Hinterland

A GATHERING OF RAVENS

Kathryn knocked on the door, concerned. she had not heard from Gerrod Rothkild for over a full day. The last she had spoken to him was when Rogger had appeared at her own door, bearing the strange talisman of a rogue god’s skull.

Then nothing.

Not word, nor note.

Such silence was unlike Gerrod. Especially now. In the past day, Tashijan had swelled to bursting as retinues from all the god-realms of the First Land had arrived. But more importantly, Tylar ser Noche was due here before evening bells. With such an event pending, Kathryn had spent the morning pacing her hermitage. It had been a year since she had last seen Tylar. Certainly they’d shared messages by raven and scroll, but their duties after the Battle of Myrrwood kept them both too busy for a casual visit.

And casual was certainly beyond either of them.

Even now.

Her hands wrung at her belly. They had once been betrothed, certain to marry, sharing a bed already, first as a dalliance between knights, finally with a deeper stirring of the heart. Then Tylar had been accused of murder and broken vows. Kathryn’s own testimony before the adjudicators had gone a long way toward damning him to the slave ships of Trik and the bloody circuses that followed, where he was broken in limb and spirit. But his guilt had been fabricated from the start. He had been a blind piece in a greater game, used to weaken Tashijan and its former warden, Ser Henri.

And the cost had not fallen solely upon Tylar.

Kathryn still remembered the blood in her bed, the lost child, limbs as small as birds’ wings, expelled from her body by grief and heartache. It was this final loss that had driven her down here at that time, into self-exile, away from the staring eyes and whispers, betrothed to a murderer.

But Tylar’s only crime had been some gray dealings, traffic below the table with some sordid characters from his past, done at first to raise coin for the city’s orphanages, where both she and he had been raised. But after a time, a few silver yokes had ended up in Tylar’s own pocket. It was a familiar slide. Still, the murder of the cobbler’s family was not Tylar’s doing, despite the blood on his own sword. It took the death of two gods-Meeryn, who blessed Tylar as she lay dying, and the naethryn-possessed Chrism, whom Tylar had slain-to finally clear his name.

All should have been made right.

But it hadn’t been.

The pair remained lost to each other, bitter. Anger and guilt had rooted too deeply, becoming as much a part of them as their own bones. If Tylar hadn’t started his underhanded dealings with the Gray Traders, soiling his cloak…if I had trusted his professions of innocence to murder…if only I’d told him of our child… And though they had stumbled over words of forgiveness to each other, the words were spoken with the tongue and not the heart.

At least not yet.

But now Tylar was returning.

Kathryn knocked again, needing to consult Gerrod, ever her counselor. Long ago, Gerrod had helped lift her back into her life after she fell down here the first time. She trusted no one more, not even herself.

A coarse bark answered her. “I’m not to be disturbed!”

“Gerrod!” Kathryn called through the door. She leaned close, keeping her voice low. She had come buried in her shadowcloak, shying from others. Even now, Grace flowed through the blessed cloth to hide her among the shadows.

“ Kathryn…?”

“Yes!”

She heard steps approach, and a latch scraped back. The door swung open. Gerrod pulled it just wide enough for her to enter, but no more.

“Hurry,” he urged her.

She thought at first the master’s furtiveness was because he had shed his armor’s helmet, exposing his pale and tattooed flesh. Gerrod preferred to keep his true face hidden.

He closed the door behind her, leaned an ear against the wood, then stepped away. “Hesharian knows I’m dabbling in something secret. He’s already visited twice this morning.”

“Does he know about the skull?”

Gerrod shook his head and clanked over with a whir of mekanicals to the far side of his chamber.

Kathryn caught the whiff of burning black bile, which even the sweet scent of myrrh boiling on his braziers could not mask. She also noted the state of his room. Normally Gerrod was fastidious in his upkeep, but the four bronze braziers in the corners of the room-in the fanciful shapes of eagle, skreewyrm, wolfkit, and tyger-were blackened with smoke, and piles of ash lay unswept beneath them. At his wide desk, a teetering stack of ancient tomes covered the surface, some open, others facedown, spines bent. In one corner, a stack of scrolls had spilled to the floor, and a candle had burnt to a slagged puddle of wax with a wan flame floating in the middle.

