“Over here.” Merrick, whose once-bright-and-new emerald cloak was stained almost completely black, was bent over a clear space among the remains. He was poking something with a stick, like he’d found something distasteful or dangerous.
When she reached him, Sorcha understood why.
“A weirstone,” she hissed, chewing grimly on the end of her cigar. “When will people learn?” The cobalt blue sphere was now as dark as pitch.
Merrick, fresh from the novitiate and not having seen the carnage unregistered weirstones could do, glanced up. “People are still frightened. They want reassurance—some of them feel better with a stone around.”
“Do you think they feel better?” She gestured to the smoking pile of bones. “Those damned things can draw geists as well as see them.”
“We don’t know that the Tinkers were carrying one . . .”
Sorcha paused and looked at him askance. “You think whoever made this mess used a weirstone as part of it?”
He reached down and held his hand, fingers spread, inches above the dark orb. “I can feel the geist presence, but also another.”
“Human?”
His brow furrowed. “They have covered their tracks somehow, messed with the ether to disguise themselves. I can’t see beyond it . . .”
Sorcha bent down next to him and drew in a long mouthful of smoke. “You’re the best the Abbey has, Chambers. Are you telling me that there is someone better than you?”
Her new partner glanced up at her, his brown eyes suddenly not at all friendly. “Give me a second.” It was actually a growl.
She didn’t go far; staying crouched down, looking about and trying to enjoy the taste of the smoke on her tongue. What Sorcha couldn’t enjoy was the vague frisson of concentration that was leaking across from Merrick. She hated to think what was leaking in the other direction.
Finally her partner sighed and got up. “Definitely human, and definitely male.”
She stood next to him and tried to moderate her tone to something that wasn’t disappointment. “Anything else?”
He kicked the remains of the weirstone. “Not after the damage the geist banishment caused. If I had found it when the weirstone was still active, maybe . . .”
“Don’t waste time on maybes,” Sorcha said. “I have a feeling that we’ll be getting another chance at this.”
“What makes you say that?”
She pointed to the road. “This isn’t a well-traveled spot at this time of year, and the bodies were fresh. They must have only been here overnight.”
“So?”
She tapped him lightly on the forehead with one fingertip. “It was a trap for us.”
Merrick blinked once in confusion, and then his eyebrows drew together in a frown. “But we only knew last night that we were leaving . . .”
Sorcha puffed contemplatively on of her cigar, let it linger a moment and then breathed it out regretfully. “Indeed, so there are only two options: someone was watching us leave the Abbey, or the perpetrator can somehow see into the future. Take your pick.”
Merrick turned pale, quite impressive in this cold. “I don’t know which I like less.”
Sorcha jerked her head over toward where their packhorse was standing. “How ’bout we get the shovels and bury these poor folk while you think about it?”
SIX
Into the Mouth of the Beast
Two days of riding and Merrick’s head was still buzzing with the possibilities of the attack. Even when they rode into the port town of Irisil, he remained shell-shocked. It made sense, yet he almost wished that she hadn’t voiced it.
Most novices would have given their eyeteeth to be teamed up with Deacon Sorcha Faris, but now he realized that his nightmare had just begun. Ahead, where she rode, his new partner gave no sign she even knew he was following. However, both were fully aware of each other’s presence. The Bond took care of that.
Though neither of them spoke about it, they both knew it was there and very strong, much stronger than it should have been. Merrick worked very hard to keep his thoughts reined in, but was frightened by the possibility that she would hear them again in a moment of stress. The one thing that he did not want was Sorcha running around his brain. The memory of the night that his father died floated to the surface whenever she was about.
As they trotted through the ramshackle buildings and lines of nets hung up to dry, he could feel his anxiety growing at the prospect of being on board a ship with her. How he was going to occupy his mind for that time was a real and growing concern.
“This is the place.” Sorcha interrupted his flow of depressing thoughts by pulling up outside a house that more resembled a lean-to.
“This is where we take ship?”
She had slid down from her stallion and was grinning up at him. “Not quite to your standards, my lord?”
It was the limit. He was wracked with fatigue, nerves and the overwhelming desire for a bath, and here she was making fun of him. Merrick opened his mouth to let fly with every expletive he’d learned in the novices’ hall, when his eye was caught by a slim form coming down the road toward them, apparently making for the same dreary little building.
His occupational hazard was seeing the inherent beauty in everything. The simplest forms like a petal or the song of a bird could entrance a newly created Sensitive, but he’d thought himself over that stage.
Merrick knew he was agape as the young woman coming toward them glanced up shyly. Her eyes were the most entrancing color, like a woodland doe’s, her lips a perfect bow set in a heart-shaped face. As he turned his neck to watch her, she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and entered the building before them. The scent she trailed behind her was light and sweet. Merrick blinked.
It took him a moment to realize that Sorcha was talking to him. He glanced down at her, already feeling a slight warmth in his cheeks.
She might not be a Sensitive, but his new partner wasn’t an idiot. Shooting a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the vision, she smirked. “Chambers, you’re not going to drop into one of those Sensitive trances over a girl, are you? If so, tell me now so I can have a slap ready.” Her fingers were tapping on the edge of her belt pocket, as if she was indeed holding one back.
“Did saving your life not earn me a little respect?” he snapped back. “Just like an Active to forget so quickly.”
“Yes, yes, I know . . . Without you I would be blind.” Sorcha actually looked away. “You did well, Deacon Chambers. Many newly ordained would have stumbled, faced with something so . . . unexpected.”
Merrick decided to take the compliment, and perhaps, in the interests of getting along with his partner, offer one of his own. “You handled Pyet and Yevah expertly. Many Actives would have stumbled at having to manage two runes like that.”
Her smile was slow and amused. If Deacons wore hats, she might have tipped hers. “I guess that you and I have been dumped into a maelstrom. The things that have been happening in the last few days”—she shook her head, as if only beginning to catalogue them—“we should perhaps turn back and report to the Arch Abbot.”
“You suggested that two days ago, and we decided that we have our orders.” Merrick dismounted as smoothly as possible and was glad not to collapse immediately. After two days his thighs still ached. “Think of all those people in Ulrich who are under attack. If we wait, how many more will die? Besides, with the Priory weirstone I can contact him from our destination.”
Sorcha nodded and handed the reins of her stallion to a stable-hand who had finally appeared around the corner of the building. “We go on, then.” Entering the building, both of them, not the tallest of Deacons, had to duck their heads. It was just as cramped inside. Behind a leaning desk sat a tiny old woman who was coughing so hard Merrick was worried a lung might appear at any moment. In front of the desk stood the beautiful woman from outside. When Merrick saw her, he almost straightened up—though naturally, he realized she would be in here. Without any subtlety, Sorcha elbowed him in the ribs. Only the Bones knew what the Bond was telling her about his state.