Kathryn stepped past Penni.
At her elbow, the maid finished her breathless tale. “Though he has a soft tongue, he was too fearsome for me to stay in the same room-so I waited out here.”
Kathryn frowned at the faintheartedness of the young girl. Who would ever find Rogger fearsome? Glad for a familiar face, she pushed into her room with a creak of the door hinges.
Penni shadowed her, keeping behind her cloak. “I’ve heard stories of their ilk,” she said. “Painting their faces with ash to hide their true names, even from each other.”
Kathryn realized her mistake.
It was not Rogger who had come calling.
The tall figure turned from her hearth, the only light in the room. He indeed wore a shadowcloak. She noted how its edges vanished into the darkness beyond. And his face was indeed daubed black, traditional for members of the Black Flag, the murderous guild of pirates and brigands.
He shed his cloak’s hood to reveal a knotted braid of hair made snow white by years under salt and sea. Many years. Centuries in fact. Here stood the near-mythic figure of the Flaggers’ leader. Beneath his cloak he wore a fine cut of black leathers, from boots to collar, and at his waist he carried a sheathed sword, Serpentfang, a blade as famous as the knight who once wielded it.
“It is good to see you again, Castellan Vail,” Krevan said with a slight bow.
She crossed into the room. “Why have you come, Ser Kay?”
The man frowned. “Raven ser Kay died long ago. It is merely Krevan now.”
Krevan the Merciless, she thought to herself. Three centuries ago, he had been a legendary shadowknight. But he had hidden a great secret from all, a secret exposed upon the point of a sword, one driven through his heart. He had not died from his wound-for he had no heart. Born among the Wyr, an enemy of the Order, Raven ser Kay was unlike any other man. Since the founding of the first god-realm, Wyr-lords had been churning dark alchemies in their hidden and forbidden forges, attempting to imbue man with immortality. Krevan was one of their great successes. He had been born with a living blood that flowed through his veins without the need for the beat of a heart, thus slowing his aging.
But exposed as one of the Wyr’s cursed offspring, the former Raven Knight had to die, to vanish into myths. And out of those mists of time, Krevan was born anew, embittered, turning his skills as a knight to less noble pursuits. The heartless became the merciless.
Still, the man had not forgotten his honor.
“How may I help you?” Kathryn asked. “Have you come for Tylar’s knighting?”
Krevan waved such a thought away. “A cloak does not make a man.” He stepped from the hearth toward her. There was an urgency to the motion. A hand reached out for her.
She took a reflexive step back. Her own cloak surged around her, ready to fold her into the shadows and grant speed to her limbs.
“You have the cursed skull,” he said. “The skull of the rogue god.”
Kathryn was taken aback by his statement-then remembered Rogger’s story of another who had been hunting the same talisman, someone with a face painted black. So it hadn’t been just a low-level Flagger seeking a fast splash of silver. The desire had come from the very top.
“What interest is the skull to you?” she asked.
His eyes flashed and a ferocity entered his voice. “I must have it. It should never have been brought here. Especially here. Especially now.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
Krevan suddenly was at her side, moving with the swiftness of shadows. He clutched her elbow. “I must have it!”
Penni squeaked by the door.
Before Krevan could offer any further explanation, a splintering crash echoed from above. The floor shook.
Everyone froze.
A single trumpet blared high above, a warning of fire, a call for buckets. The sound of pounding feet echoed from the hall outside, heard through the crack.
Kathryn turned as someone rapped hard on her door. It creaked farther open with the impact. Penni blocked it with a toe.
“Castellan Vail!” a familiar voice called.
It was Lowl, manservant to the warden. Kathryn turned to Krevan-but the leader of the Black Flaggers was gone from her side. She twisted around. He had vanished into the shadows and away. She noted a slight waft to the heavy drapery over the windows that opened onto her private balcony.
She knew that if she yanked back the drapes, she’d find nothing but a window cracked open and the balcony just as empty.
Krevan was gone.
Through the open window, shouts echoed, coming from the top of Stormwatch. Kathryn pictured the high docks that surmounted the tower. Only one flippercraft had still been expected this day.
Another trumpet blast reverberated, sounding strident and panicked.
“Castellan Vail!”
Kathryn returned her attention to the door and waved Penni to open it. The maid removed her foot and tugged on the latch.
Lowl stood at her threshold, flanked by guards who shifted uneasily, glancing down the hall toward the center stairs. Lowl stood wide-eyed, tall and spindly-limbed. He shook all over. Kathryn expected to hear his bones rattle.
“What has happened?” she asked.
“Warden Fields sent me to fetch you! Word had come that the flippercraft from Chrismferry had been spotted in the skies, outrunning the coming storm, arriving early.” He winced from another trumpet blast. “He-Warden Fields wanted you in attendance above. For-for the welcome.”
Plainly the manservant had been sent before whatever mishap had befallen that same arrival. Kathryn rushed to the door. She would get no answers from the man.
She pushed through the guards, fellow shadowknights with crimson stitching on the shoulders of their cloaks. The Fiery Cross. Argent’s men.
Lowl called to her. “Warden Fields asked that you present yourself in attire most fitting for the occasion and to-”
Kathryn ignored the man and drew power to her cloak from the shadows, increasing her pace. She sped down the hall to the central stair. The steps were packed with other knights, drawn by the commotion. She shed her cloak enough to let her diadem shine.
“Clear the way for the castellan!” she boomed.
The black sea of cloaks parted. She raced upward through them. Near the top, she saw men and women, mostly lineworkers and dock laborers, rushing by with buckets. A large cistern occupied this level, kept always full for just such a crisis.
She followed a burly man in heavy boots, slogging with a bucket in each fist. He plowed a path for her to follow. The door appeared ahead, propped open against a gusting wind that pushed down at them, as if warding them back.
Kathryn smelled the smoke-then she was through the door and out onto the high dock.
The chill struck her first, frigid enough to pierce her fevered panic. She wrapped the tattered shadows around her, pulling her cloak tight. One hand pulled her hood up against the wind.
She then stepped clear of the chaos, allowing the workers to battle the flames. But it appeared the worst was already over. Smoke churned into the twilight murk as the sun set to the west, already lost in heavy clouds.
A few patches of fire rose from the crushed belly of the flippercraft. It had landed on the cradle, but it had come in too hard, cracking the supports and smashing to the stone. Flames licked from a few cracks in the bottom-most planks, coming from the housing that sheltered the craft’s main mekanicals and reservoirs of alchemy.
Through the smoke, Kathryn smelled the acrid yet oddly sweet tang of burnt blood. The entire mekanicals must have combusted with the crash. Kathryn imagined the ship had come in already overheated, mekanicals under full roil. Now the flames were consuming all.
She edged around toward the far side. She spotted the open rear door to the flippercraft. Men and women were gathered there, churning a bit in confusion. Kathryn spotted Argent ser Fields. He stood head-high above the others, atop a crate. He was shouting something, but the wind took his words.