Her friend looked just as wasted, sustained by as weak a fire.

She doubted he had slept at all since acquiring the skull.

“I think Hesharian grows suspicious of my studies,” Gerrod said. “The last time he appeared on my doorstep, he came with a strange milky-eyed master named Orquell. The man hails from Ghazal, where he has been studying among the Clerics of Naeth of that volcanic land.”

Kathryn was well familiar with the cult of Naeth. Unlike most of Myrillia, the followers shunned any worship of the aethryn, the sundered part of the gods that had fled high and away into the aether, never to be heard from again. The Clerics of Naeth sought communion with the naethryn, the undergods, through strange practices and acts of blood sacrifice. While no one had been able to prove it, if ever there was a ready source of Cabalists, it would be found there. But as the followers rarely left their subterranean lairs, they seemed harmless enough, for now.

“Why did this master come here?” Kathryn asked, suspicious of anyone associated with such clerics.

“Summoned, I heard-by Hesharian.”

Kathryn frowned.

“They’ve spent some time up in the Warden’s Eyrie. Behind closed doors.”

Kathryn suddenly remembered. “Dart mentioned such a man…”

Gerrod nodded. “From such meetings, I can fathom why Hesharian has summoned this master from Ghazal.”

“Why?”

“Because of Symon ser Jaklar, the warden’s best man, turned to stone by Argent’s corrupted sword. Hesharian still keeps the man’s body in some secret hole. But to lift the curse would surely raise our esteemed master’s status-at least within the eyes of the Eyrie.”

Gerrod finally waved the matter away. “But that is not why you came down here, was it? You came to inquire about the skull.” He turned toward the arched opening that led into his alchemical study. The thick ironwood doors were open, and the scent of bile emanated from within.

“You must see this,” he said and disappeared through the archway.

Kathryn followed him into his study, where the smell of black bile was riper. The windowless room beyond had been carved into an oval. In the center was a scarred greenwood table with a complicated apparatus of bronze-and-mica-glass tubing above it, attached to the arched stone roof. All around, the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with cabinets, shelves, niches, and nooks. At the far end rose Gerrod’s repostilum, a mosaic of blessed glass cubes, each die no wider than a thumb, eight hundred in number, containing drops of each of the eight humours from all hundred of the original settled gods, an alchemical storehouse of great wealth.

Gerrod crossed to the center table. “I may have discovered some answers, but each revelation only begat another mystery.”

In the center of the table rested the misshapen skull.

Gerrod had painted its surface with black bile, so artfully that it looked carved of the warding Grace. The only spot not covered was a perfect circle on the top of the skull. The jaundiced bone looked pitted there as if eaten by caustic oils.

Kathryn knew it hadn’t been oils that ate the bone-but Grace-rich humours. Positioned directly over the skull was a bronze-and-mica spigot, draining from the apparatus above. The device was used for mixing humours in alchemical experiments.

“Here is the most intriguing discovery.” Gerrod reached forward and delicately turned a bronze key. From the tip of the mica tubing, a single drop of humour welled and clung precariously. “I’ve used a trickle of phlegm to bind blood and tears. Watch this.”

The drop fell from the spigot and struck the skull. It rang most peculiarly, as if the bone were some sort of stone bell. The sound echoed for a breath as if trapped within the walls of the study and seeking a means to escape. Kathryn felt its passage almost like a wind. Her cloak trembled from her body, ever so slightly, lifting away, then settling back.

As the echo faded, silence settled over the room, heavier than a moment before.

She stepped away. “What was that?”

Gerrod waved a hand through the air as if wafting something foul away. “The humours-blood, tears, even the phlegm-all came from Cassal of High Dome.”

“A god of air,” Kathryn said. All the gods, while varying in the cast of their humours, could be relatively separated into four aspects: loam, water, fire, and air.

“Exactly,” Gerrod said.

“But what made that sound?”

Gerrod nodded. “I don’t think made is the right word. I think the sound was already there, trapped in the bones of the skull, bound down into its mineral matrix. It is hard to believe, I know, but you must first understand that our bones are not pure stone, like some might imagine. There is flesh in there, too. If you leach away the minerals, you can reveal the flesh within. And in this skull there remains the desiccated flesh of a rogue god.”

