inelegantly, but Sorcha—as she did with everything—had taken control; choosing how she lay, hands resting lightly against her thighs with her head tilted slightly upward toward the sky. Her face was soft and had a gentle smile on it as if she’d fallen asleep in his arms. The Strop over her partner’s eyes had gone dark. Raed took it off gingerly and tucked it into his own pouch, pushing the young man’s eyelids shut. Merrick looked even younger than he had a right to be—almost a child. Raed draped Sorcha’s cloak over the two of them. It was easier to pretend there was something else in the cart that way.
He let a ragged breath escape him. “How very odd—now I get to collect someone else’s bounty.”
As he led the donkey toward the gates of the Mother Abbey, he felt like he was in some weird nightmare; striding toward the institution that not only supported his enemy but housed the husband of his lover. These were two things that should have had him racing in the opposite direction. However, considering he was the living one right now, it would have been worse than rude to walk away.
The guardsman shook himself awake at the sound of hooves approaching. “Who goes there?” The man might be a lay Brother, but he was large enough to have been a bare-fisted boxer and he carried a polearm long enough to skewer twenty Pretenders. The Mother Abbey, despite all her otherworldly protection, still maintained a front of physical dominance as well. A quick glance upward showed that there were plenty more where this one came from. He glimpsed another group of guards patrolling the walls. With the number of Sensitives living within the walls of the complex, it seemed like overkill. Except—the Pretender felt his throat constrict—the guard striding toward him was wearing a green cloak. He was a Sensitive.
The Rossin was buried very deep now; so deep that even Raed could not feel him. As long as the Young Pretender did nothing foolish to arouse the guard’s suspicion and inspire him to look a little closer with a Rune of Sight—this might actually work.
Raed took a breath, summoned up his very best Southern accent and held aloft another of those dreaded posters. “You the one with the reward?”
The guardsman’s brow furrowed. “Not personally, but yes, the Mother Abbey is looking for the two rogue —”
“Then look no damn further.” Raed flung back the dark blue cloak to reveal the still shapes beneath.
When the guardsman swore, the Pretender was reminded of Sorcha’s comments about the Order’s lack of real decorum. It was a good thing that the situation was so serious or he might have laughed; watching the hefty soldier look down at the two cooling forms, he felt anything but jovial.
“Both of them!” The guard’s mouth twisted in an impressed knot. “How’d you manage that?”
“The old favorite.” He shrugged. “Poison. I have an inn on the road south and when I saw the reward”—he sniffed loudly—“I saw a chance to get in before anyone else.”
The guardsman laughed. “Good idea—the reward was posted only this morning, and there’s already been plenty rushing to offer ‘information.’ Still, this could be the quickest bounty in the Order’s history.” He moved to take hold of the donkey’s bridle. “I’ll just get this to the Presbyter of—”
Raed’s chest tightened and he lurched forward. “Now, hold on, there! I ain’t letting those two out of my sight . . . at least not until I have my palm crossed with some honest gold.”
The guardsman glared at him. “Are you saying you can’t trust me, friend?” His voice was laced with nothing like friendliness.
There were times to be affable and there were times to hold firm; this was one of those latter times. Raed had a decent grasp of the character he was meant to be playing—and this man would not let another take his bounty from him . . . not for that amount of coin particularly. “Trust is one thing, ‘friend,’ but when gold is involved I wouldn’t even trust my own brother.”
He held the sharp gaze of the guardsman, as if they were two dogs sizing up just how full of teeth the other was. Finally, it was the guardsman who gave way. With a snort he threw the cloak back on the dead bodies. “Very well.” He waved into the Abbey. “Follow the path until you see the three-story white building with a red roof, on the right. That’s the Presbyter of the Actives’ building; there’ll be a guard outside who’ll get the right person to hand out the reward.”
Raed led the donkey away, feeling his heart thundering in his head like a rapid drumbeat, and walked deeper into enemy territory. He followed the path as directed until he was out of sight of the guard tower. He had only a little time; there was every chance some insomniac Deacon would blunder into him, and then—well, then he guessed he would end up on the cart right next to the other two.
Carefully, praying that the donkey wouldn’t remember its natural heritage and bray or kick up a fuss, Raed turned left to a smaller building than the one he’d been instructed to. In the half-light it was impossible to tell if it was the
He also hoped she was right about this small building being occupied by only one other. Leaving the cart, he opened the door cautiously; but he needn’t have. The old man sitting by the fireplace was looking right at him,
