Nico started to shake his head, then stopped. Talis wouldn’t want Nico talking about him. What happened has to be a secret… That’s what Talis had said. He’d trusted Nico.
“He’s from the Westlands beyond the Hellins, isn’t he?” Karl persisted. “He’s one of the ones that call themselves Tehuantin. Nico, you know that the Holdings is at war with the Westlanders, don’t you? You understand that?”
A nod. Nico didn’t dare open his mouth. He’d never heard that one word: Tehuantin. It sounded like a word Talis might say, though, just the sound of it. He could hear it, in Talis’ accent.
“Where’s your matarh, Nico? We should take you back to her, but you need to tell us where she is.”
“She’s with my tantzia,” Nico said. “She’s a long way from here. I
… left her.” He didn’t want to tell the Ambassador about his cousins and the way they’d treated him. But thinking of that made him think of his matarh, and he suddenly wanted more than anything to be with her. He could feel tears starting in his eyes, and he wiped at them almost angrily, not wanting to let the Ambassador see. Varina moved from the doorway to crouch beside him. Her arms went around him, and it felt almost as good as having Matarh hug him.
“Is Talis with your matarh?” Karl asked.
That seemed safe enough to answer. He didn’t want the Ambassador going to Matarh, and if the man knew that Talis wasn’t there, well, he’d leave her alone. “No,” he said. He sniffed. “Karl, enough,” Varina said.
He ignored her. “Where’s Talis now, Nico?”
“I don’t know.” When ca’Vliomani just crouched there, not saying anything, Nico lifted a shoulder. “I don’t. I really don’t.”
Ca’Vliomani cocked his head as he looked at Nico. He cupped a hand around Nico’s chin and lifted his head until Nico was forced to stare in his unblinking eyes. He heard Varina draw in her breath above him. “That’s the truth?”
Nico nodded vigorously. The man stared a few minutes longer, then let his hand drop away. He and Varina glanced at each other again. To Nico, it seemed as if they were talking without saying anything. Ca’Vliomani’s fingers stroked his beard, scowling as if dissatisfied. His voice sounded lighter and less ominous now. “What are you doing in Oldtown, Nico? Why aren’t you with your matarh?”
That was too complicated to answer. Nico shook his head against the welter of possible answers. He wasn’t certain himself now why he was here. “I thought maybe…” The tears were threatening again and he stopped to take a breath. “I thought maybe Talis might still be where we used to live.”
“He’s not.” It was Varina who answered. Her hand stroked his back. “We’ve been watching.”
“Well, he saw you, then,” Nico said confidently. “Talis is smart. He would see you watching and he wouldn’t go there.”
“He wouldn’t have seen me,” Varina answered, but Nico didn’t believe that. He wiped at his eyes again.
“Do you have family here?” ca’Vliomani asked. “Someone to look after you?”
“Just Talis,” Nico answered. “That’s all.”
Ca’Vliomani sighed and stood up with a groan, his knees cracking with the effort. “Then we’ll have to let Talis know that you’re staying with us, and maybe we’ll both get what we want, eh?”
Jan ca’Vorl
“I’m sorry, Onczio Fynn,” Jan whispered. “This shouldn’t have happened, and I hope… I hope that this wasn’t my fault.” His voice echoed in the vault, stirring faint ghosts of himself. The guttering light of the torch made shadows lurch and jump around the sealing stones of the tombs. Twice now he’d watched the Hirzg laid to rest in these dank and somber chambers, far too quickly. Vatarh and son. At least Fynn’s interment hadn’t been accompanied by omens and further death. His had been a slow, somber ritual, one that left Jan’s chest heavy and cold.
He’d searched everywhere for Elissa. He’d sent riders out from Brezno, scouring the roads and inns and villages for her in all directions. Roderigo had told him that he hadn’t seen Elissa near Fynn’s chambers. “But I was away from him when it happened. She might have managed to sneak in-or someone else might have. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
The words tasted of bile and poison. He tried to convince himself that it had all been coincidence. Matarh had shown him the letter she’d received from the ca’Karina family: Elissa was an impostor pretending to be ca’. But perhaps that was alclass="underline" she’d fled because she’d known that her deception was going to be revealed. Maybe that was the entirety of it. Or… Perhaps she’d gone to see Fynn, to plead her case with him knowing that she was about to be exposed as a fraud, and had interrupted The White Stone at his work. Perhaps she’d fled in terror before the famed assassin had glimpsed her, too frightened to even stay in the city after what she’d seen. Or perhaps-worse-The White Stone had seen her, and taken her to murder elsewhere.
None of it convinced Jan. He knew what they were thinking, all of them, and when the suspicion settled in his gut, he also knew they were right. A pretender in the court, a pretender who was the lover of the King’s favorite companion-the conclusion was obvious. Elissa had been the White Stone’s accomplice, or she was the White Stone herself.
Either thought made Jan’s head whirl. He remembered the time he’d spent with her, the conversations, the flirtations, the kisses; the rising, quick breaths as they explored each other; the slick, oily heat of lovemaking, the laughter afterward… Her body, sleek and enticing in the warm bath of candlelight; the curve of her breasts beaded with the sweat of their passion; the dark, soft and enticing triangle at the joining of her legs…
He shook his head to banish the thoughts.
It couldn’t be her. Couldn’t. Yet…
Jan put his hand on the sealing stone of Fynn’s tomb, letting his fingers trace the incised bas-reliefs there. “I’m sorry,” he said again to the corpse.
If it had, somehow, been Elissa, then the question still unanswered was who had hired The White Stone. The Stone would not kill without a contract. Someone had paid for this. Whether Elissa had been the knife or simply the helper didn’t matter. It hadn’t been her who had made the decision. Someone else had ordered the death.
Jan bowed his head until his forehead touched the cold stone. “I’ll find out who did this,” he said: to Cenzi, to Fynn, to the haunted air. “I’ll find out, and I will give you justice, Onczio.”
Jan took in a long breath of the cold, damp air. He rose on protesting knees and took the torch from its sconce. Then he began the long climb back up toward the day.
Sergei ca’Rudka
“There is truth in pain,” Sergei said. He’d spoken the aphorism many times over the years, said it so the victim knew that he must confess what Sergei wished him to confess. He also knew the statement for the lie it was. There was no “truth” in pain, not really. With the agony he inflicted, there came instead the ability to make the victim say anything that Sergei desired him to say. There came the ability to make “truth” whatever those in charge wished truth to be. The victim would say anything, agree to anything, confess to anything as long as there was a promise to end the torment.
Sergei smiled down at the man in chains before him, the instruments of torture dark and sinister in the roll of leather before him, but then the perception shifted: it was Sergei lying bound on the table, looking up into his own face. His hands were chained and cold fear twisted his bowels. He knew what he was about to feel; he had imposed it on many. He knew what he was about to feel, and he screamed in anticipation of the agony…
“Regent?”
Sergei bolted awake in his cell, the manacles binding his wrists rattling the short chain between them. He reached quickly for the knife that was still in his boot, making sure that his hand was around the hilt so that if they’d come to take him for interrogation, he could take his own life first.