Kathryn felt a sick unease.

“I believe the alchemy of air unbound some corrupted Grace still trapped in that flesh. An echo of power.”

“What sort of Grace?”

“That has been a good part of my study. But I believe I rooted out an answer from some old books. Tomes that dealt with the work of Black Alchemists. You are familiar with how loam-giants, wind wraiths, and fire walkers are born?”

Kathryn nodded. Though the details were beyond her knowledge, she was aware that women, heavy with child, could ingest certain alchemies and give birth to children bearing special traits.

“It is not only clean Graces that might transfigure such births. Corrupted Graces can do the same. I studied tomes that spoke of children born of cursed alchemies. Specific to this matter, children born of air alchemies.”

Kathryn felt her stomach churn, remembering her own lost child. What mother would sacrifice her own child in such a manner?

“From such corruption, children were born with strange voices. Rich in twisted power, it is said, able to bind pure Grace to its will. They call such corrupted talent seersong. I believe that was what we just heard, an echo released from the desiccated flesh that it once bound.”

“Wait. Are you saying that the rogue god was bound by this song?”

“I can’t say for sure. Air alchemies are the most ephemeral. But for such a trace to remain in the bones of the skull, the exposure would have to be long and intimate. Even after death, the skull remains deeply imbued with seersong. Remember Rogger’s story of what befell him in Chrismferry.”

Kathryn could not forget the attack at the docks, of the ilk-beasts that sought the skull. She also remembered who one of the beasts had been. One of the god Fyla’s personal bodyguards.

“You believe the skull was the source of their ilking?”

“How else to explain it? The thief, Rogger, was wise to keep the talisman warded with black bile and to take a route far from any god-realm. But even Chrismferry, godless for a full year, remains a land rich in Graces. And possibly still tainted in some small manner. The naethryn-god, Chrism, had ilked hundreds before being banished. I think the skull, exposed to such taint, absorbed and echoed the curse upon the air, carried by the power of the seersong.”

“Ilking the unsuspecting nearby.”

“If they were rich enough in Grace. Like Fyla’s guard.”

“And what about Tylar?” Kathryn shuddered. “Why was he not ilked?”

“Tylar was probably too rich in Graces. All of his humours flow with power. And then there is the matter of the naethryn nesting inside him. The daemon probably helped protect him. But many mysteries remain. I need more time with the skull.”

Kathryn reached out and touched his bronze hand. “And you need some sleep, too.” The shadow under his eyes told her that her friend was burning himself to the quick. “There will be time enough after the ceremony.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Hesharian grows suspicious enough with my protracted absence. And at some point, I’d certainly like to talk at length with Rogger. We were interrupted last time from hearing his full story of how he came upon this strange talisman.”

Kathryn drew Gerrod away from the skull and back toward the main room.

He followed her slowly, almost reluctantly, but he did close the heavy doors to his study behind him. As he glanced around his room, he seemed to see it for the first time in a full turn of bells. His eyes widened slightly, and he shook his head at the sorry condition of his chambers.

“I should brew us some bitternut,” Gerrod said and strode to a side table where a cold kettle rested.

The third morning bell rang, muffled but clear.

Kathryn sighed. “I must be back upstairs. Before the towers burn down on top of us.”

Gerrod waved to a chair. “I know you think you are the only person holding our towers up, but they’ve stood for centuries, so I think they’ll last a little while longer.”

“But the ceremony is tomorrow. I’ve a thousand-”

Gerrod offered her a tired smile. “If I can leave my study for a while, you can avoid the hermitage. Sit. We have more to discuss. A small matter.”

Kathryn’s brow pinched in curiosity as Gerrod stoked one of his braziers. He glanced over to her, one eyebrow raised.

“Tylar ser Noche…”

“What’s wrong?” Tylar asked Delia.

She stared out the flippercraft window, watching the towers of Tashijan rise at the horizon, aglow in the setting winter sun. She shook her head but did not turn.

