were bent in whispers.
Their only other companion was the stoic Eylan. The Wyr-woman studied Tylar from across the way, sitting stiffly, ever vigilant. She had spoken no more than three words since first joining them. And those words were Leave me be, to Rogger. Tylar suspected Rogger had heard those words often enough, but never with more command or more disdain. The two were posing as husband and wife, from Tashijan’s cook staff, off to visit relatives in Chrismferry.
“I don’t know why I married that woman,” Rogger had griped at her rebuke.
The others had boarded the craft separately. With all of Tashijan’s attention turned elsewhere, none of the guards had given the ship’s passengers more than a cursory glance. The Citadel was more concerned about the godslayer entering Tashijan, not leaving it. Gerrod already had his cabin paid and reserved. Tylar had played the master’s servant, hooded, his knight’s tattoos wiped over with face paint. He had also acted the cripple, not a difficult ruse. Kathryn had entered in secret, using her considerable gift for shadowplay. She kept hidden until all had gathered in Gerrod’s cabin.
Kathryn stirred from her discussion with Gerrod and turned to Tylar. “Both ravens we sent have been dispatched. Hopefully they’ll reach their intended in time.” She pulled out a letter from her cloak. It bore the castellan’s seal, her seal.
Tylar leaned over and read the name.
Kathryn looked into his eyes. “This had been for Perryl. A cover for him to join Gerrod in his trip to Chrismferry.”
He reached out and touched her hand, lowering the letter. “They’ll find him in time.”
“You can’t know that.”
Attempting to distract her from her worry, Tylar pointed to the letter. It was addressed to the same man to whom the wyndraven had been dispatched. “Will your man be able to aid us in gaining access to Chrism’s castillion?”
“He should. Yaellin de Mar is one of Chrism’s Hands.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Fully.”
“But with all that’s going on, how can you be so sure?”
Kathryn glanced past him and out the window. “Because Yaellin is Ser Henri’s bastard son.”
19
“Keep running,”Yaellin snarled.
Dart held Laurelle’s hand as they fled through the dark myrrwood. Thorns tugged and scraped, branches slapped and stung. Dart’s breath rasped ragged in her panicked flight. Laurelle let out soft moans.
Behind them, cries and shrieks grew ever closer. Ilk-beasts, once men and women, pursued them, crashing through the underbrush.
Dart remembered her dream of a few nights back. She had been chased then, as a babe, carried away by the old headmistress of the Conclave. Why?
Yaellin kept behind, urging them onward through bower and glade. The myrrwood seemed without end. Dart risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw nothing but a flowing wall of shadow.
He’s keeping us hidden with his billowing cloak.
Ahead, Pupp raced through the wood, passing ghostly through bush and scrub without a rustle. Dart watched him bump against a bole of the myrrwood and bounce off of it. The trunk was solid to him, like the blood roots below.
She had no time for this mystery and chased after him. His glow helped light her path.
They passed crumbled walls, a moss-covered well, a tiny wooden arbor fallen to ruin. And still the wood continued onward. Grown from a single seed, sown with Chrism’s own blood, the myrrwood’s branches had stretched for four thousand years.
Would they ever escape its shadow?
As they ran, Dart noted the trunks grew thicker. They were not heading back toward the castillion, toward light and people, but deeper into the heart of the myrrwood.
“Where…?” Dart gasped.
“To the back wall of the Eldergarden,” Yaellin answered. “And over. We must reach the city.”
As if hearing their words, a keening shriek erupted to the left. A large form crashed toward them.
“Behind me!” Yaellin called.
Dart twisted. Laurelle froze. With her hand gripping Laurelle’s, Dart tugged her friend back around. Shadows swept over and past them. Pupp wheeled around and raced toward them.
Dart dropped to her knees, sheltered by a bole of the myrrwood.
A dark shape flung itself into their path. Eyes glowing crimson, it ran on all fours, fingers and toes twisted into razored claws. A row of bony spikes pierced through the skin of its arched back. It howled at Yaellin, its jaws hinging its entire head, and leaped at the man.
Yaellin’s cloak sailed to a branch overhead, a flow of living shadow. Snagging purchase, Yaellin flew upward. The beast passed below him, snapping and spitting. With a hiss and a slash, it whirled.
But Yaellin had already dropped beside it. He struck out with his fist-no, not just a fist. He held a dagger with a shining black blade. He struck the ilk-beast in the side, then rolled backward. A lick of fire chased him, like a splash of blood, from the beast.
The creature reared up, claws extended-then collapsed into ash, faintly ruddy, like wood embers from a dying fire.
Yaellin waved to them with his dagger. “Hurry…”
Dart knew the weapon he had employed: the cursed blade from Jacinta. Dart was now glad Yaellin had stolen it. She and Laurelle fled to his side, and the chase continued.
But the pause to dispatch the lone beast had cost them. The howls had drawn closer.
“I… I can’t go on,” Laurelle moaned. Her feet began to trip.
Yaellin was there, scooping her up in arm and cloak. He reached for Dart with the other.
“I can still run,” she said, not wishing to burden Yaellin. Besides, she had the wind for this. She had been running her entire life.
She turned to flee, Pupp at her side.
They dodged around boles as wide as carriage carts. The scent of myrrh grew stifling, trapped under the dense leafy canopy where wind, rain, and sunshine never reached. The underbrush turned skeletal, thorny, with strange red berries aglow in the gloom. Through the upper branches, luminescent butterflits of azure and crimson fluttered lazily, hanging and gliding in the too-still air.
Ahead a wall appeared, lit by the ruddy glow of Pupp’s molten form.
Dart hurried ahead, sensing salvation. What had terrified her before-the empty streets of Chrismferry at night-now seemed a welcome place. At least their pursuers seemed to fall back, losing their track, or maybe they had come upon the smoldering ashes of their fellow beast and now proceeded with more caution.
Either way, they had to find a way over the wall.
Pupp had stopped ahead. Over the millennia, a thick deadfall had blown against the wall, tangled and dark in the night.
“Caution,” Yaellin warned behind her, farther back than she expected.
“Where can we cross the wall?” Dart asked. The deadfall looked treacherous and unstable.
“It’s no wall, Dart.” Yaellin hurried to her, his voice dropped to the barest whisper.
Her foot crunched through brittle twigs and branches as she joined Pupp. She saw Yaellin was right. What she had thought was wall was instead a tree of such immensity that the curve of its trunk could not be easily discerned, appearing more like a wall of smooth, gray bark.
