Scree, controlled and confident. Doranei had found it so unnerving to see her walk to the tavern with uncertain, jerky steps that he had eventually moved ahead to scout the road so he didn't have to watch. The fiery-tempered Farlan agent and he had never been friends exactly, but he'd admired her powerful grace and purpose. To see a peer so vulnerable and damaged left his hands trembling, and his throat burning for a drink.
Legana scribbled on her piece of slate and held it up to him.
– Mortal-Aspect.
'Piss and daemons,' Doranei breathed, ignoring the high priest's expression. 'I never even heard of… Merciful Death! And Fate's dead? Does that make you-?' He let out a sigh of relief when Legana shook her head.
'What about Ostia?' he asked awkwardly, his fear mounting. Oh Gods, please no, don't let it have been Zhia who did this.
Again Legana shook her head, but her expression became grave. She wrote again on the board, – Talk alone.
It took a little persuading to get Antil to leave her side, but once they were alone Doranei dragged his stool close beside Legana so he could see the slate.
– Aracnan, she wrote.
Doranei frowned. He knew the name, and the reputation, but he hadn't expected to hear it in this context. 'Do you know why?'
She shook her head, her grey-and-coppery tresses falling over her eyes.
'Can you guess? What was he doing in the temple? You must have walked in at just the wrong time – I had no idea Aracnan was so powerful that he could kill a God at all, but not even Death would choose lightly to fight the Lady.'
– Pretend ritual, summoning.
'Pretend?' Doranei scratched the stubble on his cheek as he thought. 'Making it look like a priest was summoning a daemon? Doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, it stirs up trouble. Either one more reason to consider the clerics enemies, or confirmation that someone's trying to discredit them.'
– Who profits?
Doranei shrugged. 'Depends what the priest was like, what position he held in the city.' Powerful, ear of the duchess.
'Could be bloody anyone then; might be trying to replace him as an influence, undermine the duchess, damage the reputation of the cults within the city – or could be something entirely personal for all we know.'
– Azaer?
He scowled and wiped the name out with his sleeve. 'Hope not. Gives the shadow far greater scope if one if its followers is strong enough to kill a God.' Doranei looked around, checking the room once again for mirrors, relieved that he hadn't missed any.
– Why are you here?
'To find you, in a manner of speaking.'
– Zhia?
'The king sent me,' he said hurriedly. 'I need to speak to her on his behalf.'
– Not here yet.
Doranei looked Legana full in the face, and only then did he realise her eyes had changed colour. Where they had once been the normal Farlan deep brown, now they were a brilliant dark green, deep pools in which a man could lose himself. It wasn't the only change in her appearance, just the one that most obviously marked her as linked to Fate. How had she described herself, Mortal' Aspect? He'd never heard of such a thing, and most likely that was a bad sign. When the Gods were involved, change would surely come only under the most extreme of circumstances.
Legana was as beautiful as ever, but now her alabaster skin, seamed hair and green eyes made her look strangely terrifying. And now he was close enough to notice a series of lumps at the base of her throat where the shadowy handprint was, almost like a necklace underneath the skin.
'Gods, what happened there?' he breathed. Without thinking he reached out to touch the bumps, only to have Legana flinch away. Red-faced, he started muttering his apologies.
– My business, she wrote.
'Of course, sorry.' He shook his head at his own foolishness. 'Do you mind-? I'm sorry, but I've just realised I don't know who I'm talking to anymore. Are you an agent of the Gods? Of Lord Isak, still? How do you know Zhia isn't in the city? You cannot still be standing in her shadow after becoming Mortal-Aspect of the Lady?'
Her shoulders fell and she looked at the ground for a few heartbeats, her expression unreadable, until she wrote on the slate.
– Alone now.
'What about Lord Isak?'
– Need to send message.
Doranei nodded. 'Sebe can do that for you – he can take it to your wine merchant at least. What do you need to tell him?'
– News of Menin, Aracnan, lost contact Zhia, injured. 'Where is Zhia?'
– Following. 'You don't know where she's been?'
Legana shrugged, the movement causing her to wince in pain. Her head sagged forward a little and Doranei realised she was trembling as the hand holding the chalk wavered uncertainly.
He gently took the slate from her and said softly, 'You're exhausted. You need to sleep.'
She didn't respond at first and he repeated himself, louder. This time she gestured her agreement and allowed him to help her up. Without complaint from the former assassin, Doranei slipped an arm around her waist and half-carried her to one of the beds. She
managed to slide herself back until she was leaning against the wall
and she sat there, breathing hard, while Doranei fetched her slate and arranged a blanket over her.
He risked a smile. 'What a change! You'd have broken my arm if I'd done that in Scree.'
– Still can.
'I'll take your word for that,' Doranei said, sitting on the side of her bed. He felt suddenly feeble, like a heartsick old man. 'I didn't expect any of this when I signed up.'
Legana watched him, motionless for a moment before writing her reply. – Poor baby.
Doranei frowned at her. There was more than a spark of the old Legana left, that prickly, savage woman he'd met in Scree. As she wrote on the slate the strokes were quick, merciless slashes across the surface. – You are not broken.
He could see the anger radiating out from those emerald eyes, stripping away the scars on his soul. 'Gods, woman,' he muttered angrily, 'no wonder people think you're a pitiless bitch.' He stood,
hut as he started to walk away he remembering something. 'Business
then; how do I find Zhia?'
Legana didn't reply beyond closing her eyes but Doranei, now irritated, gave her a rough nudge on the leg, then another. The third time she opened her eyes again and glared at him, but he stood resolute until she reached for her slate.
– Coin, Rose Fountain Square, blue door.
'She's there?'
A shake of the head.
Doranei thought for a moment. 'She's expecting you to be there, with her vampire friend – what was his name, Mikiss? Did you kill him?'
A nod.
'So Zhia will probably be able to tell you're not there, which will make her suspicious. So I need to pay someone to watch the house and give her a message when she snatches them.'
Now he had an idea of what he was going to do next, Doranei felt some of the weight lift. He headed for the door. 'I'm off to check out this house first. You've got some strange sort of luck around your shoulders for us to run into you like we did, so maybe it'll rub off on me enough to last the evening. If you flutter your eyelashes at Sebe while I'm out, he'll probably take that message for you.'
As he closed the door behind him he heard something thud into it and turned to see the tip of a knife blade