Tylar sat across from her in the private cabin aboard the airship. They were alone. His personal bodyguards were stationed up and down the hall, led by Sergeant Kyllan, who stood outside their cabin, alongside the wyr-mistress Eylan. The other men were posted throughout the craft, keeping a watch over Tylar’s party. There were three for every one of his group. The only other travelers aboard the flippercraft, besides the ship’s crew, were the other seven Hands of Chrismferry, all coming to attend and witness his knighting. But only Delia, Hand of blood, shared Tylar’s cabin.

“We’ll reach Tashijan early…by a full bell,” Delia mumbled to the window, nodding to the rising towers.

“All the better,” Tylar said.

Mid-voyage, the ship’s captain had come, cap in hand, to their cabin. The storm at their back had him worried. Tylar had seen the northern skies himself. A great winter storm had settled into the middle of the First Land and was slowly rolling toward the sea. The captain had swung their path far to the west, almost as far as the Middleback Range, to skirt the storm. But the captain feared they’d fail to outrun the blizzard, so he had come to ask permission to burn blood, to increase their pace, accelerating their schedule.

Tylar had granted it.

“We should have sent a raven ahead to alert Tashijan,” Delia said.

“As much blood as we’re burning, the fastest raven would arrive about the same time as us. Besides, I’d just as soon land when least expected.”

Delia finally turned from the window. “Do you fear some betrayal by my father?”

So that’s what had been worrying her so…

Delia had no love for her estranged father, the warden of Tashijan, Argent ser Fields. The coming ceremony would be as much a strain on the warden’s daughter as it was on Tylar.

“No,” he answered. “I’m sure Argent will be pinning on his best face. I fear more what sort of pomp and blow he might have arranged at the dock atop Stormwatch. I’m sure it will be tedious and full of false cheer. So if we arrive unexpectedly enough, we might slip down to our rooms and avoid all that. The less we have to share the same space with Argent, all the better.”

A slight smile broke through her pensive expression. “You will both have sore faces before this is all over. Strained smiles, tight jaws, ground teeth.”

“If this gesture weren’t so important-”

“It is,” she assured him. “You deserve to have your cloak returned to you. And it will be good to head into spring with the First Land united and healed.”

He nodded. “I’ve heard that all the god-realms of the First Land and some of the outlying realms have sent representatives. Even Lord Balger.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. All the gods-even Lord Balger-want peace again, want the land to heal.”

“Not all the gods,” Tylar mumbled.

Delia’s eyes grew worried again. While a majority of the Hundred, the settled gods of Myrillia, had voiced their acceptance of Tylar’s regency, not all were as vigorous in their support as he would have wished. In fact, there were some who either remained silent or expressed outright distaste. And they were being heard-by other gods and by the people of Myrillia at large. Chrismferry was the oldest of all the god-realms. To have a man, even one blessed with a flow of Grace-rich humours, sitting atop the castillion at Chrismferry struck many as an affront against the proper order.

“All the more reason we must tolerate coming here,” Delia said. “It isn’t only the rift between Tashijan and Chrismferry that needs to be closed. Uniting the gods of the First Land around your regency will help settle the rumbling across the other lands.”

“I hope you’re right.”

As if the flippercraft sensed his worry, a slight tremor vibrated through its bones. The crew must be readying to land.

Delia gripped the arm of her seat with one hand. “The effort will be worth the risk…” she mumbled and returned her attention to the cabin’s window, growing pensive again.

Tylar frowned. He sensed there were layers of meaning behind her soft words. Why was it that women seemed so capable of lacing a thousand thoughts behind so few words? And men so inept at deciphering it all.

Worth the risk…

He slowly began to understand. Delia’s mood was more than just dread at the reunion of father and daughter. The risk she spoke of went even beyond bringing the Godsword so near the godling child, Dart.

No, it went even deeper.

Tylar stared out at the towers of Tashijan. Lights glowed from its thousand windows. How could he have been so blind? He reached a hand to her knee.

She seemed oblivious to his touch-then her hand drifted to his. Their fingers intertwined. He squeezed his reassurance.

“Kathryn is my past,” he mumbled ever so softly.

“Is she?”

