The guard shook his head. “No. I think this one’s called Shurik jal… something. Those white-hair names give me trouble.”
“Oh, well. It was worth a try.” He glanced at Dario. “Are you tuned yet?”
The lutenist began to play another song, and eventually the guards moved off.
Shortly after, Dario and Cadel returned to the tavern. For the first time since their initial encounter in Dantrielle, the older man seemed truly pleased.
“I’m impressed,” Dario told him over their midday meal. “That guard would have told you even more if you’d given him the chance.”
“Probably,” Cadel agreed. “He certainly would have kept talking. I’m not sure we would have been interested in anything else he had to say.”
“So now we know where to find this Qirsi. How do we kill him?”
Cadel gave him the same mysterious grin he had offered on the Night of Two Moons. “We wait.”
“For what?”
“Don’t you know the moon legends?”
Dario shrugged. “Some of them. To tell you the truth, half the time I don’t even know which turn we’re in.”
“Well, you should.”
The lutenist cursed himself for his honesty. No doubt Cadel would see it as another occasion to lecture him.
“An assassin uses every weapon he can,” Cadel said, “every scrap of information. What turn is this?”
Dario thought a moment. “Qirsar’s.”
“And what do the legends say about Qirsar’s Moon?”
He shrugged. “I guess something about the Qirsi.”
“Something about the Qirsi,” Cadel repeated, shaking his head. “Yes, they say something about the Qirsi. On the Night of Two Moons, a Qirsi’s magic is more powerful than on any other night of the year. And what about on Pitch Night?”
It came to him in a rush. For all Cadel’s bluster, in this instance, there could be no arguing with him. Dario should have remembered. It was brilliant.
“On Pitch Night in Qirsar’s Moon,” he answered, so excited he barely managed to keep his voice low, “a Qirsi has no power at all.”
Cadel nodded, sitting back in his chair. “Very good. Very good, indeed.”
“We have more than half the waning to wait,” Dario said.
“That’s all right. We still have some planning to do. I doubt our friend will be venturing far from the castle, especially on that night. We’ll spend our evenings singing and our days preparing for Pitch Night.”
The lutenist nodded. It seemed a sensible plan.
That night, however, the Swallow’s Nest was so crowded the two musicians had almost no room to perform. The innkeeper said he had never seen so many people in his tavern and he credited his success to the daytime performance they had given in the streets of Mertesse. He offered to raise their nightly wage to seven qinde, provided they agreed to return to the marketplace each day. Posing as wandering musicians, they could hardly refuse.
The day following his ill-fated attempt to speak with Keziah was quite possibly the longest of Grinsa’s life. Of course he intended to reach for his sister again that evening, and the wait for nightfall nearly drove him to madness. Consumed by his fear and frustration, he set a punishing pace throughout the day, which Tavis managed somehow to match. They encountered no Solkaran soldiers and covered several leagues, stopping for the evening near a village that Grinsa knew to be only a day’s walk from the northern edge of the Great Forest. If they continued to evade the royal guard, they would be in Mertesse in another four or five days.
Their meal consisted of roots and berries once again. Tavis grumbled about it, but Grinsa hardly noticed. He wasn’t hungry and he had little to say to the boy. He just stared to the east, waiting for the moons to rise. After some time, Tavis lay down to sleep offering a curt “Goodnight.”
Grinsa marked Panya’s progress through the sky with an anxious eye, but it was Ilias he awaited. As soon as he saw the red moon top the trees, he closed his eyes and reached for Keziah.
Upon entering her dreams, he turned a full circle, scanning the plain for any sign of the dark sky he had seen the night before. Seeing none, he felt something loosen in his chest.
“Kezi?” he called.
She came into view an instant later, walking quickly toward him, her face as white as new snow, dark purple lines under her yellow eyes. Reaching him, she fell against his chest, sobbing like a hurt child so that her whole body shook. Grinsa merely held her, stroking her soft hair.
After a long time, she stepped back, wiping her tears, though more still flowed down her cheeks.
“Tell me,” he said.
Swallowing, she looked away for a moment, as if she didn’t want to talk at all. Once more, he was reminded of how she had looked as a young girl.
At last she began to speak, telling him first of Paegar and their friendship, and then of his death and the gold she found in his chambers. By the time she started to explain her idea for attracting the notice of the conspiracy, Grinsa understood everything he needed to know. At least he thought he did.
“I find it hard to believe that Kearney allowed you to do this,” he said, not bothering to mask his anger.
“Kearney doesn’t know.”
Then, finally, he truly grasped all that she had endured. “Oh, Kezi,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry. There’s no one you can tell? Not even one of the other ministers.”
“I’ve told Gershon everything, but no one else.”
“Gershon?” he repeated. His expression must have been comical, because she smiled through her tears.
“Yes. He’s actually been quite kind to me.”
“He shouldn’t have let you do this. He should have known how dangerous it would be.”
It was the type of statement that would have drawn an argument from her a few turns before. This night, she only gave a small shrug. “Neither of us knew there would be a Weaver.”
Grinsa hadn’t thought of it either. It wasn’t his place to fault his sister or the swordmaster.
“I felt what he did to you,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I am for now. That was the only time he hurt me.”
“Did you finally do what he wanted?”
Her tears started to fall again. “Of course not. How could I? As soon as I open my mind to him he’ll kill me. He’ll know about you, he’ll realize that I’ve been deceiving him.” She shook her head. “Had I known that I’d be contacted by a Weaver, I never would have tried this.”
“So end it now.” But as soon as Grinsa spoke the words, he knew that it would do no good.
“Ending it does nothing, Grinsa. You of all people should know that. He knows who I am and how to find me. He told me he’d return in a few days and that when he did I’d have to open myself to him or he’d kill me.” She faltered, looking away briefly. “Can he really do that? Can a Weaver kill someone through their dreams?”
He would have liked to lie to her, to put her mind at ease, but it would only have made matters worse, and she would have sensed that he was hiding the truth.
“Yes,” he told her. “He can kill you, just as he hurt you last night.”
“So what can I do? How do I deceive a Weaver?”
“I don’t know,” he said gently. “I’ve never had to try. I suppose you have to find a way to keep some of your thoughts from him while making him believe that your mind is completely open to him.”
“But how? Is my mind open to you right now?”
“No. But I’ve never wanted it to be. I’m content to speak with you, and learn from you what you want me to know.”
She raked a rigid hand through her hair. “I’m dead,” she whispered.
“No, you’re not. You’re stronger than you think. You need only find your strength.”
Keziah gave a small nod, but she wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Did you learn anything about the Weaver?” he asked. “His name, perhaps, or where he lives?”
“I learned nothing. He kept himself in darkness and summoned a bright light from behind. I couldn’t see anything.”
“I saw that he had darkened the sky, and I thought I saw something glowing at its center.”