Avenger

he had some other reason to let me go?”

Sennifyr smiled thinly. “Mirya, if I wanted to find out who was loyal and who was disloyal, I would certainly think about letting at least a few of my catches go and watching to see who they spoke with after I released them. I imagine it might be quite instructive.”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Mirya murmured. “Now you’ll be under suspicion too.”

The noblewoman laughed softly. “Oh, I think I am safe enough. Unlike you, I have no suspicious activities to answer for and no special connection to House Hulmaster. You are my only flirtation with sedition, and I will of course be very careful to behave myself. But you, on the other hand, you are being watched very closely indeed. You must take great care not to bring suspicion to anyone who might in fact be involved with this show of resistance to Marstel’s reign.”

“How do you know this?” Mirya asked.

Sennifyr shrugged. “One of our Sisters is the mistress of a high-ranking officer in the Council Guard. She hears much of what Edelmark shares with his lieutenants. But even without her reports, I would have been suspicious of your release. For that matter, you must also be careful of any friends you have who are engaged in any … disloyal activities. They may also wonder why you were released, and they may come to their own conclusions.”

“What a fool I am,” Mirya growled at herself. Of course Edelmark wouldn’t have let her go simply because he lacked any proof of her wrongdoing. Lack of evidence hadn’t stopped him for months; a suspicion was all the captain of the Council Guard needed to have someone dragged off to the dungeons and kept there indefinitely.

“I have only your best interests at heart, Mirya. I was not about to let a sister-even one who has gone her own way for a time-walk unwittingly into Edelmark’s little trap.”

Mirya doubted very much whether that was Sennifyr’s only concern, but whatever the noblewoman’s motivation, she might very well have saved her from a very dangerous blunder. “I thank you, Mistress Sennifyr.”

Sennifyr inclined her head, and leaned back in her seat. “Have you any news of Geran Hulmaster? I confess that I am very curious as to what he might do next after that terrible business at the temple of Cyric.”

Now things become clear, Mirya reflected. Sennifyr hadn’t offered her help out of the goodness of her own heart; she knew well enough that Sennifyr didn’t have one. The Sharran hoped that Mirya knew something more than she did about the Hulmasters and their plans. “I’m afraid I haven’t,” she replied. “We spoke briefly before he and Sarth struck at the temple. Geran isn’t done fighting for Hulburg, and he means to challenge Marstel soon enough. But where he is now, I’ve no idea.”

The noblewoman studied her in silence. Then she carefully asked, “Would you like news of him? I will perform a divination for you if you wish. My own viewings are indistinct, but you are much more closely connected to Geran Hulmaster; I believe the results would be much more definitive for you.”

Mirya hesitated, weighing her decision. She feared to accept more of Sennifyr’s help, but on the other hand, she found that she was anxious to know whether Geran had escaped Hulburg or not. Marstel would have trumpeted the news from one end of town to the other if his soldiers had caught or killed Geran, but it was possible that Geran was in hiding and unable to leave now that the harmach’s forces were sweeping up loyalists. He could very well need assistance of some kind … “Very well,” she finally said. “I’m willing.”

Sennifyr nodded. She turned to the teacart, poured a cup, then drew a tiny vial from her sleeve and added a drop or two of a dark liquid to the tea. Murmuring the words of a spell, she carefully stirred the tea. Mirya sensed something taking shape in the darkened room, a stretching of the shadows or simply a dimming of the light; she’d never had much talent for magic herself. Then the noblewoman lifted the cup and offered it to Mirya. “Here, drink this. You will see for a short time.”

Mirya took the cup, and drank deeply of the sweet black tea. It had a faint oily taste, and it seemed to cling to her tongue and teeth. The vapors filled her nose, and she felt a mild dizziness. “Good,” Sennifyr said softly. “Now close your eyes, dear, and think of your handsome lordling. Fix your mind’s eye on Geran’s face, the sound of his voice, the color of his eyes, the shape of his mouth.”