“Delia…”

She refused to face him. Over the past year, they had become more than lord and handservant. But how much more? During the long stretch of winter, they’d shared more and more time together. Each found easy companionship with the other, even solace. And as the nights lengthened, quiet times slowly stretched to moments of tentative intimacy: a lingering touch, a glance held too long in silence, a moment of shared breaths when leaning together over some trivial matter. Then their first kiss, a brush of lips, only a fortnight ago. They’d barely had a moment to truly discuss what it meant. Only a quiet admission that both wished to explore it further.

But how much further were they willing to explore?

They’d certainly never shared a bed. In fact, Tylar feared bedding any woman since receiving Meeryn’s gift. With the Grace that now laced his seed, he did not know what horrors might arise from any chance dalliance. Still, his reluctance with Delia was not so much a matter of Grace as his own heart.

Another tremble shook the flippercraft, more abrupt and sharp this time, hard enough to dislodge their fingers.

Delia sat straighter, glancing over to him. The last shake was no mere correction, of course. The craft quaked again.

Tylar gained his feet. “Something’s wrong.”

He crossed to the cabin door and opened it. He found Eylan and Sergeant Kyllan looking equally concerned. A few other doors opened along the central hallway.

“Keep everyone in their cabins,” Tylar ordered Kyllan. “I’m going to check with the captain.”

He headed off, drawing Eylan and Delia behind him.

They strode toward the bow, where the door to the pilot’s compartment stood closed. A crewman noted his approach with a nervous squint to his eye.

“I would speak with Captain Horas,” Tylar said.

“Certainly, my lord.”

But before he could open the door, it popped wide on its own. Captain Horas blocked the way. He came close to colliding with Tylar. He was a tall fellow, uniformed in yellow and white, hair as black as oiled pitch and a beard clipped into two horns at his throat.

The captain stepped back, startled.

“Ser, I was just coming to inform you. No need for fear. The shakes are just the black-cursed storm biting at our tail.”

“I thought we were well ahead of the blizzard.” Tylar noted how the captain avoided his eyes.

“Ah, the skies are like the seas, my lord. Storms never like to blow as one expects. Winds shifted during the past bell. The storm’s been chasing after us ever since.”

“Will we reach Tashijan before its full brunt?”

“Oh, most certainly. I’ve stoked the mekanicals to full roil. We’ll be docking soon. But perhaps it would be best if you all returned to your cabins until we’re landed and moored tight.”

Tylar finally caught the captain’s eye. “I think I’d prefer to watch the docking from the pilot’s compartment.”

“Ser…” A slight warning tone entered the captain’s voice.

Tylar strode toward the door, leaving the man little choice: Step aside or grab ahold of the regent of Chrismferry. Captain Horas was no fool.

Tylar entered the compartment with the captain at his elbow. The space ahead filled the nose of the flippercraft. It was divided into two levels. Here at the top, the ship’s crew manned the controls that wielded the mekanicals along with the outer paddles that balanced the flight. Tylar smelled the scent of burning blood as the ship’s mekanicals consumed the air alchemies that kept the great wooden whale aloft.

He stepped deeper inside. The control level overlooked a gigantic curve of blessed glass, the ship’s Eye, through which the pilot could study the world below and guide his ship.

From the weight of the crew’s concentration and the waver in the pilot’s barked orders, he could tell something was amiss.

Captain Horas finally explained. “We must’ve pushed the ship too hard for too long. The mekanicals are strained. Or perhaps the alchemies are not as richly Graced as we were promised. Either way, the ship is hobbled.”

The ship shook again, canting to port and dropping its nose. Tylar caught himself, grabbing the shoulder of the ship’s boatswain. A rally of commands quickly evened the ship’s keel. The pilot was plainly keeping the flippercraft aloft more with his skill than any with Grace of air.

“We’ll make it,” the captain assured him. Then in a lower voice, “If it weren’t for this twice-cursed storm…”

Tylar stared out the Eye. Tashijan rose ahead. Its highest tower-Stormwatch-glowed like a lighthouse along a rocky coast. But closer still, the sky around the flippercraft swirled with eddies of snow. With every breath, it fell harder. They had lost the race.

The storm had caught them.

