into lowering his guard, or surprise one before he or she could find an appropriate way to counter it. The passages were designed as a labyrinth to confuse and disorientate, and allow fleeing occupants time to escape.
When they had reached the end of the passage, Orton paused to look at her.
“I hope you weren’t relying on the Sachakans being unaware of your arrival here.”
She looked at him and felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Why?”
“We’re sure the road is being watched. Patrols have found tracks and other evidence on the Kyralian side of the mountains. Of course, we can only observe the Sachakan side from afar, but our watchers have seen small groups of men moving about.”
“Ichani?”
Orton frowned. “I suspect not. Ichani don’t carry good-quality rations. Whoever it is, they aren’t concerned about hiding their tracks when they do venture over our side. I suspect because they don’t realise they have. It’s not as though we have painted a line where the border lies.”
The thought that the Ichani made a habit of wandering into Kyralia was not a comforting one. But the outcasts who inhabited the mountains had always been a disorganised rabble, preying on each other more often than the occasional unfortunate traveller. The humbling fact was, the invaders who had nearly overtaken Kyralia had only done so because one of them had the strength of will to unite a handful of them – and it had taken him years to do so.
An organised Sachakan army would have been unstoppable. Might still be. And here she was, one of Kyralia’s few weapons of defence, heading into Sachaka itself to rescue her son.
“Who do you think these people are, then?” she asked.
“Spies.”
“Of the Sachakan king?”
Orton nodded. “Who else could they be?”
Several twisting passages later, they arrived at a dining room large enough to seat ten people. It was laid out with impressively fine tableware. Three women and two men stood waiting to be introduced. Two minor captains and their wives, and the wife of an absent captain. Orton invited them all to sit, took his place and asked a servant to bring the meal.
The food was surprisingly good. Orton explained that he believed good food did wonders for the morale of the people here, who must always live far from Imardin and with the threat of possible invasion. Local farmers and hunters benefited from the trade, too. Yet the meal was not an entirely relaxed one. They were interrupted several times by guards bringing messages or making reports. At first Sonea listened attentively, assuming that something important must have happened, but it became clear that this was simply a routine that was never abandoned – not even during dinner with a high-ranking magician.
The other guests were used to this, and barely paused in their conversation. Sonea only realised that she had stopped paying attention to the reports when Orton interrupted a conversation she was having with Captain Pettur.
“Black Magician Sonea,” he said, his tone grave and formal.
She turned to see that, despite his calm expression, his eyes betrayed anxiety.
“Yes, Watcher Orton?”
“A strange message just arrived.” He handed her a piece of paper, folded in odd, converging lines. “The guards on duty who received it said it glided through the air like a bird, and landed at their feet.”
She looked at the neat writing and her heart skipped a beat, though whether in excitement or trepidation she couldn’t decide.
A symbol had been drawn underneath the writing: a circle with a spiral scrawled within. Lorkin had described it to Administrator Osen, saying that it was one the Traitors had told him they would use to identify themselves. She felt a thrill of excitement. Soon she would be judging for herself the people who had impressed Lorkin so much, and who had helped Akkarin escape slavery all those years ago.
Sonea suspended the paper in the air with magic and set it alight. The other guests murmured in surprise as it quickly turned to ash. She turned to Orton and smiled. “I don’t think those spies are going to be a problem for much longer, Watcher Orton.”
Lorkin could feel that his body was tense. No matter how much he stretched, practised breathing exercises and tried to relax into the soft bedding, he could not settle. It did not help that every time his mind entered that period of wandering just before sleep, memories of the slave girl returned.
He did not want to think about her.
But he did.
She had taken the water so eagerly, as if she knew what it contained. Perhaps she had been a Traitor after all. She’d struggled to conceal the poison’s effects in the beginning. Surely that meant she’d known what she was taking. Eventually she hadn’t been able to stay quiet. If it had not been for the watcher intervening and dragging her out of the cell, Lorkin would have given in and Healed her. In an outburst of frustration and self-loathing, Lorkin had thrown the water jar at the man, but it had struck the bars and shattered.
Afterwards, the Ashaki interrogator had arrived. Lorkin had expected him to gloat and reveal that her death was his intention all long, but he examined the dead girl silently, said nothing to Lorkin and left wearing a frown of worry.
The next morning, men Lorkin had never seen before had taken him from the cell and to a small courtyard. When the carriage they put him in arrived at the Guild House, Lorkin had wondered if he was having a particularly vivid dream.
It wasn’t a dream. The king had released him. No explanation had been given. No apology for his imprisonment. Just the order for him to stay there.
Lorkin rolled onto his side. His globe light burned softly above, and he’d placed a barrier across the doorway, both slowly using up what was left of the magic that Tyvara had given him. Though he was now sleeping in a different room to the one in which Riva had died, the memory of someone crawling onto his bed in the darkness was surprisingly vivid and unpleasant, despite the fact that the original experience had been rather pleasant to begin with. He could not help imagining someone was lurking in the darkness, or that he was lying next to a corpse.
He stared up at the glowing sphere and gave up on any hope of sleeping.
Then he opened his eyes and, though nothing had changed, knew that time had passed. He had fallen asleep after giving up on falling asleep. But why had he woken up? He could remember no dream or nightmare.
A thump from the central room sent a chill through his blood and he froze. Forcing his head to turn, he looked beyond the bedroom door and saw light in the room beyond.
He dropped the barrier over the doorway and created one around himself, then rose and approached the other room cautiously. Two slaves were in the centre of the room. A young man lay on the floor, a middle-aged woman crouched over him, one hand pressed to his head, the other holding a knife.