She did as Sennifyr instructed, bringing to mind Geran’s features as she thought of him standing in front of the counter at Erstenwold’s on a sunny afternoon, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he listened to her recount some story of Selsha’s doings. It was a memory from a few tendays after he’d foiled his cousin’s plots, a brief carefree time in the summer when it seemed that all that was wrong in Hulburg had been set right. Then she felt the power of Sennifyr’s magic begin to take hold; the memory simply drew away into darkness, and she groped blindly after it. Instead, she found a confusing jumble of images, Geran as seen in dozens of brief moments, each lasting for only the blink of an eye before it vanished again into the next. She shook her head and tried to fix the flickering visions in her mind.

Geran was making love with a golden-haired woman, their limbs entwined in the candelight as they lay together in a darkened room. Stunned, Mirya could only stare; as he shifted and drew back for a moment, she saw Nimessa Sokol, her eyes half closed. Somehow Mirya knew she was seeing something that had happened not long before-the divination’s magic at work, she guessed. He slept with Nimessa? she thought dully. How could he do that? A familiar ache welled up under her breastbone, and Mirya hugged her arms close to her body. She wrenched her eyes away, horrified to have stumbled into such an intimate moment, and the vision complied by vanishing from her view. Then she caught a glimpse of Geran dressed in the colors of a Sokol armsman, jogging along on a horse as he rode alongside a creaking caravan leaving Hulburg along the Coastal Way. Two of the gray guardians watched impassively as he rode by, but they did not stir. “He escaped Hulburg,” she murmured aloud. Sennifyr did not reply.

Now she saw Geran standing by the rail of a merchant caravel that plunged and pitched over a sea of leaden gray, bitter spray blowing back from each dip of the bow, his tattered cloak flapping around him. This time she sensed that she saw something that was happening as she watched. “He is at sea,” she said, “but I can’t tell where he is bound.” Hulburg’s port was still icebound, so he had to be on his way to another Moonsea city. A gray coast loomed ahead in the mists and rain, but before she could make out any more, the vision fell away to be replaced by another.

This time she saw Geran fighting in some strange, shadowy place, a great chamber of stone where ghostly warriors streamed from the darkness to beset him. He wielded a black sword in one hand, and his mouth moved silently as he shouted the words of a spell. “Now he’s fighting in a dark place,” she said. Mirya reached out to him, sensing the danger that he was in, but then she realized that what she was seeing hadn’t yet come to pass. The image began to flicker, and she called out, hoping to see just a little more. “Geran! Wait!”

“He does not hear you, my dear,” Sennifyr said.

Mirya blinked her eyes, realizing the visions were over. She surged to her feet, still trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Geran was safe, for now, although terrible danger waited for him soon enough … but the vision that she couldn’t drive out of her mind was the image of Geran lying in Nimessa’s arms. It’s none of my business! she fumed at herself. Why should I care? I have no claim on him, nor does he have any on me. But if that was true, then why did her heart ache as if she’d been pierced with a knife? Mirya, you foolish girl, she told herself. You’ve fallen for him again, and that’s why your heart is breaking. You foolish, foolish girl!

Sennifyr watched her carefully. “Mirya, my dear, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“I–I have to go,” Mirya replied. She took her cloak from the peg where Lana had hung it and hurried out of the mansion into the clean, cold air.

THIRTEEN

13 Alturiak, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

Nine days of hard travel brought Geran, Hamil, and Sarth to the outskirts of Myth Drannor. They’d sailed from Thentia aboard a Double Moon merchantman; unlike Hulburg, Thentia’s port remained ice-free through the winter. Still, it was enduring a difficult three-day Moonsea crossing against the westerly winds. In the city of Hillsfar, they bought riding horses and provisions for an overland journey, setting out southward along the Moonsea Ride. Deep snow and cold, damp weather had made the hundred-mile ride far more tiring than Geran remembered it, but at least they’d run into no trouble with bandits or monsters; it seemed the bad weather had driven them into their lairs, leaving the roads open to any who were foolish enough to travel in such conditions. They spent their nights