There is another—an outsider. A onetime Numan pupil of mine has sought me out. She has the absolute loyalty of the black-haired woman you locked away on the day of my arrest. That woman may be immune to Khalidah ... immune to possession.
Ghassan paused, waiting for confusion and curiosity—and perhaps hope—to overtake his prince. The silence went on so long that he feared he had lost contact when ...
And what does this matter? She is locked away with the others beneath the palace grounds, as I had no choice before the imperial court.
Yes, there were complications, and what Ghassan would ask next would be worse.
Find a way to free them ... to get them out of the palace compound. I will take over from there.
The next thoughts he heard pierced him.
Free them? I have no authority over the prison!
Ghassan had known this response would come, but it needed to be provoked before he could ask for the obvious and worse option. He waited until the prince continued ...
I can only condemn, and not even my father would undo this for fear of ... how it would look before the court. His counselor would thereby advise against it ... or in my father’s seclusion, claim the emperor had denied such a request.
There was the trap in which the prince was caught.
Then you must arrange for an escape ... and in secret, at least long enough for me to reach them.
Silence was much longer this time, and Ghassan pressed further.
Khalidah could even now “be” someone within the palace or the guild. I do not know his plans, but possibly he intends to reach you or your father. Imagine that thing sitting upon the imperial throne, sustaining whatever flesh in a reign you do not want to imagine. I must destroy him quickly, and I do not even know if I can. I need the black-haired woman.
Still more silence, and still Ghassan waited.
I assume you have a plan for how I am to arrange this?
Ghassan blinked slowly in relief. Yes, my prince.
Chane awoke at dusk, first checked that the orb’s trunk was secure, and then left the hideaway’s back room. When he reached the open archway, the first person he encountered was Shade.
The dog sat staring toward that “other” window in the rear wall between the cushioned sitting area and the sleeping chamber’s outer wall.
Chane simply watched her, though she did not look over at him. Her scintillating blue eyes remained fixed on that disturbing window. Though she was silent, her ears were flattened. He quietly stepped past Shade and then spotted Wynn.
She sat in one of the high-backed chairs and, with one hand, slowly turned and turned a tinted handleless glass cup on the table. Osha stood nearby, and when he looked up at Chane’s approach, he appeared dourer than his usual brooding self.
“What is wrong?” Chane rasped. “And where is il’Sänke?”
Wynn did not even start from her silent nervousness. She related that the domin was having difficulty procuring the help he’d promised and had gone out yet again.
“We’ve been stuck in here all day,” she added with an edge in her voice. “I know we’ve endured long journeys on ships, but this feels more like being trapped. I can’t focus on anything until I know we can get to the others.”
The others, of course, were Magiere and those with her.
Chane suppressed any reaction; it would have only burdened Wynn even more. But he had questions of his own, and the domin was not here to answer them. As he blew air sharply out of his nose, a habit left over from his living days, Wynn looked up at him.
“Do you need to slip out?” she asked quietly. “You haven’t ... I mean, I don’t think you’ve had ... any sustenance since we boarded the ship at Oléron.”
Osha’s horselike face wrinkled in disgust. So much the better, since he stalked off toward Shade, and Chane remained fixed on Wynn.
No, he had not had “sustenance” since before Oléron. He had once promised Wynn that, so long as he remained in her company, he would never again feed on a sentient being, and only upon animals—normally livestock. Now he wondered how much he should say or keep to himself, for that too had changed.
It had started on the night they had procured the orb of Spirit.
In their search for it, they had traveled to the keep of an isolated duchy with no way of knowing what they would find. In the span of a single night, they learned not only of an orb hidden in the keep’s lower levels but that an old threat to Wynn—a wraith called Sau’ilahk—had used that orb to transmogrify a young’s duke body.
After a thousand years as an undead spirit, Sau’ilahk regained flesh through that body, but only for one night.
Chane’s only companion had been Shade when the two of them caught the wraith in the guise of a young duke. Sau’ilahk struck down Shade so hard that Chane thought she’d died in that instant, and he had lost control. Pinning the duke’s body to the ground, he bit through the man’s neck and bled him to death.
He had not told Wynn of this last part, and Shade had not been conscious to see it happen, so she did not know either.
Would Wynn even understand, considering why he had lost himself in that moment and become that monster she expected him to deny? But since that night, he had not experienced a hint of hunger.
Chane had not felt the need to feed, not even once.
This had been an advantage while on the ship, but if he had been affected by feeding on ... by draining the duke—the wraith in flesh—unto death, then what else had changed for him? Yes, he was still undead, though the feral beast inside him had grown calm, perhaps watchful in waiting for him to slip again.
Once or twice he’d nearly told Wynn to see if she had any conjecture on this.
But the way she saw him now, and her continued company, mattered more than another secret he kept from her. In time, perhaps the changes in him would fade. Even if that meant struggling again and forever with the beast inside himself, it would be better than telling her. He could not stand the thought—the chance—of her sending him away.
“Shade ... will you get away from that window!” Wynn snapped, and then more quietly, “I’m sorry. That window is unnerving ... This whole place is unnerving.”
Chane frowned in worry as he looked over his shoulder. Osha now crouched beside Shade, and if they had been staring at the window, they both now stared at Wynn. Shade got up and padded over beside her. Much as Chane expected Wynn to succumb to more guilt for her outburst, she simply put her hand on Shade’s back and scratched between the dog’s shoulders.
“Have you learned anything more about this hideaway?” he asked.
Wynn closed her other hand around the small glass cup. It appeared to contain water. “No ... no. I don’t suppose you have anything new on that?”
Chane’s suspicions remained unchanged. Mere illusion could not accomplish what he had experienced in the passage. Hiding something from sight was possible by manipulating the light playing upon it; hiding it from touch was not and would require physically transforming affected objects. Then there was great effort to permanently emplace such a work of thaumaturgy to respond only to specific individuals ... or possession of a linked pebble.
This place was beyond anything in his limited arcane experience.
“Nothing as yet,” he finally answered.
Wynn released the cup and slumped back in her chair. Chane settled in the one to her left.
“Well,” she said. “Ghassan tutored me for a while today on useful phrases in commonly spoken Sumanese. I could teach some to you?”