'Free his left hand,' he said to Sebe, and their prisoner gave a gasp of relief as he wedged an elbow under his body. 'If any like us entered you were to send a message? You Ruby Tower Guards?'
'Byoran Guard, special corps. Anyone goes in, we send a message to the tower.'
'Who gave you the orders?'
'My captain, but message was to go to the new sergeant at the tower.'
'Name?'
'Kayel, big foreign bastard, they say, never met him.'
'Big bastard?' Doranei wondered, sharing a look with Sebe, who was clearly thinking the same thing. There were few people who'd know who the Narkang agent was in any given city, and how to put a watch on him, but the traitorous golden boy of the unit was certainly one.
'This sergeant, what's his full name? What's he look like?'
'Hener Kayel, I think. Never met him but I heard he boasts a lion mauled him – took half his ear as he killed it. They're all scared of him, kill you soon as look at you they says.'
Doranei didn't speak for a moment, casting back in his mind to the day Coran, King Emin's white'eye bodyguard, had staggered back to the palace, his knee ruined and Ilumene's dagger still lodged in his ribs. Coran had managed only a glancing blow; Ilumene had done more damage himself when he'd sliced off the bit of his ear that was tattooed with the Brotherhood's mark. He sent it to the palace two days later so King Emin would be certain that he still lived.
'There's no doubt then,' Doranei said at last, sheathing his dagger as he rose. 'Time to call for help.'
Without looking down he stepped over the man's legs and headed back the way they'd come. After one quick jerk, Sebe followed him.
Legana woke with a start as her narrow bed shuddered. She looked around for a moment, the memory of a sound lingering in her ears, until she realised it had been made by the heavy front door below her room slamming shut. It was dark, and no light crept around the curtain, so she must have slept past nightfall. Legana felt for the chair beside her bed and found her clothes. She dressed as quickly as she could, and finished off by wrapping herself in a long shawl of coppery silk that the wine merchant's wife had gifted her with. Legana couldn't appreciate its colour now, but everyone in the room had gone silent when she put it on, and that told her enough.
Collecting her slate and chalk, Legana unbolted the door and went out into the darkened corridor. She barely needed the support of the walking stick the wine merchant had lent her. It had been old and blackened his father had used it for thirty years – yet when she touched it, the tarnish had disappeared, revealing the stick's beautifully patterned silver head.
Legana paused to tuck the slate under one arm and allow her eyes to get used to the light coming up the stairs. They were still sensitive, colours washed out to grey, but much of the fuzziness had gone and now she could see the corridor almost as clearly as anyone else. It was for comfort that she ran her fingers along the wall as she headed for the stairway that led downstairs.
She still felt fragile, but instinct told her that her healing was done. Her hearing was diminished and her voice remained a ruin, but she was far stronger than a man now, and vastly more resilient – the occasional bouts of poor balance and her tendency to move slowly and carefully were ingrained, and she would have to learn to live around them.
The building was split into three parts. Business was conducted in the large hallway at the front. It looked more like a storeroom than a shop front. Legana headed there first, knowing Lell Derager, the wine merchant who was Byora's Farlan agent, didn't conduct business after dark. The slamming of the door was almost certain to have been those fools from Narkang returning.
As she reached the bottom of the stair Legana found Derager and his wife, Gavai, standing at the entrance to his cramped office. At the sound of her feet the rotund man turned and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture, remembering that Legana found the nuance of facial expressions difficult to make out.
'Legana, do you feel better after your nap?' he said in a booming voice.
She nodded, not bothering to write on the slate. Lell wasn't the sort of man to mind. He was courteous to the point of sparking Legana's suspicious nature, and did everything for her himself, rather than call for a servant. He wasn't old – less than forty summers – but his mutton-chops and beard made it hard to judge his age. He was far more ebullient than his wife, who was ten years his senior, but they were both considerate, caring hosts – and the least likely spies Legana could imagine, which had presumably been the former Whisper's logic.
'Your friends have returned,' Gavai advised her. 'They're just drying off. Let us go into the family room and wait for them.' She offered her arm to Legana. After a moment's hesitation she took it
and allowed herself to be led to the second largest room in the house. She had precious little actual experience of how a daughter should be treated, but Legana was beginning to imagine it was something like this.
An inordinately wide bog-oak dining table dominated the room, but large though it was, there was at least ten foot clearance on either side. A candelabrum hung from the main beam of the low ceiling above the table. On the left, a mismatched assortment of chairs were arranged almost at random around the fire. Gavai directed Legana to one facing away from the flickering flames and placed herself beside the former Farlan assassin. Lell followed them in and ushered his teenage son towards the kitchen, saying something Legana didn't catch.
By the time Lell returned, goblets of wine in each hand, Doranei and Sebe had joined them and gratefully accepted the offer of a drink. Doranei tossed back the wine in one gulp, which didn't surprise Legana until Sebe followed suit swiftly.
As Lell picked up the brass wine jug to refill their glasses, Legana scribbled on her slate, – Bad news? She thought she detected a scowl on Doranei's face, and that was confirmed by the grim tone of his voice.
'Looks like you were right,' he said reluctantly. 'Azaer's disciples are here.'
'You're certain?' Lell said, before adding, 'well, of course you are. No one wears that face unless they're sure. How did you find out?'
'Our agent here is being watched by men reporting to the Ruby Tower,' Sebe answered for Doranei as he made headway on the drink. 'It's a tighter network than yours, and almost certain not to be casually picked up. We interrogated one of the watchers. They're to report any visitors to a new sergeant in the Ruby Tower Guard.'
Duchess and Azaer? asked Legana.
Doranei shook his head. 'I doubt it, but the description of the sergeant was easy enough to recognise. If he's here, then the rest of Azaer's disciples probably are too. I don't think they have the strength to divide their forces now; Scree, especially the loss of Rojak, will have drained their resources considerably.'
'Which means either Aracnan's murder of High Priest Lier is coincidence, or it's a sign that he's under Azaer's command,' Lell said, glancing at his wife. 'Getting Lier out of the way makes the duchess more easily influenced, as well as fuelling the conflict between Eight Towers and Hale.'
'And this is not a business of coincidences,' Gavai finished for her husband. The pair might not have ever been at the sharp end of spycraft where Legana and the King's Men lived, but they were under no illusions about what they were involved with.
'I know enough to report to my king,' Doranei said, staring straight at Legana, 'but what are you going to do?'
Legana didn't respond immediately. As everyone turned to look at her, she kept her eyes on Doranei. He didn't understand what had happened to her – she didn't understand it herself yet – but he himself, perhaps without knowing it, was not just a pawn in the game; he was a man who could call Lord Isak friend and Zhia Vukotic something more. Of all of them, he was the only one who could understand the twilight world she now inhabited. Her hand went to the line of bumps around her neck, a regular curve just above the collar-bones. She couldn't feel the shadow mark that overlaid half of the emeralds under her skin. She couldn't see her own eyes, though she knew they were different. And the changes didn't stop there. There was a fire in her blood, like she'd always imagined magic to be like: a tiny prickle that could erupt into the fury of a furnace at a moment's notice.
– Do I call myself Farlan any longer? Can I? 1 accepted the Lady's kinship but she's dead now – I feel the part of her inside me is dead – but what about the other Gods? Are they my kin now, or am 1 just Raylin, a being of power but with no allegiance?
Finally she wrote hesitantly, – I do not know to whom 1 now kneel.
Gavai whispered the words aloud as Legana wrote. She placed a sympathetic hand on Legana's arm, but