Kathryn knew something was wrong as she neared her hermitage. The door was cracked open, and her maid Penni waited in the hall. The young girl stood tugging at a brown curl that had escaped her white bonnet. She startled when Kathryn neared, finally realizing the shadowknight approaching her in full cloak was indeed the castellan.

The maid jumped, offered a fast curtsy, then began to stammer, with a glance toward the open door. “I-I-I couldn’t-I didn’t know-”

“Calm yourself, Penni.”

Kathryn allowed the shadows to shed from her cloth, revealing herself fully. She had climbed the tower in a hurry, cloaked in Grace, seeking to avoid recognition. It seemed every other person sought some boon from her: shadowknights, handservants, or underfolk. She was just returning from her most recent duty, greeting the last of the retinues to arrive-from Oldenbrook-making sure the party was settled and formally welcoming them. They seemed very excited to present some special gift to Argent and Tylar at the morning’s ceremony.

But Kathryn hadn’t inquired further.

She had already been late.

Tylar’s flippercraft was due to dock in less than a bell. The warden had prepared an elaborate welcome, including drums and trumpets. She was expected to attend-and in more than a worn shadowcloak.

Now some new trouble waited to be addressed.

“Take a breath and tell me what’s wrong,” she said to Penni.

The maid had served the hermitage for longer than Kathryn had worn the diadem of her station. Penni had been servant to the former castellan, the elderly Mirra, long vanished and surely dead.

“I thought he was a knight,” Penni said. “What with there being so many strangers, coming and going.”

Kathryn understood the maid’s consternation. Tashijan’s knightly residents had tripled in number, gathering from near and fear, a mad rabble of ravens come to witness the momentous event.

“He claimed to be your friend,” Penni continued in a rush. “Come on urgent matters, he says, so I let him into your rooms.” The maid lowered her voice to a whisper. “But then he let his masklin drop. It were no knight.”

Kathryn relaxed.

There was only one person that would be so bold as to masquerade himself as a shadowknight within the very fold of the Order. Rogger. She had not heard a single word since the thief had vanished into the throngs below. He must have donned such a disguise so he might attend Tylar’s welcome. It would be good to hear what tidings Rogger had gleaned from listening to the low whispers and the ale-addled braggings, words that seldom reached as high as her hermitage.

Kathryn stepped past Penni.

At her elbow, the maid finished her breathless tale. “Though he has a soft tongue, he was too fearsome for me to stay in the same room-so I waited out here.”

Kathryn frowned at the faintheartedness of the young girl. Who would ever find Rogger fearsome? Glad for a familiar face, she pushed into her room with a creak of the door hinges.

Penni shadowed her, keeping behind her cloak. “I’ve heard stories of their ilk,” she said. “Painting their faces with ash to hide their true names, even from each other.”

Kathryn realized her mistake.

It was not Rogger who had come calling.

The tall figure turned from her hearth, the only light in the room. He indeed wore a shadowcloak. She noted how its edges vanished into the darkness beyond. And his face was indeed daubed black, traditional for members of the Black Flag, the murderous guild of pirates and brigands.

He shed his cloak’s hood to reveal a knotted braid of hair made snow white by years under salt and sea. Many years. Centuries in fact. Here stood the near-mythic figure of the Flaggers’ leader. Beneath his cloak he wore a fine cut of black leathers, from boots to collar, and at his waist he carried a sheathed sword, Serpentfang, a blade as famous as the knight who once wielded it.

“It is good to see you again, Castellan Vail,” Krevan said with a slight bow.

She crossed into the room. “Why have you come, Ser Kay?”

The man frowned. “Raven ser Kay died long ago. It is merely Krevan now.”

Krevan the Merciless, she thought to herself. Three centuries ago, he had been a legendary shadowknight. But he had hidden a great secret from all, a secret exposed upon the point of a sword, one driven through his heart. He had not died from his wound-for he had no heart. Born among the Wyr, an enemy of the Order, Raven ser Kay was unlike any other man. Since the founding of the first god-realm, Wyr-lords had been churning dark alchemies in their hidden and forbidden forges, attempting to imbue man with immortality. Krevan was one of their great successes. He had been born with a living blood that flowed through his veins without the need for the beat of a heart, thus slowing his aging.

