She walked his path through the world's destiny, from his wretched birth, naked and mewling, to his rise through the ranks of the Royal Eyes under her tutelage. His was a feeble creek tumbling along beside the great rivers of her own path and that of the Storm Dragon. And then… then it tumbled into the void.
She gasped. "Why did I not see this before?"
So who had she spoken to that morning?
In a surge of fury, she dashed the dragonshard out of the air, sending it clattering into a corner of the room. The brazier's smoke billowed from her nose and mouth as rage seethed in her chest. She ran over every word of her conversation with the imposter, combing her memory for information.
A harsh laugh burst from her throat. She clenched her fist in the air and the brazier's flames were extinguished, and in the darkness she turned to the door and rested her burning cheek against the cool bronze. Kelas's death meant nothing-the Prophecy would continue to unfold just as she had planned.
He was Kelas again-at least, his face was Kelas's. In the Ruby Chalice, taking Kelas's face off had been like removing a bandage over an infected wound. It showed him just how much he'd become the man he despised, how much his newfound conscience had rotted in the short time since he'd come back to Fairhaven. Becoming Aunn-the proud, noble hero who strode out of the Demon Wastes just a few days before-had been inexplicably hard.
Before leaving the private room, he changed back into Kelas, and the ease of it bothered him. It was like changing into comfortable clothes after wearing stiff formal garb, and not just because the clothes he was wearing belonged to Kelas and fit his body better than they fit the taller Aunn. He was Kelas, and he was walking back to the Tower of Eyes. That meant immersing himself in the world of the Royal Eyes and getting his hands dirty. Kelas had no time for conscience or qualm-Kelas was the one who had beaten such things out of Aunn when he was a child.
Nausea churned his stomach as he walked, Kelas's short, quick strides cutting a path through the busy streets of the city. He hadn't slept enough at Kelas's house, just a fitful hour or two before Gaven's lightning blast had jolted him awake and into action. Just like the Dragon Forge-it was another mess in Gaven's wake that he would have to deal with, one way or another, if he wanted to keep up the appearance of being Kelas.
The Tower of Eyes was never crowded, but it was very different in midday than it had been in the dead of night. He strode past the soldiers at the door, flashing Kelas's identification papers, and found himself in a crowd of mostly familiar faces. He fought a surge of panic-how many of these people did Kelas know? What was his relationship with each of them?
He decided it didn't matter. When he was under pressure-which was most of the time, in Aunn's experience-Kelas was brusque with everyone. He fixed his eyes on the floor and strode up the stairs to Kelas's office, ignoring the few people who made an attempt to catch his eye or nod a greeting.
"Kelas!"
He couldn't ignore the voice of Thuel Racannoch, as much as he wanted to. He looked up and saw the Spy Master standing in the open door to his office at the end of the hall. Thuel jerked his head toward the inside of his office, waited an instant to make sure Aunn had seen, and disappeared back into the room.
The other people in the hall looked away as he passed them, and Aunn wondered what they were thinking. He knew that Kelas could be charming when he needed to be, but his sense was that Kelas was not particularly well liked by his colleagues. Were they embarrassed for him, or hoping that Thuel would humiliate him?
A fire crackled in a small fireplace, making the room a little too warm for Aunn's taste. Thuel stood, arms folded across his chest, beside an upholstered chair that faced the fire. Another chair stood at the third point of a perfect triangle, but Thuel did not invite him to sit.
"What in the Ten Seas are you up to, Kelas?" he said. "Close the damned door."
Aunn carefully pushed the door closed, making sure it latched, buying time to formulate an answer.
"Well?" Thuel demanded. "Why was Jorlanna d'Cannith looking for you at the crack of dawn?"
"Lady ir'Cannith," Aunn said.
"Don't correct me!" Thuel's face was red with rage. Aunn had never seen him like this. Thuel was a calm, cultured man with an appreciation for fine music and excellent wines.
"My sincere apologies."
"And answer the damned question. Why was she in a fury this morning? What have you done?"
No harm in telling the truth, Aunn decided. "I refused to turn over a House Cannith excoriate who is working with me."
"Working on what?"
Except that the truth led naturally to more questions he didn't know how to answer. More truth? "Keeping an eye on Jorlanna."
"You're spying on our queen's newly-appointed minister of artifice?"
"I am not convinced of her loyalty to the queen."
"Perhaps you should have considered that before you arranged for the queen to reward her loyalty in this way." Thuel was no longer blustering-his anger calmed into quietly seething rage. "Are you surprised that I know about that? You shouldn't be."
"I suppose not," Aunn said. He had said enough. It was time to hold his tongue and ride out the storm of Thuel's wrath.
"So does Jorlanna's visit mean that your operation has been compromised?"
"It appears that I no longer have eyes inside the Cannith enclave."
"Why did Jorlanna excoriate your agent?"
"I'm not certain," Aunn said. How much did Jorlanna know about what Ashara had done?
"You don't think Jorlanna knows that your agent was spying on her and reporting to you?"
"It's a little more complicated than that."
"If you say so." Thuel turned toward the fire and rested his hands on the back of a chair. "Does this Cannith agent of yours have any ties to the other Cannith barons?"
Aunn frowned. Jorlanna had used Ashara in all her negotiations with Kelas, suggesting that she had absolute confidence in Ashara's loyalty. But that confidence had clearly been misplaced. "I don't believe so," he said.
"Well, find out. You and Jorlanna and the queen might think you can ignore the Korth Edicts, but let me tell you, the last thing I want is to get Aundair caught in the middle of Cannith politics."
"Of course." Aunn tried to hit just the right mix of deference and arrogance-Thuel was right, of course, but he wasn't saying anything Kelas wouldn't know.
"I don't like this, Kelas." Thuel stared into the fire for a moment, then wheeled to face Aunn, his face red with rage again. "I don't like it a bit. First you cozy up to the baron and Arcanix, playing games behind my back to curry favor with the queen. Now you tell me you don't trust Jorlanna. Either you're making a mess of things, or you don't know how deep you're getting. Either way there's trouble."
"I know what I'm doing," Aunn said-his first outright lie.
Thuel stared at him, frowning, his eyes narrowed. Without shifting his gaze, he reached inside his jacket and pulled a small wooden case from a breast pocket. He glanced down at it as he opened it, and Aunn realized his danger-the case held a crystal lens, presumably enchanted with magic of seeing, a spell that would show Thuel Aunn's true face.
"Listen, Thuel-"
He was too late. Thuel raised the lens to one eye and closed the other, then stepped back in surprise.
"Start talking," Thuel said. He tossed the lens and its felt-lined case down on a chair and slid a rapier out of its sheath at his belt, pointing the tip at Aunn's chest. "Are you one of Kelas's changelings?"