Wrath of Empire

Chapter 33

Vlora caught sight of Prime Lektor again three days after speaking with Taniel in the Yellow Creek jail.

Finding him was purely luck. Vlora was returning from another fruitless morning of searching the nooks and crannies of the mountains surrounding Yellow Creek. The newsies on her normal route had sold out of their papers already, so she went out of her way to find a street corner where the boys still had some stock. She had just found a paper and folded it over to read while she walked when her gaze swept across the familiar profile.

Prime sat outside a café in the one small area of town that could be considered posh – if one squinted a little. It was midday, and he was enjoying a coffee, biscuits, and a newspaper while he faced away from the sun.

Vlora forced herself to act casual, turning slowly to cut across traffic and heading around to a nearby storefront where she could get a good look at his face without crossing his line of sight. Once she could clearly see the inkvine birthmark that cut across the left side of his face, she knew he was definitely Prime Lektor.

Vlora waffled. A part of her wanted to walk over, pull up a seat, and ask Prime straight out why he was here. It was a foolish thought, one that she had no problem talking herself out of, and instead she circled around behind him and took a seat on a nearby stoop where she could keep an eye on him over her newspaper.

She only half read the articles as she watched the back of Prime’s head. The news was all two weeks old, and was filled with rampant speculation regarding the war, Dynize military might, rumors of Lindet’s assassination, and more. Nothing looked reliable and it frustrated her to no end, so she turned her attention purely on Prime.

One of the odd quirks of sorcery was that a powder mage could sense a Privileged, but a Privileged could not sense a powder mage. Vlora did not know if the same rule applied to the Predeii, but considering that Prime didn’t just turn around and incinerate her, she assumed that it did.

The immediate problem was that, while she definitely recognized Prime Lektor, she could not sense his sorcerous presence. He was cloaking himself from any such scrying. It would make him difficult to follow or predict.

She tried to think of any possible reason for his presence in Yellow Creek – aside from the godstone. Nothing came to mind, and that left her with a number of pressing questions. What were his intentions regarding the stone? Had he already found it? Was he alert and ready in case he was found, or was he complacent in his power? There were no easy answers, which meant Vlora would have to find them the hard way, the dangerous way.

It was about thirty minutes before Prime folded his paper, finished off his coffee, and stood up. He was dressed as a frontier gentleman, with a tan cotton suit and matching top hat, a cane, and a pair of spectacles perched on the front of his nose. He surreptitiously took a look around before tucking the paper under one arm and heading down the street.

Vlora followed at a distance.

She didn’t have to go far. Prime took a right at the next intersection and walked up to the front door of what passed for a townhouse in a frontier city. The building was a narrow two stories, a mix of wood and plaster construction with a sharply slanted roof and cheerful bright green shutters. Prime let himself in, leaving Vlora lurking at the corner and completely uncertain about what to do next.

She carefully cast her senses toward the townhouse, feeling around with a light, tentative touch for wards. There were all sorts of passive things a Privileged could do to protect a location. Doorknobs could be warded to stun or kill anyone who touched them, floors could inform the Privileged when someone had walked upon them, and whole buildings could be prepped to explode when entered. Wards were also, as far as Vlora was aware, next to impossible to hide completely.

Field Marshal Tamas had been an expert at detecting wards. He’d even taught Vlora how to pick a ward apart – something that most Privileged still considered impossible for a powder mage – but Vlora had never really caught on to the latter ability. The former, however, she’d grown quite good at.

Yet she sensed nothing, even when she poked around for the telltale signs of a ward that had been folded in on itself to hide it.

She was just beginning to wonder if she’d gone mad when the front door to the townhouse opened. She took a half step back, trying to look inconspicuous. Prime didn’t even look up, staring at the front of his folded newspaper with a scowl as he walked briskly past her. She waited a few moments, then turned to follow him.

Had he already noticed her and was leading her into a trap? She tried to remember every detail about him. He was an academic, supporting Tamas during the Adran coup, and had apparently masqueraded as a succession of vice chancellors of Adopest University for hundreds of years. He might genuinely be absentminded, content that his power kept him hidden.

Vlora was deep in thought when she looked up to find that she was no longer following Prime. Her heart quickened and she doubled her pace, hurrying to the next intersection. She checked doorways and alleys for fifty yards. She even looked back down the street to see if he’d doubled back.

No such luck. He had disappeared entirely.

Vlora swore under her breath. This asshole could disappear, both in this world and in the Else. She couldn’t see him; she couldn’t sense him. He could be standing right behind her and she wouldn’t notice it.

She doubled back around the block several times just in case she had missed him. After waiting for nearly ten minutes for him to reappear, she headed to his townhouse, where she walked up to the front door, took a hit of powder, and closed her eyes. In a deep powder trance she could hear footsteps, heavy breathing, sometimes even a heartbeat. She tried to focus on the house, ignoring the ambient sound of the street.

Nothing.

Searching his residence might turn up clues to the godstone’s location. But if she hadn’t been able to sense him disappear, that meant that he could create wards that she couldn’t sense, either. Walking straight into his house might get her killed.

She waffled on the front step for a moment before noticing an old woman sweeping the steps of the next house over. The woman glanced up, noticed that Vlora was watching her, and leaned heavily on her broom. “What you selling?” she demanded.

The question caught Vlora off guard. “Excuse me?”

“The gentleman who owns that house doesn’t like to be bothered. If you’re selling something, you can tell me and I’ll let him know when he’s next in.”

“Does he often buy things?”

“Never. But he likes to know who’s knocking on his door. So you can either leave me your card or bugger off.”

Vlora hesitated, trying to concoct some sort of story that wouldn’t make Prime suspicious. Coming up with nothing, she tipped her hat to the old woman and made her retreat, heading down the street without a backward glance and frustrated that she’d not learned anything new about Prime.

She corrected herself on that last thought. She had learned two things: one, that Prime could disappear at will, and two, that Prime paid his neighbors to watch the house for him while he was out. If he was worried about being tracked down, it meant he was hiding something, and she was willing to bet it wasn’t just his own sorcerous nature.