But exposed as one of the Wyr’s cursed offspring, the former Raven Knight had to die, to vanish into myths. And out of those mists of time, Krevan was born anew, embittered, turning his skills as a knight to less noble pursuits. The heartless became the merciless.

Still, the man had not forgotten his honor.

“How may I help you?” Kathryn asked. “Have you come for Tylar’s knighting?”

Krevan waved such a thought away. “A cloak does not make a man.” He stepped from the hearth toward her. There was an urgency to the motion. A hand reached out for her.

She took a reflexive step back. Her own cloak surged around her, ready to fold her into the shadows and grant speed to her limbs.

“You have the cursed skull,” he said. “The skull of the rogue god.”

Kathryn was taken aback by his statement-then remembered Rogger’s story of another who had been hunting the same talisman, someone with a face painted black. So it hadn’t been just a low-level Flagger seeking a fast splash of silver. The desire had come from the very top.

“What interest is the skull to you?” she asked.

His eyes flashed and a ferocity entered his voice. “I must have it. It should never have been brought here. Especially here. Especially now.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

Krevan suddenly was at her side, moving with the swiftness of shadows. He clutched her elbow. “I must have it!”

Penni squeaked by the door.

Before Krevan could offer any further explanation, a splintering crash echoed from above. The floor shook.

Everyone froze.

A single trumpet blared high above, a warning of fire, a call for buckets. The sound of pounding feet echoed from the hall outside, heard through the crack.

Kathryn turned as someone rapped hard on her door. It creaked farther open with the impact. Penni blocked it with a toe.

“Castellan Vail!” a familiar voice called.

It was Lowl, manservant to the warden. Kathryn turned to Krevan-but the leader of the Black Flaggers was gone from her side. She twisted around. He had vanished into the shadows and away. She noted a slight waft to the heavy drapery over the windows that opened onto her private balcony.

She knew that if she yanked back the drapes, she’d find nothing but a window cracked open and the balcony just as empty.

Krevan was gone.

Through the open window, shouts echoed, coming from the top of Stormwatch. Kathryn pictured the high docks that surmounted the tower. Only one flippercraft had still been expected this day.

Another trumpet blast reverberated, sounding strident and panicked.

“Castellan Vail!”

Kathryn returned her attention to the door and waved Penni to open it. The maid removed her foot and tugged on the latch.

Lowl stood at her threshold, flanked by guards who shifted uneasily, glancing down the hall toward the center stairs. Lowl stood wide-eyed, tall and spindly-limbed. He shook all over. Kathryn expected to hear his bones rattle.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“Warden Fields sent me to fetch you! Word had come that the flippercraft from Chrismferry had been spotted in the skies, outrunning the coming storm, arriving early.” He winced from another trumpet blast. “He-Warden Fields wanted you in attendance above. For-for the welcome.”

Plainly the manservant had been sent before whatever mishap had befallen that same arrival. Kathryn rushed to the door. She would get no answers from the man.

She pushed through the guards, fellow shadowknights with crimson stitching on the shoulders of their cloaks. The Fiery Cross. Argent’s men.

Lowl called to her. “Warden Fields asked that you present yourself in attire most fitting for the occasion and to-”

Kathryn ignored the man and drew power to her cloak from the shadows, increasing her pace. She sped down the hall to the central stair. The steps were packed with other knights, drawn by the commotion. She shed her cloak enough to let her diadem shine.

“Clear the way for the castellan!” she boomed.

The black sea of cloaks parted. She raced upward through them. Near the top, she saw men and women, mostly lineworkers and dock laborers, rushing by with buckets. A large cistern occupied this level, kept always full for just such a crisis.

She followed a burly man in heavy boots, slogging with a bucket in each fist. He plowed a path for her to follow. The door appeared ahead, propped open against a gusting wind that pushed down at them, as if warding them back.

Kathryn smelled the smoke-then she was through the door and out onto the high dock.

The chill struck her first, frigid enough to pierce her fevered panic. She wrapped the tattered shadows around her, pulling her cloak tight. One hand pulled her hood up against the wind.

