posture. He stared down at the ermine cloak on his lap.
“What do you make of all this?” Perryl asked.
Gerrod shook his head. It was all the answer they would get out of him for now.
Out in the courtyard, the Sun Tower chimed the sixth bell. Kathryn hadn’t realized how much time had passed. The sun was halfway down the sky. “I have a meeting I must attend,” she mumbled to the others as the bells ceased.
Gerrod glanced her way.
“As I mentioned from the first,” Kathryn answered, “Tylar is coming here. Warden Fields has gathered folk in the field room to oversee the preparations to receive him. I’m to meet with my supposed guardian.”
“A guardian?” Perryl asked. “Do you truly think that’s necessary? I still can’t believe Tylar would harm you.”
Gerrod stirred, standing with a creak. “I don’t trust our good warden is only concerned about his castellan’s security.”
Perryl frowned.
Kathryn understood. “Warden Fields strings a tight net around Tashijan. And I’m to be the bait in the snare. Who I meet will be both guardian and hunter.”
Perryl’s eyes widened, showing too much white. “Who’s been chosen?”
Now it was Kathryn’s turn to frown. “That I don’t know.”
“There is much all of us don’t know.” Gerrod lifted Mirra’s ermine cloak. “I’ll see what I can discern from this, but it would be prudent to see if the stableman who guided our dark stranger up here could be prompted to divulge what was sealed by gold and a promise.”
“I can check the stables,” Perryl offered. “It hasn’t been too long since I was squired down there.”
Kathryn nodded as he made for the door. “Be discreet.”
Gerrod remained behind and fixed her with a stolid stare, his eyes bright through the slit in his helmet. His words softened. “And you be careful. Bait is seldom considered of any value after one sets the hook.”
Kathryn met his gaze. “By sword and cloak, I’ll be careful,” she promised.
Gerrod studied her a moment longer, then turned away. “I suggest you keep both near at hand.”
Kathryn kept her pace hurried but respectful as she descended the twenty flights of stairs. With each nod to passing knight or courtier, she felt the press of the diamond seal fixed under her chin, the emblem of the castellan. It was not the true seal, but mere paste and artifice. The real diamond ornament had vanished with Mirra. Kathryn felt the same about her role here at Tashijan, more paste and artifice than true authority or command.
She rounded the last flight of the central stair and proceeded to the tall doors of the Citadel’s field room. For ages lost to the past, the chamber was used as a place of strategy, planning, and preparation. Over the millennia, the fate of countless hinter-kings and untold armies had been decided behind those doors. Great battles were mapped, wars waged in ink and blood, treaties signed or broken. All of Myrillia had been forged behind those doors.
A pair of Shadowknights, cloaked and hooded, posted the threshold, standing in shallow alcoves. Their forms seemed to flow into the gloom of their niches. The darkness fed their forms, readying them to respond to any threat with the speed borne of Grace. Only the glow of their eyes could be seen above the black of their masklin wraps.
“Castellan Vail,” the closest knight acknowledged with a sweep of cloak. “The warden awaits your presence.”
The other guard opened the door with a surge of darkness.
“Thank you,” Kathryn mumbled. Both were too young, she thought, fresh to their third stripe, too ostentatious with their show of shadowplay, wasting Grace in theatrics.
She stepped into the field room.
The scent of oiled woods and brittle parchment greeted her first-then a familiar booming voice.
“The castellan finally graces us with her presence,” Master Hesharian said. The rotund leader of the Council of Masters stood with four others around a central table.
Despite the chamber’s significance, the field room was cramped and tight. The rear windows, overlooking the tourney grounds, had been shuttered for this meeting, ensuring privacy and forbidding the sun. To either side, the Stacks-giant wooden shelves that stored illuminated maps of all the Nine Lands, even rough sketches of sections of hinterland- lined the walls, buttressed by ladders. The only other significant feature to the room was the massive wyrmwood table. Its patina had blackened from the passing centuries, its surface scarred and pitted.
Kathryn crossed toward the waiting group. “I apologize for my late arrival. Matters of some importance detained me.”
Hesharian raised one brow. “More important than the security of Tashijan?” The large man still resented her assignment as castellan, a post normally held by one of the Council of Masters.
Kathryn ignored his gibe. She nodded to Hesharian’s fellow council members. Master Osk climbed down one of the Stacks’ ladders, burdened with a large map roll. He was as thin as Master Hesharian was vast, a lesser moon before a greater. As always, he kept his eyes pinched as if fearful of being struck. He nodded back at her and turned to the table, exposing the line of tattoos circling the back of his shaved skull.
“A moment, Castellan Vail,” Argent said formally. He accepted the thick parchment from Master Osk, set it on the table, and shoved the roll loose down the table’s length. A schematic of Tashijan revealed itself.
Intrigued, Kathryn stepped to the table.
“It’s been a long time,” Keeper Ryngold greeted her on the right side with a genuine smile. He was the only person present whose head was not adorned by tattooed sigils or stripes of knighthood. Still, he was well respected by all, head of the entire house staff and laborers. If matters of security were to be addressed, he would orchestrate the underfolk of the Citadel.
On her left, she received no greeting and expected none. A knight of few words, Symon ser Jaklar needed no shadowcloak to cast a pall of gloom around him. He strode under thunderclouds even on the brightest days. His hair, shaved to a coarse black stubble, matched his eyes. Formerly squire to Argent, he had continued his duty as knight under the leadership of his former teacher.
Kathryn studied the ancient map of the halls, levels, rooms, and courts of Tashijan. Spread out on the table, the vast Citadel seemed a city unto itself with byways and alleys, crowded places and lonely ones, all centered round the central Stormwatch Tower that stretched as high as the masters’ catacombs delved low. How would they stop one man from breeching the vast domain unseen? It was a daunting challenge, but one the new warden seemed ready to handle, having served in dozens of sieges from both sides of a wall.
Argent placed his palms flat on the parchment. “As I was saying, I know the godslayer is on his way here. Perhaps he’s already in the First Land. But over the centuries, Tashijan has grown lazy with its fortifications, weakened its foundations. We can’t keep the godslayer out.”
“Then what can we do?” Master Hesharian asked.
“We can be smarter. What walls can’t stop, strategy can.” Argent straightened, sweeping his gaze around the room. “We must guide the godslayer to where we want him to go. The best trap is one the victim walks into willingly.”
Hesharian frowned. “And how do you propose to accomplish this?”
“By controlling what he most desires.” Argent’s sweeping gaze settled upon Kathryn.
All eyes turned in her direction.
Argent addressed her directly. “Castellan Vail, I’d like you to meet the man set as your personal guard in the days to come.” He lifted his arm. A signal.
A scrape of boots sounded behind her and to the left. She turned as a tall man stepped from between a set of the Stacks. She had walked right past him without even noticing his presence. But it was not Grace that hid him. He wore no shadowcloak. Instead, the man was outfitted in furred breeches, knee-high brown boots, and a mud-brown half cloak with hood. All looked well worn and scuffed.
A wyld tracker.
But it was not the clothes that identified the man. Wyld trackers were blessed at birth with alchemies of air and loam, making them preternaturally keen to scent trails and changes in winds. This blessing was plainly apparent from the prominent protrusion of nose and jaw. Half muzzled, as it was called, a beastly appearance, made more so by the lack of white to their eyes, leaving them a solid amber.