She then stepped clear of the chaos, allowing the workers to battle the flames. But it appeared the worst was already over. Smoke churned into the twilight murk as the sun set to the west, already lost in heavy clouds.

A few patches of fire rose from the crushed belly of the flippercraft. It had landed on the cradle, but it had come in too hard, cracking the supports and smashing to the stone. Flames licked from a few cracks in the bottom-most planks, coming from the housing that sheltered the craft’s main mekanicals and reservoirs of alchemy.

Through the smoke, Kathryn smelled the acrid yet oddly sweet tang of burnt blood. The entire mekanicals must have combusted with the crash. Kathryn imagined the ship had come in already overheated, mekanicals under full roil. Now the flames were consuming all.

She edged around toward the far side. She spotted the open rear door to the flippercraft. Men and women were gathered there, churning a bit in confusion. Kathryn spotted Argent ser Fields. He stood head-high above the others, atop a crate. He was shouting something, but the wind took his words.

Kathryn pushed toward the crowd.

Where was Tylar?

Worry had her shoving rudely, almost knocking over a woman rushing past with an empty bucket.

She searched the faces ahead, recognizing guards in the golds and umbers of Chrismferry, alongside several Hands of Chrismferry.

Finally, she reached an eddy in the chaos, an open space between the dockworkers and the gathering passengers who had disembarked. She stepped closer, ready with a thousand questions. But first she had to find Tylar.

From the skies, snow drifted down out of the darkening clouds. Winds buffeted the heavy flakes into thick swirls. The snowfall mixed with the smoke and began to settle over the ruin. It would take several days to clear the wreckage. Not the most auspicious arrival for the new regent.

One flake landed on Kathryn’s cheek.

The cold stung like the bite of a mud-wasp, but she wiped the flake away, too focused on her search to mind the cold. Still, she tugged up her masklin against the icy snowfall. After cinching the facecloth in place, she held out a hand for a moment. Flakes settled to her palm and melted.

She shook her head and stepped again toward the crowd around Argent. She could now hear his voice.

“Everyone head below! We’ll escort you to your rooms!”

The churn of the crowd shifted in her direction. She still had not spotted Tylar. Then motion near the flippercraft drew her eye. She saw Tylar stepping down the rear ramp. He was not alone. A young woman leaned close to him. The ship’s captain flanked his other side. Tylar was speaking to the man with some urgency.

The captain nodded and set off toward the flaming mekanicals.

Tylar stepped to the stones of Tashijan, the first time in a year. His eyes swept the crowd, as if counting heads.

Thank the gods, he appeared to be uninjured.

Tylar’s eyes narrowed when they settled upon Argent.

Kathryn headed toward him. Best to keep Tylar and Argent apart as much as possible, especially when Tylar’s blood was surely overheated already. The storm had ruined the welcome already. No need to make matters worse.

Kathryn recognized the color in Tylar’s cheeks and the narrow set to his lips. Now would not be a good time for anyone to challenge him. Best to get him to his room. Then the two could talk about what had happened here…and other matters.

Tylar turned, as if sensing her approach.

For the first time, Kathryn noted his hand clasped with the woman’s. It was Delia. Tylar’s Hand of blood. Also Argent’s estranged daughter.

Tylar leaned over to whisper something in his companion’s ear. Most likely to reassure the young woman. Kathryn recalled Tylar doing the same with her in the past, his warm breath on her neck, the way his voice could cut through to her heart and calm its beat.

She took a deep breath through her masklin and lifted an arm to catch his eye.

Delia shifted to face Tylar more fully.

For a moment, too quick for any but Kathryn to note, her lips brushed against his. Tylar’s palm slid along her arm. Then the two slipped back and faced the disembarked crowd of fellow passengers.

Kathryn lowered her half-raised arm. Unbidden, shadows drew around her more fully. She took a step away, withdrawing into them. Her heart pounded, and as the sun set into the growing storm, it suddenly went darker-and colder.

The storm would be a fierce one.

Off to the side, a cheer arose from those who fought the fires. The flames had finally been vanquished. All was secure again.

Kathryn retreated, lost in smoke and shadows.

Tylar turned in her direction-but she was already gone.